It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
The UK figures on whether the Covid pandemic is still ongoing are about 50/50 too when DKs excluded. It is the same across the different political parties.
I would say endemic rather than pandemic myself, but it certainly hasn't gone away.
“Pandemic” isn’t an entirely well-defined term. It’s also a very misunderstood term, so people presume it implies severity or novelty (which it doesn’t). For example, HIV/AIDS is still considered a pandemic over 40 years on, even though our relationship with it has hugely changed over that time.
The WHO downgraded COVID-19 from being a “public health emergency of international concern” last May, but still calls it a pandemic. Endemic status is perhaps best defined by stable case numbers and COVID numbers arguably haven’t stabilised in much of the world. It’s still coming in waves.
So, if I met a survey question asking is COVID still a pandemic, I’d want to reply, “It’s complicated. Yes, but that’s not really what you are asking.”
I’d disagree on your definition of endemic though. The classic example is FMD which is endemic to certain regions of the world despite the approval of DIVA compatible FMDv. The issue is the existence of a natural reservoir that allows for reinfection so it never really goes away. I’d say COVID is like that.
The alternatives are influenza which is an epidemic because it is seasonal and burns itself out before a new virus mutates past our immune system, but not serious enough to be a pandemic.
I haven’t really thought about HIV but I’d be more included to classify it as endemic rather than pandemic.
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Agreed. You have to pay for them nowadays, why bother?
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
I don't know anything about Gullis. Can someone explain why he is so much worse than other Tory MPs?
He's a Tory so that's enough.
That is patently untrue. One nation Tories are fine.
Gullis is a humourless and apparently intellect-free populist's populist. He is a walking -talking parody of Johnsonian Conservatism.
"apparently"
People just latch onto hate figures in either party then try to justify their irrational hatred of them. Gullis just seems to trigger people. Don't know why. I know little of him and I doubt he has any name recognition at all.
In the same way lots of racists find other reasons than her colour to dislike Diane Abbott, when it really is her colour. That also applies to many of her detractors in Labour as well. As she points out.
If Gullis had impinged on your consciousness before yesterday I am impressed. I had certainly not heard of him. From what I learned on last night's thread it wasn't much of a loss either.
You have been fortunate in that Jonathan Gullis' manifold proclamations have passed you by. He has been very active in calling out everything that the current Starmer-Labour Government* stands for. Now he has been given the Lee Anderson role he will doubtless call them out some more.
* I'm not sure he has got the hang of which party is in power.
I think the "bellowing" in the Commons while refusing to wear a mask got quite prominent coverage at the time.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
There is a serious point lurking here. The truth, of course, is that not everything is broken and people continue to tickle the baby's toes, make Yorkshire pudding for grandchildren, complain about the weather, receive incomprehensible communications from the NHS and HMRC and see their GPs and get referred for cancer treatment.
Overall, our cup is about half empty and we feel it is getting emptier.
If Labour manage competently WRT communication, planning, blame dispersal and generalised spiritual uplift, the cup will magically transform from being half empty to half full, and even possibly with a chance of getting a little fuller.
Starmer's style suggests, sensibly, not a Blairite 'new dawn' nor the arrival of a revolution but a but slower and gradualist approach to this. Good. It's our only chance for now.
I suspect that people's sense of entitlement is growing faster than the capabilities to fulfil them and far faster than what people are actually willing to pay for.
I see Andy Cooke is saying that LibDems in Didcot and Wantage are scrupulous about bar charts. I actually received one of them this week - it's the most distorted bar chart that I've ever seen. It's also effectively about a different constituency, as D&W has lost 15,000 mostly Tory and LibDem rural voters from the old Wantage seat. And it's from 2019.
As in mid-Beds, it's a real problem in partly rural seats that LibDems feel they own the right to oppose the Tories, but the effect is that where there's a major swing to Labour it gets put at risk by LibDem leaflets that falsely purport to show it's not happening. There certainly are seats where the LibDems are the only serious challengers to the Tories - I can think of two in Surrey that I know very well. But they don't do their cause any good by trying the same tactic in seats that are effectively three-way marginals.
I'm chair of D&W Labour, and it's now a Labour target, so I'll be spending all my time here until the election. Perhaps Andy and I can have a PB bet on the outcome.
@NickPalmer can you explain why Labour are canvassing and leafleting in Guildford and the leaflet has a bar chart on it with Lab on on 33%, Tories 31% and LD on 30%?
Does that beat your most distorted bar chart you have ever seen?
These sort of tactics could cause the Tories to hold on against the LDs in Guildford and one can only assume these are Lab tactics here. Why are they doing it? What the hell is the point? Why don't they fight somewhere where their leaflets and canvassing will do some good?
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
The top down re-organisation of the NHS that the Tories didn't do, having of course promised not to, would no doubt have absorbed a lot of staff time had it happened. So lucky, all in all, that it did not, I guess.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
It makes sense, eventually you have to make peace with inevitability.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
That's frightening, but sadly unsurprising to me. When I had viral meningitis eight years ago, my memory, especially short-term memory, was badly affected for at least nine months. It's better now, but I've no idea if it's back to where it was before.
Standing at the burglar alarm, crying because I could not remember a code I had entered hundreds of time before as the alarm blared out, was not pleasant.
If these little blighters get into your brain, they can easily cause semi-permanent, if not permanent, damage.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
Or the politics of closing four hospitals and replacing them with a new one with fewer overall beds:
The balance of spending has shifted as part of a national change in priorities. When the Aarhus super-hospital replaced four smaller hospitals last year, the total number of beds fell from 1,300 to 850. “We got a budget cut of 8 per cent when we relocated here but the efficiency is very much higher,” Poul Blaabjerg, the chief executive, says. “We treat a lot more patients with fewer resources. There has been a big reallocation of tasks from the hospitals to the municipalities.”
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
I'd be curious if anyone has done any morbid mathematics to determine whether exercise actually does reduce cost to the Exchequer over the long-term, its quite possibly the opposite.
I recall a statistic that smoking is good for the Exchequer, despite the vast cost of smoking-related illnesses on the NHS, not simply because of the duties on tobacco, but because smokers die younger they claim less in pensions so the Exchequer ends up better off net.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
As a general rule for life in Britain this graph applies:
Just catching up; I am supremely unworried about what happens to Banksy's graffiti! I'm pleased to say that the BBC is now running with something more appropriate; the cruel death of an unfortunate infant, and the iniquity of its parents.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
I'd be curious if anyone has done any morbid mathematics to determine whether exercise actually does reduce cost to the Exchequer over the long-term, its quite possibly the opposite.
I recall a statistic that smoking is good for the Exchequer, despite the vast cost of smoking-related illnesses on the NHS, not simply because of the duties on tobacco, but because smokers die younger they claim less in pensions so the Exchequer ends up better off net.
I see Andy Cooke is saying that LibDems in Didcot and Wantage are scrupulous about bar charts. I actually received one of them this week - it's the most distorted bar chart that I've ever seen. It's also effectively about a different constituency, as D&W has lost 15,000 mostly Tory and LibDem rural voters from the old Wantage seat. And it's from 2019.
As in mid-Beds, it's a real problem in partly rural seats that LibDems feel they own the right to oppose the Tories, but the effect is that where there's a major swing to Labour it gets put at risk by LibDem leaflets that falsely purport to show it's not happening. There certainly are seats where the LibDems are the only serious challengers to the Tories - I can think of two in Surrey that I know very well. But they don't do their cause any good by trying the same tactic in seats that are effectively three-way marginals.
I'm chair of D&W Labour, and it's now a Labour target, so I'll be spending all my time here until the election. Perhaps Andy and I can have a PB bet on the outcome.
@NickPalmer can you explain why Labour are canvassing and leafleting in Guildford and the leaflet has a bar chart on it with Lab on on 33%, Tories 31% and LD on 30%?
Does that beat your most distorted bar chart you have ever seen?
These sort of tactics could cause the Tories to hold on against the LDs in Guildford and one can only assume these are Lab tactics here. Why are they doing it? What the hell is the point? Why don't they fight somewhere where their leaflets and canvassing will do some good?
I might also add next to the bar chart it says:
'The other parties would have you believe that Labour is not in the race in Guildford. Beware of dodgy Lib Dem statistics.'
The irony of the 2nd sentence just makes you choke on your cornflakes being next to the bar chart.
So Labour should put its own house in order before preaching to the LDs. At least in the cases cited the LDs are actually challengers in the case of Guildford Labour are just spoilers plain and simple.
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
As a general rule for life in Britain this graph applies:
It's bizarre to me how many opinion writers cast around for explanations for this phenomena and somehow miss the obvious explanation that the Tories have done a bad job of running the country.
We'll look back on these 15 years as basically a disaster, with contrarian historians arguing that maybe Brexit was inevitable, and there was some progress on gay marriage, international development, climate change and some education reforms which worked out.
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
That's frightening, but sadly unsurprising to me. When I had viral meningitis eight years ago, my memory, especially short-term memory, was badly affected for at least nine months. It's better now, but I've no idea if it's back to where it was before.
Standing at the burglar alarm, crying because I could not remember a code I had entered hundreds of time before as the alarm blared out, was not pleasant.
If these little blighters get into your brain, they can easily cause semi-permanent, if not permanent, damage.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
I like the pun.
I doubt changing leader, another divisive campaign, is going to improve Tory chances whoever ultimately wins.
But if you mean, are there Tory mps who could run the country better for the next 6 months, then I think the answer probably is yes. I doubt they'd have much chance in this Tory party though.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
As a general rule for life in Britain this graph applies:
It's bizarre to me how many opinion writers cast around for explanations for this phenomena and somehow miss the obvious explanation that the Tories have done a bad job of running the country.
We'll look back on these 15 years as basically a disaster, with contrarian historians arguing that maybe Brexit was inevitable, and there was some progress on gay marriage, international development, climate change and some education reforms which worked out.
The rot really started with the 2008 financial crisis and bailout of the banks. Since then its been a downside spiral first slowly and now more quickly.
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
He’s doing a bad job because sections of his party won’t let him do otherwise. Changing leader won’t change much because the problem isn’t the leader its the party.
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
I like the pun.
I doubt changing leader, another divisive campaign, is going to improve Tory chances whoever ultimately wins.
But if you mean, are there Tory mps who could run the country better for the next 6 months, then I think the answer probably is yes. I doubt they'd have much chance in this Tory party though.
Maybe, maybe not, who knows.
But if you've got a definite dud in charge and could possibly get a semi-decent leader or possibly get another dud, then analysing the probability suggests you should make the change.
A possibility of a semi-decent leader is better than no possibility at all.
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
He’s doing a bad job because sections of his party won’t let him do otherwise. Changing leader won’t change much because the problem isn’t the leader its the party.
What should he be doing that they are not letting him?
Plot twist: the sculptor named as its creator denied any knowledge of the statue.
And it wasn't the DofE when it started out. Terrible though it is, it isn't the worst recent statuary in Cambridge. There are a load of what I can only describe as "oversized garden centre ornaments" that have appeared over the last few years. A bear. Some lions. They are bloody awful.
On a scale of 0-10, how much do they inspire Fascist feelings when you view them?
There's a lot about Cambridge that inspires Fascist feelings in me.
What is it that *first* upset you about The Fenland Poly branch of Patrice Lumumba Uni (Moscow)?
Being expected to appear at lectures and supervisions for the tripos in which I was supposed to be examined when there were guitars to be played and drinks to be drunk and a large number of distractingly attractive people in attendance. Needless to say, I didn't.
If they didn't try to make you feel bad about *something*, then everything else wouldn't be fun? Forbidden fruit and all that.
EDIT: I did Comp Sci at uni. 8 hours of lectures a week. So I picked courses so that my first lecture was never before 10 and the last at about 3pm. The space in-between the two lectures was when I did all the course works, revision (yes, ahead of time). This meant I was free for... socialising from 4pm every day. And daytime drinking was so boring.
I had a mate at University in Aberdeen doing social sciences and his last lecture of the week was Tuesday afternoon! His weekend started then!
Whereas I had 9 am lectures all week with labs in the afternoon 3 days a week. My degree was in Physics.
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
As a general rule for life in Britain this graph applies:
It's bizarre to me how many opinion writers cast around for explanations for this phenomena and somehow miss the obvious explanation that the Tories have done a bad job of running the country.
We'll look back on these 15 years as basically a disaster, with contrarian historians arguing that maybe Brexit was inevitable, and there was some progress on gay marriage, international development, climate change and some education reforms which worked out.
Plus the affluent oldies, the full employment and the NHS provided with extra money and extra workers.
But those that benefit from improvements rapidly take them for granted and then demand more.
That was the ship that blocked the Suez Canal for six days in 2021. "All your base are belong to us!"
TwiX is claiming the ship’s captain is Ukrainian! Which makes it insanely delicious for conspiracy theorists (if true)
I have no clue. I will say the final movements of the ship look bizarre to me. But equally all accidents look bizarre in their own way - and you can find weird coincidences everywhere
All members of the ship’s crew were from India, except two pilots from Baltimore.
If you will read posts from Russian troll farms, however…
Leon is getting as weird as Plato became. He's so keen for the *dramatic*, that the few critical faculties he has are never troubled.
You all know my views about him.
As everyone I’m sure knows, he was a highly successful author albeit not of high-brow literature. But the subject matter and kind of tales he spun didn’t just go out of fashion, the public became positively repulsed by them. He tried publishing under alternative pseudonyms with more limited results.
Now he is left trying to monopolise the conversations on a minor UK political forum (no offence) and seems to be getting, as you say, weirder and wilder by the week. We’ve seen similar rabbit-hole activities from people like Laurence Fox and Joey Barton.
If he was truly as bright as he likes to tell us, he’d have the self-awareness to take a step back, recognise what’s going on psychologically, and return to more sensible ground.
You are weirdly obsessed with me. I am easily bored and like attention. So it’s win win
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
I'd be curious if anyone has done any morbid mathematics to determine whether exercise actually does reduce cost to the Exchequer over the long-term, its quite possibly the opposite.
I recall a statistic that smoking is good for the Exchequer, despite the vast cost of smoking-related illnesses on the NHS, not simply because of the duties on tobacco, but because smokers die younger they claim less in pensions so the Exchequer ends up better off net.
Exercise is almost certainly a net benefit, as it will reduce the incidence of costly chronic disease. Smoking is good as it reduces lifespan sufficiently to save more on geriatric healthcare than it costs in treating smoking related diseases..
There's probably a degree of uncertainty about longer term effects on the cost of geriatric medicine - but we'll only find out long after any such scheme is implemented in a large scale.
He’s doing a bad job because sections of his party won’t let him do otherwise. Changing leader won’t change much because the problem isn’t the leader its the party.
No, he's really bad.
The party are not helping, but he is also particularly bad.
He might be OK, were it not for everything he does. And everything he says.
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
A few points drop in iq in the population doesnt sound like much but it means dropping from an advanced first world country to a more south anerican chaotic type society.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
Sunak must be relieved the NHS satisfaction survey came out now . No PMQs .
From 70% to 24% under the Tories . The decline perfectly correlates with their time in office .
Parliaments off for a month right?
We could be having a general election and putting an end to this farce of a government but Squatter Rishi wants a few more months squatting in Downing St so on and on we go...
A few points drop in iq in the population doesnt sound like much but it means dropping from an advanced first world country to a more south anerican chaotic type society.
The whole idea that 'IQ' is a meaningful measure of intelligence is bogus in the first place.
Fussing about a few points drop in a poor measure seems a little silly.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
The "dripping wet one nationers" - like Ken Clarke - have little to do with the running of the current Tory party. Sunak is just a right winger who's also a poor leader.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Wow! That is remarkably honest of you, M.
Whilst I do not think it is helpful for good governance to have a weak Opposition, I do believe it will be good for the Conservative Party to have a sober and solid rethink about what its purpose and future aims should be.
A few points drop in iq in the population doesnt sound like much but it means dropping from an advanced first world country to a more south anerican chaotic type society.
The whole idea that 'IQ' is a meaningful measure of intelligence is bogus in the first place.
Fussing about a few points drop in a poor measure seems a little silly.
Oh please not this idea again. Higher iq countries are generally richer.
Meanwhile, I read that sewage spills into England's rivers and seas more than doubled between 2022 and 2023. A pretty decent metaphor for the state we're in.
The water companies, of course, are attributing the problem to heavy rainfall in 2023. Well, that's alright then. Nationalise the greedy fuckwits.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Which just shows how deluded they are - Sunak is about as far from one nation Toryism as you could get - Brexiteer from the start, believes in tax cuts and public expenditure cuts, high-profile anti-immigration stance. He's probably the most rightwing Tory leader since IDS, well to the right of Boris.
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
I am increasingly coming around to the idea that the Tories have nothing to lose by getting rid of Sunak - It can't possibly get any worse?
That ridiculous attack ad for the London Mayoralty was the final straw for me. The Tories should use the time Squatter Sunak is trying to string out for himself to roll the dice one last time and get rid...
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
This is one reason a January election might appeal to the Conservative Party. The holiday period will stop the Opposition parties deploying their activists, completely nullifying their huge advantage.
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
That's frightening, but sadly unsurprising to me. When I had viral meningitis eight years ago, my memory, especially short-term memory, was badly affected for at least nine months. It's better now, but I've no idea if it's back to where it was before.
Standing at the burglar alarm, crying because I could not remember a code I had entered hundreds of time before as the alarm blared out, was not pleasant.
If these little blighters get into your brain, they can easily cause semi-permanent, if not permanent, damage.
Isn't Long Flu a thing?
The most pernicious disease we have all been suffering from is 14 years of Long Tory.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Which just shows how deluded they are - Sunak is about as far from one nation Toryism as you could get - Brexiteer from the start, believes in tax cuts and public expenditure cuts, high-profile anti-immigration stance. He's probably the most rightwing Tory leader since IDS, well to the right of Boris.
Whether he's left or right doesn't matter as he's entirely ******* useless!
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Yes definitely (although I don't see it) - but alga's quote was for SKS being PM after the election not *next* PM. You'd want better odds for the latter. Maybe 1/5.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Yet this government repeatedly trumpets about inputs (staff and money) yet productivity declines and satisfaction worsens. Its your own party that you need to give the lecture to.
Improving productivity in the NHS is essential, but not really very different from any other service industry. Investment is needed in modern buildings, capital equipment like operating theatres and scanners and by improving staff training and retention.
A few points drop in iq in the population doesnt sound like much but it means dropping from an advanced first world country to a more south anerican chaotic type society.
The whole idea that 'IQ' is a meaningful measure of intelligence is bogus in the first place.
Fussing about a few points drop in a poor measure seems a little silly.
Oh please not this idea again. Higher iq countries are generally richer.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Which just shows how deluded they are - Sunak is about as far from one nation Toryism as you could get - Brexiteer from the start, believes in tax cuts and public expenditure cuts, high-profile anti-immigration stance. He's probably the most rightwing Tory leader since IDS, well to the right of Boris.
And yet all his hardcore supporters are one nationers?
The problem with Sunak is to socialists he seems really right wing, but to conservatives like me he appears the most left wing PM of my lifetime.
Failure of politics and communication. People will write PhDs about how ineffective this current govt is. Perhaps the least effective of the modern era.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
This is one reason a January election might appeal to the Conservative Party. The holiday period will stop the Opposition parties deploying their activists, completely nullifying their huge advantage.
No. Us leftie activists reject the bourgeois notion of a consumerist Christmas, we don't go skiing at New Year, and we will happily trudge from door to door throughout the holiday period.
Apart from that, there's zero chance of a January election.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Wow! That is remarkably honest of you, M.
Whilst I do not think it is helpful for good governance to have a weak Opposition, I do believe it will be good for the Conservative Party to have a sober and solid rethink about what its purpose and future aims should be.
Indeed.
The activists that I speak to are more small-state than the current govt. I hope that plus being unashamedly pro building is where the future of the Tory party lies.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
I'd be curious if anyone has done any morbid mathematics to determine whether exercise actually does reduce cost to the Exchequer over the long-term, its quite possibly the opposite.
I recall a statistic that smoking is good for the Exchequer, despite the vast cost of smoking-related illnesses on the NHS, not simply because of the duties on tobacco, but because smokers die younger they claim less in pensions so the Exchequer ends up better off net.
Exercise is almost certainly a net benefit, as it will reduce the incidence of costly chronic disease. Smoking is good as it reduces lifespan sufficiently to save more on geriatric healthcare than it costs in treating smoking related diseases..
There's probably a degree of uncertainty about longer term effects on the cost of geriatric medicine - but we'll only find out long after any such scheme is implemented in a large scale.
The ideal is probably someone like my paternal grandmother, who died at age 86 in her sleep having been independent and on - I think - no medications and with only one hospital stay about 8 years earlier for a broken hip after being hit by a car.
I'm not quite sure how we engineer that, though. My dad is currently 81 and has statins, but that is it. As far as I know, he's never had a hospital admission, so we probably need some selective breeding (My mum has long term illness with multiple hospital admissions and frequent outpatient visits and is only mid-70s; her mum also had illness for the last five years of her life)
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
This is one reason a January election might appeal to the Conservative Party. The holiday period will stop the Opposition parties deploying their activists, completely nullifying their huge advantage.
A winter election wouldn't be welcome but it would not completely nullify Labour's grassroots advantage. Having a campaign over Christmas would annoy people and polling day in cold, dark January would deter some of the Tories' OAP support base from turning out.
I see Andy Cooke is saying that LibDems in Didcot and Wantage are scrupulous about bar charts. I actually received one of them this week - it's the most distorted bar chart that I've ever seen. It's also effectively about a different constituency, as D&W has lost 15,000 mostly Tory and LibDem rural voters from the old Wantage seat. And it's from 2019.
As in mid-Beds, it's a real problem in partly rural seats that LibDems feel they own the right to oppose the Tories, but the effect is that where there's a major swing to Labour it gets put at risk by LibDem leaflets that falsely purport to show it's not happening. There certainly are seats where the LibDems are the only serious challengers to the Tories - I can think of two in Surrey that I know very well. But they don't do their cause any good by trying the same tactic in seats that are effectively three-way marginals.
I'm chair of D&W Labour, and it's now a Labour target, so I'll be spending all my time here until the election. Perhaps Andy and I can have a PB bet on the outcome.
@NickPalmer can you explain why Labour are canvassing and leafleting in Guildford and the leaflet has a bar chart on it with Lab on on 33%, Tories 31% and LD on 30%?
Does that beat your most distorted bar chart you have ever seen?
These sort of tactics could cause the Tories to hold on against the LDs in Guildford and one can only assume these are Lab tactics here. Why are they doing it? What the hell is the point? Why don't they fight somewhere where their leaflets and canvassing will do some good?
I might also add next to the bar chart it says:
'The other parties would have you believe that Labour is not in the race in Guildford. Beware of dodgy Lib Dem statistics.'
The irony of the 2nd sentence just makes you choke on your cornflakes being next to the bar chart.
So Labour should put its own house in order before preaching to the LDs. At least in the cases cited the LDs are actually challengers in the case of Guildford Labour are just spoilers plain and simple.
Without going in to the wherefores here, excluding the 2019 Corbyn blip, there was broad parity between the LDs and Lab in 2015 and 2017, and Lab have gone up, but the LDs haven't.
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
I thought IQ measured nothing and was an entirely discredited metric? Make your slightly deficient mind up
It is certainly a problematic measure, being quite variable in testing, but in these studies of the effects on brain structure there are objective measures too.
It's not just brain structure too. Vascular disease and new diabetes are both more common in the 6 months after covid, even mild not hospitalised covid. Particularly so in the unvaccinated.
A few points drop in iq in the population doesnt sound like much but it means dropping from an advanced first world country to a more south anerican chaotic type society.
The whole idea that 'IQ' is a meaningful measure of intelligence is bogus in the first place.
Fussing about a few points drop in a poor measure seems a little silly.
Oh please not this idea again. Higher iq countries are generally richer.
Have you considered correlation versus causation?
It works like this. Magnificently IQed @Leon visits e.g. Colombia and spends his money on hotels, wine and gin. His IQ is so high it increases Colombia’s average. His spending makes Colombia richer. While he is overseas, the UK’s average IQ decreases, and the country becomes poorer, particularly in Soho and Camden.
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
I am increasingly coming around to the idea that the Tories have nothing to lose by getting rid of Sunak - It can't possibly get any worse?
That ridiculous attack ad for the London Mayoralty was the final straw for me. The Tories should use the time Squatter Sunak is trying to string out for himself to roll the dice one last time and get rid...
Yes.
Unless the next one is even worse, in which case they shouldn't. What is the record of the Conservative Party choosing new leaders? They won't want a Liz Truss, who tanked the polls, or a Theresa May who underperformed the polls and turned a landslide into a hung parliament, or a David Cameron for the same reason. What the blue team needs is a new Boris because the old one is off the table and there probably isn't one.
Sticking with Rishi might still be the party's best bet.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Which just shows how deluded they are - Sunak is about as far from one nation Toryism as you could get - Brexiteer from the start, believes in tax cuts and public expenditure cuts, high-profile anti-immigration stance. He's probably the most rightwing Tory leader since IDS, well to the right of Boris.
And yet all his hardcore supporters are one nationers?
The problem with Sunak is to socialists he seems really right wing, but to conservatives like me he appears the most left wing PM of my lifetime.
Failure of politics and communication. People will write PhDs about how ineffective this current govt is. Perhaps the least effective of the modern era.
Least effective of the modern era? It's a close call between Sunak's and Truss's government.
Morning all. I wrenched a muscle in my arm in bed last night, i hate being old and weak. Not sure if posted but the polling 'meh, nothings happening' continues as More In Common reverts to mean with 42, 27, 11 (ref) 10 (LD) 5 (green). Not sure anything really shifts things till GE, if indeed then
He’s doing a bad job because sections of his party won’t let him do otherwise. Changing leader won’t change much because the problem isn’t the leader its the party.
No, he's really bad.
The party are not helping, but he is also particularly bad.
He might be OK, were it not for everything he does. And everything he says.
It is certainly true that the Party is the problem. This goes back at least as far as John Major and 'the bastards'. He managed them ok, after a fashion, as did his successors, but things got really bad under Johnson and Truss, and there are no signs of them improving.
Sunak is not imo a bad PM, and could probably be doing a perfectly decent job if he did not lead a dysfunctional Party, but it hardly matters now. It looks like we are in for a period of drift into the GE, whenever that is, and the now almost inevitable massacre.
I do not look forward to this with enormous glee.
Btw, how was your Cheltenham? It was the first I missed since 1986. There were personal reasons, but I find the expense and relatively uncompetetive racing are serious disincentives these days. I am not sure I will be returning.
A few points drop in iq in the population doesnt sound like much but it means dropping from an advanced first world country to a more south anerican chaotic type society.
The whole idea that 'IQ' is a meaningful measure of intelligence is bogus in the first place.
Fussing about a few points drop in a poor measure seems a little silly.
Oh please not this idea again. Higher iq countries are generally richer.
Have you considered correlation versus causation?
Or that the causative effect may be operating in the reverse way to what he is imagining.
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
That's frightening, but sadly unsurprising to me. When I had viral meningitis eight years ago, my memory, especially short-term memory, was badly affected for at least nine months. It's better now, but I've no idea if it's back to where it was before.
Standing at the burglar alarm, crying because I could not remember a code I had entered hundreds of time before as the alarm blared out, was not pleasant.
If these little blighters get into your brain, they can easily cause semi-permanent, if not permanent, damage.
Isn't Long Flu a thing?
Long Virus is generally a thing. Although the worst one I've ever had was the opposite. Kuala Lumpur*, went from feeling a bit 'off' to poleaxed in bed within three hours, felt close to death for 48 hours, then a couple of days later, absolutely fine and it became just a surreal memory. Almost like "did that actually happen or was I imagining it?"
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
I am increasingly coming around to the idea that the Tories have nothing to lose by getting rid of Sunak - It can't possibly get any worse?
That ridiculous attack ad for the London Mayoralty was the final straw for me. The Tories should use the time Squatter Sunak is trying to string out for himself to roll the dice one last time and get rid...
Yes.
Unless the next one is even worse, in which case they shouldn't.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Which just shows how deluded they are - Sunak is about as far from one nation Toryism as you could get - Brexiteer from the start, believes in tax cuts and public expenditure cuts, high-profile anti-immigration stance. He's probably the most rightwing Tory leader since IDS, well to the right of Boris.
And yet all his hardcore supporters are one nationers?
The problem with Sunak is to socialists he seems really right wing, but to conservatives like me he appears the most left wing PM of my lifetime.
Failure of politics and communication. People will write PhDs about how ineffective this current govt is. Perhaps the least effective of the modern era.
Least effective of the modern era? It's a close call between Sunak's and Truss's government.
Positive legacy from Truss's government: Killed the insane Health and Social Care levy. Reversed decades of policy of ratchetting up National Insurance and set out the argument for the inverse.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
This is one reason a January election might appeal to the Conservative Party. The holiday period will stop the Opposition parties deploying their activists, completely nullifying their huge advantage.
A winter election wouldn't be welcome but it would not completely nullify Labour's grassroots advantage. Having a campaign over Christmas would annoy people and polling day in cold, dark January would deter some of the Tories' OAP support base from turning out.
Ah, but there's the rub. There are some in the blue team who believe Tory voters are more likely to turn out on the proverbial wet Wednesday in Stoke, in cold, dark January, than are fair-weather Labour supporters.
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
I am increasingly coming around to the idea that the Tories have nothing to lose by getting rid of Sunak - It can't possibly get any worse?
That ridiculous attack ad for the London Mayoralty was the final straw for me. The Tories should use the time Squatter Sunak is trying to string out for himself to roll the dice one last time and get rid...
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
I am increasingly coming around to the idea that the Tories have nothing to lose by getting rid of Sunak - It can't possibly get any worse?
That ridiculous attack ad for the London Mayoralty was the final straw for me. The Tories should use the time Squatter Sunak is trying to string out for himself to roll the dice one last time and get rid...
Yes.
Unless the next one is even worse, in which case they shouldn't. What is the record of the Conservative Party choosing new leaders? They won't want a Liz Truss, who tanked the polls, or a Theresa May who underperformed the polls and turned a landslide into a hung parliament, or a David Cameron for the same reason. What the blue team needs is a new Boris because the old one is off the table and there probably isn't one.
Sticking with Rishi might still be the party's best bet.
It almost certainly is, no guarantee a leadership change wouldn’t backfire. Even if they found someone with superhuman political skills and appeal I doubt they’d move the needle. The more serious option might be to send a delegation to demand he stop delaying the election. Deciding yourself when the guillotine falls is probably better than it looming over you with ever increasing menace.
Seriously. Look at the prices for averagely poor Japanese food at schiphol. A so called bento box, with a dozen sad pieces of sushi. How much is that in the UK? £8? £12 absolute max at Pret?
€30 here
Really really bad sandwiches are £7-£10
It would be ok if the food was superb. It’s not, it’s obviously bad. Weird
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Which just shows how deluded they are - Sunak is about as far from one nation Toryism as you could get - Brexiteer from the start, believes in tax cuts and public expenditure cuts, high-profile anti-immigration stance. He's probably the most rightwing Tory leader since IDS, well to the right of Boris.
And yet all his hardcore supporters are one nationers?
The problem with Sunak is to socialists he seems really right wing, but to conservatives like me he appears the most left wing PM of my lifetime.
Failure of politics and communication. People will write PhDs about how ineffective this current govt is. Perhaps the least effective of the modern era.
Least effective of the modern era? It's a close call between Sunak's and Truss's government.
Positive legacy from Truss's government: Killed the insane Health and Social Care levy. Reversed decades of policy of ratchetting up National Insurance and set out the argument for the inverse.
Positive legacy from Sunak's government:
Positive legacy from Sunak's government: Labour government
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Wow! That is remarkably honest of you, M.
Whilst I do not think it is helpful for good governance to have a weak Opposition, I do believe it will be good for the Conservative Party to have a sober and solid rethink about what its purpose and future aims should be.
Indeed.
The activists that I speak to are more small-state than the current govt. I hope that plus being unashamedly pro building is where the future of the Tory party lies.
The problem with that surely is that they *stopped* building, whether infrastructure such as HS2, or in abolition of the Local Authority Housing Target process to pander to Nimbys.
The latter was a key plank in the quite significant increase in housebuilding between 2010 and 2020.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Which just shows how deluded they are - Sunak is about as far from one nation Toryism as you could get - Brexiteer from the start, believes in tax cuts and public expenditure cuts, high-profile anti-immigration stance. He's probably the most rightwing Tory leader since IDS, well to the right of Boris.
And yet all his hardcore supporters are one nationers?
The problem with Sunak is to socialists he seems really right wing, but to conservatives like me he appears the most left wing PM of my lifetime.
Failure of politics and communication. People will write PhDs about how ineffective this current govt is. Perhaps the least effective of the modern era.
Least effective of the modern era? It's a close call between Sunak's and Truss's government.
Positive legacy from Truss's government: Killed the insane Health and Social Care levy. Reversed decades of policy of ratchetting up National Insurance and set out the argument for the inverse.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
I'd be curious if anyone has done any morbid mathematics to determine whether exercise actually does reduce cost to the Exchequer over the long-term, its quite possibly the opposite.
I recall a statistic that smoking is good for the Exchequer, despite the vast cost of smoking-related illnesses on the NHS, not simply because of the duties on tobacco, but because smokers die younger they claim less in pensions so the Exchequer ends up better off net.
Exercise is almost certainly a net benefit, as it will reduce the incidence of costly chronic disease. Smoking is good as it reduces lifespan sufficiently to save more on geriatric healthcare than it costs in treating smoking related diseases..
There's probably a degree of uncertainty about longer term effects on the cost of geriatric medicine - but we'll only find out long after any such scheme is implemented in a large scale.
The ideal is probably someone like my paternal grandmother, who died at age 86 in her sleep having been independent and on - I think - no medications and with only one hospital stay about 8 years earlier for a broken hip after being hit by a car.
I'm not quite sure how we engineer that, though. My dad is currently 81 and has statins, but that is it. As far as I know, he's never had a hospital admission, so we probably need some selective breeding (My mum has long term illness with multiple hospital admissions and frequent outpatient visits and is only mid-70s; her mum also had illness for the last five years of her life)
Disability Free life expectancy at age 65 is about 10 years across most of the UK. It correlates quite well with income, so for the average PBer, 80 years is pretty much par.
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
I thought IQ measured nothing and was an entirely discredited metric? Make your slightly deficient mind up
It is certainly a problematic measure, being quite variable in testing, but in these studies of the effects on brain structure there are objective measures too.
It's not just brain structure too. Vascular disease and new diabetes are both more common in the 6 months after covid, even mild not hospitalised covid. Particularly so in the unvaccinated.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Wow! That is remarkably honest of you, M.
Whilst I do not think it is helpful for good governance to have a weak Opposition, I do believe it will be good for the Conservative Party to have a sober and solid rethink about what its purpose and future aims should be.
Indeed.
The activists that I speak to are more small-state than the current govt. I hope that plus being unashamedly pro building is where the future of the Tory party lies.
The problem with that surely is that they *stopped* building, whether infrastructure such as HS2, or in abolition of the Local Authority Housing Target process to pander to Nimbys.
The latter was a key plank in the quite significant increase in housebuilding between 2010 and 2020.
But Rishi burnt it down.
Yes and for that Rishi has lost my vote, despite Hunt doing what I want in cutting National Insurance.
Some things are more important than party politics.
Seriously. Look at the prices for averagely poor Japanese food at schiphol. A so called bento box, with a dozen sad pieces of sushi. How much is that in the UK? £8? £12 absolute max at Pret?
€30 here
Really really bad sandwiches are £7-£10
It would be ok if the food was superb. It’s not, it’s obviously bad. Weird
Don't you need to be comparing with Heathrow?
(Though I'm guessing you're slumming it in the arrivals' lounge, if such still exists?)
Seriously. Look at the prices for averagely poor Japanese food at schiphol. A so called bento box, with a dozen sad pieces of sushi. How much is that in the UK? £8? £12 absolute max at Pret?
€30 here
Really really bad sandwiches are £7-£10
It would be ok if the food was superb. It’s not, it’s obviously bad. Weird
The entire GDP growth in the West is based on Airport and Train Station prices FACT
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Which just shows how deluded they are - Sunak is about as far from one nation Toryism as you could get - Brexiteer from the start, believes in tax cuts and public expenditure cuts, high-profile anti-immigration stance. He's probably the most rightwing Tory leader since IDS, well to the right of Boris.
And yet all his hardcore supporters are one nationers?
The problem with Sunak is to socialists he seems really right wing, but to conservatives like me he appears the most left wing PM of my lifetime.
Failure of politics and communication. People will write PhDs about how ineffective this current govt is. Perhaps the least effective of the modern era.
Least effective of the modern era? It's a close call between Sunak's and Truss's government.
I think the fact that Sunak has limped on being ineffective and a poor communicator means he takes the wooden spoon.
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
I thought IQ measured nothing and was an entirely discredited metric? Make your slightly deficient mind up
It is certainly a problematic measure, being quite variable in testing, but in these studies of the effects on brain structure there are objective measures too.
It's not just brain structure too. Vascular disease and new diabetes are both more common in the 6 months after covid, even mild not hospitalised covid. Particularly so in the unvaccinated.
So IQ IS a useful measure. Got that
If you had a high IQ you would understand better its limitations.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
I'd be curious if anyone has done any morbid mathematics to determine whether exercise actually does reduce cost to the Exchequer over the long-term, its quite possibly the opposite.
I recall a statistic that smoking is good for the Exchequer, despite the vast cost of smoking-related illnesses on the NHS, not simply because of the duties on tobacco, but because smokers die younger they claim less in pensions so the Exchequer ends up better off net.
Exercise is almost certainly a net benefit, as it will reduce the incidence of costly chronic disease. Smoking is good as it reduces lifespan sufficiently to save more on geriatric healthcare than it costs in treating smoking related diseases..
There's probably a degree of uncertainty about longer term effects on the cost of geriatric medicine - but we'll only find out long after any such scheme is implemented in a large scale.
The ideal is probably someone like my paternal grandmother, who died at age 86 in her sleep having been independent and on - I think - no medications and with only one hospital stay about 8 years earlier for a broken hip after being hit by a car.
I'm not quite sure how we engineer that, though. My dad is currently 81 and has statins, but that is it. As far as I know, he's never had a hospital admission, so we probably need some selective breeding (My mum has long term illness with multiple hospital admissions and frequent outpatient visits and is only mid-70s; her mum also had illness for the last five years of her life)
Disability Free life expectancy at age 65 is about 10 years across most of the UK. It correlates quite well with income, so for the average PBer, 80 years is pretty much par.
*checks disabilities* *looks at the numbers beginning 5 on latest birthday card* *has a little cry*
It’s Trump isn’t it? People are scared this might somehow “benefit Trump” if it turns out to be sabotage so they are insanely allergic to the notion
Get a grip
Its Trump derangement syndrome. Im convinced the covid lockdowns only went on as long as they did in some areas of the US because people wanted to stick it to Trump.
lol. If this is China and Russia driving America insane they are doing a bang up job
To be fair they are not wrong.
Covid is now an endemic disease but I wouldn’t expect the average punter to do strong Josh between endemic and pandemic.
But we have tools to manage it, and so we don’t need to reach in the extreme way we did 4 years ago
Also, TBF, the line between epidemic/pandemic and endemic isn't a particularly clear one.
We talk about flu seasonal flu epidemics, even is they're of fairly low severity. And novel variants of Covid are still reinfecting people worldwide, so it's really semantics as to whether it's now a low level pandemic, or epidemic.
With flu it’s a different virus each year which is why it is an epidemic not an endemic disease
That's why I said 'novel variants'.
I agree with Foxy that it's endemic, FWIW. But it's not obviously absurd for someone to think it's still a low level pandemic.
I find it surprising when people who are poorly are still doing Covid tests. These days, when I have had a virus I am just fussed about the symptoms and getting better, not which bug has caused it.
I must say that when several people I know through work have been off ill with Covid recently the thing I was most surprised about was that they knew they had it. I think the last of our tests went out of date some time ago. Unless you work in the NHS I am really not sure where you would get them.
Perhaps Manflu has now been superseded by ManCovid?
Covid explains a lot of what is going on in society. It damages the frontal lobe, causing impulsively, aggression, poor decision making and loss of empathy. In the long term that may well be the worst effect of the pandemic.
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
I thought IQ measured nothing and was an entirely discredited metric? Make your slightly deficient mind up
It is certainly a problematic measure, being quite variable in testing, but in these studies of the effects on brain structure there are objective measures too.
It's not just brain structure too. Vascular disease and new diabetes are both more common in the 6 months after covid, even mild not hospitalised covid. Particularly so in the unvaccinated.
So IQ IS a useful measure. Got that
It's a measure. It has meaning - higher means better something and lower means worse.
The debate is what the 'something' is that it measures and how easy it is to train people to get better scores without necessarily increasing actual intelligence.
But, if the score is going down for the same person/a cross section of people who should otherwise be similar (or controlling for confounders) then it shows something bad is happening. It's like having an English test and pretending that the fact that foreigners do worse on it shows they're more stupid - nonsense. But if people do worse on it after Covid, then something is happening.
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
The Tory Party outside Westminster now consists of perhaps 120,000 members, almost all of whom are pensioners. An average of less than 200 per constituency. And only a small (and declining) proportion of these members will be active. They will be quite incapable of fighting a grassroots campaign in most areas of the country.
My experience is the local activist support has all but disappeared. Efforts in May will be hard, but by the autumn there will be thousands fewer.
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
Wow! That is remarkably honest of you, M.
Whilst I do not think it is helpful for good governance to have a weak Opposition, I do believe it will be good for the Conservative Party to have a sober and solid rethink about what its purpose and future aims should be.
Indeed.
The activists that I speak to are more small-state than the current govt. I hope that plus being unashamedly pro building is where the future of the Tory party lies.
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
I'd be curious if anyone has done any morbid mathematics to determine whether exercise actually does reduce cost to the Exchequer over the long-term, its quite possibly the opposite.
I recall a statistic that smoking is good for the Exchequer, despite the vast cost of smoking-related illnesses on the NHS, not simply because of the duties on tobacco, but because smokers die younger they claim less in pensions so the Exchequer ends up better off net.
Exercise is almost certainly a net benefit, as it will reduce the incidence of costly chronic disease. Smoking is good as it reduces lifespan sufficiently to save more on geriatric healthcare than it costs in treating smoking related diseases..
There's probably a degree of uncertainty about longer term effects on the cost of geriatric medicine - but we'll only find out long after any such scheme is implemented in a large scale.
The ideal is probably someone like my paternal grandmother, who died at age 86 in her sleep having been independent and on - I think - no medications and with only one hospital stay about 8 years earlier for a broken hip after being hit by a car.
I'm not quite sure how we engineer that, though. My dad is currently 81 and has statins, but that is it. As far as I know, he's never had a hospital admission, so we probably need some selective breeding (My mum has long term illness with multiple hospital admissions and frequent outpatient visits and is only mid-70s; her mum also had illness for the last five years of her life)
Disability Free life expectancy at age 65 is about 10 years across most of the UK. It correlates quite well with income, so for the average PBer, 80 years is pretty much par.
*checks disabilities* *looks at the numbers beginning 5 on latest birthday card* *has a little cry*
Good morning to one and all! All sorts of things concerning us today aren’t there! Do I gather that Leon has either flounced or been banned? I am somewhat bothered, though, by the fact that the BBC website has its main feature, the covering over of some graffiti, allegedly, by Banksy.
I get "Public satisfaction with NHS at lowest ever level, survey shows" as the lead item when I go to the BBC.
Makes me wonder, are the BBC tailoring their feed to some big data assessment of your concerns? And if so, why are you so concerned about lost Banksies OKC?
Time to privatise the NHS, Andy Burnham was right when he was Health Secretary to privatise the NHS.
Or just get rid of the Tories. NHS satisfaction was 70% in 2010.
And NHS employment was half a million lower.
Still I look forward to all the people claiming 'everything is broken' changing their line after they think a suitable amount of Labour government has passed.
I thought you Tories were all for value for money and in particular optimum personal productivity. You Tories seem to have dropped the ball and have far more people doing far less. For goodness sake shape up!
Variations of this glib style response seem to have a panicky undertone.
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
I'd be curious if anyone has done any morbid mathematics to determine whether exercise actually does reduce cost to the Exchequer over the long-term, its quite possibly the opposite.
I recall a statistic that smoking is good for the Exchequer, despite the vast cost of smoking-related illnesses on the NHS, not simply because of the duties on tobacco, but because smokers die younger they claim less in pensions so the Exchequer ends up better off net.
Exercise is almost certainly a net benefit, as it will reduce the incidence of costly chronic disease. Smoking is good as it reduces lifespan sufficiently to save more on geriatric healthcare than it costs in treating smoking related diseases..
There's probably a degree of uncertainty about longer term effects on the cost of geriatric medicine - but we'll only find out long after any such scheme is implemented in a large scale.
The ideal is probably someone like my paternal grandmother, who died at age 86 in her sleep having been independent and on - I think - no medications and with only one hospital stay about 8 years earlier for a broken hip after being hit by a car.
I'm not quite sure how we engineer that, though. My dad is currently 81 and has statins, but that is it. As far as I know, he's never had a hospital admission, so we probably need some selective breeding (My mum has long term illness with multiple hospital admissions and frequent outpatient visits and is only mid-70s; her mum also had illness for the last five years of her life)
Disability Free life expectancy at age 65 is about 10 years across most of the UK. It correlates quite well with income, so for the average PBer, 80 years is pretty much par.
*checks disabilities* *looks at the numbers beginning 5 on latest birthday card* *has a little cry*
And of course disability doesn't make life a burden, just needing adaptions.
While Hills have Rishi as PM after the General Election at 6/1.
That's a bookie fishing for the muggiest of mug money.
I wonder what they offer on SKS?
1/7. Value?
IMO, yes. You're almost down to 'actuarial risk' with Starmer now.
Still a risk Tories swap Sunak again. I mean it seems mad but hard to rule it out when Liz Truss, JRM et al involved.
Sunak is doing such an appalling job its not remotely mad to replace him.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
I am increasingly coming around to the idea that the Tories have nothing to lose by getting rid of Sunak - It can't possibly get any worse?
That ridiculous attack ad for the London Mayoralty was the final straw for me. The Tories should use the time Squatter Sunak is trying to string out for himself to roll the dice one last time and get rid...
Yes.
Unless the next one is even worse, in which case they shouldn't.
Is it possible to get worse? 🤷♂️
Earlier you referred to the Conservatives' London attack advert. This is CCHQ's shitposting technique. The idea is it is so terrible that everyone and his wife starts telling everyone they know how terrible it is, which at least means everyone gets to hear about the advert.
They've done it before. Rishi should tell his expensive Australian election adviser, and tell David Cameron, to knock it on the head because aside from its effect on voters one way or the other, it has gone down like a cup of cold sick with Conservative MPs.
Comments
The alternatives are influenza which is an epidemic because it is seasonal and burns itself out before a new virus mutates past our immune system, but not serious enough to be a pandemic.
I haven’t really thought about HIV but I’d be more included to classify it as endemic rather than pandemic.
Didcot and Wantage YouGov national seat by seat report in January had Lib Dem 32, Con 31 labour 24 and recorded it as a Lib Dem gain!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHUMzsSTdQ4
https://twitter.com/Prune602/status/1772761991989326091
when you talk privately to Tory MPs their fighting spirit seems to have sapped away entirely, most seem resigned to an historic wipe-out in the autumn, I’ve never seen their morale so shattered
A horrified acceptance perhaps that more money and more people (both of which unlikely to be available in any case) aren't going to solve the nation's health problems.
Meaning that Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are going to have to find ways of increasing NHS productivity.
Which means more output from the same level of input.
They'll need more than good luck to achieve that.
These it seems are going to be Streeting's long term strategies:
"from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention."
All very well meaning but will face NHS inertial opposition, will take many years to be implemented and then many more years for any positive results to show.
Does that beat your most distorted bar chart you have ever seen?
These sort of tactics could cause the Tories to hold on against the LDs in Guildford and one can only assume these are Lab tactics here. Why are they doing it? What the hell is the point? Why don't they fight somewhere where their leaflets and canvassing will do some good?
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/03/08/we-need-more-bureaucracy/
Imagine the fun politics of investing less in nurses (say) and more in testing technology, so that in 5 years time, test will come back 38% faster on average.
Or spending less on the NHS itself and more on hospice style beds for elderly people, so that they aren't occupying hospital beds?
Or more on admin staff, and less on nurses?
Or a Vitality style scheme - less nurses, but spend the money on free cinema tickets for those who do a demonstrable amount of exercise per week?
"These findings also have broader implications for all of society. Severe COVID-19 (hospitalized patients on ventilators) has been associated with 70 and corresponds to a 7-point decline in IQ. For those treated at home with uncomplicated respiratory symptoms, the decline approximated an average of a little over 1 IQ point (calculated from Figure 2 in the paper). Unfortunately, repeated infections can cause additive damage in those with long COVID-19; thus, even small decreases in IQ may become substantial."
https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/covid-19-traffic-accidents-covid-19-personality-disorder-caused-viral-damage-prefrontal-cortex-
I would doubt that anyone comes out of ventilator treatment at 100% of what they were.
Standing at the burglar alarm, crying because I could not remember a code I had entered hundreds of time before as the alarm blared out, was not pleasant.
If these little blighters get into your brain, they can easily cause semi-permanent, if not permanent, damage.
The balance of spending has shifted as part of a national change in priorities. When the Aarhus super-hospital replaced four smaller hospitals last year, the total number of beds fell from 1,300 to 850. “We got a budget cut of 8 per cent when we relocated here but the efficiency is very much higher,” Poul Blaabjerg, the chief executive, says. “We treat a lot more patients with fewer resources. There has been a big reallocation of tasks from the hospitals to the municipalities.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-to-fix-the-nhs-times-health-commission-qpdgfwzvg
Especially as the disruptive change happens many years before the positive effects arrive.
Assuming that the positive effects do arrive.
I recall a statistic that smoking is good for the Exchequer, despite the vast cost of smoking-related illnesses on the NHS, not simply because of the duties on tobacco, but because smokers die younger they claim less in pensions so the Exchequer ends up better off net.
I'm pleased to say that the BBC is now running with something more appropriate; the cruel death of an unfortunate infant, and the iniquity of its parents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1DviQ9mva0
'The other parties would have you believe that Labour is not in the race in Guildford. Beware of dodgy Lib Dem statistics.'
The irony of the 2nd sentence just makes you choke on your cornflakes being next to the bar chart.
So Labour should put its own house in order before preaching to the LDs. At least in the cases cited the LDs are actually challengers in the case of Guildford Labour are just spoilers plain and simple.
The idea that just because they've swapped leaders already they can't do so again is simply an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Perhaps we should rename it the Sunak Cost Fallacy.
We'll look back on these 15 years as basically a disaster, with contrarian historians arguing that maybe Brexit was inevitable, and there was some progress on gay marriage, international development, climate change and some education reforms which worked out.
I doubt changing leader, another divisive campaign, is going to improve Tory chances whoever ultimately wins.
But if you mean, are there Tory mps who could run the country better for the next 6 months, then I think the answer probably is yes. I doubt they'd have much chance in this Tory party though.
But if you've got a definite dud in charge and could possibly get a semi-decent leader or possibly get another dud, then analysing the probability suggests you should make the change.
A possibility of a semi-decent leader is better than no possibility at all.
Whereas I had 9 am lectures all week with labs in the afternoon 3 days a week. My degree was in Physics.
But those that benefit from improvements rapidly take them for granted and then demand more.
And then the political cycle begins anew.
Smoking is good as it reduces lifespan sufficiently to save more on geriatric healthcare than it costs in treating smoking related diseases..
There's probably a degree of uncertainty about longer term effects on the cost of geriatric medicine - but we'll only find out long after any such scheme is implemented in a large scale.
The party are not helping, but he is also particularly bad.
He might be OK, were it not for everything he does. And everything he says.
From 70% to 24% under the Tories . The decline perfectly correlates with their time in office .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ACXiat7LQ
Members I speak to are staying as such to make sure the dripping wet One Nationers don't get to keep control of the party after taking it to the expected historic loss under Sunak.
We could be having a general election and putting an end to this farce of a government but Squatter Rishi wants a few more months squatting in Downing St so on and on we go...
Fussing about a few points drop in a poor measure seems a little silly.
Sunak is just a right winger who's also a poor leader.
Whilst I do not think it is helpful for good governance to have a weak Opposition, I do believe it will be good for the Conservative Party to have a sober and solid rethink about what its purpose and future aims should be.
The water companies, of course, are attributing the problem to heavy rainfall in 2023. Well, that's alright then.
Nationalise the greedy fuckwits.
That ridiculous attack ad for the London Mayoralty was the final straw for me. The Tories should use the time Squatter Sunak is trying to string out for himself to roll the dice one last time and get rid...
Improving productivity in the NHS is essential, but not really very different from any other service industry. Investment is needed in modern buildings, capital equipment like operating theatres and scanners and by improving staff training and retention.
The problem with Sunak is to socialists he seems really right wing, but to conservatives like me he appears the most left wing PM of my lifetime.
Failure of politics and communication. People will write PhDs about how ineffective this current govt is. Perhaps the least effective of the modern era.
Apart from that, there's zero chance of a January election.
I think I mentioned Ronnie Pickering a couple of weeks ago.
Meet Rhonda Pickering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muNQm4vqkC8
The activists that I speak to are more small-state than the current govt. I hope that plus being unashamedly pro building is where the future of the Tory party lies.
I'm not quite sure how we engineer that, though. My dad is currently 81 and has statins, but that is it. As far as I know, he's never had a hospital admission, so we probably need some selective breeding
It's not just brain structure too. Vascular disease and new diabetes are both more common in the 6 months after covid, even mild not hospitalised covid. Particularly so in the unvaccinated.
Unless the next one is even worse, in which case they shouldn't. What is the record of the Conservative Party choosing new leaders? They won't want a Liz Truss, who tanked the polls, or a Theresa May who underperformed the polls and turned a landslide into a hung parliament, or a David Cameron for the same reason. What the blue team needs is a new Boris because the old one is off the table and there probably isn't one.
Sticking with Rishi might still be the party's best bet.
That is my opinion of the morning
I wrenched a muscle in my arm in bed last night, i hate being old and weak.
Not sure if posted but the polling 'meh, nothings happening' continues as More In Common reverts to mean with 42, 27, 11 (ref) 10 (LD) 5 (green).
Not sure anything really shifts things till GE, if indeed then
Sunak is not imo a bad PM, and could probably be doing a perfectly decent job if he did not lead a dysfunctional Party, but it hardly matters now. It looks like we are in for a period of drift into the GE, whenever that is, and the now almost inevitable massacre.
I do not look forward to this with enormous glee.
Btw, how was your Cheltenham? It was the first I missed since 1986. There were personal reasons, but I find the expense and relatively uncompetetive racing are serious disincentives these days. I am not sure I will be returning.
* Where I got it not the name of the virus.
Killed the insane Health and Social Care levy.
Reversed decades of policy of ratchetting up National Insurance and set out the argument for the inverse.
Positive legacy from Sunak's government:
€30 here
Really really bad sandwiches are £7-£10
It would be ok if the food was superb. It’s not, it’s obviously bad. Weird
Labour government
The latter was a key plank in the quite significant increase in housebuilding between 2010 and 2020.
But Rishi burnt it down.
"Former Prime Minister Liz Truss's "disastrous" mini-budget cost the government around £30bn, according to new analysis in the Observer."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63612364#:~:text=Former Prime Minister Liz Truss's "disastrous" mini-budget cost,£30bn, according to new analysis in the Observer.
Some things are more important than party politics.
(Though I'm guessing you're slumming it in the arrivals' lounge, if such still exists?)
FACT
*looks at the numbers beginning 5 on latest birthday card*
*has a little cry*
Back to the good old days when airport lounges were just places to wait for a flight...........
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13243909/Cryptocurrency-Copper-party-guests-sushi-two-scantily-clad-models-Mandrake-hotel-London.html
The debate is what the 'something' is that it measures and how easy it is to train people to get better scores without necessarily increasing actual intelligence.
But, if the score is going down for the same person/a cross section of people who should otherwise be similar (or controlling for confounders) then it shows something bad is happening. It's like having an English test and pretending that the fact that foreigners do worse on it shows they're more stupid - nonsense. But if people do worse on it after Covid, then something is happening.
My dad died at 57.
I'm living in the moment.
They've done it before. Rishi should tell his expensive Australian election adviser, and tell David Cameron, to knock it on the head because aside from its effect on voters one way or the other, it has gone down like a cup of cold sick with Conservative MPs.