Harry Cole @MrHarryCole · 22m But hopes are rising that the window to do so is now too narrow to ruin Christmas - but puts New Year’s Eve celebrations into serious doubt.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
Me on the phone my dad this morning: "Everyone I know has got Omicron, or knows someone with Omicron. Everyone's Christmas plans are up in the air. Everyone's depressed"
My dad: "This the worst I've seen the English cricket team in my lifetime"
We're not even facing the likes of Warne and McGrath.
I recall sitting in the MCG, in the 90s and from the crowd as much as I disliked it, it was even more impressive watching Warne and McGrath bowl in real life. The tension of almost every delivery, the extremely aggressive fielding etc
Each English batsman walking out, there was an atmosphere of when not if they'd be walking back to the pavilion.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Do Australia/NZ have worse animal welfare than the EU? I mean, I know there are some good places inside the EU (like Denmark), but my understanding is that - in aggregate - they are well below UK levels.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Its my understanding the Japan one was better on certain provisions, but yes there were the Aus/NZ ones too. The complaints of "opening up our farming industry" are hypocritical, if you believe in protectionism then you should want on tariffs on European produce etc too. I think opening ourselves up to competition is a good thing.
The Aus/NZ ones aren't the end of the road either. Remember that Remainers used to say that trade deals would take seven years, the Aus one certainly didn't, but other negotiations are underway.
CPTPP looks like the absolutely massive one that would be great to have and if we joined the CPTPP that would be a market even bigger than the entire EU itself. Truss has begun the work on that, so again she knows the potential.
We have a free trade agreement with the EU so why should I want tariffs? I believe that we should be more self sufficent in food anyway, as well as other things, and at the moment our farmers and fishers are on the verge of collapse. If we get accepted into the CPT it's going to take years to build up trading relationships with the other side of the planet. It's likely to be very unstable with China, and the US being dominant.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Do Australia/NZ have worse animal welfare than the EU? I mean, I know there are some good places inside the EU (like Denmark), but my understanding is that - in aggregate - they are well below UK levels.
Harry Cole @MrHarryCole · 22m But hopes are rising that the window to do so is now too narrow to ruin Christmas - but puts New Year’s Eve celebrations into serious doubt.
Dry January beckons.
Pubs would be replaced by 'business meetings' in the home.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Do Australia/NZ have worse animal welfare than the EU? I mean, I know there are some good places inside the EU (like Denmark), but my understanding is that - in aggregate - they are well below UK levels.
Horse meat anyone?
What's wrong with horsemeat?, i found it quite palateable when i holidayed in Germany.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Its my understanding the Japan one was better on certain provisions, but yes there were the Aus/NZ ones too. The complaints of "opening up our farming industry" are hypocritical, if you believe in protectionism then you should want on tariffs on European produce etc too. I think opening ourselves up to competition is a good thing.
The Aus/NZ ones aren't the end of the road either. Remember that Remainers used to say that trade deals would take seven years, the Aus one certainly didn't, but other negotiations are underway.
CPTPP looks like the absolutely massive one that would be great to have and if we joined the CPTPP that would be a market even bigger than the entire EU itself. Truss has begun the work on that, so again she knows the potential.
We have a free trade agreement with the EU so why should I want tariffs? I believe that we should be more self sufficent in food anyway, as well as other things, and at the moment our farmers and fishers are on the verge of collapse. If we get accepted into the CPT it's going to take years to build up trading relationships with the other side of the planet. It's likely to be very unstable with China, and the US being dominant.
Well we have a free trade agreement with Australia, so why should you want tariffs with them too?
If you're in favour of protectionism then do protectionism properly. Saying this free trade is good but that free trade is bad because it leads to competition seems to be rank hypocrisy - especially when we have such a trade deficit with Europe.
It won't take that long to build up trading relationships with the other side of the planet, we already have some. Most of our exports go to the rest of the world not the EU already anyway.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
The Boris who cleared out the unbelievers in 2019, and then another batch (Cox, Leadsom etc) in 2020 seems like very ancient history.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
Thatcher was often overruled by her Cabinet, but when she did it, it was called Cabinet Government or her listening to her Cabinet. Nobody ever doubted she was first amongst equals.
A return to Cabinet Government can only be a good thing.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Do Australia/NZ have worse animal welfare than the EU? I mean, I know there are some good places inside the EU (like Denmark), but my understanding is that - in aggregate - they are well below UK levels.
Horse meat anyone?
What's wrong with horsemeat?, i found it quite palateable when i holidayed in Germany.
Esther McVey @EstherMcVey1 · 5h Pleased the Cabinet and PM (recognising where majority opinion is in Parliamentary Party) are now listening to their backbench MPs & for once pushed back on the scaremongering by the lockdown fanatics. It seems the 100 strong backbench rebellion last week has made a difference.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Its my understanding the Japan one was better on certain provisions, but yes there were the Aus/NZ ones too. The complaints of "opening up our farming industry" are hypocritical, if you believe in protectionism then you should want on tariffs on European produce etc too. I think opening ourselves up to competition is a good thing.
The Aus/NZ ones aren't the end of the road either. Remember that Remainers used to say that trade deals would take seven years, the Aus one certainly didn't, but other negotiations are underway.
CPTPP looks like the absolutely massive one that would be great to have and if we joined the CPTPP that would be a market even bigger than the entire EU itself. Truss has begun the work on that, so again she knows the potential.
We have a free trade agreement with the EU so why should I want tariffs? I believe that we should be more self sufficent in food anyway, as well as other things, and at the moment our farmers and fishers are on the verge of collapse. If we get accepted into the CPT it's going to take years to build up trading relationships with the other side of the planet. It's likely to be very unstable with China, and the US being dominant.
Well we have a free trade agreement with Australia, so why should you want tariffs with them too?
If you're in favour of protectionism then do protectionism properly. Saying this free trade is good but that free trade is bad because it leads to competition seems to be rank hypocrisy - especially when we have such a trade deficit with Europe.
It won't take that long to build up trading relationships with the other side of the planet, we already have some. Most of our exports go to the rest of the world not the EU already anyway.
oh well, we'll see I suppose, assuming I am still around when we return to a profitable trading arrangement with someone.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Do Australia/NZ have worse animal welfare than the EU? I mean, I know there are some good places inside the EU (like Denmark), but my understanding is that - in aggregate - they are well below UK levels.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
Thatcher was often overruled by her Cabinet, but when she did it, it was called Cabinet Government or her listening to her Cabinet. Nobody ever doubted she was first amongst equals.
A return to Cabinet Government can only be a good thing.
Exactly. There is a difference @dixiedean between having the strength to oust you and having the strength to have a say in government policy on a policy by policy basis.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
The Boris who cleared out the unbelievers in 2019, and then another batch (Cox, Leadsom etc) in 2020 seems like very ancient history.
Indeed. Now he has no "sensible, moderate" wing to fall back on or pivot to. Nor seemingly any faction or allies at all. It was all based on him being a "winner". Pull that curtain back and what is revealed is a void. A moderate ideology free man who chose to ride a tiger. And he fell off. Hubris and nemesis.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
Thatcher was often overruled by her Cabinet, but when she did it, it was called Cabinet Government or her listening to her Cabinet. Nobody ever doubted she was first amongst equals.
A return to Cabinet Government can only be a good thing.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Do Australia/NZ have worse animal welfare than the EU? I mean, I know there are some good places inside the EU (like Denmark), but my understanding is that - in aggregate - they are well below UK levels.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
Thatcher was often overruled by her Cabinet, but when she did it, it was called Cabinet Government or her listening to her Cabinet. Nobody ever doubted she was first amongst equals.
A return to Cabinet Government can only be a good thing.
Often?
AIDS was a famous example. I can't think of others off the top of my head, but often enough that it wasn't unheard of when it happened.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Do Australia/NZ have worse animal welfare than the EU? I mean, I know there are some good places inside the EU (like Denmark), but my understanding is that - in aggregate - they are well below UK levels.
Horse meat anyone?
What's wrong with horsemeat?, i found it quite palateable when i holidayed in Germany.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
The Boris who cleared out the unbelievers in 2019, and then another batch (Cox, Leadsom etc) in 2020 seems like very ancient history.
Indeed. Now he has no "sensible, moderate" wing to fall back on or pivot to. Nor seemingly any faction or allies at all. It was all based on him being a "winner". Pull that curtain back and what is revealed is a void. A moderate ideology free man who chose to ride a tiger. And he fell off. Hubris and nemesis.
The sensible moderates of the party are in office. Truss etc
The ones thrown out in 2019 were the die hard zealots who were prepared to sacrifice their party membership to insist Article 50 gets extended for a third time.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Do Australia/NZ have worse animal welfare than the EU? I mean, I know there are some good places inside the EU (like Denmark), but my understanding is that - in aggregate - they are well below UK levels.
"A" appears to be impossible to get, but there are a few countries with "B"s: the UK, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden.
There are then quite a lot more countries with "C"s - New Zealand, and the rest of the EU, mainly.
And then there are the "D"s: the US and Australia are there.
In last place, with a "G", is Iran.
Thailand, where a lot of micro meal meat comes from, gets a D as well.
Odd to see Mexico having a better rating than Canada and the USA.
Australia is way below the EU (Unenriched cages! Feedlots! Sow stalls! Just fucking awful), NZ is distinctly better than most of the EU and as good as us, arguably better. Sweden is better than us. Generally the EU is about the same level as us (because we had the same laws until recently).
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
Thatcher was often overruled by her Cabinet, but when she did it, it was called Cabinet Government or her listening to her Cabinet. Nobody ever doubted she was first amongst equals.
A return to Cabinet Government can only be a good thing.
Exactly. There is a difference @dixiedean between having the strength to oust you and having the strength to have a say in government policy on a policy by policy basis.
Indeed there is. Boris/Thatcher comparisons were laughable at the best of times. This isn't one of those.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
The Boris who cleared out the unbelievers in 2019, and then another batch (Cox, Leadsom etc) in 2020 seems like very ancient history.
Indeed. Now he has no "sensible, moderate" wing to fall back on or pivot to. Nor seemingly any faction or allies at all. It was all based on him being a "winner". Pull that curtain back and what is revealed is a void. A moderate ideology free man who chose to ride a tiger. And he fell off. Hubris and nemesis.
The sensible moderates of the party are in office. Truss etc
The ones thrown out in 2019 were the die hard zealots who were prepared to sacrifice their party membership to insist Article 50 gets extended for a third time.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
Thatcher was often overruled by her Cabinet, but when she did it, it was called Cabinet Government or her listening to her Cabinet. Nobody ever doubted she was first amongst equals.
A return to Cabinet Government can only be a good thing.
Often?
AIDS was a famous example. I can't think of others off the top of my head, but often enough that it wasn't unheard of when it happened.
It may well have not been often, because a PM who runs a proper cabinet government knows well before cabinet meets what the prevailing wind is like and has already trimmed the sails so to speak. Papers and minutes have been passed to and fro. Ad hoc meetings have taken place.
Of course all this involves actually working at the job rather than sitting around with the Osborne catalog choosing wallpaper before you go for another dump and read a comic book.
One gets the impression Liz Truss is particularly disliked by Remainers because she used to be a Remainer herself and then switched to Leave as soon as the result was in.
No, you get that impression, I'm not sure anyone else does.
Some may question her damascene conversion to LEAVE as soon as the result came in given how strongly she supported REMAIN and the Prime Minister at the time but I'm sure that's coincidental.
The clear conviction she has that LEAVE was the correct decision seemingly simply because it was the one favoured by the electorate (or at least those who voted) is intriguing. A more nuanced "I didn't agree with the vote but I respect it and I will do my best to make it work in the interests of the whole country" might have sounded better but perhaps that's not how the Conservative Party functions these days.
One succeeds perhaps by continually displaying the zeal of the convert.
One of the arguments why Brexit was a good idea was that we'd be able to negotiate our own trade deals.
Remainers claimed that not only could we not negotiate our own trade deals, but we'd be so desperate that we wouldn't even be able to match the EU's trade deals . . . and to be fair when Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary he was so incapable of getting agreements signed, that seemed like it could be plausible.
Truss not only shot the Fox that we couldn't get agreements signed, she's been at the very forefront of working towards getting newer and better agreements signed.
As such a Damascene Conversion for her seems entirely reasonable. She knows better than anyone in the country the capacity for post-Brexit trade agreements that the UK can sign because she's literally been walking the walk.
The only new deals she worked out as far as I am aware were with Aus/NZ and Japan. Aus and NZ were worth diddley squat to our industries and severly opened up our farming industry to cheaper meat due to poorer animal treatment. Japan's deal was worse than what we had with Japan as part of the EU, and the rest of the deals are short term roll over deals which need to be renewed again.
She talks a good game, which I suppose will please some tory members of a certain age, and she hasn't really upset anyone I suppose.
Do Australia/NZ have worse animal welfare than the EU? I mean, I know there are some good places inside the EU (like Denmark), but my understanding is that - in aggregate - they are well below UK levels.
Horse meat anyone?
What's wrong with horsemeat?, i found it quite palateable when i holidayed in Germany.
Did you ask for it?
of course I did.
Ah, you got lucky then. Many people here certainly didn't, but they still got it.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
The Boris who cleared out the unbelievers in 2019, and then another batch (Cox, Leadsom etc) in 2020 seems like very ancient history.
Indeed. Now he has no "sensible, moderate" wing to fall back on or pivot to. Nor seemingly any faction or allies at all. It was all based on him being a "winner". Pull that curtain back and what is revealed is a void. A moderate ideology free man who chose to ride a tiger. And he fell off. Hubris and nemesis.
The sensible moderates of the party are in office. Truss etc
The ones thrown out in 2019 were the die hard zealots who were prepared to sacrifice their party membership to insist Article 50 gets extended for a third time.
So. Today was a resounding success was it? Building on the many of the past six weeks or so? Cos to me it looks like a shambles that is spiralling out of control.
Australia is way below the EU (Unenriched cages! Feedlots! Sow stalls! Just fucking awful), NZ is distinctly better than most of the EU and as good as us, arguably better. Sweden is better than us. Generally the EU is about the same level as us (because we had the same laws until recently).
USA will score low because states vary. It has virtually no federal farm animal legislation at all - in some states you can farm pretty much as nastily as you like. But some states are quite impressive, especially California, and that gradually pulls up the rest because they don't want to lose the huge Californian market.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
The Boris who cleared out the unbelievers in 2019, and then another batch (Cox, Leadsom etc) in 2020 seems like very ancient history.
Indeed. Now he has no "sensible, moderate" wing to fall back on or pivot to. Nor seemingly any faction or allies at all. It was all based on him being a "winner". Pull that curtain back and what is revealed is a void. A moderate ideology free man who chose to ride a tiger. And he fell off. Hubris and nemesis.
The sensible moderates of the party are in office. Truss etc
The ones thrown out in 2019 were the die hard zealots who were prepared to sacrifice their party membership to insist Article 50 gets extended for a third time.
LOL! Suggesting an extension to give time to get an agreement on getting Brexit done vaguely sanely makes you a 'die-hard zealot'?
Err, I think I can easily see who the die-hard zealots were, and it sure as hell wasn't those wanting a bit more time to figure out what exactly we were trying to do. Perhaps if they'd been listened do, we wouldn't have a government tying itself in knots and mislaying its Brexit Secretary because of its unsuccessful attempt to undo the oven-ready deal it signed up to and hailed as a triumph just two years ago.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
The Boris who cleared out the unbelievers in 2019, and then another batch (Cox, Leadsom etc) in 2020 seems like very ancient history.
Indeed. Now he has no "sensible, moderate" wing to fall back on or pivot to. Nor seemingly any faction or allies at all. It was all based on him being a "winner". Pull that curtain back and what is revealed is a void. A moderate ideology free man who chose to ride a tiger. And he fell off. Hubris and nemesis.
The sensible moderates of the party are in office. Truss etc
The ones thrown out in 2019 were the die hard zealots who were prepared to sacrifice their party membership to insist Article 50 gets extended for a third time.
So. Today was a resounding success was it? Building on the many of the past six weeks or so? Cos to me it looks like a shambles that is spiralling out of control.
Today was the first resounding success in months. 👍
Hopefully this is the beginning of things getting turned around and the shambles coming to an end.
BigRich has been doing too much to support the local pub industry to make sensible comments tonight, but: has the South African cases number been mentioned? 8,511 that's supper low, this thing, omicron, is burning out so quickly its stilly!
I think you, @NerysHughes and I are the only people who give a shit about what's going on in South Africa.
Me too. I’m just fed up of people not understanding frustration that it looks like SAGE isn’t providing modelling data based on omicron being milder, for whatever reason. So not bothering to post.
Yes, and me. I noticed that. I got the data from worldometers, so no doubt there is any amount of nuance I'm missing, but an absolutely astonishing drop.
This is why sage are pushing so hard for lockdown. If we see that something goes away by itself...
Who would guess that constantly trying to ban people's lives would be unpopular? At the moment he's treading the worst of both worlds line - upsetting all.
The omicron variant now accounts for over 73% of new coronavirus cases in the US, according to estimates posted Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the week ending December 18, Omicron accounted for 73.2% of cases, with Delta making up an additional 26.6%. The week prior, ending December 11, Omicron was estimated at 12.6% of circulating virus, versus Delta's 87%. Previously, the CDC estimated omicron accounted for about 3% that week.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
The Boris who cleared out the unbelievers in 2019, and then another batch (Cox, Leadsom etc) in 2020 seems like very ancient history.
Indeed. Now he has no "sensible, moderate" wing to fall back on or pivot to. Nor seemingly any faction or allies at all. It was all based on him being a "winner". Pull that curtain back and what is revealed is a void. A moderate ideology free man who chose to ride a tiger. And he fell off. Hubris and nemesis.
The sensible moderates of the party are in office. Truss etc
The ones thrown out in 2019 were the die hard zealots who were prepared to sacrifice their party membership to insist Article 50 gets extended for a third time.
LOL! Suggesting an extension to give time to get an agreement on getting Brexit done vaguely sanely makes you a 'die-hard zealot'?
Err, I think I can easily see who the die-hard zealots were, and it sure as hell wasn't those wanting a bit more time to figure out what exactly we were trying to do. Perhaps if they'd been listened do, we wouldn't have a government tying itself in knots and mislaying its Brexit Secretary because of its unsuccessful attempt to undo the oven-ready deal it signed up to and hailed as a triumph just two years ago.
Of course it does, yes.
We had already had 2 years to get Brexit done, and 2 further extensions. The EU were claiming they'd never renegotiate with us, Parliament had rejected the agreement. It was time quite frankly to 'shit or get off the pot'.
"A bit more time" is nothing but an excuse by the zealots to never get Brexit done.
The omicron variant now accounts for over 73% of new coronavirus cases in the US, according to estimates posted Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the week ending December 18, Omicron accounted for 73.2% of cases, with Delta making up an additional 26.6%. The week prior, ending December 11, Omicron was estimated at 12.6% of circulating virus, versus Delta's 87%. Previously, the CDC estimated omicron accounted for about 3% that week.
BREAKING: CDC estimates 73% of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. are caused by the Omicron variant, up from 3% last week
3->73% in a week? Damn.
Erm, seems highly unlikely to my lay person's view. In a week????
US sequencing is highly variable, the immediate thing that comes to mine is that the compositions/weightings are likely not equal - e.g. I have seen stuff about Cali and NY Governors requesting more sequencing recently, so that could push the number up a lot.
Forget SAGE modelling, we now have it widely seeded in a vast country that does collect the data properly while having large populations of every options, no jab, 1 jab, 2 jab, 3 jab, previous immunity for every different variant and wide variance in climate.
The omicron variant now accounts for over 73% of new coronavirus cases in the US, according to estimates posted Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the week ending December 18, Omicron accounted for 73.2% of cases, with Delta making up an additional 26.6%. The week prior, ending December 11, Omicron was estimated at 12.6% of circulating virus, versus Delta's 87%. Previously, the CDC estimated omicron accounted for about 3% that week.
Can anyone understand that?
Ah, that makes more sense. It's not up from 3%, it's up from 12.6% but they didn't previously realise they were already that high. 12.6% -> 73% is perfectly plausible, a doubling time of a couple of days.
The omicron variant now accounts for over 73% of new coronavirus cases in the US, according to estimates posted Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the week ending December 18, Omicron accounted for 73.2% of cases, with Delta making up an additional 26.6%. The week prior, ending December 11, Omicron was estimated at 12.6% of circulating virus, versus Delta's 87%. Previously, the CDC estimated omicron accounted for about 3% that week.
Can anyone understand that?
The odd thing is from data from Google, the 7 day average for those periods has barely changed.
04 December 119,860 11 December 119,280 18 December 127,692
A 7% rise in the last week, but you'd expect more than a 7% rise for such a change in Omicron share, wouldn't you?
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
The Boris who cleared out the unbelievers in 2019, and then another batch (Cox, Leadsom etc) in 2020 seems like very ancient history.
Indeed. Now he has no "sensible, moderate" wing to fall back on or pivot to. Nor seemingly any faction or allies at all. It was all based on him being a "winner". Pull that curtain back and what is revealed is a void. A moderate ideology free man who chose to ride a tiger. And he fell off. Hubris and nemesis.
The sensible moderates of the party are in office. Truss etc
The ones thrown out in 2019 were the die hard zealots who were prepared to sacrifice their party membership to insist Article 50 gets extended for a third time.
So. Today was a resounding success was it? Building on the many of the past six weeks or so? Cos to me it looks like a shambles that is spiralling out of control.
Today was the first resounding success in months. 👍
Hopefully this is the beginning of things getting turned around and the shambles coming to an end.
It really feels to good to be true. Government ministers actually querying the models. After 20 months of being ruled by sage.
The loser in this trial is the daughter of SAGE member Susan Michie iirc.
Family fortune of £50 million living in multi-million quid mansions....These communist lot are very strange....up the werkers.
Do they never think that if they get their people's revolution that perhaps the people might object to their massively inherited wealth...and I don't mean in a nice sort of way where there is a polite discussion of some tea and cake, as that is never what happens.
BigRich has been doing too much to support the local pub industry to make sensible comments tonight, but: has the South African cases number been mentioned? 8,511 that's supper low, this thing, omicron, is burning out so quickly its stilly!
I think you, @NerysHughes and I are the only people who give a shit about what's going on in South Africa.
Me too. I’m just fed up of people not understanding frustration that it looks like SAGE isn’t providing modelling data based on omicron being milder, for whatever reason. So not bothering to post.
Yes, and me. I noticed that. I got the data from worldometers, so no doubt there is any amount of nuance I'm missing, but an absolutely astonishing drop.
This is why sage are pushing so hard for lockdown. If we see that something goes away by itself...
One proven thing in this epidemic is that
- rapid rises preceed to rapid falls. - the rapid falls happen long before herd immunity kicks in - remember the towns in Brazil?
The omicron variant now accounts for over 73% of new coronavirus cases in the US, according to estimates posted Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the week ending December 18, Omicron accounted for 73.2% of cases, with Delta making up an additional 26.6%. The week prior, ending December 11, Omicron was estimated at 12.6% of circulating virus, versus Delta's 87%. Previously, the CDC estimated omicron accounted for about 3% that week.
Can anyone understand that?
The odd thing is from data from Google, the 7 day average for those periods has barely changed.
04 December 119,860 11 December 119,280 18 December 127,692
A 7% rise in the last week, but you'd expect more than a 7% rise for such a change in Omicron share, wouldn't you?
Yes but...
If you assume that real daily caseload in the US is 500k, and that Omicron are less likely to be tested for (as milder), then it's possible.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
The Boris who cleared out the unbelievers in 2019, and then another batch (Cox, Leadsom etc) in 2020 seems like very ancient history.
Indeed. Now he has no "sensible, moderate" wing to fall back on or pivot to. Nor seemingly any faction or allies at all. It was all based on him being a "winner". Pull that curtain back and what is revealed is a void. A moderate ideology free man who chose to ride a tiger. And he fell off. Hubris and nemesis.
The sensible moderates of the party are in office. Truss etc
The ones thrown out in 2019 were the die hard zealots who were prepared to sacrifice their party membership to insist Article 50 gets extended for a third time.
So. Today was a resounding success was it? Building on the many of the past six weeks or so? Cos to me it looks like a shambles that is spiralling out of control.
Today was the first resounding success in months. 👍
Hopefully this is the beginning of things getting turned around and the shambles coming to an end.
It really feels to good to be true. Government ministers actually querying the models. After 20 months of being ruled by sage.
My post-booster fever dream is clearly more intense than I realised.
It's quite refreshing to see that over the past week or so Govt. has reacted well as data has become available, operating initially on the (sensible) assumption that we have to assume Delta=Omicron until data become available. One of two tick marks for this government amongst the litany of abject failure over the past 24 months.
On the topic of boosters - I was really impressed how this GP surgery in a village of about 10k managed to set up marquees to process their entire villages's population every couple of days (14 jabbers - 7 people done between them per minute (I was bored enough to measure the rate) for 12 hours a day), in just a couple of days.
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
Also important to note that those CDC figures are already a bit old. The 73% figure is for the week ending 18th December. On a per-day basis, it must be a lot higher by now.
Well. Today was the end of PM Johnson. He is a puppet of the Cabinet now. He was a puppet of the Opposition and back benches, but the set is now complete. He will remain as a figurehead, but only in the absence of anyone obviously better. That he was a moderating influence on his Party all along seems to have passed many by. We are at the beginning of the end of the complete Brexification/UKIPisation of the Tory Party.
Why is he a puppet of the Cabinet? We live in a cabinet-based governing system. It may have been forgotten in recent years but here we are now.
Because. There's a reason it's called "first amongst equals". If you're not first you're a puppet PM. The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you. And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree. Not Boris.
Thatcher was often overruled by her Cabinet, but when she did it, it was called Cabinet Government or her listening to her Cabinet. Nobody ever doubted she was first amongst equals.
A return to Cabinet Government can only be a good thing.
Often?
AIDS was a famous example. I can't think of others off the top of my head, but often enough that it wasn't unheard of when it happened.
It may well have not been often, because a PM who runs a proper cabinet government knows well before cabinet meets what the prevailing wind is like and has already trimmed the sails so to speak. Papers and minutes have been passed to and fro. Ad hoc meetings have taken place.
Of course all this involves actually working at the job rather than sitting around with the Osborne catalog choosing wallpaper before you go for another dump and read a comic book.
One amusing thing I remember from Thatcher -
- Cabinet follows Thatchers line = Dictatorship - Cabinet votes against Thatcher = Weak Thatcher struggling not to be over thrown.
Sometimes in the same day..... and often the same journalist!
Case vs hospitalisation watch - using the England data, which is the most current (with Covid hospital patient numbers having been updated for today,) there's still no sign of a surge in hospitalisations following the surge in cases, which appears from the specimen date figures to have escalated dramatically one week ago, on December 13th.
According to ONS data, "The median delay (lag) between symptom onset and hospital admission varies between 1 and 6.7 days depending on age and whether the patient lives in a nursing home." Whilst there is also the lag between infection and onset of symptoms to be considered, it seems nonetheless safe to assume that a substantial fraction of those testing positive will only have been motivated to take their tests after manifesting symptoms. So, if there's going to be a dramatic upswing in nationwide hospitalisations to match than in cases, we really ought to be seeing the start of it now - which we aren't. There's a bit of an upswing in progress in London (which has an unusually high concentration of vaccine refusers, of course,) but it's nothing like the preceding jump in caseload and there is, thus far, nothing particularly alarming going on outside of the capital.
The approximate average for the gap between initial infection and hospitalisation is around two weeks. Again, given the escalation in caseload around December 13th, if we can make it all the way to Boxing Day without the hospital numbers going bonkers then there would be good reason to suppose that Omicron is not as much of a threat as has been feared.
The Government doesn't exist solely to run the healthcare system, and ministers are right to show scepticism about some of the more extreme modelling that's been used by some to argue that we must have damaging heavy restrictions or even a disastrous lockdown straight away. If it does turn out that the Government can bring itself to sit on its hands and wait just one more week for more data, then that seems like the correct course of action to me.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 5m Oh, I think the VoNC happens if there are restrictions even if Truss & Sunak back them publicly & fully. But I think it'll *pass* unless at least one & probably both of them back them publicly & fully.
The loser in this trial is the daughter of SAGE member Susan Michie iirc.
Family fortune of £50 million living in multi-million quid mansions....These communist lot are very strange....up the werkers.
Do they never think that if they get their people's revolution that perhaps the people might object to their massively inherited wealth...and I don't mean in a nice sort of way where there is a polite discussion of some tea and cake, as that is never what happens.
IIRC the UK Communist Party has quite a big income from property it owns. And rents out...
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
The US still maintains their nothing is better than sub-optimal stance when it comes to covid - they've almost entirely shunned LFTs and AZ. My friends over there need to pay $20+ to get a test.
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
The US still maintains their nothing is better than sub-optimal stance when it comes to covid - they've almost entirely shunned LFTs and AZ. My friends over there need to pay $20+ to get a test.
So it could well be that double and triple jabs people have no idea that it isn't just a bit of a cold they have picked up.
BREAKING: CDC estimates 73% of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. are caused by the Omicron variant, up from 3% last week
The real time experiment begins.....
That can't be right, surely?
No
We know this can double every 1.5 days
00:01 Day 1: 3%
Noon day 2: 6%
11:59 day 3: 12%
Noon: day 5: 24%
11:59 day 6: 48%
Noon day 8: 96%
Easy. 1 week
I wish somebody in the media would ask Javid about this claim he made on Sunday of 7x multiplier of real infections to recorded cases.
Do we have that ratio from the ONS survey?
I have no idea if he misspoke or he meant something like when we get a number on a certain day that actually by now it is 7x that real infections, because I find it quite eye popping that every 100k recorded cases has his number crunchers working on the premise that is actually 700k infections....given we are doing 1.5+ million tests a day.
The only thing I can think of is another one of these back of an envelope calculations where they have extrapolated some data point where they see positive test results including the re-infected (that aren't in the daily numbers) and then multiplied up by previous rough multiplier they used for infections to cases of about 2-3x.
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
The US still maintains their nothing is better than sub-optimal stance when it comes to covid - they've almost entirely shunned LFTs and AZ. My friends over there need to pay $20+ to get a test.
So it could well be that double and triple jabs people have no idea that it isn't just a bit of a cold they have picked up.
A friend of mine has Omicron the Meh at the mo
Mid 50s, healthy, no comorbidities
He says it is incredibly mild, “not as bad as a cold”
BREAKING: CDC estimates 73% of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. are caused by the Omicron variant, up from 3% last week
The real time experiment begins.....
That can't be right, surely?
No
We know this can double every 1.5 days
00:01 Day 1: 3%
Noon day 2: 6%
11:59 day 3: 12%
Noon: day 5: 24%
11:59 day 6: 48%
Noon day 8: 96%
Easy. 1 week
No, because you're doubling percentages as thought they were absolute numbers. If that was true, it would mean that Delta cases somehow reduce as Omicron cases increase.
Or put another way, if on Day 1 you have 97k Delta and 3k Omicron, then on Day 8 you might well have 96k Omicron cases, but you'll still have (roughly) 97k Delta, so only 50% Omicron in total.
Case vs hospitalisation watch - using the England data, which is the most current (with Covid hospital patient numbers having been updated for today,) there's still no sign of a surge in hospitalisations following the surge in cases, which appears from the specimen date figures to have escalated dramatically one week ago, on December 13th.
According to ONS data, "The median delay (lag) between symptom onset and hospital admission varies between 1 and 6.7 days depending on age and whether the patient lives in a nursing home." Whilst there is also the lag between infection and onset of symptoms to be considered, it seems nonetheless safe to assume that a substantial fraction of those testing positive will only have been motivated to take their tests after manifesting symptoms. So, if there's going to be a dramatic upswing in nationwide hospitalisations to match than in cases, we really ought to be seeing the start of it now - which we aren't. There's a bit of an upswing in progress in London (which has an unusually high concentration of vaccine refusers, of course,) but it's nothing like the preceding jump in caseload and there is, thus far, nothing particularly alarming going on outside of the capital.
The approximate average for the gap between initial infection and hospitalisation is around two weeks. Again, given the escalation in caseload around December 13th, if we can make it all the way to Boxing Day without the hospital numbers going bonkers then there would be good reason to suppose that Omicron is not as much of a threat as has been feared.
The Government doesn't exist solely to run the healthcare system, and ministers are right to show scepticism about some of the more extreme modelling that's been used by some to argue that we must have damaging heavy restrictions or even a disastrous lockdown straight away. If it does turn out that the Government can bring itself to sit on its hands and wait just one more week for more data, then that seems like the correct course of action to me.
So far much of the increase has been in the 0-40 groups. Hence no massive surge in hospitalisations.
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
The US still maintains their nothing is better than sub-optimal stance when it comes to covid - they've almost entirely shunned LFTs and AZ. My friends over there need to pay $20+ to get a test.
So it could well be that double and triple jabs people have no idea that it isn't just a bit of a cold they have picked up.
A friend of mine has Omicron the Meh at the mo
Mid 50s, healthy, no comorbidities
He says it is incredibly mild, “not as bad as a cold”
FWIW
As reported below, one half of the extended Urquhart family have tested positive over the weekend. All double and triple jabbed, ranges from really nothing to one that says its quite nasty.
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
The US still maintains their nothing is better than sub-optimal stance when it comes to covid - they've almost entirely shunned LFTs and AZ. My friends over there need to pay $20+ to get a test.
So it could well be that double and triple jabs people have no idea that it isn't just a bit of a cold they have picked up.
Why should they?
If Covid is presenting as just a cold for triple jabbed folks, why should they care if its covid, or a different coronavirus, or a rhiovirus that's caused them to get the sniffles?
Case vs hospitalisation watch - using the England data, which is the most current (with Covid hospital patient numbers having been updated for today,) there's still no sign of a surge in hospitalisations following the surge in cases, which appears from the specimen date figures to have escalated dramatically one week ago, on December 13th.
According to ONS data, "The median delay (lag) between symptom onset and hospital admission varies between 1 and 6.7 days depending on age and whether the patient lives in a nursing home." Whilst there is also the lag between infection and onset of symptoms to be considered, it seems nonetheless safe to assume that a substantial fraction of those testing positive will only have been motivated to take their tests after manifesting symptoms. So, if there's going to be a dramatic upswing in nationwide hospitalisations to match than in cases, we really ought to be seeing the start of it now - which we aren't. There's a bit of an upswing in progress in London (which has an unusually high concentration of vaccine refusers, of course,) but it's nothing like the preceding jump in caseload and there is, thus far, nothing particularly alarming going on outside of the capital.
The approximate average for the gap between initial infection and hospitalisation is around two weeks. Again, given the escalation in caseload around December 13th, if we can make it all the way to Boxing Day without the hospital numbers going bonkers then there would be good reason to suppose that Omicron is not as much of a threat as has been feared.
The Government doesn't exist solely to run the healthcare system, and ministers are right to show scepticism about some of the more extreme modelling that's been used by some to argue that we must have damaging heavy restrictions or even a disastrous lockdown straight away. If it does turn out that the Government can bring itself to sit on its hands and wait just one more week for more data, then that seems like the correct course of action to me.
So far much of the increase has been in the 0-40 groups. Hence no massive surge in hospitalisations.
This trend has been seen across SA, the UK, and the US. The billion-pound question is why, and whether it'll be maintained. Ideally it's due to lower booster/vaccine takeup, in which case it's time to party like it's 2019.
Its hard to emphasise how much, as noted below as the UKs favourite new past time is impacting the case figures. We have testing through the roof right now on top of what was already a very strong testing regime so no surprise we are going to find more cases.
Out and about in the lovely countryside today I stopped at a village pharmacy and picked up the LFT kit myself, just in case, which illustrates what is happening. Never would have seen myself doing that until the last few days. The public have listened and they are by and large doing their damnest to do the right thing and it will have an impact
I notce a comment below from another_richard on the boosters and age groups and its correct. The admissions data tells us that the over 65s are the single biggest slice of hospitalisations and death but, I think, this is now porportionately reducing thanks to the booster programme. Protect them over winter and you probably will get a working result.
One other thing, and maybe its just me. but listening to various radio outlets today, was there more air time given to other people in medicine and the stats modelling world challenging the SAGE projections or their proposed actions?? None of these people sounded like a loonbag but there was a notable set of counter arguments on a few fronts.
I maybe am not listening in to the Radio4s, the Talkradios, Times Radio etc often enough to see the full picture but it felt like there was a bit of a shift.
Case vs hospitalisation watch - using the England data, which is the most current (with Covid hospital patient numbers having been updated for today,) there's still no sign of a surge in hospitalisations following the surge in cases, which appears from the specimen date figures to have escalated dramatically one week ago, on December 13th.
According to ONS data, "The median delay (lag) between symptom onset and hospital admission varies between 1 and 6.7 days depending on age and whether the patient lives in a nursing home." Whilst there is also the lag between infection and onset of symptoms to be considered, it seems nonetheless safe to assume that a substantial fraction of those testing positive will only have been motivated to take their tests after manifesting symptoms. So, if there's going to be a dramatic upswing in nationwide hospitalisations to match than in cases, we really ought to be seeing the start of it now - which we aren't. There's a bit of an upswing in progress in London (which has an unusually high concentration of vaccine refusers, of course,) but it's nothing like the preceding jump in caseload and there is, thus far, nothing particularly alarming going on outside of the capital.
The approximate average for the gap between initial infection and hospitalisation is around two weeks. Again, given the escalation in caseload around December 13th, if we can make it all the way to Boxing Day without the hospital numbers going bonkers then there would be good reason to suppose that Omicron is not as much of a threat as has been feared.
The Government doesn't exist solely to run the healthcare system, and ministers are right to show scepticism about some of the more extreme modelling that's been used by some to argue that we must have damaging heavy restrictions or even a disastrous lockdown straight away. If it does turn out that the Government can bring itself to sit on its hands and wait just one more week for more data, then that seems like the correct course of action to me.
So far much of the increase has been in the 0-40 groups. Hence no massive surge in hospitalisations.
There would of course have been very few boosters among the under 40s prior to the last few days.
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
The US still maintains their nothing is better than sub-optimal stance when it comes to covid - they've almost entirely shunned LFTs and AZ. My friends over there need to pay $20+ to get a test.
So it could well be that double and triple jabs people have no idea that it isn't just a bit of a cold they have picked up.
More anecdotes. My friend in Germany has had a cold for over a week. Negative tests. Was going to go to her birthday meal tonight. Positive test. Same symptoms and procedure as me. She's 5 months since second jab. Utter mystification as to how she caught it. She's WFH and pretty cautious. That's Omicron bang on. You think you have a head cold. No reason to think otherwise. Suspect the vast majority think they do too.
BREAKING: CDC estimates 73% of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. are caused by the Omicron variant, up from 3% last week
The real time experiment begins.....
That can't be right, surely?
No
We know this can double every 1.5 days
00:01 Day 1: 3%
Noon day 2: 6%
11:59 day 3: 12%
Noon: day 5: 24%
11:59 day 6: 48%
Noon day 8: 96%
Easy. 1 week
No, because you're doubling percentages as thought they were absolute numbers. If that was true, it would mean that Delta cases somehow reduce as Omicron cases increase.
Or put another way, if on Day 1 you have 97k Delta and 3k Omicron, then on Day 8 you might well have 96k Omicron cases, but you'll still have (roughly) 97k Delta, so only 50% Omicron in total.
Mebbes. But you still get the picture. With a virus that doubles this fast it can take over at bewildering, even unbelievable speed
As is the nature with exponential growth, it is intuitively hard to grasp how small numbers explode to big numbers seemingly overnight
Because most things we encounter do NOT grow exponentially
Imagine a tree that doubled in size every season. For the first few years it would be nothing. An acorn, then a tiny green shoot. Then one year it would be one foot tall in winter, then eight foot tall the next winter. A year later it would be 64 feet tall. Big. Just one more year after that it would be 1000 feet tall and one of the biggest organisms on earth.
We almost never see this in nature so its hard to grasp when we DO
The omicron variant now accounts for over 73% of new coronavirus cases in the US, according to estimates posted Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the week ending December 18, Omicron accounted for 73.2% of cases, with Delta making up an additional 26.6%. The week prior, ending December 11, Omicron was estimated at 12.6% of circulating virus, versus Delta's 87%. Previously, the CDC estimated omicron accounted for about 3% that week.
Can anyone understand that?
The odd thing is from data from Google, the 7 day average for those periods has barely changed.
04 December 119,860 11 December 119,280 18 December 127,692
A 7% rise in the last week, but you'd expect more than a 7% rise for such a change in Omicron share, wouldn't you?
Yes but...
If you assume that real daily caseload in the US is 500k, and that Omicron are less likely to be tested for (as milder), then it's possible.
I'm struggling to tell if you're being serious or sarcastic.
BREAKING: CDC estimates 73% of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. are caused by the Omicron variant, up from 3% last week
The real time experiment begins.....
That can't be right, surely?
No
We know this can double every 1.5 days
00:01 Day 1: 3%
Noon day 2: 6%
11:59 day 3: 12%
Noon: day 5: 24%
11:59 day 6: 48%
Noon day 8: 96%
Easy. 1 week
No, because you're doubling percentages as thought they were absolute numbers. If that was true, it would mean that Delta cases somehow reduce as Omicron cases increase.
Or put another way, if on Day 1 you have 97k Delta and 3k Omicron, then on Day 8 you might well have 96k Omicron cases, but you'll still have (roughly) 97k Delta, so only 50% Omicron in total.
Mebbes. But you still get the picture. With a virus that doubles this fast it can take over at bewildering, even unbelievable speed
As is the nature with exponential growth, it is intuitively hard to grasp how small numbers explode to big numbers seemingly overnight
Because most things we encounter do NOT grow exponentially
Imagine a tree that doubled in size every season. For the first few years it would be nothing. An acorn, then a tiny green shoot. Then one year it would be one foot tall in winter, then eight foot tall the next winter. A year later it would be 64 feet tall. Big. Just one more year after that it would be 1000 feet tall and one of the biggest organisms on earth.
We almost never see this in nature so its hard to grasp when we DO
What we don't know is whether omi exhibits a slowing exponential.
Case vs hospitalisation watch - using the England data, which is the most current (with Covid hospital patient numbers having been updated for today,) there's still no sign of a surge in hospitalisations following the surge in cases, which appears from the specimen date figures to have escalated dramatically one week ago, on December 13th.
According to ONS data, "The median delay (lag) between symptom onset and hospital admission varies between 1 and 6.7 days depending on age and whether the patient lives in a nursing home." Whilst there is also the lag between infection and onset of symptoms to be considered, it seems nonetheless safe to assume that a substantial fraction of those testing positive will only have been motivated to take their tests after manifesting symptoms. So, if there's going to be a dramatic upswing in nationwide hospitalisations to match than in cases, we really ought to be seeing the start of it now - which we aren't. There's a bit of an upswing in progress in London (which has an unusually high concentration of vaccine refusers, of course,) but it's nothing like the preceding jump in caseload and there is, thus far, nothing particularly alarming going on outside of the capital.
The approximate average for the gap between initial infection and hospitalisation is around two weeks. Again, given the escalation in caseload around December 13th, if we can make it all the way to Boxing Day without the hospital numbers going bonkers then there would be good reason to suppose that Omicron is not as much of a threat as has been feared.
The Government doesn't exist solely to run the healthcare system, and ministers are right to show scepticism about some of the more extreme modelling that's been used by some to argue that we must have damaging heavy restrictions or even a disastrous lockdown straight away. If it does turn out that the Government can bring itself to sit on its hands and wait just one more week for more data, then that seems like the correct course of action to me.
So far much of the increase has been in the 0-40 groups. Hence no massive surge in hospitalisations.
Much, not all - and younger adults are not invulnerable to serious illness and are still a good deal less likely to be vaccinated than ancients. So, swings and roundabouts.
Anyway, if the Government sticks to the present course and doesn't cave and impose a panic lockdown straight after Boxing Day - a big "if" I know - then we're going to be treated to a fascinating experiment in Northern Europe into how best to handle the Omicronpanic. On one side of the North Sea, Holland, where they've disappeared through a hole in time back to March 2020; on the other side, England, where mitigation consists mainly of draping a piece of blue paper over your gob when you go shopping. Regardless of the results, they should be quite illuminating.
BREAKING: CDC estimates 73% of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. are caused by the Omicron variant, up from 3% last week
The real time experiment begins.....
That can't be right, surely?
No
We know this can double every 1.5 days
00:01 Day 1: 3%
Noon day 2: 6%
11:59 day 3: 12%
Noon: day 5: 24%
11:59 day 6: 48%
Noon day 8: 96%
Easy. 1 week
No, because you're doubling percentages as thought they were absolute numbers. If that was true, it would mean that Delta cases somehow reduce as Omicron cases increase.
Or put another way, if on Day 1 you have 97k Delta and 3k Omicron, then on Day 8 you might well have 96k Omicron cases, but you'll still have (roughly) 97k Delta, so only 50% Omicron in total.
Mebbes. But you still get the picture. With a virus that doubles this fast it can take over at bewildering, even unbelievable speed
As is the nature with exponential growth, it is intuitively hard to grasp how small numbers explode to big numbers seemingly overnight
Because most things we encounter do NOT grow exponentially
Imagine a tree that doubled in size every season. For the first few years it would be nothing. An acorn, then a tiny green shoot. Then one year it would be one foot tall in winter, then eight foot tall the next winter. A year later it would be 64 feet tall. Big. Just one more year after that it would be 1000 feet tall and one of the biggest organisms on earth.
We almost never see this in nature so its hard to grasp when we DO
I mean technically it grows in a logistic way, not an exponential one. Then the real question is how big the population is - if of the boostered people only 5% are vulnerable, and double vaxxed maybe 50%, then the total population for it to grow in is quite small at which point the logistic curve will head it off in short order.
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
The US still maintains their nothing is better than sub-optimal stance when it comes to covid - they've almost entirely shunned LFTs and AZ. My friends over there need to pay $20+ to get a test.
So it could well be that double and triple jabs people have no idea that it isn't just a bit of a cold they have picked up.
More anecdotes. My friend in Germany has had a cold for over a week. Negative tests. Was going to go to her birthday meal tonight. Positive test. Same symptoms and procedure as me. She's 5 months since second jab. Utter mystification as to how she caught it. She's WFH and pretty cautious. That's Omicron bang on. You think you have a head cold. No reason to think otherwise. Suspect the vast majority think they do too.
I've long had the theory that Covid would ultimately become 'just another cold' once this is over with. Both because of evolution, and because of immunity (in part it was our being naive to Covid that made it so horrid originally)
It seems we're on the way there already. If all its giving you is a cold then I don't see why we should care whether its a Covid cold or A.N.Other cold.
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
The US still maintains their nothing is better than sub-optimal stance when it comes to covid - they've almost entirely shunned LFTs and AZ. My friends over there need to pay $20+ to get a test.
So it could well be that double and triple jabs people have no idea that it isn't just a bit of a cold they have picked up.
More anecdotes. My friend in Germany has had a cold for over a week. Negative tests. Was going to go to her birthday meal tonight. Positive test. Same symptoms and procedure as me. She's 5 months since second jab. Utter mystification as to how she caught it. She's WFH and pretty cautious. That's Omicron bang on. You think you have a head cold. No reason to think otherwise. Suspect the vast majority think they do too.
I've long had the theory that Covid would ultimately become 'just another cold' once this is over with. Both because of evolution, and because of immunity (in part it was our being naive to Covid that made it so horrid originally)
It seems we're on the way there already. If all its giving you is a cold then I don't see why we should care whether its a Covid cold or A.N.Other cold.
Yeah. Am leaning towards your point of view. From a very small sample size. Would caution though. I had "just a cold". In terms of symptoms... But I would categorise it as 5 times worse than any cold I've ever had. It will take the vulnerable. As many died from the chills in prior centuries. Before we develop immunity. So. It is a cold. But not yet "just" a cold.
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
The US still maintains their nothing is better than sub-optimal stance when it comes to covid - they've almost entirely shunned LFTs and AZ. My friends over there need to pay $20+ to get a test.
So it could well be that double and triple jabs people have no idea that it isn't just a bit of a cold they have picked up.
More anecdotes. My friend in Germany has had a cold for over a week. Negative tests. Was going to go to her birthday meal tonight. Positive test. Same symptoms and procedure as me. She's 5 months since second jab. Utter mystification as to how she caught it. She's WFH and pretty cautious. That's Omicron bang on. You think you have a head cold. No reason to think otherwise. Suspect the vast majority think they do too.
I've long had the theory that Covid would ultimately become 'just another cold' once this is over with. Both because of evolution, and because of immunity (in part it was our being naive to Covid that made it so horrid originally)
It seems we're on the way there already. If all its giving you is a cold then I don't see why we should care whether its a Covid cold or A.N.Other cold.
Yeah. Am leaning towards your point of view. From a very small sample size. Would caution though. I had "just a cold". In terms of symptoms... But I would categorise it as 5 times worse than any cold I've ever had. It will take the vulnerable. As many died from the chills in prior centuries. Before we develop immunity. So. It is a cold. But not yet "just" a cold.
I'm assuming what you're describing is your first dose of covid?
Presumably as it goes around the second time you get it will be less bad than the first, and so on.
I know very few people who've had it twice. Just one, in fact - and to be honest I wouldn't put it past her to not exactly be telling the truth. But I understand it's the sort of thing we get again.
What is testing like in the US these days? Have they also picked up the UK new favourite national past time of LFTing? Or is it still very much reactive testing, such that all these mild / asymptomatic cases are hiding from view?
The US still maintains their nothing is better than sub-optimal stance when it comes to covid - they've almost entirely shunned LFTs and AZ. My friends over there need to pay $20+ to get a test.
So it could well be that double and triple jabs people have no idea that it isn't just a bit of a cold they have picked up.
More anecdotes. My friend in Germany has had a cold for over a week. Negative tests. Was going to go to her birthday meal tonight. Positive test. Same symptoms and procedure as me. She's 5 months since second jab. Utter mystification as to how she caught it. She's WFH and pretty cautious. That's Omicron bang on. You think you have a head cold. No reason to think otherwise. Suspect the vast majority think they do too.
I've long had the theory that Covid would ultimately become 'just another cold' once this is over with. Both because of evolution, and because of immunity (in part it was our being naive to Covid that made it so horrid originally)
It seems we're on the way there already. If all its giving you is a cold then I don't see why we should care whether its a Covid cold or A.N.Other cold.
Yeah. Am leaning towards your point of view. From a very small sample size. Would caution though. I had "just a cold". In terms of symptoms... But I would categorise it as 5 times worse than any cold I've ever had. It will take the vulnerable. As many died from the chills in prior centuries. Before we develop immunity. So. It is a cold. But not yet "just" a cold.
Yeah but the thing with a cold is how many of them have you had in your life? And when did you first have one?
Everyone first gets a cold as a child, and we know even without vaccines that Covid doesn't really effect children. So normally in the wild with other coronaviruses you'd have natural immunity before you first get it as an adult.
If this was your first time around with Covid and its 5 times worst, maybe next time you get it its only 2-3 times worst and by the fifth time you've had it, you can't tell the difference between it and any other cold.
Comments
If you're not first you're a puppet PM.
The only reason you're still in the big chair is because no one has the strength to oust you.
And it works if your style is collegiate, and you defer to the superior expertise of others. Campbell Bannerman. Attlee. Major to a degree.
Not Boris.
I recall sitting in the MCG, in the 90s and from the crowd as much as I disliked it, it was even more impressive watching Warne and McGrath bowl in real life. The tension of almost every delivery, the extremely aggressive fielding etc
Each English batsman walking out, there was an atmosphere of when not if they'd be walking back to the pavilion.
If you're in favour of protectionism then do protectionism properly. Saying this free trade is good but that free trade is bad because it leads to competition seems to be rank hypocrisy - especially when we have such a trade deficit with Europe.
It won't take that long to build up trading relationships with the other side of the planet, we already have some. Most of our exports go to the rest of the world not the EU already anyway.
A return to Cabinet Government can only be a good thing.
Esther McVey
@EstherMcVey1
·
5h
Pleased the Cabinet and PM (recognising where majority opinion is in Parliamentary Party) are now listening to their backbench MPs & for once pushed back on the scaremongering by the lockdown fanatics. It seems the 100 strong backbench rebellion last week has made a difference.
Odd to see Mexico having a better rating than Canada and the USA.
Now he has no "sensible, moderate" wing to fall back on or pivot to.
Nor seemingly any faction or allies at all. It was all based on him being a "winner".
Pull that curtain back and what is revealed is a void. A moderate ideology free man who chose to ride a tiger. And he fell off.
Hubris and nemesis.
Or just click on top left thingy when it laods with the 404.
The ones thrown out in 2019 were the die hard zealots who were prepared to sacrifice their party membership to insist Article 50 gets extended for a third time.
Ireland pubs close at 8pm over the holidays
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KKt-gVGKZA
Boris/Thatcher comparisons were laughable at the best of times.
This isn't one of those.
Of course all this involves actually working at the job rather than sitting around with the Osborne catalog choosing wallpaper before you go for another dump and read a comic book.
Building on the many of the past six weeks or so?
Cos to me it looks like a shambles that is spiralling out of control.
Err, I think I can easily see who the die-hard zealots were, and it sure as hell wasn't those wanting a bit more time to figure out what exactly we were trying to do. Perhaps if they'd been listened do, we wouldn't have a government tying itself in knots and mislaying its Brexit Secretary because of its unsuccessful attempt to undo the oven-ready deal it signed up to and hailed as a triumph just two years ago.
Hopefully this is the beginning of things getting turned around and the shambles coming to an end.
The breakdown is good - indicates that something major would have to change to strip us of our basic civil liberties.
Dixie, as much as you evidently dislike him, I'd somewhat struggle to describe Sunak/Truss/Kwarteng/Wallace/Gove etc etc as hardliners.
This is why sage are pushing so hard for lockdown. If we see that something goes away by itself...
The real time experiment begins.....
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1473067440623996932
Who would guess that constantly trying to ban people's lives would be unpopular? At the moment he's treading the worst of both worlds line - upsetting all.
The omicron variant now accounts for over 73% of new coronavirus cases in the US, according to estimates posted Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the week ending December 18, Omicron accounted for 73.2% of cases, with Delta making up an additional 26.6%.
The week prior, ending December 11, Omicron was estimated at 12.6% of circulating virus, versus Delta's 87%. Previously, the CDC estimated omicron accounted for about 3% that week.
Can anyone understand that?
We had already had 2 years to get Brexit done, and 2 further extensions. The EU were claiming they'd never renegotiate with us, Parliament had rejected the agreement. It was time quite frankly to 'shit or get off the pot'.
"A bit more time" is nothing but an excuse by the zealots to never get Brexit done.
https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1473067709504147459?s=20
One reason I could come up with is last week they just weren't sequencing sufficient numbers.
Yep.
And as the Cabinet decided - we don't have that data yet.
All we have is modelling based on inputs that are not real world.
Now the modelling may be top notch and right on the money.
But I would venture to say that after two years of modelling - it probably almost certainly isn't.
04 December 119,860
11 December 119,280
18 December 127,692
A 7% rise in the last week, but you'd expect more than a 7% rise for such a change in Omicron share, wouldn't you?
https://order-order.com/2021/12/20/rachel-riley-wins-10000-pay-out-from-former-corbyn-aide-laura-murray/
The loser in this trial is the daughter of SAGE member Susan Michie iirc.
Do they never think that if they get their people's revolution that perhaps the people might object to their massively inherited wealth...and I don't mean in a nice sort of way where there is a polite discussion of some tea and cake, as that is never what happens.
- rapid rises preceed to rapid falls.
- the rapid falls happen long before herd immunity kicks in - remember the towns in Brazil?
If you assume that real daily caseload in the US is 500k, and that Omicron are less likely to be tested for (as milder), then it's possible.
It's quite refreshing to see that over the past week or so Govt. has reacted well as data has become available, operating initially on the (sensible) assumption that we have to assume Delta=Omicron until data become available. One of two tick marks for this government amongst the litany of abject failure over the past 24 months.
On the topic of boosters - I was really impressed how this GP surgery in a village of about 10k managed to set up marquees to process their entire villages's population every couple of days (14 jabbers - 7 people done between them per minute (I was bored enough to measure the rate) for 12 hours a day), in just a couple of days.
- Cabinet follows Thatchers line = Dictatorship
- Cabinet votes against Thatcher = Weak Thatcher struggling not to be over thrown.
Sometimes in the same day..... and often the same journalist!
According to ONS data, "The median delay (lag) between symptom onset and hospital admission varies between 1 and 6.7 days depending on age and whether the patient lives in a nursing home." Whilst there is also the lag between infection and onset of symptoms to be considered, it seems nonetheless safe to assume that a substantial fraction of those testing positive will only have been motivated to take their tests after manifesting symptoms. So, if there's going to be a dramatic upswing in nationwide hospitalisations to match than in cases, we really ought to be seeing the start of it now - which we aren't. There's a bit of an upswing in progress in London (which has an unusually high concentration of vaccine refusers, of course,) but it's nothing like the preceding jump in caseload and there is, thus far, nothing particularly alarming going on outside of the capital.
The approximate average for the gap between initial infection and hospitalisation is around two weeks. Again, given the escalation in caseload around December 13th, if we can make it all the way to Boxing Day without the hospital numbers going bonkers then there would be good reason to suppose that Omicron is not as much of a threat as has been feared.
The Government doesn't exist solely to run the healthcare system, and ministers are right to show scepticism about some of the more extreme modelling that's been used by some to argue that we must have damaging heavy restrictions or even a disastrous lockdown straight away. If it does turn out that the Government can bring itself to sit on its hands and wait just one more week for more data, then that seems like the correct course of action to me.
Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico
·
5m
Oh, I think the VoNC happens if there are restrictions even if Truss & Sunak back them publicly & fully. But I think it'll *pass* unless at least one & probably both of them back them publicly & fully.
We know this can double every 1.5 days
00:01 Day 1: 3%
Noon day 2: 6%
11:59 day 3: 12%
Noon: day 5: 24%
11:59 day 6: 48%
Noon day 8: 96%
Easy. 1 week
The only thing I can think of is another one of these back of an envelope calculations where they have extrapolated some data point where they see positive test results including the re-infected (that aren't in the daily numbers) and then multiplied up by previous rough multiplier they used for infections to cases of about 2-3x.
One his fellow Conservatives and Eurosceptics should heed over the next few weeks.
Which would have meant 97k Delta and 3k Omicron.
For Omicron to now be at 73% of new cases it would have to be 3x the number of Delta cases.
Which would mean 300k Omicron and 100k Delta equalling 400k in total.
Which it isn't.
Unless that is the number of Delta cases had collapsed.
Mid 50s, healthy, no comorbidities
He says it is incredibly mild, “not as bad as a cold”
FWIW
Dr Duncan Robertson
@Dr_D_Robertson
·
19m
The virus doesn't read the newspapers.
Or put another way, if on Day 1 you have 97k Delta and 3k Omicron, then on Day 8 you might well have 96k Omicron cases, but you'll still have (roughly) 97k Delta, so only 50% Omicron in total.
If Covid is presenting as just a cold for triple jabbed folks, why should they care if its covid, or a different coronavirus, or a rhiovirus that's caused them to get the sniffles?
Out and about in the lovely countryside today I stopped at a village pharmacy and picked up the LFT kit myself, just in case, which illustrates what is happening. Never would have seen myself doing that until the last few days. The public have listened and they are by and large doing their damnest to do the right thing and it will have an impact
I notce a comment below from another_richard on the boosters and age groups and its correct. The admissions data tells us that the over 65s are the single biggest slice of hospitalisations and death but, I think, this is now porportionately reducing thanks to the booster programme. Protect them over winter and you probably will get a working result.
One other thing, and maybe its just me. but listening to various radio outlets today, was there more air time given to other people in medicine and the stats modelling world challenging the SAGE projections or their proposed actions?? None of these people sounded like a loonbag but there was a notable set of counter arguments on a few fronts.
I maybe am not listening in to the Radio4s, the Talkradios, Times Radio etc often enough to see the full picture but it felt like there was a bit of a shift.
Was going to go to her birthday meal tonight. Positive test. Same symptoms and procedure as me. She's 5 months since second jab. Utter mystification as to how she caught it. She's WFH and pretty cautious.
That's Omicron bang on.
You think you have a head cold. No reason to think otherwise. Suspect the vast majority think they do too.
As is the nature with exponential growth, it is intuitively hard to grasp how small numbers explode to big numbers seemingly overnight
Because most things we encounter do NOT grow exponentially
Imagine a tree that doubled in size every season. For the first few years it would be nothing. An acorn, then a tiny green shoot. Then one year it would be one foot tall in winter, then eight foot tall the next winter. A year later it would be 64 feet tall. Big. Just one more year after that it would be 1000 feet tall and one of the biggest organisms on earth.
We almost never see this in nature so its hard to grasp when we DO
Could make a lot of difference.
Anyway, if the Government sticks to the present course and doesn't cave and impose a panic lockdown straight after Boxing Day - a big "if" I know - then we're going to be treated to a fascinating experiment in Northern Europe into how best to handle the Omicronpanic. On one side of the North Sea, Holland, where they've disappeared through a hole in time back to March 2020; on the other side, England, where mitigation consists mainly of draping a piece of blue paper over your gob when you go shopping. Regardless of the results, they should be quite illuminating.
It seems we're on the way there already. If all its giving you is a cold then I don't see why we should care whether its a Covid cold or A.N.Other cold.
Would caution though. I had "just a cold". In terms of symptoms...
But I would categorise it as 5 times worse than any cold I've ever had. It will take the vulnerable. As many died from the chills in prior centuries. Before we develop immunity.
So. It is a cold. But not yet "just" a cold.
Presumably as it goes around the second time you get it will be less bad than the first, and so on.
I know very few people who've had it twice. Just one, in fact - and to be honest I wouldn't put it past her to not exactly be telling the truth. But I understand it's the sort of thing we get again.
Everyone first gets a cold as a child, and we know even without vaccines that Covid doesn't really effect children. So normally in the wild with other coronaviruses you'd have natural immunity before you first get it as an adult.
If this was your first time around with Covid and its 5 times worst, maybe next time you get it its only 2-3 times worst and by the fifth time you've had it, you can't tell the difference between it and any other cold.
That's my theory as to what will happen anyway.