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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A dangerous vacuum or duality: A wing and a prayer isn’t good
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A dangerous vacuum or duality: A wing and a prayer isn’t good enough when the PM’s ill
To talk of death lightly in current circumstances might well seem not only morbid but tasteless. In the midst of a pandemic – one hitting Britain almost as hard as anywhere – leaving many thousands of people bereaved, we obviously need to be sensitive to those considerations.
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https://twitter.com/graham290244/status/1248830260654878720?s=09
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLffvFdGYu8
And it has mattered this time round. Without any minister able to exert the authority required to make such decisions, the decision what to do about the current lockdown has been deferred rather than taken. That limbo is not good enough at such a moment.
A pan European health service will be back at the top of the agenda, I reckon.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/10/robert-jenrick-pressure-quit-claim-mansion-family-home-called/
Which why many knew that - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos - was bullshit from day one.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7HM94qVmq-4
Eton College Chappel Choir I found on UTube.
That sounds like a wet dream for you TBH
He's brill and so right!
Simon Jenkins says Scottish independence is inevitable.
*moves hurriedly on averting eyes*
So all the countries in Europe got shovelled into a single currency on the promise that they would all turn into little Germanies - but not just yet.
The problem was that the whole societal structure in many countries was at odds with such changes. In Greece, for example, this would mean tearing down a great many conventions about how things are done. Hence fierce resistance to such changes and the politicians not actually changing anything.
My approach would have been a program of economic integration, probably taking many decades, before a single currency. How much and how fast would depend on the scale of the transfer payments that would have been acceptable from the rich countries. The present transfer payments do not justify a single currency area.
https://twitter.com/ChrisMasonBBC/status/1248974136811999232
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/lockdown-defying-brazilian-president-wipes-his-nose-before-shaking-hands-elderly-woman
And don't shoot the messenger
All health care systems ration. The American system, famously rations on wealth. In the UK - as in much of Europe, we ration in time and resources.
Back when Blair was in power (IIRC) there was a moment when some EU judges ruled that *timely* healthcare was a human right. Hence the right for those waiting too long for an operation (say) to go to France, and charge it back the UK.
This was rapidly stopped by the EU governments. It would have meant, in effect, unlimited health care across the continent.
There was an interesting wrinkle in the UK case. Under EU law, there was no differentiation between private and public hospital provision. If you went to a hospital in France for your op, it could be public or private. Also under EU law, you would have the same right in UK... So the government was faced with the prospect of a flood of patients going to BUPA - and having their ops paid for under the NHS budget.
A massive privatisation of the NHS.....
Indeed if you are employed by them you cannot be critical
https://twitter.com/gsoh31/status/1248980448988012548
Can't access all the small print on their site.
Theres good news and bad news on the Coronavirus front from the BBC.
The bad news is more than 900 new deaths despite the BH lag the good news "Boris is playing Sudoku".
obvious polling is obvious.
Media having a poor time of it, as has been increasingly obvious
The Prime Minister is whoever the Monarch asks to form an administration and chair the Cabinet. No other qualification is needed. That also means, however, that if the Monarch asks someone else to chair the cabinet, they would have in effect the powers of a PM.
However, I cannot imagine that any decision on something truly drastic (e.g. a declaration of war) would not be taken by the cabinet as a whole.
As to the question of international healthcare provision - I think I explained above that I would upset the current Way Things Are done.
Do you wish to be known as Not A Team Player?
As far as the EU is concerned, if one of the pre-requisites of slowing the infection is reducing travel, closing borders to impede that travel isn't the worst idea I've ever heard and closing them to people doesn't mean closing them to goods.
In the box of home delivered food we got last Monday from a British wholesaler, the chicken was from Holland - did I care? No. Do I demand all goods should be British? No - I'm simply happy to have the food and relieved some form of international trade and commerce is continuing.
Most borders are still open for trade and goods are still flowing (mercifully). In terms of Government expenditure, all are suffering and going to suffer. The economic impacts are going to be severe - we know that - but I'd rather deal with that and be alive.
And that is not different from the European situation - common things like drugs testing but totally separate when ti comes to funding.
So I cannot understand why it is somehow acceptable to send an English patient to Scotland but not to France - the logic is similar in both cases.
Live streaming Fac51 and reminiscing the Hacienda.....
Those were the days...when you paid 20notes for an E
https://covid.joinzoe.com/data
The notorious "smirk" will have to be suppressed somehow.
It's for a BH day look back at weekend drops would have expected same effect on a BH.
Weekend numbers for last couple of weeks have shown a circa 20% lag.
You are right that we should be at or close to peak on new numbers infected. I fear we are not there yet on deaths peak. I think we will top 1000 new deaths next Wednesday.i really hope I am wrong.
It's not about ones politics it's about ending up with most deaths iof any country in Europe, an honour I fear the UK may hold by this time next month.
https://twitter.com/tombarton/status/1248984628234539009
The elderly may not have jobs, but thanks to being in the Eurozone, their savings are secure. They have been winners.
The young, on the other hand, don't have jobs because Italy's economic model doesn't really work in the Eurozone. And governments (successive) have not done anything to change the Italian model, and have also lied to the people about why it doesn't work.
In Italy, you get elected by promising the old that their savings won't get hit by leaving the Eurozone. And you promise the young, that you'll stand-up to the EU and make them change their rules, so Italy can go back to its old ways.
Italy has always been faced with three choices -
1. Leave the Eurozone, take the hit to savings, and allow the old Italian economic growth model to work again. (Albeit, this doesn't solve the major demographics issues, but it's better than here.)
2. Stay in the Eurozone, but dramatically liberalise the labour market and change the laws to make company bankrupcies easier, and to allow banks to collect on debts. Basically, do the Thatcherite revolution in Italy.
3. Economic stagnation and growing anger at the political class for allowing this to happen.
For the last twenty years, the Italians have chosen option 3. They would be well advised to choose one of the first two.
Because most of Europe mixes public and private together, any such unified system would involve treating private hospitals just as public. Given that and under EU market rules, it would not just mean UK patients getting their operation in Calais. It would mean that BUPA would be able to do ops at a patients request and charge the NHS for them.
I am quite sure that such an outcome would meat with total opposition from a very substantial number of people - it would amount to massive privatisation.
On a lighter note, thanks for the entertaining responses to my wine-and-omelette exploration. Tomorrow, I'm considering cooking pasta, also for the first time. I've got some "artisan Tortaglione" from Sainsbury (spirally things) which I bought when bargaining for 2-week isolation (all the cheap pasta had been panic-bought, but anyway I thought that pasta virginity should be broken with some good stuff), and some tomato sauce. Just boil them, right? There are rather a lot of them, I wonder if they'll keep if I eat half? (Where is Cyclefree?)
The wine, by the way, is Politically Correct. Given to me by a leftie friend, it's 19 Crimes red wine from Australia, based on a riot in 1904 against a rum tax. The rebels were punished with a variety of trumped-up charges, and with each bottle you can find one of the crimes inscribed on the cork. I have "Assault with attempt to rob". It's very good. (The wine, not the assault.)
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/11/why-a-study-showing-that-covid-19-is-everywhere-is-good-news
You'll be saying that the man who buys ammunition for the British army should know something about ammunition, next.....
I'm not saying either of this issues is easy to solve, they aren't. However, the lack of any kind of hard questioning has basically let the government off the hook on both while there are doctors and nurses putting themselves at risk all day every day. The lack of testing available for NHS staff means there are frontline staff working themselves to death right now and no one is taking responsibility for that. It's just not good enough.
It's almost as though ministers think that we won't notice if they are able to keep quiet enough about it, but I have friends and family on the front line. Loads of people do, the stories are absolutely shocking at the moment. Any other profession would have gone on strike by now over the working conditions being imposed by the government.
Overall my rating of the government response had gone from a B- to a D, no longer a passing grade. The willful endangerment of our frontline NHS staff is, IMO, beyond the pale and both Hancock needs to pay the price. Boris has serious questions to answer as well, so do all of the members of SAGE who advised the government to allow sporting and other major gatherings to take place (Cheltenham, football matches etc...) knowing that it could cause a huge spike in cases well before we would have the testing capacity and PPE provision available to give us a way out of this mess.
I have no doubt that any other party/government would have taken exactly the same path, this isn't a party question, the government is just unlucky in that they had to deal with this mess, but bad luck isn't an excuse for bad decisions.
https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c
After all in the US Vice President Bush Snr assumed the powers of the Presidency when President Reagan was undergoing surgery
So you have massive issues of self selection, sample biases etc.
"the EU is not a true political union, like the United States or Russia or even the United Kingdom"
who on earth ever thought it was?
What the coronavirus shows is that the single currency was not properly thought through. But we knew that already.
and as for
"Nation states have been forced back (...) on their own own health resources"
that just shows what an ignoramus Jenkins often is. The EU has never been responsible for running nation states health systems.
Pretty rubbish article.
Starmer most popular with younger voters, voters in London and the West Midlands and middle class ABC1 voters and graduates.
Starmer least popular though with working class C2DE voters and those without qualifications
Italian politics is about surviving until you don’t?
https://www.pcmag.com/news/what-to-expect-at-apples-march-event-iphone-9-iphone-se-2-new-ipads?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=whatsnewnow&utm_medium=title
A policeman has brought a pint of milk to an elderly resident.
Whoopee6 dooo
Can we talk about the matter at hand by any chance.
it has 2.2 million people using it, but it is self selection, perhaps the large numbers can mitigate the self selection problem?
I am using it, but am rater frustrated and disported in the analysis and recommendations.
'The number of people wiht systems is down, there for Lock-down must be working therefor we musk keep going' is poor analysis and recommendation, one data point and correlation is not causation.