Can I just say, since I was not online, how much I enjoyed @Cyclefree's thread header posted last night. An outstanding piece that highlighted a genuine problem and a major flaw in our system. Why is Dick still in office this morning? Have we no shame? None at all?
I would ask where our opposition is but, frankly, what's the point?
Thank you.
Starmer and Thomas-Symonds should be all over this. They are, given their previous professions, well placed to do so. And yet nothing. It's pathetic and embarrassing.
Most people don't know who Cressida Dick is; those who do think it's a London issue and also they aren't sure who is ultimately responsible (Patel, Khan, or nobody). Khan would be well placed to demand her resignation if he wished to. I don't think Starmer is.
Everybody with a role in appointing Cressida Dick in place and keeping her there know who she is.
You need to look a little deeper into her political cover....
Cressida won't resign or be dismissed and so, no matter what the police hierarchy say or the procedures or the training etc about integrity etc, every policeman and woman and every citizen knows that, when push comes to shove it's meaningless.
If Cressida Dick really is the "finest officer of her generation" as Ian Blair claims, she would not have done what she did and she would have resigned as soon as the report came out. If the police hierarchy and her bosses in Parliament really believe what they say they would have made sure she went.
But we know they don't. So we have to live with the understanding that the Met - and some of our other police forces - are simply not fit for purpose, even if there are individuals working in it who try their best.
It is a great shame. It should make me angry. It does. More often it makes me cynical and disappointed. I love this country. It can be so much better than it is. It ought to be. But when I see what happens to the institutions which form part of its weft and weave I see an acceptance of the second-rate, a refusal to demand the best, a degradation of talent, a world weary dismissal of those wanting more as being naive or oblivious to how much worse things are elsewhere. And this "oh don't be so naive" attitude is itself so corrosive. I don't mind mistakes or people getting things wrong. We all do this. It is not perfection we aim for. But we should at least try to be as good as we can be.
Shouldn't we?
Totally. And this stuff - culture, standards, accountability - is imo more important in politics than policy.
Ursula von der Leyen now has no constitutional role in my country.
She never did
Oh really?
Do you think Biden has no constitutional role in Texas?
Oh dear, award for this years False Comparison Prize. What next, comparing the EU to the Nazis, or perhaps comparing Bozo to Winston Churchill?
How is it a false comparison?
The European Union laws and courts are supreme over its member states and UVDL is President of that.
If you want to compare the EU to Nazis then you can do that, but to deny that the President of the European Union has any constitutional role in EU member states is just dishonest pure and simple.
I need to do some work, but I will answer you as best and politely as I can. The sovereignty argument as put forward by those in favour of Brexit was always specious. The reality is that all nation states of the EU have sovereign supremacy over the EU because they can unilaterally choose to leave and because of our 2016 referendum we chose to do that. I do not believe that is the case with Texas, nor, as another example is it the case with Scotland within the UK. The POTUS has significant (though not unrestricted) executive power in the US that not even the most integrationist of EU zealots would dream of for the President of the European Commission (she is not President of the European Union ). The Commission gains it's power from the Council of Ministers, which as I am sure you know, is the leaders of the 27, which are independent and sovereign. They choose to pool their sovereignty on certain matters.
Therefore POTUS=President of EU Commission is a ludicrous comparison.
Saying you are sovereign because you can leave is only meaningful if you do leave. Otherwise its meaningless.
Its perversely like saying that someone in a bad relationship is OK because they can leave, but then saying they shouldn't leave and using the fact they can leave as a reason why they shouldn't.
Either the relationship is good, in which case argue that on its merits and explain why the loss of sovereignty is worthwhile and why we shouldn't leave, or the relationship is not good in which case we should and did correctly exercise our right to leave and reclaim our sovereignty and choose our own future.
We have chosen not to pool our sovereignty. That is a perfectly valid choice. Choosing to pool it is valid too, but if you want that then don't pretend it isn't pooled and there's no sovereignty issue from doing so - explain why it is worth doing despite the sovereignty issue that pooling entails.
Logic fail here. If being able to leave a relationship is meaningless, it follows that a relationship where you can't leave is no more captive than one where you can. Which is a clear nonsense. Being able to leave is fundamentally different to being unable to leave, whether you choose to leave or not.
Being able to leave is an important theoretical right, but unless you exercise it, it isn't very meaningful.
Saying that UvdL had no constitutional role in the UK, since we could leave, is like saying that your boss at work has no role in your worklife since you can quit if you want to do so.
Indonesia will be getting Novavax in July - anyone know when the UK's 60 million doses come onstream? According to the original plan they should already be filling & finishing.
Yesterday at the end of the thread on B & S and after PMQ's I posted this and I just wanted to repeat it as it does provide an insight into my attitude to Boris and covid. It is maybe a way of saying I am not at all a fan of Boris but I am a conservative loyalist and at present I do not see how he is replaced.
I thought Boris looked shattered at PMQ's and his defence v Starmer was huff and puff when really there is actually a good evidence based case, as shown on here that the borders were not left open, as Delta had nor been identified as such, at the dates Starmer referred to
Indeed, he is providing more credence to those who say he is just a PR PM and does not do detail or understand it
Even I could have made a better case v Starmer today than he got anywhere near to
I did not vote for brexit, nor for Boris as leader, but I accept brexit was a democratic vote and now have been convinced leaving was the correct thing to do and not to look back
As I have said on many occasions, I want Rishi as leader and as soon as possible.
Indeed I would not be averse to Jeremy Hunt or Liz Truss
However, I do not know how Boris is removed or when and as a loyal conservative I will continue to support the party but expect Boris to release us (English anyway) on the 19th July and for him to accept that we cannot beat covid, (it will be with us for decades) and affirm vaccination is our passport to freedom, though personally I would not permit foreign travel before 2022
Furthermore, I fully support the compulsory vaccination of all care home workers as we cannot put at risk those who depend on this sector as happened across the UK at the beginning of this most dreadful disease
Of course, should Boris lose C&A and not take B&S from labour, the political narrative would change
Laughable revisionist history. "The borders were not left open". Seriously?
Borders were "left open" if by that you mean that there has always throughout this crisis been some flights coming in. The volume, however, has been greatly reduced.
For all this period foreign nationals have been allowed to travel in, with conditions, while UK citizens have mostly been barred from leaving the country (with some occupational/specific situation exemptions). Putting it another way, the UK government has disadvantaged its own citizens verses citizens of other countries - a factor to examine in any public enquiry I would think.
"Closing the borders" is a simplistic term used by those looking for a scapegoat (who often have no desire to leave the county themselves but are relishing clipping the wings of those that do). Not even Aus and NZ closed borders entirely. The virus with all its variants will find a way in anyway.
We are (finally) doing what Aus and NZ have successfully done. Previously we allowed flights to come in from pox-ridden countries and not even do basic checks or take details of passengers. Don't quote the locator form at me, ineffective and not even partially implemented. Pox was walked freely across the UK border from India or elsewhere to infect us here. That is what Big_G claims is the border not being left open.
Now? You can fly in from poxland. Stand in a long queue of passengers at the border to spread the pox to people arriving from "safer" countries. And then be taken off to a quarantine hotel. Its as good as we're going to manage and could have been done far far sooner. The pox was in India, we knew it, Shagger wouldn't shut them down because trade mission. Which is how the Indian variant - now Delta - got here.
Delta was always going to get here.
"Now? You can fly in from poxland." - yes but you realise that the only people allowed to fly in have already tested negative for Covid before departure point?
We all know that gold standard or not, PCR is not remotely definitive. Sadly. I am not saying any of these decisions are easy. My argument is always that logic has to be applied. If x then x. We shut down entry from Pakistan and Bangladesh but left open India whose case rate per million was 2 - 4x higher than those countries. Arguments over "ah but they only defined Delta weeks later" are irrelevant. Indians were dying en masse from Covid regardless of whether we had managed to pin down the exact strain by then.
The action of closing our borders had to be a result of Sage identifying Delta as a variant of concern
Please quote the evidence and timeline to HMG when they did that and when the border closed
It is easy to blame Boris and HMG but neither Boris or HMG could take this step without scientists and sages backing
And of course the enquiry in years to come will provide the conclusion on this part of the covid story
What utter crap.
You can and should restrict travel when risk increases.
And risk clearly increased with the increase in infection in India.
If you have to wait for a new variant to be detected and proclaimed a variant of concern then by definition you have to let in enter the country weeks before you take any action.
Well I would suggest you input your wisdom to sage
Uncharacteristic cods from you, Big_G.
It's entirely obvious that the government acts 'out of an abundance of caution', or on the advice of SAGE pretty well on the whim of Johnson. Cheltenham last year, 'Boris saves Xmas' and the delay in travel restrictions with India are part and parcel of that - and the precipitate travel ban with the wholly unalarming Portugal the opposite side of the coin.
Can I just say, since I was not online, how much I enjoyed @Cyclefree's thread header posted last night. An outstanding piece that highlighted a genuine problem and a major flaw in our system. Why is Dick still in office this morning? Have we no shame? None at all?
I would ask where our opposition is but, frankly, what's the point?
I missed it last night, too. I agree completely. Sir Ian Blair getting airtime yesterday to defend her as "the outstanding officer of her generation", in between deeply unconvincing defences of his own record, incensed me.
It's "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" syndrome. Very common in the police and one reason why corruption arises. Discussed in the report. One reason why the police need an outsider with balls of steel to prise open this culture and let in cleansing sunlight.
I hope you are applying. You seem eminently qualified.
As @MarqueeMark insinuates upthread, there is some suggestion online that Cressida is some kind of MI5 operator.
Although why this means she should be free from unaccountability as Met Chief I don’t know.
Well the mysterious 2-year period at the FO about which no details are given is pretty much telegraphing that in 6-foot high letters.
Truth is her bosses and the police generally don't care about accountability. How she behaved is, in essence, no different to how this junior Lancashire police officer behaved last year - https://barry-walsh.co.uk/lockdown-blues/.
The fundamental issue is that there is a level in society, in general, where failure is not an option.
Meaning that no matter what you do, short of actual murder, you can't achieve failure.
For example, there was a certain person involve in the Rotherham mess. She had knowledge of the policy of ignoring what was happening and maintained it. She had the power to change this. She knew and did nothing.
After Rotherham, she got a bigger and better job, in the same field. Overseas. With enthusiastic backing from the UK "system"
I was talking with a civil servant and suggested that perhaps the references should have been a little less glowing. Apparently that was a "nasty" suggestion - the person in question was a high flyer, a leader in her field and lessons had been learned
I didn't try on him what I suggested to Pritti Patel, when I briefly met her at a function. I think he would have exploded.
Second, such predictions were made with two assumptions which turned out not to be the case:
1. That we would exercise A50 immediately. Only Corbyn called for that
2. That the BoE would not step in and pump QE into the system.
In any case, short-term predictions (like recession) depend more on quite tricky assumptions about investor and business sentiment, rather than longer term economic modelling.
Can I just say, since I was not online, how much I enjoyed @Cyclefree's thread header posted last night. An outstanding piece that highlighted a genuine problem and a major flaw in our system. Why is Dick still in office this morning? Have we no shame? None at all?
I would ask where our opposition is but, frankly, what's the point?
Thank you.
Starmer and Thomas-Symonds should be all over this. They are, given their previous professions, well placed to do so. And yet nothing. It's pathetic and embarrassing.
Most people don't know who Cressida Dick is; those who do think it's a London issue and also they aren't sure who is ultimately responsible (Patel, Khan, or nobody). Khan would be well placed to demand her resignation if he wished to. I don't think Starmer is.
Boris got Blair out.
It is not in Khan’s gift to fire Dick (that’s Patel), but he could be more vocal and say he simply has no faith in her.
Yes and he should. That would put Patel on the spot. Weak, weak, weak is the phrase that comes to mind.
What's funny about it is that the perpetrators think they're helping make it a laughing stock, and will lap up applause from their Twitter followers accordingly, but everyone else thinks it's childish petulance and therefore their "arguments" against it are baseless.
Yesterday at the end of the thread on B & S and after PMQ's I posted this and I just wanted to repeat it as it does provide an insight into my attitude to Boris and covid. It is maybe a way of saying I am not at all a fan of Boris but I am a conservative loyalist and at present I do not see how he is replaced.
I thought Boris looked shattered at PMQ's and his defence v Starmer was huff and puff when really there is actually a good evidence based case, as shown on here that the borders were not left open, as Delta had nor been identified as such, at the dates Starmer referred to
Indeed, he is providing more credence to those who say he is just a PR PM and does not do detail or understand it
Even I could have made a better case v Starmer today than he got anywhere near to
I did not vote for brexit, nor for Boris as leader, but I accept brexit was a democratic vote and now have been convinced leaving was the correct thing to do and not to look back
As I have said on many occasions, I want Rishi as leader and as soon as possible.
Indeed I would not be averse to Jeremy Hunt or Liz Truss
However, I do not know how Boris is removed or when and as a loyal conservative I will continue to support the party but expect Boris to release us (English anyway) on the 19th July and for him to accept that we cannot beat covid, (it will be with us for decades) and affirm vaccination is our passport to freedom, though personally I would not permit foreign travel before 2022
Furthermore, I fully support the compulsory vaccination of all care home workers as we cannot put at risk those who depend on this sector as happened across the UK at the beginning of this most dreadful disease
Of course, should Boris lose C&A and not take B&S from labour, the political narrative would change
Laughable revisionist history. "The borders were not left open". Seriously?
Borders were "left open" if by that you mean that there has always throughout this crisis been some flights coming in. The volume, however, has been greatly reduced.
For all this period foreign nationals have been allowed to travel in, with conditions, while UK citizens have mostly been barred from leaving the country (with some occupational/specific situation exemptions). Putting it another way, the UK government has disadvantaged its own citizens verses citizens of other countries - a factor to examine in any public enquiry I would think.
"Closing the borders" is a simplistic term used by those looking for a scapegoat (who often have no desire to leave the county themselves but are relishing clipping the wings of those that do). Not even Aus and NZ closed borders entirely. The virus with all its variants will find a way in anyway.
We are (finally) doing what Aus and NZ have successfully done. Previously we allowed flights to come in from pox-ridden countries and not even do basic checks or take details of passengers. Don't quote the locator form at me, ineffective and not even partially implemented. Pox was walked freely across the UK border from India or elsewhere to infect us here. That is what Big_G claims is the border not being left open.
Now? You can fly in from poxland. Stand in a long queue of passengers at the border to spread the pox to people arriving from "safer" countries. And then be taken off to a quarantine hotel. Its as good as we're going to manage and could have been done far far sooner. The pox was in India, we knew it, Shagger wouldn't shut them down because trade mission. Which is how the Indian variant - now Delta - got here.
Delta was always going to get here.
"Now? You can fly in from poxland." - yes but you realise that the only people allowed to fly in have already tested negative for Covid before departure point?
We all know that gold standard or not, PCR is not remotely definitive. Sadly. I am not saying any of these decisions are easy. My argument is always that logic has to be applied. If x then x. We shut down entry from Pakistan and Bangladesh but left open India whose case rate per million was 2 - 4x higher than those countries. Arguments over "ah but they only defined Delta weeks later" are irrelevant. Indians were dying en masse from Covid regardless of whether we had managed to pin down the exact strain by then.
The action of closing our borders had to be a result of Sage identifying Delta as a variant of concern
Please quote the evidence and timeline to HMG when they did that and when the border closed
It is easy to blame Boris and HMG but neither Boris or HMG could take this step without scientists and sages backing
And of course the enquiry in years to come will provide the conclusion on this part of the covid story
What utter crap.
You can and should restrict travel when risk increases.
And risk clearly increased with the increase in infection in India.
If you have to wait for a new variant to be detected and proclaimed a variant of concern then by definition you have to let in enter the country weeks before you take any action.
We could have had the best of both worlds if we'd combined Australia and New Zealand's strict border policy with one of the world's best vaccine rollout programmes. A+NZ have a problem now because their vaccine rollout is very slow, but that wasn't a problem here. But of course we had the wrong border policy, which means vaccines aren't quite enough to prevent the lockdown from continuing.
Can I just say, since I was not online, how much I enjoyed @Cyclefree's thread header posted last night. An outstanding piece that highlighted a genuine problem and a major flaw in our system. Why is Dick still in office this morning? Have we no shame? None at all?
I would ask where our opposition is but, frankly, what's the point?
Thank you.
Starmer and Thomas-Symonds should be all over this. They are, given their previous professions, well placed to do so. And yet nothing. It's pathetic and embarrassing.
Most people don't know who Cressida Dick is; those who do think it's a London issue and also they aren't sure who is ultimately responsible (Patel, Khan, or nobody). Khan would be well placed to demand her resignation if he wished to. I don't think Starmer is.
They would if the opposition raised enough stink. Which is, after all, pretty well what they're there for.
She's ultimately responsible to the public, whom she has failed on a repeated basis.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
Second, such predictions were made with two assumptions which turned out not to be the case:
1. That we would exercise A50 immediately. Only Corbyn called for that
2. That the BoE would not step in and pump QE into the system.
In any case, short-term predictions (like recession) depend more on quite tricky assumptions about investor and business sentiment, rather than longer term economic modelling.
Shouldawouldacoulda.
The arguments were fanciful scaremongering.
The challenges of Brexit are political, with some border trade friction issues on top.
Can I just say, since I was not online, how much I enjoyed @Cyclefree's thread header posted last night. An outstanding piece that highlighted a genuine problem and a major flaw in our system. Why is Dick still in office this morning? Have we no shame? None at all?
I would ask where our opposition is but, frankly, what's the point?
Thank you.
Starmer and Thomas-Symonds should be all over this. They are, given their previous professions, well placed to do so. And yet nothing. It's pathetic and embarrassing.
Most people don't know who Cressida Dick is; those who do think it's a London issue and also they aren't sure who is ultimately responsible (Patel, Khan, or nobody). Khan would be well placed to demand her resignation if he wished to. I don't think Starmer is.
Boris got Blair out.
It is not in Khan’s gift to fire Dick (that’s Patel), but he could be more vocal and say he simply has no faith in her.
Yes and he should. That would put Patel on the spot. Weak, weak, weak is the phrase that comes to mind.
Which is, of course, how a previous mayor of London managed to get rid of an errant Commissioner. Whatever happened to that mayor?
Regardless of any other merit, the Sunak interview got GB News into the papers, which was probably its main aim.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 8h This is the most uncomfortable I’ve seen Rishi Sunak in quite a while.
Sunak fans ould pause and watch the clip Dan Hodges has there. Looking well under pressure over £10K bill for new boilers for every family.
As Sunak says, what £10k bill? He rightly pointed out that (a) "costs" always get balanced against "opportunity" and whatever the cost is now won't be the cost by the time they are rolling it out.
Isn't the problem with retrofitting heat pumps that the radiators need to be replaced by bigger ones too, because of the lower operating temperature of the system?
So, opportunity - British design and manufacturing of all these new pumps and radiators, British installation of them. Which will generate a bucket load of money for the economy.
Neil is a dinosaur, asking the tired "how much will it cost" question not interested in "how much will it save" and "how much will doing nothing cost".
The majority of voters, especially the working classes and the Red Wall, care very much about the cost.
It’s also fair to ask why the British consumer is being asked to contribute so much, when the same isn’t true of much larger countries such as the US and China.
Having spent 15 years in a red wall WC town I am aware of this. "We can't afford it" has been drilled into them by opportunistic Tories to destroy Labour as the party who wastes money. Job done, the red wall is blue. Now then, we need to hose the blue wall with money. But "we can't afford it" and "how much will it cost".
I've had punters arguing on Facebook against spending money regenerating their own high street. The more the regen progresses and the more it gets lauded by experts as the model for other towns the more they shriek about the costs.
We either invest in stuff or we stay broken and crap. There is no £10k per household bill and the people asking the question know this. As for "why us and not China" we don't live in China. Our kids don't go to school in China. People have benefited massively from various clean air measures yet so many of our kids still go to schools where they breathe polluted air. Time to do more for their sake and let China do their own thing.
I do sometimes wonder whether a form of self-hatred or Stockholm syndrome has taken over with elements of the English working class. It's like they don't think they deserve any better. Even Brexit - touted as the second peasants' revolt by folk on here, seems to be more about hurting other people (foreigners, Londoners, the 'metropolitan elite') than anything else.
I suspect a lot of them want "higher wages" and by removing a pool of cheap accessible labour from the market they may very well get them.
And people think they're thick....
Yes, indeed they ARE getting them. Wages for the C2s and Ds have risen in a way not seen in the last 20 years.
It's so simple, and has happened time and time again in British history. When there are fewer people to do the skilled labour and/or the grunt work, the wages commanded for that work increase and the lot of those workers improves.
There has been a lot of magical thinking in my lifetime that immigration makes us richer and to say otherwise is somehow taboo. It increases our GDP, sure, because there are more of us. And if you're trying to employ someone you can do it more cheaply. I remember a geography GCSE question in which I was invited to discuss the benefits to the UK of immigration - the drawbacks weren't to be mentioned. But in reality it doesn't do a lot for most individual Britons.
Wages are higher in certain sectors because of a shortage of labour. Thats only partially due to "forriners go home" Brexit effects - the logistics industry is suffering because of IR35 just as much.
The harsh light of day for the British worker is that there are a stack of jobs they just don't want to do. We had to open the door to EU staff in the first place because locals don't want to clean offices or serve coffee or look after the elderly or work in a factory.
Now that some EU workers have left there is a shortage which is driving wages higher - but isn't filling the shortages because people still don't want those jobs.
Living on the backs of cheap EU labour is over, and in the end the pay will have to increase to attract the workers
I think the government will have to come up with immigration schemes for care workers. They have a delivery obligation. Wages will find their own levels elsewhere in the economy. ie GDP will contract in relative terms, to match. Some wages will go up and some will go down, but likely better terms for the low paid at the expense of fewer higher paid jobs. Which may be a desirable thing...
Or how about they just pay care workers more than minimum wage?
Care workers looking after the vulnerable for 12 hours a day, wiping people's bums and dealing with dementia, incontinence, and generally tough work . . . how is it that is a minimum wage job earning less than what eg a waiter earns? Since a waiter will get minimum wage plus tips.
Even pre-pandemic, pre-Brexit ~83% of care staff in the UK were British and half the non-British staff were not EU either so the notion we're reliant upon immigration to fill these roles has never been true. Pay a decent wage for these jobs and they'll get filled.
Many care workers are not actually paid by their employers, but by the state. By this I mean that there are quite a few care companies, whether residential or home care, which rely on contracts or similar from Government (including Local) contracts. So until we, the state, are prepared to pay more in taxes to fund such contracts, wages for the staff cannot rise.
Or, alternatively, the companies can take the higher wage costs out of director bonuses or corporate profits. Not everything has to lead to higher taxes.
Some could, indeed, but not all. And if you have 100 staff and your directors bonuses add up to 25k, that's not not going to make a big difference.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
I loved the Blyton stuff. My favourite series of books was the "Five find-outers".
Can I just say, since I was not online, how much I enjoyed @Cyclefree's thread header posted last night. An outstanding piece that highlighted a genuine problem and a major flaw in our system. Why is Dick still in office this morning? Have we no shame? None at all?
I would ask where our opposition is but, frankly, what's the point?
I missed it last night, too. I agree completely. Sir Ian Blair getting airtime yesterday to defend her as "the outstanding officer of her generation", in between deeply unconvincing defences of his own record, incensed me.
It's "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" syndrome. Very common in the police and one reason why corruption arises. Discussed in the report. One reason why the police need an outsider with balls of steel to prise open this culture and let in cleansing sunlight.
I hope you are applying. You seem eminently qualified.
1. There is no vacancy. 2. I applied last year to be a non-executive director of the IOPC, the body which investigates the police. Mentioned it on here. Disclosed fully all the articles I've written on the topic. Put on the shortlist. The Home Office reviewed. Thanks but no thanks. No surprise.
You cannot really change a culture or even start until you really realise why it is rotten and needs changing. You need a near-death experience and something approaching total humiliation and some external body putting pressure on you. All 3 are missing in the case of the police. There is total denial - as evidenced by the interviews yesterday with a load of senior policemen all saying that there was nothing wrong.
Anyone trying to change a culture in such a place is doomed to fail: not only will no-one have their back, everyone will be trying to stick knives in it.
There is an opportunity here for Labour - but they are too stupid to take it.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
Yes, as a child the Faraway Tree and the Enchanted Wood opened up my imagination. I absolutely loved those books, and got lost in them. I intend to buy them again for my daughter.
Kids don't care about the stuff The Guardian like to hand-wring about; they like good stories from any age and any period in history.
The fact Covid and Brexit both occurred at the same time means it's impossible to look at any trade figures (outside of NI issues) and say which of them caused which issues.
1 - That's the Independent. 2 - We aren't in post-Brexit yet - eg we have still not implemented the regime at Dover, as we weren't in such a hurry. UK border measures are not due until the end of this month, and I wonder if we will be as bloody-minded as the French were. 3 - Ditto NI.
So I just don't think it's possible yet. You'll get a preliminary idea 12 months on.
The bosses of Jet2, Easyjet and Manchester Airport have criticised the government for not putting the Balearic Islands, including Majorca, on the green travel list.
The boss of Jet2 said he was "bewildered" over why they couldn't fly to those destinations.
While UK travel is limited, Germans are flocking to popular holiday spots.
"When you take the UK government's own criteria for deciding where holidaymakers can travel to, and apply it to the Balearics, we are left bewildered as to why we cannot fly there," said Jet2 and Jet2 Holidays' chief executive Steve Heapy.
Charlie Cornish, chief executive of Manchester Airport Group (MAG) said EU countries were taking a more positive approach to resuming international travel. "Hundreds of thousands of people from places like Germany are travelling freely and safely to low-risk holiday destinations," he said.
MAG has joined with low cost airline Ryanair to launch a legal action against the government over its traffic light system, particularly focusing on the lack of transparency over how countries are classified.
Second, such predictions were made with two assumptions which turned out not to be the case:
1. That we would exercise A50 immediately. Only Corbyn called for that
2. That the BoE would not step in and pump QE into the system.
In any case, short-term predictions (like recession) depend more on quite tricky assumptions about investor and business sentiment, rather than longer term economic modelling.
Shouldawouldacoulda.
The arguments were fanciful scaremongering.
The challenges of Brexit are political, with some border trade friction issues on top.
That's it.
Yep, that’s the Brexit argument in a nutshell. It wasn’t true, though; it’s not true now.
At least you refer to “friction”, some of your fellow travellers refuse to concede even that.
The woke have completely taken over our once great British University system. The government must get a grip on this before a British degree is deemed completely worthless. But what to do about it, I'm not sure as their greatness is in large part due to their independence. https://mobile.twitter.com/SaraBafo1/status/1405125839801532417
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
Nothing wrong with portraying realistic characters.
Infection rates from Indian travellers were in the same region as Pakistan / Bangladesh before April 9.
Also, the number of variants being tracked as being introduced from India was significant. 50 versus 12 in Bangladesh and 6 in Pakistan.
At the time of red listing P & B, the government suggested it was based in the volume of variants.
Even at the time (April 9) it was a head scratcher as to why India was excluded, even though we did not have Delta as a VOC. (WHO had it as a VOI though).
Well a lot of the stories at the time were along the lines of "silly Indians thought they had beaten COVID", or noting that large political rallies and religious meetings had taken place. Now those things may have contributed to what was going on, but it's clear now that the new variant was the thing that really drove the increase in cases and deaths. I'd say it's now damn near certain that the Delta variant will rip through any unvaccinated population it can reach.
Ursula von der Leyen now has no constitutional role in my country.
She never did
Oh really?
Do you think Biden has no constitutional role in Texas?
Oh dear, award for this years False Comparison Prize. What next, comparing the EU to the Nazis, or perhaps comparing Bozo to Winston Churchill?
How is it a false comparison?
The European Union laws and courts are supreme over its member states and UVDL is President of that.
If you want to compare the EU to Nazis then you can do that, but to deny that the President of the European Union has any constitutional role in EU member states is just dishonest pure and simple.
I need to do some work, but I will answer you as best and politely as I can. The sovereignty argument as put forward by those in favour of Brexit was always specious. The reality is that all nation states of the EU have sovereign supremacy over the EU because they can unilaterally choose to leave and because of our 2016 referendum we chose to do that. I do not believe that is the case with Texas, nor, as another example is it the case with Scotland within the UK. The POTUS has significant (though not unrestricted) executive power in the US that not even the most integrationist of EU zealots would dream of for the President of the European Commission (she is not President of the European Union ). The Commission gains it's power from the Council of Ministers, which as I am sure you know, is the leaders of the 27, which are independent and sovereign. They choose to pool their sovereignty on certain matters.
Therefore POTUS=President of EU Commission is a ludicrous comparison.
Wasn't it determined fairly recently that Texas, or any other of the United States of America, once joined, cannot leave.
I seem to recall, too, that sometime ago there was a war about it!
Indeed!
There is no such thing as a man made law that can't be changed. The states making up the USA can't leave by their own decision and their own law, any more than Warwickshire or (more to the point Scotland) can leave the UK by its own law making powers.
The idea that change in the configuration of internationally recognised sovereign states cannot happen is a piece of religion or metaphysics. It can and does. Ask Alaska or South Sudan. Or closer to home the RoI.
Second, such predictions were made with two assumptions which turned out not to be the case:
1. That we would exercise A50 immediately. Only Corbyn called for that
2. That the BoE would not step in and pump QE into the system.
In any case, short-term predictions (like recession) depend more on quite tricky assumptions about investor and business sentiment, rather than longer term economic modelling.
Shouldawouldacoulda.
The arguments were fanciful scaremongering.
The challenges of Brexit are political, with some border trade friction issues on top.
That's it.
Yep, that’s the Brexit argument in a nutshell. It wasn’t true, though; it’s not true now.
At least you refer to “friction”, some of your fellow travellers refuse to concede even that.
Nah, I've always been fair and balanced on Brexit mate. You just don't like the fact I'm right.
Brexit is absolutely fine, short of some SPS alignment issues, NI and the short-term visas for business/musicians that I hope will be built on in future.
Your slow-rust meme is trying to paint 20th Century politics onto a 21st Century age. We're going to do splendidly, and it will only get better over time.
Ursula von der Leyen now has no constitutional role in my country.
She never did
Oh really?
Do you think Biden has no constitutional role in Texas?
Oh dear, award for this years False Comparison Prize. What next, comparing the EU to the Nazis, or perhaps comparing Bozo to Winston Churchill?
How is it a false comparison?
The European Union laws and courts are supreme over its member states and UVDL is President of that.
If you want to compare the EU to Nazis then you can do that, but to deny that the President of the European Union has any constitutional role in EU member states is just dishonest pure and simple.
I need to do some work, but I will answer you as best and politely as I can. The sovereignty argument as put forward by those in favour of Brexit was always specious. The reality is that all nation states of the EU have sovereign supremacy over the EU because they can unilaterally choose to leave and because of our 2016 referendum we chose to do that. I do not believe that is the case with Texas, nor, as another example is it the case with Scotland within the UK. The POTUS has significant (though not unrestricted) executive power in the US that not even the most integrationist of EU zealots would dream of for the President of the European Commission (she is not President of the European Union ). The Commission gains it's power from the Council of Ministers, which as I am sure you know, is the leaders of the 27, which are independent and sovereign. They choose to pool their sovereignty on certain matters.
Therefore POTUS=President of EU Commission is a ludicrous comparison.
Saying you are sovereign because you can leave is only meaningful if you do leave. Otherwise its meaningless.
Its perversely like saying that someone in a bad relationship is OK because they can leave, but then saying they shouldn't leave and using the fact they can leave as a reason why they shouldn't.
Either the relationship is good, in which case argue that on its merits and explain why the loss of sovereignty is worthwhile and why we shouldn't leave, or the relationship is not good in which case we should and did correctly exercise our right to leave and reclaim our sovereignty and choose our own future.
We have chosen not to pool our sovereignty. That is a perfectly valid choice. Choosing to pool it is valid too, but if you want that then don't pretend it isn't pooled and there's no sovereignty issue from doing so - explain why it is worth doing despite the sovereignty issue that pooling entails.
Logic fail here. If being able to leave a relationship is meaningless, it follows that a relationship where you can't leave is no more captive than one where you can. Which is a clear nonsense. Being able to leave is fundamentally different to being unable to leave, whether you choose to leave or not.
Being able to leave is an important theoretical right, but unless you exercise it, it isn't very meaningful.
Saying that UvdL had no constitutional role in the UK, since we could leave, is like saying that your boss at work has no role in your worklife since you can quit if you want to do so.
It's not a theoretical right it's an actual right. This is the case whether you exercise it or not. And having this right is different to not having it. This is specifically the point I needed to clarify.
The bosses of Jet2, Easyjet and Manchester Airport have criticised the government for not putting the Balearic Islands, including Majorca, on the green travel list.
The boss of Jet2 said he was "bewildered" over why they couldn't fly to those destinations.
While UK travel is limited, Germans are flocking to popular holiday spots.
"When you take the UK government's own criteria for deciding where holidaymakers can travel to, and apply it to the Balearics, we are left bewildered as to why we cannot fly there," said Jet2 and Jet2 Holidays' chief executive Steve Heapy.
Charlie Cornish, chief executive of Manchester Airport Group (MAG) said EU countries were taking a more positive approach to resuming international travel. "Hundreds of thousands of people from places like Germany are travelling freely and safely to low-risk holiday destinations," he said.
MAG has joined with low cost airline Ryanair to launch a legal action against the government over its traffic light system, particularly focusing on the lack of transparency over how countries are classified.
Because putting all the unvaccinated young of Europe together in the overcrowded superclubs of Ibiza and Majorca, is definitely not going to cause absolute carnage in the next few weeks.
One lesson that has been learned from last summer, in the UK anyway.
Can I just say, since I was not online, how much I enjoyed @Cyclefree's thread header posted last night. An outstanding piece that highlighted a genuine problem and a major flaw in our system. Why is Dick still in office this morning? Have we no shame? None at all?
I would ask where our opposition is but, frankly, what's the point?
I missed it last night, too. I agree completely. Sir Ian Blair getting airtime yesterday to defend her as "the outstanding officer of her generation", in between deeply unconvincing defences of his own record, incensed me.
It's "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" syndrome. Very common in the police and one reason why corruption arises. Discussed in the report. One reason why the police need an outsider with balls of steel to prise open this culture and let in cleansing sunlight.
I hope you are applying. You seem eminently qualified.
1. There is no vacancy. 2. I applied last year to be a non-executive director of the IOPC, the body which investigates the police. Mentioned it on here. Disclosed fully all the articles I've written on the topic. Put on the shortlist. The Home Office reviewed. Thanks but no thanks. No surprise.
You cannot really change a culture or even start until you really realise why it is rotten and needs changing. You need a near-death experience and something approaching total humiliation and some external body putting pressure on you. All 3 are missing in the case of the police. There is total denial - as evidenced by the interviews yesterday with a load of senior policemen all saying that there was nothing wrong.
Anyone trying to change a culture in such a place is doomed to fail: not only will no-one have their back, everyone will be trying to stick knives in it.
There is an opportunity here for Labour - but they are too stupid to take it.
It is exactly these scenarios, with massive additional dollops of unrestrained violence and racism, that drives the defund the police movements in the US. Their argument is not that they don't want a police service, they do not want this police service, which is part of the problem, not the solution. Like you they despair of breaking down or changing that culture from the outside and want to start again.
For me, the most compelling part of your piece was the role that Dick had played in trying to frustrate the inquiry that they are now happy to supposedly learn lessons from. That was not only a sackable offence, it is an offence for which she should have been sacked.
When Pakistan and Bangladesh were added to the red list on the 9th of April India had a higher cases per million rate?
I'm not imagining that right? India was at like double of Pakistan?
You aren't. Boris fucked it.
I did hear that NERVTAG advised the government on the Friday and the government moved India to the Red List the following Monday.
But anyway, the charge that Johnson delayed the Red List transfer to pursue a trade deal with India is curious in that it ignores an obvious solution: move India the the Red List but exempt the politicians and negotiators of the deal. The reason this was not done, of course, comes down the fear of media criticism.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
I loved the Blyton stuff. My favourite series of books was the "Five find-outers".
I'd bet most of our vintage have read at least some of them. Lashings of ginger beer!
The fact Covid and Brexit both occurred at the same time means it's impossible to look at any trade figures (outside of NI issues) and say which of them caused which issues.
I think that's about right - -10-15% is about what I predicted. Since EU exports were about 12% of our GDP, that implies a loss of about 1% of GDP in the short term, compared to the 8% forecast by the OBR, mainly from this source. It's also consistent with EU studies that show the Single Market is worth about 1% of GDP to member states.
Though a lost of 10% of trade does not automatically mean a loss of 1% of GDP, since EU imports are technically a negative to GDP and imports were much, much higher than imports.
Yes, and there are multiplier effects, dynamic effects and so on.
What is certain is that the 8% estimate of lost GDP from the OBR looks very unlikely.
Also, for Scottish independence, given that Scottish trade with the rUK is 3-4 times bigger than the UK's with the EU, I'd project a 4-6% loss of Scottish GDP from independence, assuming a similar trade deal is agreed. And something similar from the loss of fiscal subsidies, of course. And probably some more if they switch currency.
It'd be like going through 2020 all over again without the UK Treasury to bail them out.
I don’t believe anyone ever predicted an immediate, 8% hit to GDP.
Brexit is like rust, it accumulates over time.
Then one day you look at your Western European peers and realise they are weirdly much wealthier countries, and that you are the sick man of Europe.
Or one day they look at the UK and wonder how it bucked the trend of European decline. You just can't predict the future with that kind of certainty.
You can't predict the future with certainty but you can view the past and present in an informed way. The facts are that the UK has underperformed its peers since the referendum, there are new actual barriers to trade that prevent real companies and people going about their daily trade. Outfits like the OBR base their predictions on proper rationales - you might challenge them on particular assumptions but it is ignorant to say, no-one knows let's believe the opposite.
So you have a past, present and immediate future where UK performance is mediocre. So how long do we have to wait for it all to take-off? The Brexit decade is looking like a lost one, so will it be 2026 to 2036/
This is where I take issue with Brexiteers. Wanting to be masters of your own ship is absolutely fine as an aspiration, but they don't accept there is any cost to it. How many livelihoods, countries maybe, is it worth destroying to remove the threat to our way of life that is Ursula von der Leyen? A principle where you don't accept the cost of it is no principle at all. It's dishonest.
Can I just say, since I was not online, how much I enjoyed @Cyclefree's thread header posted last night. An outstanding piece that highlighted a genuine problem and a major flaw in our system. Why is Dick still in office this morning? Have we no shame? None at all?
I would ask where our opposition is but, frankly, what's the point?
I missed it last night, too. I agree completely. Sir Ian Blair getting airtime yesterday to defend her as "the outstanding officer of her generation", in between deeply unconvincing defences of his own record, incensed me.
It's "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" syndrome. Very common in the police and one reason why corruption arises. Discussed in the report. One reason why the police need an outsider with balls of steel to prise open this culture and let in cleansing sunlight.
I hope you are applying. You seem eminently qualified.
1. There is no vacancy. 2. I applied last year to be a non-executive director of the IOPC, the body which investigates the police. Mentioned it on here. Disclosed fully all the articles I've written on the topic. Put on the shortlist. The Home Office reviewed. Thanks but no thanks. No surprise.
You cannot really change a culture or even start until you really realise why it is rotten and needs changing. You need a near-death experience and something approaching total humiliation and some external body putting pressure on you. All 3 are missing in the case of the police. There is total denial - as evidenced by the interviews yesterday with a load of senior policemen all saying that there was nothing wrong.
Anyone trying to change a culture in such a place is doomed to fail: not only will no-one have their back, everyone will be trying to stick knives in it.
There is an opportunity here for Labour - but they are too stupid to take it.
It is exactly these scenarios, with massive additional dollops of unrestrained violence and racism, that drives the defund the police movements in the US. Their argument is not that they don't want a police service, they do not want this police service, which is part of the problem, not the solution. Like you they despair of breaking down or changing that culture from the outside and want to start again.
For me, the most compelling part of your piece was the role that Dick had played in trying to frustrate the inquiry that they are now happy to supposedly learn lessons from. That was not only a sackable offence, it is an offence for which she should have been sacked.
Yes, actions speak louder than words. Dont insult our intelligence by frustrating at every turn then make insincere assurances at the end. If she was going to have an epiphany it would have been before now.
Ursula von der Leyen now has no constitutional role in my country.
She never did
Oh really?
Do you think Biden has no constitutional role in Texas?
Oh dear, award for this years False Comparison Prize. What next, comparing the EU to the Nazis, or perhaps comparing Bozo to Winston Churchill?
How is it a false comparison?
The European Union laws and courts are supreme over its member states and UVDL is President of that.
If you want to compare the EU to Nazis then you can do that, but to deny that the President of the European Union has any constitutional role in EU member states is just dishonest pure and simple.
I need to do some work, but I will answer you as best and politely as I can. The sovereignty argument as put forward by those in favour of Brexit was always specious. The reality is that all nation states of the EU have sovereign supremacy over the EU because they can unilaterally choose to leave and because of our 2016 referendum we chose to do that. I do not believe that is the case with Texas, nor, as another example is it the case with Scotland within the UK. The POTUS has significant (though not unrestricted) executive power in the US that not even the most integrationist of EU zealots would dream of for the President of the European Commission (she is not President of the European Union ). The Commission gains it's power from the Council of Ministers, which as I am sure you know, is the leaders of the 27, which are independent and sovereign. They choose to pool their sovereignty on certain matters.
Therefore POTUS=President of EU Commission is a ludicrous comparison.
Saying you are sovereign because you can leave is only meaningful if you do leave. Otherwise its meaningless.
Its perversely like saying that someone in a bad relationship is OK because they can leave, but then saying they shouldn't leave and using the fact they can leave as a reason why they shouldn't.
Either the relationship is good, in which case argue that on its merits and explain why the loss of sovereignty is worthwhile and why we shouldn't leave, or the relationship is not good in which case we should and did correctly exercise our right to leave and reclaim our sovereignty and choose our own future.
We have chosen not to pool our sovereignty. That is a perfectly valid choice. Choosing to pool it is valid too, but if you want that then don't pretend it isn't pooled and there's no sovereignty issue from doing so - explain why it is worth doing despite the sovereignty issue that pooling entails.
Logic fail here. If being able to leave a relationship is meaningless, it follows that a relationship where you can't leave is no more captive than one where you can. Which is a clear nonsense. Being able to leave is fundamentally different to being unable to leave, whether you choose to leave or not.
Being able to leave is an important theoretical right, but unless you exercise it, it isn't very meaningful.
Saying that UvdL had no constitutional role in the UK, since we could leave, is like saying that your boss at work has no role in your worklife since you can quit if you want to do so.
It's not a theoretical right it's an actual right. This is the case whether you exercise it or not. And having this right is different to not having it. This is specifically the point I needed to clarify.
The right is meaningless unless you're prepared to exercise it. If you're not willing to do so, then its only theoretical.
If you work for an employer where you are in your own eyes the hardest working employee there, but you are paid less than your colleagues, you don't feel like you are treated with respect, and if you bring concerns to your employer they say "yes but you need the job don't you?" and then adds mockingly "You know where the door is" - then do you think "oh well, I can leave if I want to, so everything's fine I should stay in this job" or do you think "screw this, I'm off"
The fact you can leave is not a reason to stay. The reason to stay should be that it is worth staying.
Can I just say, since I was not online, how much I enjoyed @Cyclefree's thread header posted last night. An outstanding piece that highlighted a genuine problem and a major flaw in our system. Why is Dick still in office this morning? Have we no shame? None at all?
I would ask where our opposition is but, frankly, what's the point?
I missed it last night, too. I agree completely. Sir Ian Blair getting airtime yesterday to defend her as "the outstanding officer of her generation", in between deeply unconvincing defences of his own record, incensed me.
It's "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" syndrome. Very common in the police and one reason why corruption arises. Discussed in the report. One reason why the police need an outsider with balls of steel to prise open this culture and let in cleansing sunlight.
I hope you are applying. You seem eminently qualified.
1. There is no vacancy. 2. I applied last year to be a non-executive director of the IOPC, the body which investigates the police. Mentioned it on here. Disclosed fully all the articles I've written on the topic. Put on the shortlist. The Home Office reviewed. Thanks but no thanks. No surprise.
You cannot really change a culture or even start until you really realise why it is rotten and needs changing. You need a near-death experience and something approaching total humiliation and some external body putting pressure on you. All 3 are missing in the case of the police. There is total denial - as evidenced by the interviews yesterday with a load of senior policemen all saying that there was nothing wrong.
Anyone trying to change a culture in such a place is doomed to fail: not only will no-one have their back, everyone will be trying to stick knives in it.
There is an opportunity here for Labour - but they are too stupid to take it.
It is exactly these scenarios, with massive additional dollops of unrestrained violence and racism, that drives the defund the police movements in the US. Their argument is not that they don't want a police service, they do not want this police service, which is part of the problem, not the solution. Like you they despair of breaking down or changing that culture from the outside and want to start again.
For me, the most compelling part of your piece was the role that Dick had played in trying to frustrate the inquiry that they are now happy to supposedly learn lessons from. That was not only a sackable offence, it is an offence for which she should have been sacked.
It is more a lesson in the smug self protection at a certain level in society. They are our new Upper 10,000. Instead of ruling by divine right, they rule because they are "the outstanding people". Their 6 figure salaries prove that. So failure, for them, *must* consist of moving to a better paid job.
They have given us into the hands of the new unhappy lords, Lords without anger and honour, who dare not carry their swords. They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes; They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies. And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs, Their doors are shut in the evenings; and they know no songs.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
I loved the Blyton stuff. My favourite series of books was the "Five find-outers".
I'd bet most of our vintage have read at least some of them. Lashings of ginger beer!
I read all the secret seven and 'mystery' (Five find outers) as a kid.
When Pakistan and Bangladesh were added to the red list on the 9th of April India had a higher cases per million rate?
I'm not imagining that right? India was at like double of Pakistan?
You aren't. Boris fucked it.
Minor nuance: how much credibility can we give to either set of figures?
Minor nuance #2 - it's not in itself bad to take other strategic factors into consideration when making health decisions. A decision which has a negative impact for public health but a positive impact for the economy might well be worth taking if it is deemed that the positives outweigh the benefits. Such decisions are always portrayed as the politican in question being greedy or selfish in some regard, but they are generally taken for the benefit of the British economy in general. Even if it was taken with an eye on the British/Indian vote, that wouldn't in itself be bad - a politican's job, after all, is to balance competing interests in the overall interest of the electorate, with the test of success of this being elections.
That said, I don't disagree with your final line though, in this instance.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
Nothing wrong with portraying realistic characters.
That's a good point. But I'd have preferred Julian to have been portrayed in a way that made it clear his antics and attitudes were reprehensible. As it is, he's celebrated.
The fact Covid and Brexit both occurred at the same time means it's impossible to look at any trade figures (outside of NI issues) and say which of them caused which issues.
I think that's about right - -10-15% is about what I predicted. Since EU exports were about 12% of our GDP, that implies a loss of about 1% of GDP in the short term, compared to the 8% forecast by the OBR, mainly from this source. It's also consistent with EU studies that show the Single Market is worth about 1% of GDP to member states.
Though a lost of 10% of trade does not automatically mean a loss of 1% of GDP, since EU imports are technically a negative to GDP and imports were much, much higher than imports.
Yes, and there are multiplier effects, dynamic effects and so on.
What is certain is that the 8% estimate of lost GDP from the OBR looks very unlikely.
Also, for Scottish independence, given that Scottish trade with the rUK is 3-4 times bigger than the UK's with the EU, I'd project a 4-6% loss of Scottish GDP from independence, assuming a similar trade deal is agreed. And something similar from the loss of fiscal subsidies, of course. And probably some more if they switch currency.
It'd be like going through 2020 all over again without the UK Treasury to bail them out.
I don’t believe anyone ever predicted an immediate, 8% hit to GDP.
Brexit is like rust, it accumulates over time.
Then one day you look at your Western European peers and realise they are weirdly much wealthier countries, and that you are the sick man of Europe.
Or one day they look at the UK and wonder how it bucked the trend of European decline. You just can't predict the future with that kind of certainty.
You can't predict the future with certainty but you can view the past and present in an informed way. The facts are that the UK has underperformed its peers since the referendum, there are new actual barriers to trade that prevent real companies and people going about their daily trade. Outfits like the OBR base their predictions on proper rationales - you might challenge them on particular assumptions but it is ignorant to say, no-one knows let's believe the opposite.
So you have a past, present and immediate future where UK performance is mediocre. So how long do we have to wait for it all to take-off? The Brexit decade is looking like a lost one, so will it be 2026 to 2036/
This is where I take issue with Brexiteers. Wanting to be masters of your own ship is absolutely fine as an aspiration, but they don't accept there is any cost to it. How many livelihoods, countries maybe, is it worth destroying to remove the threat to our way of life that is Ursula von der Leyen? A principle where you don't accept the cost of it is no principle at all. It's dishonest.
I don't think it's helpful to look at the period from the referendum up to 2020, because during that time you just had the status quo with added uncertainty, so there was no possible upside and an obvious downside. Any assessment of the real effect of Brexit has to start from this year.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
I loved the Blyton stuff. My favourite series of books was the "Five find-outers".
I'd bet most of our vintage have read at least some of them. Lashings of ginger beer!
I read all the secret seven and 'mystery' (Five find outers) as a kid.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
Nothing wrong with portraying realistic characters.
That's a good point. But I'd have preferred Julian to have been portrayed in a way that made it clear his antics and attitudes were reprehensible. As it is, he's celebrated.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
Nothing wrong with portraying realistic characters.
That's a good point. But I'd have preferred Julian to have been portrayed in a way that made it clear his antics and attitudes were reprehensible. As it is, he's celebrated.
Sometimes works, but sometimes better to leave it out as you can go too hard on it and be counter productive. I know lots of people agree with the Oliver Platt character in 2012 despite the film intending him as a villain.
She was certainly shit. It's the snobbery which sticks in my mind after 50 years - constant sneers at "day trippers" meaning common people. "Five go mad in Dorset" nailed it.
As @MarqueeMark insinuates upthread, there is some suggestion online that Cressida is some kind of MI5 operator.
Although why this means she should be free from unaccountability as Met Chief I don’t know.
Well the mysterious 2-year period at the FO about which no details are given is pretty much telegraphing that in 6-foot high letters.
Truth is her bosses and the police generally don't care about accountability. How she behaved is, in essence, no different to how this junior Lancashire police officer behaved last year - https://barry-walsh.co.uk/lockdown-blues/.
Isn't MI5 under the Home Office, with the Foreign Office running MI6 and GCHQ? The same GCHQ which is spying on all of us, to some extent.
Surprised there is not more discussion about Warwick University slashing its covid forecasts barely 48 hours after its model was used as justification for delaying the unlock.
Regardless of any other merit, the Sunak interview got GB News into the papers, which was probably its main aim.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 8h This is the most uncomfortable I’ve seen Rishi Sunak in quite a while.
Sunak fans ould pause and watch the clip Dan Hodges has there. Looking well under pressure over £10K bill for new boilers for every family.
As Sunak says, what £10k bill? He rightly pointed out that (a) "costs" always get balanced against "opportunity" and whatever the cost is now won't be the cost by the time they are rolling it out.
Isn't the problem with retrofitting heat pumps that the radiators need to be replaced by bigger ones too, because of the lower operating temperature of the system?
So, opportunity - British design and manufacturing of all these new pumps and radiators, British installation of them. Which will generate a bucket load of money for the economy.
Neil is a dinosaur, asking the tired "how much will it cost" question not interested in "how much will it save" and "how much will doing nothing cost".
The majority of voters, especially the working classes and the Red Wall, care very much about the cost.
It’s also fair to ask why the British consumer is being asked to contribute so much, when the same isn’t true of much larger countries such as the US and China.
Having spent 15 years in a red wall WC town I am aware of this. "We can't afford it" has been drilled into them by opportunistic Tories to destroy Labour as the party who wastes money. Job done, the red wall is blue. Now then, we need to hose the blue wall with money. But "we can't afford it" and "how much will it cost".
I've had punters arguing on Facebook against spending money regenerating their own high street. The more the regen progresses and the more it gets lauded by experts as the model for other towns the more they shriek about the costs.
We either invest in stuff or we stay broken and crap. There is no £10k per household bill and the people asking the question know this. As for "why us and not China" we don't live in China. Our kids don't go to school in China. People have benefited massively from various clean air measures yet so many of our kids still go to schools where they breathe polluted air. Time to do more for their sake and let China do their own thing.
I do sometimes wonder whether a form of self-hatred or Stockholm syndrome has taken over with elements of the English working class. It's like they don't think they deserve any better. Even Brexit - touted as the second peasants' revolt by folk on here, seems to be more about hurting other people (foreigners, Londoners, the 'metropolitan elite') than anything else.
I suspect a lot of them want "higher wages" and by removing a pool of cheap accessible labour from the market they may very well get them.
And people think they're thick....
Yes, indeed they ARE getting them. Wages for the C2s and Ds have risen in a way not seen in the last 20 years.
It's so simple, and has happened time and time again in British history. When there are fewer people to do the skilled labour and/or the grunt work, the wages commanded for that work increase and the lot of those workers improves.
There has been a lot of magical thinking in my lifetime that immigration makes us richer and to say otherwise is somehow taboo. It increases our GDP, sure, because there are more of us. And if you're trying to employ someone you can do it more cheaply. I remember a geography GCSE question in which I was invited to discuss the benefits to the UK of immigration - the drawbacks weren't to be mentioned. But in reality it doesn't do a lot for most individual Britons.
Wages are higher in certain sectors because of a shortage of labour. Thats only partially due to "forriners go home" Brexit effects - the logistics industry is suffering because of IR35 just as much.
The harsh light of day for the British worker is that there are a stack of jobs they just don't want to do. We had to open the door to EU staff in the first place because locals don't want to clean offices or serve coffee or look after the elderly or work in a factory.
Now that some EU workers have left there is a shortage which is driving wages higher - but isn't filling the shortages because people still don't want those jobs.
Living on the backs of cheap EU labour is over, and in the end the pay will have to increase to attract the workers
I think the government will have to come up with immigration schemes for care workers. They have a delivery obligation. Wages will find their own levels elsewhere in the economy. ie GDP will contract in relative terms, to match. Some wages will go up and some will go down, but likely better terms for the low paid at the expense of fewer higher paid jobs. Which may be a desirable thing...
Or how about they just pay care workers more than minimum wage?
Care workers looking after the vulnerable for 12 hours a day, wiping people's bums and dealing with dementia, incontinence, and generally tough work . . . how is it that is a minimum wage job earning less than what eg a waiter earns? Since a waiter will get minimum wage plus tips.
Even pre-pandemic, pre-Brexit ~83% of care staff in the UK were British and half the non-British staff were not EU either so the notion we're reliant upon immigration to fill these roles has never been true. Pay a decent wage for these jobs and they'll get filled.
Many care workers are not actually paid by their employers, but by the state. By this I mean that there are quite a few care companies, whether residential or home care, which rely on contracts or similar from Government (including Local) contracts. So until we, the state, are prepared to pay more in taxes to fund such contracts, wages for the staff cannot rise.
Absolutely.
Though we don't expect others in the healthcare sector like nurses or doctors to work for minimum wage. There is some overlap between the duties of a nurse and the duties of care workers, but the latter are working for minimum wage while the former are getting roughly twice as much.
Putting care staff on £12 per hour for instance would give them a 20% pay rise, make the job even more attractive for people in other sectors working minimum wage - and still leave care workers earning a fraction of others in the healthcare sector.
NHS Healthcare Assistants start on around 18k a year rising to 20k, which is probably the better comparison as nurses are required to have a nursing degree. That is £9 to £10.50 per hour (1950 hour year minus hols).
Generally agree with pushing up the wages by a chunk, but we need the politicians to get off their backsides and come up with a policy. I'm one for "implement Dilnot" and rejig inheritance and property taxes to pay for it.
Just under a million Romanians and a million Poles have chosen to obtain settled status, amongst others, which suggests that the alleged exodus is perhaps a little overdone.
Unfortunately, that requires a government who can either build bridges to get the opposition on board, or has the courage to take the inevitable short-term political hit. Preferably both.
Now look at the current occupant of No 10.
Even at current pay rates, social care is already heading for "reluctant Turkish stepmom" territory. (i.e. like you-know-what and the other you-know-what but combined.)
I wonder if Jeremy Hunt could achieve that if given the job?
Surprised there is not more discussion about Warwick University slashing its covid forecasts barely 48 hours after its model was used as justification for delaying the unlock.
Funny old world.
It's Johnson's fault for not seeing through these charlatans. He should cut the crap and just call you and I for instructions.
Essentially the data models put in the correct vaccine efficacy stats and the models now show a significantly lower death rate and hospitalisation rate.
It's absolutely shocking that this has been allowed to happen. Why weren't they using the best available inputs in the first place?
Ursula von der Leyen now has no constitutional role in my country.
She never did
Oh really?
Do you think Biden has no constitutional role in Texas?
Oh dear, award for this years False Comparison Prize. What next, comparing the EU to the Nazis, or perhaps comparing Bozo to Winston Churchill?
How is it a false comparison?
The European Union laws and courts are supreme over its member states and UVDL is President of that.
If you want to compare the EU to Nazis then you can do that, but to deny that the President of the European Union has any constitutional role in EU member states is just dishonest pure and simple.
I need to do some work, but I will answer you as best and politely as I can. The sovereignty argument as put forward by those in favour of Brexit was always specious. The reality is that all nation states of the EU have sovereign supremacy over the EU because they can unilaterally choose to leave and because of our 2016 referendum we chose to do that. I do not believe that is the case with Texas, nor, as another example is it the case with Scotland within the UK. The POTUS has significant (though not unrestricted) executive power in the US that not even the most integrationist of EU zealots would dream of for the President of the European Commission (she is not President of the European Union ). The Commission gains it's power from the Council of Ministers, which as I am sure you know, is the leaders of the 27, which are independent and sovereign. They choose to pool their sovereignty on certain matters.
Therefore POTUS=President of EU Commission is a ludicrous comparison.
Saying you are sovereign because you can leave is only meaningful if you do leave. Otherwise its meaningless.
Its perversely like saying that someone in a bad relationship is OK because they can leave, but then saying they shouldn't leave and using the fact they can leave as a reason why they shouldn't.
Either the relationship is good, in which case argue that on its merits and explain why the loss of sovereignty is worthwhile and why we shouldn't leave, or the relationship is not good in which case we should and did correctly exercise our right to leave and reclaim our sovereignty and choose our own future.
We have chosen not to pool our sovereignty. That is a perfectly valid choice. Choosing to pool it is valid too, but if you want that then don't pretend it isn't pooled and there's no sovereignty issue from doing so - explain why it is worth doing despite the sovereignty issue that pooling entails.
Logic fail here. If being able to leave a relationship is meaningless, it follows that a relationship where you can't leave is no more captive than one where you can. Which is a clear nonsense. Being able to leave is fundamentally different to being unable to leave, whether you choose to leave or not.
Being able to leave is an important theoretical right, but unless you exercise it, it isn't very meaningful.
Saying that UvdL had no constitutional role in the UK, since we could leave, is like saying that your boss at work has no role in your worklife since you can quit if you want to do so.
It's not a theoretical right it's an actual right. This is the case whether you exercise it or not. And having this right is different to not having it. This is specifically the point I needed to clarify.
‘And having this right is different to not having it.’
Surprised there is not more discussion about Warwick University slashing its covid forecasts barely 48 hours after its model was used as justification for delaying the unlock.
Funny old world.
We knew this would happen though, the models have been consistently wrong and underplaying vaccine efficacy to get their desired result of getting lockdowns extended.
The lack of data literacy in the government is shocking. It's stuff that we have been talking about for months.
She was certainly shit. It's the snobbery which sticks in my mind after 50 years - constant sneers at "day trippers" meaning common people. "Five go mad in Dorset" nailed it.
She wasn't shit. She wrote some of the best children's books ever written.
Apart from people saying "her vocabulary was limited" and "many of her stories had similar structure" I don't think I've ever seen any of this criticism substantiated. So, I'll put it down to snobbery in turn by her critics.
She said, quite rightly, she wasn't interested in the opinion of anyone over the age of 12, and rightly so.
The woke have completely taken over our once great British University system. The government must get a grip on this before a British degree is deemed completely worthless. But what to do about it, I'm not sure as their greatness is in large part due to their independence. https://mobile.twitter.com/SaraBafo1/status/1405125839801532417
Ah! Says I can’t view it. Do you have a screenshot please?
Essentially the data models put in the correct vaccine efficacy stats and the models now show a significantly lower death rate and hospitalisation rate.
It's absolutely shocking that this has been allowed to happen. Why weren't they using the best available inputs in the first place?
Thanks. What are the new predictions and do they seem likely?
She was certainly shit. It's the snobbery which sticks in my mind after 50 years - constant sneers at "day trippers" meaning common people. "Five go mad in Dorset" nailed it.
She wasn't shit. She wrote some of the best children's books ever written.
Apart from people saying "her vocabulary was limited" and "many of her stories had similar structure" I don't think I've ever seen any of this criticism substantiated. So, I'll put it down to snobbery in turn by her critics.
She said, quite rightly, she wasn't interested in the opinion of anyone over the age of 12, and rightly so.
I thought they were shit before I was 12.
And it's nothing to do with vocabulary. The works of the splendid Theodor Geisel, who is also decidedly unwoke these days, and whose vocabulary is deliberately even more limited, remain brilliantly entertaining.
Surprised there is not more discussion about Warwick University slashing its covid forecasts barely 48 hours after its model was used as justification for delaying the unlock.
Funny old world.
We knew this would happen though, the models have been consistently wrong and underplaying vaccine efficacy to get their desired result of getting lockdowns extended.
The lack of data literacy in the government is shocking. It's stuff that we have been talking about for months.
Both in government politicians and in government functionaries. And at the risk of indulging in pointless whatabouttery, in opposition politicians too.
Why does nobody in Westminster understand this shit?
Surprised there is not more discussion about Warwick University slashing its covid forecasts barely 48 hours after its model was used as justification for delaying the unlock.
Funny old world.
We knew this would happen though, the models have been consistently wrong and underplaying vaccine efficacy to get their desired result of getting lockdowns extended.
The lack of data literacy in the government is shocking. It's stuff that we have been talking about for months.
The people producing these models are very bright indeed. They also know if they get it wrong the other way (Unlock, lots of deaths) everyone will come for their head. Boris doesn't want another christmas disaster, so he'd being overcautious now. Wider considerations aren't getting a look in.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
I loved the Blyton stuff. My favourite series of books was the "Five find-outers".
I'd bet most of our vintage have read at least some of them. Lashings of ginger beer!
I didn’t read them. However I did read a series of space adventures for kids by Patrick Moore which, to my pre-teen mind, were fascinating. Also the Bible.
She was certainly shit. It's the snobbery which sticks in my mind after 50 years - constant sneers at "day trippers" meaning common people. "Five go mad in Dorset" nailed it.
She wasn't shit. She wrote some of the best children's books ever written.
Apart from people saying "her vocabulary was limited" and "many of her stories had similar structure" I don't think I've ever seen any of this criticism substantiated. So, I'll put it down to snobbery in turn by her critics.
She said, quite rightly, she wasn't interested in the opinion of anyone over the age of 12, and rightly so.
The Wishing Chair series is silly and repetitive. Faraway Tree is pretty good. Naughtiest Schoolgirl is great.
Essentially the data models put in the correct vaccine efficacy stats and the models now show a significantly lower death rate and hospitalisation rate.
It's absolutely shocking that this has been allowed to happen. Why weren't they using the best available inputs in the first place?
Thanks. What are the new predictions and do they seem likely?
The original predictions were patently bullshit.
They 3000 peak hospitalisations per day to 1000, mid point of about 33k deaths to around 10k. Some of the assumptions still look completely ridiculous, they're saying that the hospitalisation rate will be 5% of cases but that makes no sense at all. It will be more like 1-3% with the vast majority coming from unvaccinated cohorts.
Can I just say, since I was not online, how much I enjoyed @Cyclefree's thread header posted last night. An outstanding piece that highlighted a genuine problem and a major flaw in our system. Why is Dick still in office this morning? Have we no shame? None at all?
I would ask where our opposition is but, frankly, what's the point?
I missed it last night, too. I agree completely. Sir Ian Blair getting airtime yesterday to defend her as "the outstanding officer of her generation", in between deeply unconvincing defences of his own record, incensed me.
It's "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" syndrome. Very common in the police and one reason why corruption arises. Discussed in the report. One reason why the police need an outsider with balls of steel to prise open this culture and let in cleansing sunlight.
I hope you are applying. You seem eminently qualified.
1. There is no vacancy. 2. I applied last year to be a non-executive director of the IOPC, the body which investigates the police. Mentioned it on here. Disclosed fully all the articles I've written on the topic. Put on the shortlist. The Home Office reviewed. Thanks but no thanks. No surprise.
You cannot really change a culture or even start until you really realise why it is rotten and needs changing. You need a near-death experience and something approaching total humiliation and some external body putting pressure on you. All 3 are missing in the case of the police. There is total denial - as evidenced by the interviews yesterday with a load of senior policemen all saying that there was nothing wrong.
Anyone trying to change a culture in such a place is doomed to fail: not only will no-one have their back, everyone will be trying to stick knives in it.
There is an opportunity here for Labour - but they are too stupid to take it.
It is exactly these scenarios, with massive additional dollops of unrestrained violence and racism, that drives the defund the police movements in the US. Their argument is not that they don't want a police service, they do not want this police service, which is part of the problem, not the solution. Like you they despair of breaking down or changing that culture from the outside and want to start again.
For me, the most compelling part of your piece was the role that Dick had played in trying to frustrate the inquiry that they are now happy to supposedly learn lessons from. That was not only a sackable offence, it is an offence for which she should have been sacked.
Absolutely. And Labour should be saying / shouting this from the rooftops.
Truth is they have absolutely no intention of learning any lessons from any of this. Just as they have resolutely refused to learn any lessons from the Henriques report into Operation Midland. Indeed they have said that the judge is wrong in what he says about the criminal law, an astonishing piece of ignorant impudence.
The police are untouchable. That is why I don't trust them. When institutions believe they are indispensable and unchallengeable there is a very high risk that they will end up behaving badly. And, yes, before anyone asks, I include lawyers in this.
As @MarqueeMark insinuates upthread, there is some suggestion online that Cressida is some kind of MI5 operator.
Although why this means she should be free from unaccountability as Met Chief I don’t know.
Well the mysterious 2-year period at the FO about which no details are given is pretty much telegraphing that in 6-foot high letters.
Truth is her bosses and the police generally don't care about accountability. How she behaved is, in essence, no different to how this junior Lancashire police officer behaved last year - https://barry-walsh.co.uk/lockdown-blues/.
Isn't MI5 under the Home Office, with the Foreign Office running MI6 and GCHQ? The same GCHQ which is spying on all of us, to some extent.
On a point of pedantry, GCHQ doesn't report to the Foreign Office. It repots directly to the Foreign Secretary.
She was certainly shit. It's the snobbery which sticks in my mind after 50 years - constant sneers at "day trippers" meaning common people. "Five go mad in Dorset" nailed it.
She wasn't shit. She wrote some of the best children's books ever written.
Apart from people saying "her vocabulary was limited" and "many of her stories had similar structure" I don't think I've ever seen any of this criticism substantiated. So, I'll put it down to snobbery in turn by her critics.
She said, quite rightly, she wasn't interested in the opinion of anyone over the age of 12, and rightly so.
I thought they were shit before I was 12.
I thought they were fun and read them all by the time I was 9, then moved on to the Hardy Boys and never touched them again since.
It doesn't matter what you read, getting a love of reading at a young age and keeping it for life is great.
She was certainly shit. It's the snobbery which sticks in my mind after 50 years - constant sneers at "day trippers" meaning common people. "Five go mad in Dorset" nailed it.
She wasn't shit. She wrote some of the best children's books ever written.
Apart from people saying "her vocabulary was limited" and "many of her stories had similar structure" I don't think I've ever seen any of this criticism substantiated. So, I'll put it down to snobbery in turn by her critics.
She said, quite rightly, she wasn't interested in the opinion of anyone over the age of 12, and rightly so.
Odd that she felt compelled to make that point, don't you think? There's lots of genuinely great children's lit - Milne, Potter, Lewis - and there's flabbily written drivel.
Essentially the data models put in the correct vaccine efficacy stats and the models now show a significantly lower death rate and hospitalisation rate.
It's absolutely shocking that this has been allowed to happen. Why weren't they using the best available inputs in the first place?
Thanks. What are the new predictions and do they seem likely?
The original predictions were patently bullshit.
They 3000 peak hospitalisations per day to 1000, mid point of about 33k deaths to around 10k. Some of the assumptions still look completely ridiculous, they're saying that the hospitalisation rate will be 5% of cases but that makes no sense at all. It will be more like 1-3% with the vast majority coming from unvaccinated cohorts.
I'm surprised* that this reverse ferret by Warwick hasn't got more publicity. It is borderline scandalous, because of the timing.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
Yes, as a child the Faraway Tree and the Enchanted Wood opened up my imagination. I absolutely loved those books, and got lost in them. I intend to buy them again for my daughter.
Kids don't care about the stuff The Guardian like to hand-wring about; they like good stories from any age and any period in history.
Of course the story and quality of the writing is the main thing. Stuff with great role models and diversity and excellent values is no good to anybody if it's also boring and turgid. But OTOH, you have a daughter, would you be happy with her reading loads of the "fairytale princess yearning for handsome prince to come get her" type classics material?
I bet you wouldn't. Why not? Because you recognize how toxic it can be. The assumption that girls are about grace and elegance and beauty, essentially passive, requiring a strong dynamic male to enable and deliver happiness and fulfillment. You can go OTT on this, and some do, but there are real issues here. The more we ditch these stereotypes the better imo. They can be comforting, but it's for the wrong reasons.
You're a Blyton fan then. So who's your favourite Fiver? Not sure who mine is. Certainly not Julian. What an entitled arrogant chap he is. He's the Patriarchy writ large.
Yes, as a child the Faraway Tree and the Enchanted Wood opened up my imagination. I absolutely loved those books, and got lost in them. I intend to buy them again for my daughter.
Kids don't care about the stuff The Guardian like to hand-wring about; they like good stories from any age and any period in history.
Of course the story and quality of the writing is the main thing. Stuff with great role models and diversity and excellent values is no good to anybody if it's also boring and turgid. But OTOH, you have a daughter, would you be happy with her reading loads of the "fairytale princess yearning for handsome prince to come get her" type classics material?
I bet you wouldn't. Why not? Because you recognize how toxic it can be. The assumption that girls are about grace and elegance and beauty, essentially passive, requiring a strong dynamic male to enable and deliver happiness and fulfillment. You can go OTT on this, and some do, but there are real issues here. The more we ditch these stereotypes the better imo. They can be comforting, but it's for the wrong reasons.
Essentially the data models put in the correct vaccine efficacy stats and the models now show a significantly lower death rate and hospitalisation rate.
It's absolutely shocking that this has been allowed to happen. Why weren't they using the best available inputs in the first place?
Thanks. What are the new predictions and do they seem likely?
The original predictions were patently bullshit.
They 3000 peak hospitalisations per day to 1000, mid point of about 33k deaths to around 10k. Some of the assumptions still look completely ridiculous, they're saying that the hospitalisation rate will be 5% of cases but that makes no sense at all. It will be more like 1-3% with the vast majority coming from unvaccinated cohorts.
I'm surprised* that this reverse ferret by Warwick hasn't got more publicity. It is borderline scandalous, because of the timing.
(*actually, I'm not)
If Johnson has any balls he would hold a press conference brandishing the downgraded advice, apologise on their behalf for their advise and proceed with Freedom Day without further delay.
Essentially the data models put in the correct vaccine efficacy stats and the models now show a significantly lower death rate and hospitalisation rate.
It's absolutely shocking that this has been allowed to happen. Why weren't they using the best available inputs in the first place?
Thanks. What are the new predictions and do they seem likely?
The original predictions were patently bullshit.
They 3000 peak hospitalisations per day to 1000, mid point of about 33k deaths to around 10k. Some of the assumptions still look completely ridiculous, they're saying that the hospitalisation rate will be 5% of cases but that makes no sense at all. It will be more like 1-3% with the vast majority coming from unvaccinated cohorts.
I'm surprised* that this reverse ferret by Warwick hasn't got more publicity. It is borderline scandalous, because of the timing.
(*actually, I'm not)
The scandal is politicians making decisions based on modelled data. When Boris said delaying would save thousands of lives that's modelled data and the politicians have just looked at some numbers, assumed they are true and have high predictive value then made the decision. Most data models have got very poor predictive value, if they didn't the people who make them would be making millions in the city.
As always, the politicians, media and scientists are letting the nation down in different ways. The lack of scepticism shown by all three to modelled data is really shocking.
Essentially the data models put in the correct vaccine efficacy stats and the models now show a significantly lower death rate and hospitalisation rate.
It's absolutely shocking that this has been allowed to happen. Why weren't they using the best available inputs in the first place?
Thanks. What are the new predictions and do they seem likely?
The original predictions were patently bullshit.
They 3000 peak hospitalisations per day to 1000, mid point of about 33k deaths to around 10k. Some of the assumptions still look completely ridiculous, they're saying that the hospitalisation rate will be 5% of cases but that makes no sense at all. It will be more like 1-3% with the vast majority coming from unvaccinated cohorts.
I'm surprised* that this reverse ferret by Warwick hasn't got more publicity. It is borderline scandalous, because of the timing.
(*actually, I'm not)
If Johnson has any balls he would hold a press conference brandishing the downgraded advice, apologise on their behalf for their advise and proceed with Freedom Day without further delay.
Do you think he's even aware that the infection inflation rate is nosediving? I don't get the impression that he's on top of the numbers...
For those wondering what the "fall in growth rate" looks like (and why the Guardian article on the rate of cases doubling based on data up to 7 June is already out-of-date), I pulled this together: Clearly still some uncertainty as to when it will cross zero (and so cases peak), but my guess it it'll be in the next couple of weeks.
Comments
No-one predicted that:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gb-news-bum-flash-moon-comedian-laurence-fox_uk_60cafb34e4b05fb357606a53
Saying that UvdL had no constitutional role in the UK, since we could leave, is like saying that your boss at work has no role in your worklife since you can quit if you want to do so.
It's entirely obvious that the government acts 'out of an abundance of caution', or on the advice of SAGE pretty well on the whim of Johnson.
Cheltenham last year, 'Boris saves Xmas' and the delay in travel restrictions with India are part and parcel of that - and the precipitate travel ban with the wholly unalarming Portugal the opposite side of the coin.
Meaning that no matter what you do, short of actual murder, you can't achieve failure.
For example, there was a certain person involve in the Rotherham mess. She had knowledge of the policy of ignoring what was happening and maintained it. She had the power to change this. She knew and did nothing.
After Rotherham, she got a bigger and better job, in the same field. Overseas. With enthusiastic backing from the UK "system"
I was talking with a civil servant and suggested that perhaps the references should have been a little less glowing. Apparently that was a "nasty" suggestion - the person in question was a high flyer, a leader in her field and lessons had been learned
I didn't try on him what I suggested to Pritti Patel, when I briefly met her at a function. I think he would have exploded.
Second, such predictions were made with two assumptions which turned out not to be the case:
1. That we would exercise A50 immediately. Only Corbyn called for that
2. That the BoE would not step in and pump QE into the system.
In any case, short-term predictions (like recession) depend more on quite tricky assumptions about investor and business sentiment, rather than longer term economic modelling.
https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1405476251838582786
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/17/covid-cases-in-england-doubling-every-11-days-as-delta-takes-hold
To quote the military puppies in Cats and Dogs: "NOT GOOD!"
Which is, after all, pretty well what they're there for.
She's ultimately responsible to the public, whom she has failed on a repeated basis.
The arguments were fanciful scaremongering.
The challenges of Brexit are political, with some border trade friction issues on top.
That's it.
Shakespeare wasn't.
https://bylinetimes.com/2021/03/22/revealed-the-pay-disparities-in-social-care/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/21/shakespeares-language-could-racially-problematic-globe-theatre/
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-problem-with-decolonising-shakespeare
"What does it mean to read Shakespeare through an anti-racist lens?
As part of our commitment to decolonising the plays of Shakespeare, we're running free Anti-racist Shakespeare webinars"
https://twitter.com/The_Globe/status/1392838714598989834
2. I applied last year to be a non-executive director of the IOPC, the body which investigates the police. Mentioned it on here. Disclosed fully all the articles I've written on the topic. Put on the shortlist. The Home Office reviewed. Thanks but no thanks. No surprise.
You cannot really change a culture or even start until you really realise why it is rotten and needs changing. You need a near-death experience and something approaching total humiliation and some external body putting pressure on you. All 3 are missing in the case of the police. There is total denial - as evidenced by the interviews yesterday with a load of senior policemen all saying that there was nothing wrong.
Anyone trying to change a culture in such a place is doomed to fail: not only will no-one have their back, everyone will be trying to stick knives in it.
There is an opportunity here for Labour - but they are too stupid to take it.
I hate bets like this! I’ve (hopefully) thrown away a tenner…
Kids don't care about the stuff The Guardian like to hand-wring about; they like good stories from any age and any period in history.
2 - We aren't in post-Brexit yet - eg we have still not implemented the regime at Dover, as we weren't in such a hurry. UK border measures are not due until the end of this month, and I wonder if we will be as bloody-minded as the French were.
3 - Ditto NI.
So I just don't think it's possible yet. You'll get a preliminary idea 12 months on.
The boss of Jet2 said he was "bewildered" over why they couldn't fly to those destinations.
While UK travel is limited, Germans are flocking to popular holiday spots.
"When you take the UK government's own criteria for deciding where holidaymakers can travel to, and apply it to the Balearics, we are left bewildered as to why we cannot fly there," said Jet2 and Jet2 Holidays' chief executive Steve Heapy.
Charlie Cornish, chief executive of Manchester Airport Group (MAG) said EU countries were taking a more positive approach to resuming international travel. "Hundreds of thousands of people from places like Germany are travelling freely and safely to low-risk holiday destinations," he said.
MAG has joined with low cost airline Ryanair to launch a legal action against the government over its traffic light system, particularly focusing on the lack of transparency over how countries are classified.
It wasn’t true, though; it’s not true now.
At least you refer to “friction”, some of your fellow travellers refuse to concede even that.
But what to do about it, I'm not sure as their greatness is in large part due to their independence.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SaraBafo1/status/1405125839801532417
I am sure we are all so happy he survived this life threatening event, but I doubt he will be able to play top class football anymore
The idea that change in the configuration of internationally recognised sovereign states cannot happen is a piece of religion or metaphysics. It can and does. Ask Alaska or South Sudan. Or closer to home the RoI.
Brexit is absolutely fine, short of some SPS alignment issues, NI and the short-term visas for business/musicians that I hope will be built on in future.
Your slow-rust meme is trying to paint 20th Century politics onto a 21st Century age. We're going to do splendidly, and it will only get better over time.
One lesson that has been learned from last summer, in the UK anyway.
For me, the most compelling part of your piece was the role that Dick had played in trying to frustrate the inquiry that they are now happy to supposedly learn lessons from. That was not only a sackable offence, it is an offence for which she should have been sacked.
But anyway, the charge that Johnson delayed the Red List transfer to pursue a trade deal with India is curious in that it ignores an obvious solution: move India the the Red List but exempt the politicians and negotiators of the deal. The reason this was not done, of course, comes down the fear of media criticism.
So you have a past, present and immediate future where UK performance is mediocre. So how long do we have to wait for it all to take-off? The Brexit decade is looking like a lost one, so will it be 2026 to 2036/
This is where I take issue with Brexiteers. Wanting to be masters of your own ship is absolutely fine as an aspiration, but they don't accept there is any cost to it. How many livelihoods, countries maybe, is it worth destroying to remove the threat to our way of life that is Ursula von der Leyen? A principle where you don't accept the cost of it is no principle at all. It's dishonest.
If you work for an employer where you are in your own eyes the hardest working employee there, but you are paid less than your colleagues, you don't feel like you are treated with respect, and if you bring concerns to your employer they say "yes but you need the job don't you?" and then adds mockingly "You know where the door is" - then do you think "oh well, I can leave if I want to, so everything's fine I should stay in this job" or do you think "screw this, I'm off"
The fact you can leave is not a reason to stay. The reason to stay should be that it is worth staying.
They have given us into the hands of the new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger and honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evenings; and they know no songs.
Minor nuance #2 - it's not in itself bad to take other strategic factors into consideration when making health decisions. A decision which has a negative impact for public health but a positive impact for the economy might well be worth taking if it is deemed that the positives outweigh the benefits. Such decisions are always portrayed as the politican in question being greedy or selfish in some regard, but they are generally taken for the benefit of the British economy in general. Even if it was taken with an eye on the British/Indian vote, that wouldn't in itself be bad - a politican's job, after all, is to balance competing interests in the overall interest of the electorate, with the test of success of this being elections.
That said, I don't disagree with your final line though, in this instance.
https://twitter.com/MrMoore7003/status/1405480201153302529?s=20
Tiny heads will explode.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/who-were-the-first-mps-from-ethnic-minority-backgrounds/
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/summer-covid-death-predictions-downgraded-kbkwkmvjz
(No - nothing is sacred)
Funny old world.
This is a bad thing because??
It's absolutely shocking that this has been allowed to happen. Why weren't they using the best available inputs in the first place?
Can confirm.
I'm thinking about what to write on mine. Not too sweary I guess.
The lack of data literacy in the government is shocking. It's stuff that we have been talking about for months.
Apart from people saying "her vocabulary was limited" and "many of her stories had similar structure" I don't think I've ever seen any of this criticism substantiated. So, I'll put it down to snobbery in turn by her critics.
She said, quite rightly, she wasn't interested in the opinion of anyone over the age of 12, and rightly so.
The original predictions were patently bullshit.
Now just past Preston on time.
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:S00619/2021-06-17/detailed
This guy https://twitter.com/seatsixtyone is on the train.
Edit: great minds, @NickyBreakspear
And it's nothing to do with vocabulary. The works of the splendid Theodor Geisel, who is also decidedly unwoke these days, and whose vocabulary is deliberately even more limited, remain brilliantly entertaining.
And at the risk of indulging in pointless whatabouttery, in opposition politicians too.
Why does nobody in Westminster understand this shit?
Boris doesn't want another christmas disaster, so he'd being overcautious now. Wider considerations aren't getting a look in.
Faraway Tree is pretty good.
Naughtiest Schoolgirl is great.
YMMV.
Truth is they have absolutely no intention of learning any lessons from any of this. Just as they have resolutely refused to learn any lessons from the Henriques report into Operation Midland. Indeed they have said that the judge is wrong in what he says about the criminal law, an astonishing piece of ignorant impudence.
The police are untouchable. That is why I don't trust them. When institutions believe they are indispensable and unchallengeable there is a very high risk that they will end up behaving badly. And, yes, before anyone asks, I include lawyers in this.
It doesn't matter what you read, getting a love of reading at a young age and keeping it for life is great.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9696269/Coronavirus-Signs-UKs-Covid-surge-levelling-off.html
(*actually, I'm not)
I bet you wouldn't. Why not? Because you recognize how toxic it can be. The assumption that girls are about grace and elegance and beauty, essentially passive, requiring a strong dynamic male to enable and deliver happiness and fulfillment. You can go OTT on this, and some do, but there are real issues here. The more we ditch these stereotypes the better imo. They can be comforting, but it's for the wrong reasons.
https://twitter.com/ddoniolvalcroze/status/1405272792853934082
As always, the politicians, media and scientists are letting the nation down in different ways. The lack of scepticism shown by all three to modelled data is really shocking.
Clearly still some uncertainty as to when it will cross zero (and so cases peak), but my guess it it'll be in the next couple of weeks.