Manufacturers can do scale by using common components in both where possible while using other components where it isn't possible. As they already do!
Indeed. I can only speak for the industry I have experience in (electronics) but I presume it's not to different for any form of manufacturing; almost all efficiencies of scale come from bulk purchasing a limited number of components. When working on a new product one of the overriding design goals is always to use components that are already in use in another model, where and when that is possible without compromising functionality.
There is an additional manufacturing cost involved in building two models rather then one, but if they employ all the same major components that cost is fairly trivial.
An example people will be familiar with is Samsung mobile phones. A 'Galaxy so-and-so' that you buy in the UK may well have completely different internals from a US or Chinese phone of apparently the same model. Would it be cheaper for Samsung to have one universal design? Yes, but not enough to offset the benefits they see in having varying designs for each market.
The idea that any slight change to a design instantly kills volume efficiency is not remotely correct. When manufacturing at very large volumes the opposite often becomes true; it's sensible to have multiple, varying designs so that an interruption in supply of a critical part doesn't kill your entire output stone dead.
(and.. first post! Hello everyone!)
There is, though, surely something of a difference between the US, Chinese and European markets... and a new, somehow unique UK one ?
And welcome.
Why?
Japanese have their own market. And the Japanese are quite capable of selling to Europe. And the Japanese are quite capable of selling to the USA and China. And the Japanese are quite capable of setting their own laws that suit themselves or having their own models of products that aren't sold elsewhere (some of which can then go on to be exported later).
Why are we incapable of doing something similar? Why do you have such a low view of our country that we can't be like a European version of Japan?
While that's true, pretty much everywhere has broadly accepted FCC codes on acceptable elctromagnetic radiation emissions, and UL - which is an American body - has become the de facto world standard for fire. And then a lot of standards are set at the ISO level.
It's interesting to look at Canada. It's not part of a customs union with the US. They are obligated under both CUSMA and CETA not to use standards as a non-tariff barrier.
There is a Canadian Standards Body, the Canadian Standards Association, but largely because of CUSMA their standards are voluntary rather than obligatory.
I'm not sure our position would be that different to Canada's. The benefits from having our own legal standards - most of which are set globally anyway - are pretty slight.
Had word today that a major & extremely well funded UK university is rolling out a big redunacy scheme, god only know what will happen to the mid / lower tier institutions.
That magic money forest is going to need some more harvesting.
Unless you work for an Oxford or Cambridge college with hundreds of millions of pounds in assets and endowments built up over the centuries
BREAKING: Cambridge confirms ‘no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year’
Lectures and exams will be conducted virtually
In an email sent to Senior Tutors today (19th May), it was announced that the University of Cambridge plans to move all “face-to-face lectures” online in the next academic year, 2020/21.
Alice Benton, the Head of Education services, states in the email that the “General Board’s Education Committee” has “agreed that, since it is highly likely that rigid social distancing will be required throughout the next academic year, there will be no face-to-face lectures next year.”
“The decision has been taken to provide a degree of certainty to facilitate Faculties and Departments when planning for educational delivery next academic year”.
Lectures will be live-streamed, recorded and made available on Moodle, while there are plans for lecture theatres to be used for small group teaching in line with social distancing requirements: “Faculties and Departments should continue to plan for face-to-face delivery of seminars, workshops and small group teaching”.
In reference to Michaelmas exams, Benton also notes that it is ‘highly unlikely these examinations will be able to take place in examination halls’. She suggests faculties adapt to this scenario accordingly.
All sounds eminently sensible. Exams would presumably be the main bugbear. I wonder how they plan to guarantee proper invigilation? It implies breaking up large groups of students into a lot of small ones, which will in turn require a great number of separate rooms and supervising staff.
Online or takeaway assessment.
We're currently just reusing our papers as online assessments and, while the marks are up, they aren't massively up. A rewritten assessment would probably be suitably challenging.
Manufacturers can do scale by using common components in both where possible while using other components where it isn't possible. As they already do!
Indeed. I can only speak for the industry I have experience in (electronics) but I presume it's not to different for any form of manufacturing; almost all efficiencies of scale come from bulk purchasing a limited number of components. When working on a new product one of the overriding design goals is always to use components that are already in use in another model, where and when that is possible without compromising functionality.
There is an additional manufacturing cost involved in building two models rather then one, but if they employ all the same major components that cost is fairly trivial.
An example people will be familiar with is Samsung mobile phones. A 'Galaxy so-and-so' that you buy in the UK may well have completely different internals from a US or Chinese phone of apparently the same model. Would it be cheaper for Samsung to have one universal design? Yes, but not enough to offset the benefits they see in having varying designs for each market.
The idea that any slight change to a design instantly kills volume efficiency is not remotely correct. When manufacturing at very large volumes the opposite often becomes true; it's sensible to have multiple, varying designs so that an interruption in supply of a critical part doesn't kill your entire output stone dead.
(and.. first post! Hello everyone!)
There is, though, surely something of a difference between the US, Chinese and European markets... and a new, somehow unique UK one ?
And welcome.
Why?
Japanese have their own market. And the Japanese are quite capable of selling to Europe. And the Japanese are quite capable of selling to the USA and China. And the Japanese are quite capable of setting their own laws that suit themselves or having their own models of products that aren't sold elsewhere (some of which can then go on to be exported later).
Why are we incapable of doing something similar? Why do you have such a low view of our country that we can't be like a European version of Japan?
While that's true, pretty much everywhere has broadly accepted FCC codes on acceptable elctromagnetic radiation emissions, and UL - which is an American body - has become the de facto world standard for fire. And then a lot of standards are set at the ISO level.
It's interesting to look at Canada. It's not part of a customs union with the US. They are obligated under both CUSMA and CETA not to use standards as a non-tariff barrier.
There is a Canadian Standards Body, the Canadian Standards Association, but largely because of CUSMA their standards are voluntary rather than obligatory.
I'm not sure our position would be that different to Canada's. The benefits from having our own legal standards - most of which are set globally anyway - are pretty slight.
Separately, it's worth remembering the fights that happened between the US and Japan in the 1980s because the American government felt Japan was using product standards for protectionist reasons.
and mentioned it in a single post on a couple of local FB groups covering my ward, more as an expression of personal opinion that might interest ward residents than anything else. 100 people signed within hours and I was swamped with comments - a couple of people were keen to resume, but nearly everyone else said "Let's do it carerfully when there's a consensus even if it takes longer".
Would surprise me completely and I'm not being disrespectful but 100 people is nothing special for an online petition.
I'd say barring some very bad news there's next to no chance now of the June start for schools being scrapped. Anecdotally but far from unique our daughter was trying to be brave but was really struggling in not seeing her friends. Her school have now been in touch to confirm the date they'll be re-opening (later in the week not 1 June). She is counting down the days til she can go back as if she was counting down the days to her birthday/Christmas, to tell her now that she's not going back after all would be absolutely devastating to her.
Its not going to happen.
Your tale is by no means unique. My friend in Canada was recounting to me at the weekend how her little girl was really missing both her classes and her friends, and - given also that my friend understands the very low risk of Covid to children, and that they've had very few cases in Alberta anyway - the family were really looking forward to the schools re-opening.
None of this means, however, that a blanket re-opening will occur in this country. It's going to be a total postcode lottery dependent on the attitudes of local authorities, school governing bodies and teaching staff at every school in question.
Manufacturers can do scale by using common components in both where possible while using other components where it isn't possible. As they already do!
Indeed. I can only speak for the industry I have experience in (electronics) but I presume it's not to different for any form of manufacturing; almost all efficiencies of scale come from bulk purchasing a limited number of components. When working on a new product one of the overriding design goals is always to use components that are already in use in another model, where and when that is possible without compromising functionality.
There is an additional manufacturing cost involved in building two models rather then one, but if they employ all the same major components that cost is fairly trivial.
An example people will be familiar with is Samsung mobile phones. A 'Galaxy so-and-so' that you buy in the UK may well have completely different internals from a US or Chinese phone of apparently the same model. Would it be cheaper for Samsung to have one universal design? Yes, but not enough to offset the benefits they see in having varying designs for each market.
The idea that any slight change to a design instantly kills volume efficiency is not remotely correct. When manufacturing at very large volumes the opposite often becomes true; it's sensible to have multiple, varying designs so that an interruption in supply of a critical part doesn't kill your entire output stone dead.
(and.. first post! Hello everyone!)
There is, though, surely something of a difference between the US, Chinese and European markets... and a new, somehow unique UK one ?
And welcome.
Why?
Japanese have their own market. And the Japanese are quite capable of selling to Europe. And the Japanese are quite capable of selling to the USA and China. And the Japanese are quite capable of setting their own laws that suit themselves or having their own models of products that aren't sold elsewhere (some of which can then go on to be exported later).
Why are we incapable of doing something similar? Why do you have such a low view of our country that we can't be like a European version of Japan?
While that's true, pretty much everywhere has broadly accepted FCC codes on acceptable elctromagnetic radiation emissions, and UL - which is an American body - has become the de facto world standard for fire. And then a lot of standards are set at the ISO level.
It's interesting to look at Canada. It's not part of a customs union with the US. They are obligated under both CUSMA and CETA not to use standards as a non-tariff barrier.
There is a Canadian Standards Body, the Canadian Standards Association, but largely because of CUSMA their standards are voluntary rather than obligatory.
I'm not sure our position would be that different to Canada's. The benefits from having our own legal standards - most of which are set globally anyway - are pretty slight.
Absolutely I've said all along it would make sense to accept certain basic common standards but there may be some variances where it suits us.
I think it'd be rare to get a laptop sold anywhere in Europe that doesn't accept FCC standards - as you say certain thing shave become a world standard. But we don't need to be an American state to do that and we don't need to accept every single unrelated American law (eg Second Amendment) in order to observe the FCC standards that we choose voluntarily to observe.
There'd be no point most of the time in varying but where we want to, we should have the ability to do so, and the market should be able to cope with that.
I agree with the Canadian analogy. I've long thought post-Brexit we'll be comparable to Canada relative to USA, or Japan relative to China. And I'd rather be Canada or Japan than USA or China too.
BREAKING: Cambridge confirms ‘no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year’
Lectures and exams will be conducted virtually
In an email sent to Senior Tutors today (19th May), it was announced that the University of Cambridge plans to move all “face-to-face lectures” online in the next academic year, 2020/21.
Alice Benton, the Head of Education services, states in the email that the “General Board’s Education Committee” has “agreed that, since it is highly likely that rigid social distancing will be required throughout the next academic year, there will be no face-to-face lectures next year.”
“The decision has been taken to provide a degree of certainty to facilitate Faculties and Departments when planning for educational delivery next academic year”.
Lectures will be live-streamed, recorded and made available on Moodle, while there are plans for lecture theatres to be used for small group teaching in line with social distancing requirements: “Faculties and Departments should continue to plan for face-to-face delivery of seminars, workshops and small group teaching”.
In reference to Michaelmas exams, Benton also notes that it is ‘highly unlikely these examinations will be able to take place in examination halls’. She suggests faculties adapt to this scenario accordingly.
Now remember when all the tech bros shut down early & saying work from home for at least the rest of the year (some forever). This again signals that smart people dont think there is a vaccine or this thing reducing to minimal levels anytime soon.
The worst news came for me this week, the train companies are getting rid of first class for the foreseeable future.
How the feck am I supposed to get to work without a first class section?
Helicopter?
No, a helicopter pilot told me years ago that flying by helicopter really is dangerous, and when things even go slightly wrong they fall like a stone from the sky and there's bugger all you can do to stop it.
Oh, OK. Chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce then. The roads are atypically quiet nowadays, after all.
The Woodhead Pass and Snake Pass are a nightmare for cars for my commute.
Manufacturers can do scale by using common components in both where possible while using other components where it isn't possible. As they already do!
Indeed. I can only speak for the industry I have experience in (electronics) but I presume it's not to different for any form of manufacturing; almost all efficiencies of scale come from bulk purchasing a limited number of components. When working on a new product one of the overriding design goals is always to use components that are already in use in another model, where and when that is possible without compromising functionality.
There is an additional manufacturing cost involved in building two models rather then one, but if they employ all the same major components that cost is fairly trivial.
An example people will be familiar with is Samsung mobile phones. A 'Galaxy so-and-so' that you buy in the UK may well have completely different internals from a US or Chinese phone of apparently the same model. Would it be cheaper for Samsung to have one universal design? Yes, but not enough to offset the benefits they see in having varying designs for each market.
The idea that any slight change to a design instantly kills volume efficiency is not remotely correct. When manufacturing at very large volumes the opposite often becomes true; it's sensible to have multiple, varying designs so that an interruption in supply of a critical part doesn't kill your entire output stone dead.
(and.. first post! Hello everyone!)
There is, though, surely something of a difference between the US, Chinese and European markets... and a new, somehow unique UK one ?
And welcome.
Why?
Japanese have their own market. And the Japanese are quite capable of selling to Europe. And the Japanese are quite capable of selling to the USA and China. And the Japanese are quite capable of setting their own laws that suit themselves or having their own models of products that aren't sold elsewhere (some of which can then go on to be exported later).
Why are we incapable of doing something similar? Why do you have such a low view of our country that we can't be like a European version of Japan?
While that's true, pretty much everywhere has broadly accepted FCC codes on acceptable elctromagnetic radiation emissions, and UL - which is an American body - has become the de facto world standard for fire. And then a lot of standards are set at the ISO level.
It's interesting to look at Canada. It's not part of a customs union with the US. They are obligated under both CUSMA and CETA not to use standards as a non-tariff barrier.
There is a Canadian Standards Body, the Canadian Standards Association, but largely because of CUSMA their standards are voluntary rather than obligatory.
I'm not sure our position would be that different to Canada's. The benefits from having our own legal standards - most of which are set globally anyway - are pretty slight.
Absolutely I've said all along it would make sense to accept certain basic common standards but there may be some variances where it suits us.
I think it'd be rare to get a laptop sold anywhere in Europe that doesn't accept FCC standards - as you say certain thing shave become a world standard. But we don't need to be an American state to do that and we don't need to accept every single unrelated American law (eg Second Amendment) in order to observe the FCC standards that we choose voluntarily to observe.
There'd be no point most of the time in varying but where we want to, we should have the ability to do so, and the market should be able to cope with that.
Free trade agreements, though, almost always have clauses about not using product standards as NTBs. So I'm not convinced, if we wish to have FTAs, how much latitude there is in reality.
Sunak's comments today include the stunning forecast that the unemployment from this crisis will create a million people with chronic health conditions (quoted in the Times).
A Million.
In his interview he also explicitly said it was lockdown (and not the virus) that was creating this massive strain on the economy.
Is someone in the government finally, finally coming around to the idea if squaring with the public on the choices we face?
Hopefully so, because they're going to have to do it sooner or later. Therefore, the sooner, the better.
Unless the mass vaccination by mid-Autumn scenario comes to pass, then the furlough scheme is going to get wound down when the disease is still in circulation to a greater or lesser extent. Anyone lucky enough to still be in a job by that point and who hasn't yet gone back to it is going to have to do so, or give it up in favour of someone who will. We'll have to learn to live with the virus as a managed risk.
The risk can be managed down to very low levels, as Taiwan and South Korea have shown. If we can get close to that, then there would be no reason for people to avoid going to work. Even better, there would be no reason for people to avoid going to pubs, restaurants, concerts and football matches either, and of course schools could re-open fully.
Prolonged lockdown is not feasible. Prolonged social distancing isn't much better, because too many important spaces (offices, classrooms, public transport hubs and vehicles) can't cope with it. The only viable strategy is to aggressively test, trace, and isolate (meaning quarantine) and thereby prevent large outbreaks. Confidence is only going to come back when it can be shown that the system works, which was demonstrably not the case a couple of months ago (not a criticism of the current government, given that the US and Europe didn't do much better, if at all).
Manufacturers can do scale by using common components in both where possible while using other components where it isn't possible. As they already do!
Indeed. I can only speak for the industry I have experience in (electronics) but I presume it's not to different for any form of manufacturing; almost all efficiencies of scale come from bulk purchasing a limited number of components. When working on a new product one of the overriding design goals is always to use components that are already in use in another model, where and when that is possible without compromising functionality.
There is an additional manufacturing cost involved in building two models rather then one, but if they employ all the same major components that cost is fairly trivial.
An example people will be familiar with is Samsung mobile phones. A 'Galaxy so-and-so' that you buy in the UK may well have completely different internals from a US or Chinese phone of apparently the same model. Would it be cheaper for Samsung to have one universal design? Yes, but not enough to offset the benefits they see in having varying designs for each market.
The idea that any slight change to a design instantly kills volume efficiency is not remotely correct. When manufacturing at very large volumes the opposite often becomes true; it's sensible to have multiple, varying designs so that an interruption in supply of a critical part doesn't kill your entire output stone dead.
(and.. first post! Hello everyone!)
There is, though, surely something of a difference between the US, Chinese and European markets... and a new, somehow unique UK one ?
And welcome.
Why?
Japanese have their own market. And the Japanese are quite capable of selling to Europe. And the Japanese are quite capable of selling to the USA and China. And the Japanese are quite capable of setting their own laws that suit themselves or having their own models of products that aren't sold elsewhere (some of which can then go on to be exported later).
Why are we incapable of doing something similar? Why do you have such a low view of our country that we can't be like a European version of Japan?
While that's true, pretty much everywhere has broadly accepted FCC codes on acceptable elctromagnetic radiation emissions, and UL - which is an American body - has become the de facto world standard for fire. And then a lot of standards are set at the ISO level.
It's interesting to look at Canada. It's not part of a customs union with the US. They are obligated under both CUSMA and CETA not to use standards as a non-tariff barrier.
There is a Canadian Standards Body, the Canadian Standards Association, but largely because of CUSMA their standards are voluntary rather than obligatory.
I'm not sure our position would be that different to Canada's. The benefits from having our own legal standards - most of which are set globally anyway - are pretty slight.
Absolutely I've said all along it would make sense to accept certain basic common standards but there may be some variances where it suits us.
I think it'd be rare to get a laptop sold anywhere in Europe that doesn't accept FCC standards - as you say certain thing shave become a world standard. But we don't need to be an American state to do that and we don't need to accept every single unrelated American law (eg Second Amendment) in order to observe the FCC standards that we choose voluntarily to observe.
There'd be no point most of the time in varying but where we want to, we should have the ability to do so, and the market should be able to cope with that.
Free trade agreements, though, almost always have clauses about not using product standards as NTBs. So I'm not convinced, if we wish to have FTAs, how much latitude there is in reality.
As I said earlier today let the Tory Brexiters dream that they will get something out of it.
BREAKING: Cambridge confirms ‘no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year’
Lectures and exams will be conducted virtually
In an email sent to Senior Tutors today (19th May), it was announced that the University of Cambridge plans to move all “face-to-face lectures” online in the next academic year, 2020/21.
Alice Benton, the Head of Education services, states in the email that the “General Board’s Education Committee” has “agreed that, since it is highly likely that rigid social distancing will be required throughout the next academic year, there will be no face-to-face lectures next year.”
“The decision has been taken to provide a degree of certainty to facilitate Faculties and Departments when planning for educational delivery next academic year”.
Lectures will be live-streamed, recorded and made available on Moodle, while there are plans for lecture theatres to be used for small group teaching in line with social distancing requirements: “Faculties and Departments should continue to plan for face-to-face delivery of seminars, workshops and small group teaching”.
In reference to Michaelmas exams, Benton also notes that it is ‘highly unlikely these examinations will be able to take place in examination halls’. She suggests faculties adapt to this scenario accordingly.
Now remember when all the tech bros shut down early & saying work from home for at least the rest of the year (some forever). This again signals that smart people dont think there is a vaccine or this thing reducing to minimal levels anytime soon.
The worst news came for me this week, the train companies are getting rid of first class for the foreseeable future.
How the feck am I supposed to get to work without a first class section?
Helicopter?
No, a helicopter pilot told me years ago that flying by helicopter really is dangerous, and when things even go slightly wrong they fall like a stone from the sky and there's bugger all you can do to stop it.
Oh, OK. Chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce then. The roads are atypically quiet nowadays, after all.
The Woodhead Pass and Snake Pass are a nightmare for cars for my commute.
Dura Ace might be on for a short term chauffeuring contract. Whether that's more or less dangerous than a chopper I don't know..
BREAKING: Cambridge confirms ‘no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year’
Lectures and exams will be conducted virtually
In an email sent to Senior Tutors today (19th May), it was announced that the University of Cambridge plans to move all “face-to-face lectures” online in the next academic year, 2020/21.
Alice Benton, the Head of Education services, states in the email that the “General Board’s Education Committee” has “agreed that, since it is highly likely that rigid social distancing will be required throughout the next academic year, there will be no face-to-face lectures next year.”
“The decision has been taken to provide a degree of certainty to facilitate Faculties and Departments when planning for educational delivery next academic year”.
Lectures will be live-streamed, recorded and made available on Moodle, while there are plans for lecture theatres to be used for small group teaching in line with social distancing requirements: “Faculties and Departments should continue to plan for face-to-face delivery of seminars, workshops and small group teaching”.
In reference to Michaelmas exams, Benton also notes that it is ‘highly unlikely these examinations will be able to take place in examination halls’. She suggests faculties adapt to this scenario accordingly.
Now remember when all the tech bros shut down early & saying work from home for at least the rest of the year (some forever). This again signals that smart people dont think there is a vaccine or this thing reducing to minimal levels anytime soon.
The worst news came for me this week, the train companies are getting rid of first class for the foreseeable future.
How the feck am I supposed to get to work without a first class section?
Helicopter?
No, a helicopter pilot told me years ago that flying by helicopter really is dangerous, and when things even go slightly wrong they fall like a stone from the sky and there's bugger all you can do to stop it.
Oh, OK. Chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce then. The roads are atypically quiet nowadays, after all.
The Woodhead Pass and Snake Pass are a nightmare for cars for my commute.
The decision to reopen schools in 22 EU states, including France where 1.4 million pupils went back to their classrooms, has not caused an increase in coronavirus cases across Europe.
I think this bang on for Trump but rather harsh for Johnson. He clearly is immature but he's not down at toddler level. More teenager.
As for him going this year - IMO only health or a sleaze scandal of huge proportions would cause that.
Yeah more like a teenager. The sexual incontinence would be weird in a toddler. With respect to the question - seems a stretch, but it wouldn't be without precedent. In the modern era (which I define as my lifetime because I am a self centred bastard) five PMs have been defenestrated mid-term in favour of a successor from their own party - May, Cameron, Blair, Thatcher and Wilson. That's one more than the number who went after losing an election (Wilson has a foot in both camps but his 1970 election defeat is outside my sample period). Of those five, you could argue that only Blair and May seemed obviously for the chop seven months before they went. Thatcher was unpopular in February 1990 I think (she was always unpopular in our house, obvs) but I don't remember it being obvious she would be replaced at that point. Cameron wasn't expected to lose the EU referendum, and Wilson's resignation on health grounds was a shock. So like I say, seems unlikely but wouldn't rule it out. 25% probability?
I think this bang on for Trump but rather harsh for Johnson. He clearly is immature but he's not down at toddler level. More teenager.
As for him going this year - IMO only health or a sleaze scandal of huge proportions would cause that.
Yeah more like a teenager. The sexual incontinence would be weird in a toddler. With respect to the question - seems a stretch, but it wouldn't be without precedent. In the modern era (which I define as my lifetime because I am a self centred bastard) five PMs have been defenestrated mid-term in favour of a successor from their own party - May, Cameron, Blair, Thatcher and Wilson. That's one more than the number who went after losing an election (Wilson has a foot in both camps but his 1970 election defeat is outside my sample period). Of those five, you could argue that only Blair and May seemed obviously for the chop seven months before they went. Thatcher was unpopular in February 1990 I think (she was always unpopular in our house, obvs) but I don't remember it being obvious she would be replaced at that point. Cameron wasn't expected to lose the EU referendum, and Wilson's resignation on health grounds was a shock. So like I say, seems unlikely but wouldn't rule it out. 25% probability?
Wilson did not resign on health grounds in Spring 1976 - and there was no suggestion of that at the time. His activities after leaving office also contradict the idea that he was then ill. When he returned as PM in March 1974 , he made it clear to his family and inner circle that he would not be serving a full term. That is supported by the fact that he did not move back to No 10.
The ONS figures suggest just under 50,000 excess death between Weeks 13 and 19. His comment "and rising" will be an interesting one, because it might start to fall given the trend with non-COVID-19 deaths:
Who cares less what some leftie journalist on the Independent thinks. Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher, they only want him out as tgey are frightened of him
He is that, but the pandemic has dramatically changed the politics and economy
I am increasingly concerned that he has gone missing and it may be health related but we cannot be sure due to his reputation for avoiding scrutiny
He needs to step up and become visible again
He doesn't need to be on our screens every day but we are in the midst of a national crisis and I can't recall seeing him since his mauling by Starmer at the last PMQ. His health can't be too bad if there is a picture of him out jogging in the media today.
How much harder is it to deny dodging scrutiny when we all know he ducked out of being interviewed by Andrew Neil during the GE?
He has a reputation for laziness and flying by the seat of his pants and also for lying. It's at times like this that Boris's past starts to catch up with him. But then again, those that supported his bid to govern the country knew all that at the time.
26% of Scots voted against having a Scottish Parliament in 1997, so if they got even a quarter of that UKIP could win some MSPs given Holyrood has PR
I doubt they will get many votes, but an anti-federalist party isn't such an unreasonable idea per se. They should probably drop their English Parliament demand if they are taking this side, if they haven't already. In principle arguing for an English Parliament or undoing devolution is workable, but the optics of it are messy.
and mentioned it in a single post on a couple of local FB groups covering my ward, more as an expression of personal opinion that might interest ward residents than anything else. 100 people signed within hours and I was swamped with comments - a couple of people were keen to resume, but nearly everyone else said "Let's do it carerfully when there's a consensus even if it takes longer".
Would surprise me completely and I'm not being disrespectful but 100 people is nothing special for an online petition.
I'd say barring some very bad news there's next to no chance now of the June start for schools being scrapped. Anecdotally but far from unique our daughter was trying to be brave but was really struggling in not seeing her friends. Her school have now been in touch to confirm the date they'll be re-opening (later in the week not 1 June). She is counting down the days til she can go back as if she was counting down the days to her birthday/Christmas, to tell her now that she's not going back after all would be absolutely devastating to her.
Its not going to happen.
Your tale is by no means unique. My friend in Canada was recounting to me at the weekend how her little girl was really missing both her classes and her friends, and - given also that my friend understands the very low risk of Covid to children, and that they've had very few cases in Alberta anyway - the family were really looking forward to the schools re-opening.
None of this means, however, that a blanket re-opening will occur in this country. It's going to be a total postcode lottery dependent on the attitudes of local authorities, school governing bodies and teaching staff at every school in question.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but I really struggle with the notion that there are loads of kids actively missing school (as opposed to their friends) and wanting to go back. As of right now, they've barely been gone longer than a summer holiday and I don't recall lots of people being excited to come back every September.
Wanting to be allowed out the house again and meet people, on the other hand, I totally get.
Sean O'Grady is suffering from an extreme case of Boris Derangement Syndrome. Unless they are physically disabled, Prime Ministers with large majorities don't just decide to give up no matter how difficult the circumstances, especially this early in their terms.
My money is firmly on Johnson resigning before the end of 2022.
He will do a runner before there is any chance of holding him accountable for his handling of the pandemic or the consequences of Brexit.
He dodges accountability during the best of times and we are very far from the best of times right now. He will claim it is for health reasons but really that will be just another in a long line of lies.
It will be sooner if it is his health
Otherwise I expect him to continue in office
If it's found that the government has made a lot of serious mistakes with regard to the handling of the virus he may have no choice but to leave early, even if he wasn't personally responsible.
So what could have done different ?
Restriction on migration, quarantine etc ? Yes but the entire political class seems opposed to that.
An earlier lockdown ? Possibly but only by a few days and there was little to stop people doing so themselves, as indeed many did.
A big push push earlier on testing ? Yes but this was a failure of the NHS / DoH / PHE alphabet soup.
Care homes ? A lack of dynamic leadership from the government but the real responsibility lies with crass decisions at operational levels.
A big early push on PPE ? Possibly but that would go against the globalist mindset dominant in government.
A clearer strategy ? Possibly but this goes back to the scientists and their models.
Messaging - did 'protect the NHS' lead to extra non-covid deaths ? Possibly but would an alternative have been riskier ?
Now what did the government do well on ? Nightingales, ventilators, furloughs and belatedly testing.
I remain convinced that during the last 2 weeks of February when Boris went AWOl at Chevening to sort out his private life, we missed the opportunity to really get on top of what was happening around the world and learn from the mistakes others were making.
Boris did not wake up to the danger early enough and we have been playing catch up ever since and are probably going to end up with about the worst outcome in Europe. This will also knock on to the economic impact because I expect we will be last European nation to properly come out of lockdown.
26% of Scots voted against having a Scottish Parliament in 1997, so if they got even a quarter of that UKIP could win some MSPs given Holyrood has PR
In that case it's SCon votes they'll be taking. Since UKIP or their proxies have never got an elected member of any kind outside MEPs in Scotland, I'm not really seeing it.
To be fair to the Government they did say schools to start re-open no earlier than June 1st. Who could have ever suspected people would miss the qualifier and only hear the date mentioned?
The ONS figures suggest just under 50,000 excess death between Weeks 13 and 19. His comment "and rising" will be an interesting one, because it might start to fall given the trend with non-COVID-19 deaths:
"And rising" will always be true unless you are forecasting a Zombie Apocalypse. The rate of increasing deaths might fall; indeed, that is what we are hoping for.
Pick for Britain really is redolent of one of those old Maoist 5-year plans isn't it?
No.
It is a practical answer to an urgent need
Says the man who was so keen to get Brexit done.
Tad unfair. BigG regularly criticises Boris and members of the Cabinet where justified unlike some of the PB Tories. Unfortunately Labour having Corbyn as leader resulted in a number of people voting for Boris who has doubts about his suitability but still saw him as a better bet than JC.
"And rising" will always be true unless you are forecasting a Zombie Apocalypse. The rate of increasing deaths might fall; indeed, that is what we are hoping for.
Finland managed a -1 day on their death count once :-)
The ONS figures suggest just under 50,000 excess death between Weeks 13 and 19. His comment "and rising" will be an interesting one, because it might start to fall given the trend with non-COVID-19 deaths:
"And rising" will always be true unless you are forecasting a Zombie Apocalypse. The rate of increasing deaths might fall; indeed, that is what we are hoping for.
The figure that Morgan is presumably talking about is "excess deaths". That could go negative over the next few weeks. That 8,727 is 849 below the 5-year average of 9,576. That isn't that out of the ordinary. Week 6 was 939 below the 5-year average.
However, if we assume that a decent amount of the 13,200 excess non-COVID-19 deaths in Weeks 13-18 were actually due to COVID-19, then it's probably fair to say that a decent amount of the 8,727 non-COVID-19 deaths in Week 19 were due to COVID-19 too. Therefore, the true number of non-COVID-19 deaths is likely to already be quite a long way below the 5-year average.
Given the lag time, it's quite possible in the next few weeks that the number of people not dying now because they are already dead will be more than those dying from COVID-19. Therefore, If they keep extending the number of weeks in the calculation, then the number of excess deaths will go down.
As ever, beware aggregate statistics. The more meaningful statistic is - what's the total amount of life in terms of years/months/days that COVID-19 has knocked off?
BREAKING: Cambridge confirms ‘no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year’
Lectures and exams will be conducted virtually
In an email sent to Senior Tutors today (19th May), it was announced that the University of Cambridge plans to move all “face-to-face lectures” online in the next academic year, 2020/21.
Alice Benton, the Head of Education services, states in the email that the “General Board’s Education Committee” has “agreed that, since it is highly likely that rigid social distancing will be required throughout the next academic year, there will be no face-to-face lectures next year.”
“The decision has been taken to provide a degree of certainty to facilitate Faculties and Departments when planning for educational delivery next academic year”.
Lectures will be live-streamed, recorded and made available on Moodle, while there are plans for lecture theatres to be used for small group teaching in line with social distancing requirements: “Faculties and Departments should continue to plan for face-to-face delivery of seminars, workshops and small group teaching”.
In reference to Michaelmas exams, Benton also notes that it is ‘highly unlikely these examinations will be able to take place in examination halls’. She suggests faculties adapt to this scenario accordingly.
Now remember when all the tech bros shut down early & saying work from home for at least the rest of the year (some forever). This again signals that smart people dont think there is a vaccine or this thing reducing to minimal levels anytime soon.
The worst news came for me this week, the train companies are getting rid of first class for the foreseeable future.
How the feck am I supposed to get to work without a first class section?
If you eat a pizza with pineapple on it, you will probably find everyone will avoid you like the plague and you will have the carriage to yourself.
26% of Scots voted against having a Scottish Parliament in 1997, so if they got even a quarter of that UKIP could win some MSPs given Holyrood has PR
In that case it's SCon votes they'll be taking. Since UKIP or their proxies have never got an elected member of any kind outside MEPs in Scotland, I'm not really seeing it.
Not at constituency level.
A UKIP MSP who wants to scrap Holyrood replacing a Tory MSP who is pro Scottish Parliament on the list is possible though
Curiously, in the doctored Keir Starmer video last week, the reasons given for the lack of prosecutions were the exact opposite of political correctness.
And yes, I do realise there is more to it, but it's a lot more complex than Priti Patel is suggesting.
Which suggests the Tories think that there is something in the story that will embarrass Keir Starmer, or at least blacken Labour in the former Red Wall towns
BREAKING: Cambridge confirms ‘no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year’
Lectures and exams will be conducted virtually
In an email sent to Senior Tutors today (19th May), it was announced that the University of Cambridge plans to move all “face-to-face lectures” online in the next academic year, 2020/21.
Alice Benton, the Head of Education services, states in the email that the “General Board’s Education Committee” has “agreed that, since it is highly likely that rigid social distancing will be required throughout the next academic year, there will be no face-to-face lectures next year.”
“The decision has been taken to provide a degree of certainty to facilitate Faculties and Departments when planning for educational delivery next academic year”.
Lectures will be live-streamed, recorded and made available on Moodle, while there are plans for lecture theatres to be used for small group teaching in line with social distancing requirements: “Faculties and Departments should continue to plan for face-to-face delivery of seminars, workshops and small group teaching”.
In reference to Michaelmas exams, Benton also notes that it is ‘highly unlikely these examinations will be able to take place in examination halls’. She suggests faculties adapt to this scenario accordingly.
Now remember when all the tech bros shut down early & saying work from home for at least the rest of the year (some forever). This again signals that smart people dont think there is a vaccine or this thing reducing to minimal levels anytime soon.
The worst news came for me this week, the train companies are getting rid of first class for the foreseeable future.
How the feck am I supposed to get to work without a first class section?
Helicopter?
No, a helicopter pilot told me years ago that flying by helicopter really is dangerous, and when things even go slightly wrong they fall like a stone from the sky and there's bugger all you can do to stop it.
The ground tends to do a decent job of arresting the fall.
BREAKING: Cambridge confirms ‘no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year’
Lectures and exams will be conducted virtually
In an email sent to Senior Tutors today (19th May), it was announced that the University of Cambridge plans to move all “face-to-face lectures” online in the next academic year, 2020/21.
Alice Benton, the Head of Education services, states in the email that the “General Board’s Education Committee” has “agreed that, since it is highly likely that rigid social distancing will be required throughout the next academic year, there will be no face-to-face lectures next year.”
“The decision has been taken to provide a degree of certainty to facilitate Faculties and Departments when planning for educational delivery next academic year”.
Lectures will be live-streamed, recorded and made available on Moodle, while there are plans for lecture theatres to be used for small group teaching in line with social distancing requirements: “Faculties and Departments should continue to plan for face-to-face delivery of seminars, workshops and small group teaching”.
In reference to Michaelmas exams, Benton also notes that it is ‘highly unlikely these examinations will be able to take place in examination halls’. She suggests faculties adapt to this scenario accordingly.
Now remember when all the tech bros shut down early & saying work from home for at least the rest of the year (some forever). This again signals that smart people dont think there is a vaccine or this thing reducing to minimal levels anytime soon.
The worst news came for me this week, the train companies are getting rid of first class for the foreseeable future.
How the feck am I supposed to get to work without a first class section?
Helicopter?
No, a helicopter pilot told me years ago that flying by helicopter really is dangerous, and when things even go slightly wrong they fall like a stone from the sky and there's bugger all you can do to stop it.
Oh, OK. Chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce then. The roads are atypically quiet nowadays, after all.
The Woodhead Pass and Snake Pass are a nightmare for cars for my commute.
and mentioned it in a single post on a couple of local FB groups covering my ward, more as an expression of personal opinion that might interest ward residents than anything else. 100 people signed within hours and I was swamped with comments - a couple of people were keen to resume, but nearly everyone else said "Let's do it carerfully when there's a consensus even if it takes longer".
swamped with comments?? How many comments.??? as ever there are two different schools of thought on this, not sure which has more support.
If Johnson bottles out of reopening the schools some of his MPs will think that he can't last much longer. So he has to continue with it.
Who cares less what some leftie journalist on the Independent thinks. Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher, they only want him out as tgey are frightened of him
He is that, but the pandemic has dramatically changed the politics and economy
I am increasingly concerned that he has gone missing and it may be health related but we cannot be sure due to his reputation for avoiding scrutiny
He needs to step up and become visible again
He doesn't need to be on our screens every day but we are in the midst of a national crisis and I can't recall seeing him since his mauling by Starmer at the last PMQ. His health can't be too bad if there is a picture of him out jogging in the media today.
How much harder is it to deny dodging scrutiny when we all know he ducked out of being interviewed by Andrew Neil during the GE?
He has a reputation for laziness and flying by the seat of his pants and also for lying. It's at times like this that Boris's past starts to catch up with him. But then again, those that supported his bid to govern the country knew all that at the time.
Generally speaking object permanence kicks in in humans after 4-7 months of age. Boris still exists and is still Prime Minister even if he isn't on TV every minute of every day...
Aka Priti's got a cause. I'm sure it won't be a distraction from all the other stuff, eg being a bit crap and unpopular.
Who cares why it's happening? It's more justice for the victims of grooming, more rapists put away. If it so happens that Priti Patel enhances her standing and Kier Starmer faces some difficult questions, so be it.
Sean O'Grady is suffering from an extreme case of Boris Derangement Syndrome. Unless they are physically disabled, Prime Ministers with large majorities don't just decide to give up no matter how difficult the circumstances, especially this early in their terms.
My money is firmly on Johnson resigning before the end of 2022.
He will do a runner before there is any chance of holding him accountable for his handling of the pandemic or the consequences of Brexit.
He dodges accountability during the best of times and we are very far from the best of times right now. He will claim it is for health reasons but really that will be just another in a long line of lies.
It will be sooner if it is his health
Otherwise I expect him to continue in office
If it's found that the government has made a lot of serious mistakes with regard to the handling of the virus he may have no choice but to leave early, even if he wasn't personally responsible.
So what could have done different ?
Restriction on migration, quarantine etc ? Yes but the entire political class seems opposed to that.
An earlier lockdown ? Possibly but only by a few days and there was little to stop people doing so themselves, as indeed many did.
A big push push earlier on testing ? Yes but this was a failure of the NHS / DoH / PHE alphabet soup.
Care homes ? A lack of dynamic leadership from the government but the real responsibility lies with crass decisions at operational levels.
A big early push on PPE ? Possibly but that would go against the globalist mindset dominant in government.
A clearer strategy ? Possibly but this goes back to the scientists and their models.
Messaging - did 'protect the NHS' lead to extra non-covid deaths ? Possibly but would an alternative have been riskier ?
Now what did the government do well on ? Nightingales, ventilators, furloughs and belatedly testing.
I remain convinced that during the last 2 weeks of February when Boris went AWOl at Chevening to sort out his private life, we missed the opportunity to really get on top of what was happening around the world and learn from the mistakes others were making.
Boris did not wake up to the danger early enough and we have been playing catch up ever since and are probably going to end up with about the worst outcome in Europe. This will also knock on to the economic impact because I expect we will be last European nation to properly come out of lockdown.
Boris needs to ditch Dominic Cummings. The paradox is that Boris needs Cummings.
Boris and Cummings centralised power at Number 10 to a dangerous extent, building on the work of Thatcher and Blair. This meant that when Boris and Cummings (and, we have since learned, also the Cabinet Secretary, Mark Sedwill) became ill, the government was rudderless.
But that is was temporary. This is permanent: Boris is temperamentally unsuited to be dictator. Boris needs to be Primus Inter Pares, chairing a Cabinet of departmental ministers running their own shows. Even if Boris had the time, he has not the inclination to study and master cross-Whitehall briefs.
Cummings might have the inclination but has no political authority and is probably out of his depth anyway. Even if Cummings is right about the Civil Service's institutional failings, now is plainly not the time to reform it.
Boris needs to return authority to his Cabinet. If ministers are not up to it, let them be replaced. That might not be easy given his Stalinist purge of experienced MPs but only a partisan fool would deny the possibility of talent on the Conservative benches. It would also solve Boris's PMQs woes as he could return to the traditional practice of passing departmental questions on to the relevant Secretaries of State. Boris needs to be more like Churchill and less like Thatcher, and he can start by showing Cummings the door, or better still, setting Lord Cummings to chair a Royal Commission into getting it right next time.
Why is this news, and why is it an admission? It was obvious that was the basis for the decision at the time. You always go to war with the army you have, not the army you need.
I thought they even said it at the time - it would not be effective as there were too many cases coming through.
It feels like a red herring this.
The bigger question is- what was the thinking behind the gap (10 days or so? 2 -3 doublings?) between realising that testing wasn't working any more and having a full lockdown. I'm not saying that was the wrong thing to do, but the thinking isn't obvious. After all, an earlier lockdown would have led to fewer cases and an earlier release.
And OT- no, Boris can't be forced out, and there's nobody really in a position to take over (Hunt, presumably). But I can imagine him hating the questioning so much that he walks. For the sake of his health, natch.
Is school reopening going to be the new brexit withdrawal deal? People always finding reasons why they can't accept it.
One big problem is that reopening schools undermines the rest of the government's messaging. Wear masks in enclosed spaces, except in classrooms. Only meet one other household, unless you are at school in which case 15 or 30 other households at a time is perfectly safe.
So if you are a parent, how can you assess what is safe for your son and daughter? Staying alert just means you are more aware of the contradictions. Boris needs to take a step back and forge a coherent message rather than a series of special cases scattered across gov.uk where few parents can find them anyway.
Aka Priti's got a cause. I'm sure it won't be a distraction from all the other stuff, eg being a bit crap and unpopular.
Who cares why it's happening? It's more justice for the victims of grooming, more rapists put away. If it so happens that Priti Patel enhances her standing and Kier Starmer faces some difficult questions, so be it.
Her being a bit crap may be an obstacle to these admirable outcomes of course.
Pulled it right out of his arse like all the rest of the shite he spouts.
It’s Chris Giles’ estimate of excess deaths due to the Coronavirus epidemic. We’ve had ~50k excess deaths recorded by ONS so far and his model suggests ~12k more are yet to hit the official ONS record from the past few weeks. So 62k in total.
Gloriously sunburned from a walk in the Welsh hills. Finishing off a frankly kick-arse memoir. Drunk as a lunk on fine Puglia red. The sun sets behind the Black Mountains. Unlockdown looms.
There have, to be honest, been worse times. I may have to finish off with the St Henri 2005
Why did you decide on Penarth as a place to stay during the lockdown?
Pick for Britain really is redolent of one of those old Maoist 5-year plans isn't it?
No.
It is a practical answer to an urgent need
Says the man who was so keen to get Brexit done.
Tad unfair. BigG regularly criticises Boris and members of the Cabinet where justified unlike some of the PB Tories. Unfortunately Labour having Corbyn as leader resulted in a number of people voting for Boris who has doubts about his suitability but still saw him as a better bet than JC.
Jeremy Corbyn was not standing to be leader of the Conservative Party when its members elected Boris to be Prime Minister.
Gloriously sunburned from a walk in the Welsh hills. Finishing off a frankly kick-arse memoir. Drunk as a lunk on fine Puglia red. The sun sets behind the Black Mountains. Unlockdown looms.
There have, to be honest, been worse times. I may have to finish off with the St Henri 2005
Pulled it right out of his arse like all the rest of the shite he spouts.
So what's your estimate for total deaths to date then?
I prefer to go with the official statistics rather than embracing the guesstimates of some bloke off t'Twitter and pronouncing them as gospel.
Does this utter idiocy happen in any other country in the world? Do their 'journalists' compete to extrapolate the worst possible outcome?
No. Only in Britain.
Whatever which way you look at out...the fucking Tories have inflicted a period of incomparably poor governance in the UK...it's been a shitshow from day one...from Andrew Lansley and David Cameron's Big Society crap..the Tories are completely ill-suited to run. anything.
Exam done. I think it went well. Next one on Thursday: EU law...
Go Gallowgate!
There was some cynical exam advice on Youtube that you should revise by writing kick-arse opening paragraphs for every conceivable question, and be ready to spew them onto the paper when appropriate. That way you revise the topics likely to occur, you can launch straight into your answers, and most examiners are unduly influenced by the start of an essay if it can grab their attention.
Sean O'Grady is suffering from an extreme case of Boris Derangement Syndrome. Unless they are physically disabled, Prime Ministers with large majorities don't just decide to give up no matter how difficult the circumstances, especially this early in their terms.
My money is firmly on Johnson resigning before the end of 2022.
He will do a runner before there is any chance of holding him accountable for his handling of the pandemic or the consequences of Brexit.
He dodges accountability during the best of times and we are very far from the best of times right now. He will claim it is for health reasons but really that will be just another in a long line of lies.
It will be sooner if it is his health
Otherwise I expect him to continue in office
If it's found that the government has made a lot of serious mistakes with regard to the handling of the virus he may have no choice but to leave early, even if he wasn't personally responsible.
So what could have done different ?
Restriction on migration, quarantine etc ? Yes but the entire political class seems opposed to that.
An earlier lockdown ? Possibly but only by a few days and there was little to stop people doing so themselves, as indeed many did.
A big push push earlier on testing ? Yes but this was a failure of the NHS / DoH / PHE alphabet soup.
Care homes ? A lack of dynamic leadership from the government but the real responsibility lies with crass decisions at operational levels.
A big early push on PPE ? Possibly but that would go against the globalist mindset dominant in government.
A clearer strategy ? Possibly but this goes back to the scientists and their models.
Messaging - did 'protect the NHS' lead to extra non-covid deaths ? Possibly but would an alternative have been riskier ?
Now what did the government do well on ? Nightingales, ventilators, furloughs and belatedly testing.
I remain convinced that during the last 2 weeks of February when Boris went AWOl at Chevening to sort out his private life, we missed the opportunity to really get on top of what was happening around the world and learn from the mistakes others were making.
Boris did not wake up to the danger early enough and we have been playing catch up ever since and are probably going to end up with about the worst outcome in Europe. This will also knock on to the economic impact because I expect we will be last European nation to properly come out of lockdown.
But what mistakes were other countries known to be doing in February ?
In Italy the first death was on 21/02/20 and that had risen to 29 by the end of February.
In Spain there were no deaths until 08/03/20 and only 81 known cases by the end of February.
So what could the government have done in February ?
Make an effort to get PPE and testing organised better ? Possibly.
Warn people not to leave the country ? Ideally but in reality no government was going to do that.
It's not a secret that the official statistics lag reality, and for good reason. There are lots of very bright people employed specifically to fill the gap between incident and reporting, so as to allow decisions to be made on the basis of the best available information.
People who assume the official stats are gospel are as dumb as people who assume they're all just fiddled for political convenience.
Have you seen the shit the GOP have pulled in Georgia?
twitter.com/kaysteiger/status/1262735680825933824
The US southern states do seem to be little better than banana republics
American politics seems institutionally corrupt, and it is mainly on one side. Winning is all that counts, not high-minded ideals like democracy or the Constitution. Richard Nixon must be turning in his grave at what they get away with now.
Exam done. I think it went well. Next one on Thursday: EU law...
Go Gallowgate!
There was some cynical exam advice on Youtube that you should revise by writing kick-arse opening paragraphs for every conceivable question, and be ready to spew them onto the paper when appropriate. That way you revise the topics likely to occur, you can launch straight into your answers, and most examiners are unduly influenced by the start of an essay if it can grab their attention.
How's that cynical? Focus on the main points for a range of topics likely to be examined? It's great advice. Bordering on blindingly obvious.
If nothing else, it gives you momentum and the confidence that you can finish each question the way you started it. Nothing worse than starting an exam by flailing around on a question you can't really answer properly.
What, the novelty of Labour having a good PMQs once in a decade?
The point is that Boris had a bad one. Again. And that won't have escaped his backbenchers. Or Boris himself. After all, he was there.
Even Corbyn was occasionally touted as having had a 'good' PMQs by the media. It didn't help him much.
When? Please reference it
Easy to find them via google.
Any guesses as to who this Corbyn fan was:
How well he did. What a disappointment to all those waiting for calamity in the press gallery above, poison pens poised. Those with tickets to a bare-knuckle, cockfight massacre of an innocent were cheated. It just didn’t happen.
Instead, a dignified and calm man, seasoned by years of parliamentary experience, raised questions of real importance to millions of people, on the housing crisis, on severe tax credit cuts to millions and on the worsening emergency in mental health. The seriousness and sincerity were almost shocking in that den of artifice.
It was David Cameron who was wrongfooted. He absolutely knew he had to turn down the volume and stop the cheap point-scoring, but he couldn’t. Starting out low key, he soon fell into the manufactured mantras and pre-cooked slogans of the day that make his answers so wearying.
It meant that prime ministerial austerities with the truth lacked sharp ripostes: no, £8bn doesn’t begin to cover the NHS crisis; no, social housing is being crippled; and, no, there’s no “parity“ between mental and physical health. But that way lies ya-boo.
Instead, Corbyn kept to the Commons motion he recently signed, to end this “ill-mannered and pointless exchange of insults”. His grownup style may win the attention of the real audience, those voters outside the Commons where his thoughtful questions will have considerably more impact than the PM’s shouty and shifty replies.
It's not a secret that the official statistics lag reality, and for good reason. There are lots of very bright people employed specifically to fill the gap between incident and reporting, so as to allow decisions to be made on the basis of the best available information.
People who assume the official stats are gospel are as dumb as people who assume they're all just fiddled for political convenience.
We should follow the same reporting standard as the rest of the world, not rush to double the official figures for no discernible reason at all - other than a political one, of course.
It seems some people are almost salivating at the prospect of an inquiry as an opportunity to apportion blame.
An inquiry should surely happen but the priority should be to learn lessons for next time, if there's a next time, more than finding a scapegoat to blame.
I think you'll find that Keir is the real deal...he survived the utter cataclysm that befell the Labour Party under Corbyn (I still get PTSD thinking of Corbyn as my leader).....
A quick tip.....I think even the bluest blue in 5 years time will be relieved that we have someone of Keir's competence and stature as PM after such a shocking period of government in the UK...
I am embarrassed by my Govt now in the UK....we are an international joke and laughing stock.
It's not a secret that the official statistics lag reality, and for good reason. There are lots of very bright people employed specifically to fill the gap between incident and reporting, so as to allow decisions to be made on the basis of the best available information.
People who assume the official stats are gospel are as dumb as people who assume they're all just fiddled for political convenience.
We should follow the same reporting standard as the rest of the world, not rush to double the official figures for no discernable reason at all - other than a political one, of course.
I've worked extensively with data from a wide range of other countries, and I cannot agree with your notion that we should reduce the quality of our data collection by ~90%.
Pulled it right out of his arse like all the rest of the shite he spouts.
So what's your estimate for total deaths to date then?
I prefer to go with the official statistics rather than embracing the guesstimates of some bloke off t'Twitter and pronouncing them as gospel.
Does this utter idiocy happen in any other country in the world? Do their 'journalists' compete to extrapolate the worst possible outcome?
No. Only in Britain.
He's using official statistics. Then filling in the gap for the last week and a half. I guess you'd accept 55,000 as official?
No, I accept the internationally-comparable figure used in comparing deaths worldwide, which as of today stands at 35,341.
If it gets updated to 55,000 or higher in due course then so be it, but doing so pre-emptively when no other country follows that standard is ridiculous.
There is nothing wrong with either motley or saying nay.
Radical fearless free thinker, unafraid to tell it as it is no matter who is offended, criticises a fellow member of the tribe for ...er Having the wrong opinion.
I think you'll find that Keir is the real deal...he survived the utter cataclysm that befell the Labour Party under Corbyn (I still get PTSD thinking of Corbyn as my leader).....
A quick tip.....I think even the bluest blue in 5 years time will be relieved that we have someone of Keir's competence and stature as PM after such a shocking period of government in the UK...
I am embarrassed by my Govt now in the UK....we are an international joke and laughing stock.
No, Donald Trump is an international joke and laughing stock.
Britain is just a normal country with a normal government. Its not as special as you make out.
I think you'll find that Keir is the real deal...he survived the utter cataclysm that befell the Labour Party under Corbyn (I still get PTSD thinking of Corbyn as my leader).....
A quick tip.....I think even the bluest blue in 5 years time will be relieved that we have someone of Keir's competence and stature as PM after such a shocking period of government in the UK...
I am embarrassed by my Govt now in the UK....we are an international joke and laughing stock.
Given the open goals he has missed I need some convincing about Starmer's 'competence'.
BREAKING: Cambridge confirms ‘no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year’
Lectures and exams will be conducted virtually
In an email sent to Senior Tutors today (19th May), it was announced that the University of Cambridge plans to move all “face-to-face lectures” online in the next academic year, 2020/21.
Alice Benton, the Head of Education services, states in the email that the “General Board’s Education Committee” has “agreed that, since it is highly likely that rigid social distancing will be required throughout the next academic year, there will be no face-to-face lectures next year.”
“The decision has been taken to provide a degree of certainty to facilitate Faculties and Departments when planning for educational delivery next academic year”.
Lectures will be live-streamed, recorded and made available on Moodle, while there are plans for lecture theatres to be used for small group teaching in line with social distancing requirements: “Faculties and Departments should continue to plan for face-to-face delivery of seminars, workshops and small group teaching”.
In reference to Michaelmas exams, Benton also notes that it is ‘highly unlikely these examinations will be able to take place in examination halls’. She suggests faculties adapt to this scenario accordingly.
Now remember when all the tech bros shut down early & saying work from home for at least the rest of the year (some forever). This again signals that smart people dont think there is a vaccine or this thing reducing to minimal levels anytime soon.
The worst news came for me this week, the train companies are getting rid of first class for the foreseeable future.
How the feck am I supposed to get to work without a first class section?
Hire a special.
I would if I could.
Time to reintroduce the sedan chair....
Absolutely. A truly classy way to travel, job creating and encouraging fitness (for those carrying it at least).
It seems some people are almost salivating at the prospect of an inquiry as an opportunity to apportion blame.
An inquiry should surely happen but the priority should be to learn lessons for next time, if there's a next time, more than finding a scapegoat to blame.
No. This is the greatest public health error in a century. Is there any overwhelming economic/political reason we could not have handled this as well as Germany? No.
60,000 have died and maybe 100,000 will die eventually. Or more. And it looks very much like many equally advanced, forewarned nations will do a lot better
There has to be an inquiry. We spend a trillion quid on the Bloody Sunday inquiry, FFS, and this is several orders of magnitude more important.
My guess is that it will find groupthinking scientists and credulous politicians equally to blame, but of course I don’t know. I will not prejudge. But an inquiry there must be and the guilty, if there are any, must be brought to justice.
It seems some people are almost salivating at the prospect of an inquiry as an opportunity to apportion blame.
An inquiry should surely happen but the priority should be to learn lessons for next time, if there's a next time, more than finding a scapegoat to blame.
No. This is the greatest public health error in a century. Is there any overwhelming economic/political reason we could not have handled this as well as Germany? No.
60,000 have died and maybe 100,000 will die eventually. Or more. And it looks very much like many equally advanced, forewarned nations will do a lot better
There has to be an inquiry. We spend a trillion quid on the Bloody Sunday inquiry, FFS, and this is several orders of magnitude more important.
My guess is that it will find groupthinking scientists and credulous politicians equally to blame, but of course I don’t know. I will not prejudge. But an inquiry there must be and the guilty, if there are any, must be brought to justice.
There's a scientific one, we lacked the testing capabilities they had. Oh well, we've built it now.
Banging on like a lunatic about bringing people to justice won't bring anyone back from the dead or save lives in the future. After SARS Asian nations learnt lessons for the future, now we should do the same.
It seems some people are almost salivating at the prospect of an inquiry as an opportunity to apportion blame.
An inquiry should surely happen but the priority should be to learn lessons for next time, if there's a next time, more than finding a scapegoat to blame.
No. This is the greatest public health error in a century. Is there any overwhelming economic/political reason we could not have handled this as well as Germany? No.
60,000 have died and maybe 100,000 will die eventually. Or more. And it looks very much like many equally advanced, forewarned nations will do a lot better
There has to be an inquiry. We spend a trillion quid on the Bloody Sunday inquiry, FFS, and this is several orders of magnitude more important.
My guess is that it will find groupthinking scientists and credulous politicians equally to blame, but of course I don’t know. I will not prejudge. But an inquiry there must be and the guilty, if there are any, must be brought to justice.
The guilty? Good luck extraditing them from China.
Comments
It's interesting to look at Canada. It's not part of a customs union with the US. They are obligated under both CUSMA and CETA not to use standards as a non-tariff barrier.
There is a Canadian Standards Body, the Canadian Standards Association, but largely because of CUSMA their standards are voluntary rather than obligatory.
I'm not sure our position would be that different to Canada's. The benefits from having our own legal standards - most of which are set globally anyway - are pretty slight.
We're currently just reusing our papers as online assessments and, while the marks are up, they aren't massively up. A rewritten assessment would probably be suitably challenging.
None of this means, however, that a blanket re-opening will occur in this country. It's going to be a total postcode lottery dependent on the attitudes of local authorities, school governing bodies and teaching staff at every school in question.
I think it'd be rare to get a laptop sold anywhere in Europe that doesn't accept FCC standards - as you say certain thing shave become a world standard. But we don't need to be an American state to do that and we don't need to accept every single unrelated American law (eg Second Amendment) in order to observe the FCC standards that we choose voluntarily to observe.
There'd be no point most of the time in varying but where we want to, we should have the ability to do so, and the market should be able to cope with that.
I agree with the Canadian analogy. I've long thought post-Brexit we'll be comparable to Canada relative to USA, or Japan relative to China. And I'd rather be Canada or Japan than USA or China too.
Safer than a helicopter of the engine fails.
https://twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/1262819157697060864
Which is not to say that they are deliberately misleading, but they are certainly short on actual data.
Prolonged lockdown is not feasible. Prolonged social distancing isn't much better, because too many important spaces (offices, classrooms, public transport hubs and vehicles) can't cope with it. The only viable strategy is to aggressively test, trace, and isolate (meaning quarantine) and thereby prevent large outbreaks. Confidence is only going to come back when it can be shown that the system works, which was demonstrably not the case a couple of months ago (not a criticism of the current government, given that the US and Europe didn't do much better, if at all).
https://twitter.com/STVColin/status/1262802232849899520?s=20
https://lockdownsceptics.org/
Week no. - Deaths not involving COVID
Week 1 - 12,254
Week 2 - 14,058
Week 3 - 12,990
Week 4 - 11,856
Week 5 - 11,612
Week 6 - 10,986
Week 7 - 10,944
Week 8 - 10,841
Week 9 - 10,816
Week 10 - 10,895
Week 11 - 11,014
Week 12 - 10,542
Week 13 - 10,602
Week 14 - 12,912
Week 15 - 12,303
Week 16 - 13,593
Week 17 - 13,760
Week 18 - 11,918
Week 19 - 8,727
How much harder is it to deny dodging scrutiny when we all know he ducked out of being interviewed by Andrew Neil during the GE?
He has a reputation for laziness and flying by the seat of his pants and also for lying. It's at times like this that Boris's past starts to catch up with him. But then again, those that supported his bid to govern the country knew all that at the time.
Wanting to be allowed out the house again and meet people, on the other hand, I totally get.
https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/1262822621357449219
Boris did not wake up to the danger early enough and we have been playing catch up ever since and are probably going to end up with about the worst outcome in Europe. This will also knock on to the economic impact because I expect we will be last European nation to properly come out of lockdown.
Since UKIP or their proxies have never got an elected member of any kind outside MEPs in Scotland, I'm not really seeing it.
Who could have ever suspected people would miss the qualifier and only hear the date mentioned?
Tad unfair. BigG regularly criticises Boris and members of the Cabinet where justified unlike some of the PB Tories. Unfortunately Labour having Corbyn as leader resulted in a number of people voting for Boris who has doubts about his suitability but still saw him as a better bet than JC.
However, if we assume that a decent amount of the 13,200 excess non-COVID-19 deaths in Weeks 13-18 were actually due to COVID-19, then it's probably fair to say that a decent amount of the 8,727 non-COVID-19 deaths in Week 19 were due to COVID-19 too. Therefore, the true number of non-COVID-19 deaths is likely to already be quite a long way below the 5-year average.
Given the lag time, it's quite possible in the next few weeks that the number of people not dying now because they are already dead will be more than those dying from COVID-19. Therefore, If they keep extending the number of weeks in the calculation, then the number of excess deaths will go down.
As ever, beware aggregate statistics. The more meaningful statistic is - what's the total amount of life in terms of years/months/days that COVID-19 has knocked off?
A UKIP MSP who wants to scrap Holyrood replacing a Tory MSP who is pro Scottish Parliament on the list is possible though
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://static.euronews.com/articles/341589/602x338_341589.jpg&imgrefurl=https://www.euronews.com/2016/08/18/world-s-largest-aircraft-takes-off&docid=Frf_HsH5yJPhwM&tbnid=iYxckJhXY-cvrM:&vet=1&source=sh/x/im
Boris and Cummings centralised power at Number 10 to a dangerous extent, building on the work of Thatcher and Blair. This meant that when Boris and Cummings (and, we have since learned, also the Cabinet Secretary, Mark Sedwill) became ill, the government was rudderless.
But that is was temporary. This is permanent: Boris is temperamentally unsuited to be dictator. Boris needs to be Primus Inter Pares, chairing a Cabinet of departmental ministers running their own shows. Even if Boris had the time, he has not the inclination to study and master cross-Whitehall briefs.
Cummings might have the inclination but has no political authority and is probably out of his depth anyway. Even if Cummings is right about the Civil Service's institutional failings, now is plainly not the time to reform it.
Boris needs to return authority to his Cabinet. If ministers are not up to it, let them be replaced. That might not be easy given his Stalinist purge of experienced MPs but only a partisan fool would deny the possibility of talent on the Conservative benches. It would also solve Boris's PMQs woes as he could return to the traditional practice of passing departmental questions on to the relevant Secretaries of State. Boris needs to be more like Churchill and less like Thatcher, and he can start by showing Cummings the door, or better still, setting Lord Cummings to chair a Royal Commission into getting it right next time.
And OT- no, Boris can't be forced out, and there's nobody really in a position to take over (Hunt, presumably). But I can imagine him hating the questioning so much that he walks. For the sake of his health, natch.
https://twitter.com/kaysteiger/status/1262735680825933824
So if you are a parent, how can you assess what is safe for your son and daughter? Staying alert just means you are more aware of the contradictions. Boris needs to take a step back and forge a coherent message rather than a series of special cases scattered across gov.uk where few parents can find them anyway.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/1262745432666411013/photo/1
https://twitter.com/stvcolin/status/1262802232849899520?s=21
Does this utter idiocy happen in any other country in the world? Do their 'journalists' compete to extrapolate the worst possible outcome?
No. Only in Britain.
In Italy the first death was on 21/02/20 and that had risen to 29 by the end of February.
In Spain there were no deaths until 08/03/20 and only 81 known cases by the end of February.
So what could the government have done in February ?
Make an effort to get PPE and testing organised better ? Possibly.
Warn people not to leave the country ? Ideally but in reality no government was going to do that.
https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1262840127489019906
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/continuous-mortality-investigation_we-are-publishing-weekly-mortality-updates-activity-6668502070569525248-ied0
It's not a secret that the official statistics lag reality, and for good reason. There are lots of very bright people employed specifically to fill the gap between incident and reporting, so as to allow decisions to be made on the basis of the best available information.
People who assume the official stats are gospel are as dumb as people who assume they're all just fiddled for political convenience.
If nothing else, it gives you momentum and the confidence that you can finish each question the way you started it. Nothing worse than starting an exam by flailing around on a question you can't really answer properly.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/27/pmqs-verdict-corbyn-scores-well-with-labours-greatest-hits
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/pmqs-david-camerons-behaviour-was-a-lot-uglier-than-jeremy-corbyns-suit-a6893496.html
Any guesses as to who this Corbyn fan was:
How well he did. What a disappointment to all those waiting for calamity in the press gallery above, poison pens poised. Those with tickets to a bare-knuckle, cockfight massacre of an innocent were cheated. It just didn’t happen.
Instead, a dignified and calm man, seasoned by years of parliamentary experience, raised questions of real importance to millions of people, on the housing crisis, on severe tax credit cuts to millions and on the worsening emergency in mental health. The seriousness and sincerity were almost shocking in that den of artifice.
It was David Cameron who was wrongfooted. He absolutely knew he had to turn down the volume and stop the cheap point-scoring, but he couldn’t. Starting out low key, he soon fell into the manufactured mantras and pre-cooked slogans of the day that make his answers so wearying.
It meant that prime ministerial austerities with the truth lacked sharp ripostes: no, £8bn doesn’t begin to cover the NHS crisis; no, social housing is being crippled; and, no, there’s no “parity“ between mental and physical health. But that way lies ya-boo.
Instead, Corbyn kept to the Commons motion he recently signed, to end this “ill-mannered and pointless exchange of insults”. His grownup style may win the attention of the real audience, those voters outside the Commons where his thoughtful questions will have considerably more impact than the PM’s shouty and shifty replies.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/16/pmqs-jeremy-corbyn-verdict
An inquiry should surely happen but the priority should be to learn lessons for next time, if there's a next time, more than finding a scapegoat to blame.
I think you'll find that Keir is the real deal...he survived the utter cataclysm that befell the Labour Party under Corbyn (I still get PTSD thinking of Corbyn as my leader).....
A quick tip.....I think even the bluest blue in 5 years time will be relieved that we have someone of Keir's competence and stature as PM after such a shocking period of government in the UK...
I am embarrassed by my Govt now in the UK....we are an international joke and laughing stock.
And I suggest you read the report I linked to before you say ridiculous things like "no discernable reason at all" - here is a more direct link:
https://www.actuaries.org.uk/system/files/field/document/Mortality monitor Week 19 2020 v01 2020-05-19_0.pdf
If it gets updated to 55,000 or higher in due course then so be it, but doing so pre-emptively when no other country follows that standard is ridiculous.
Having the wrong opinion.
Britain is just a normal country with a normal government. Its not as special as you make out.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8337365/Fears-Everest-windows-firm-teeters-brink-collapse.html
Banging on like a lunatic about bringing people to justice won't bring anyone back from the dead or save lives in the future. After SARS Asian nations learnt lessons for the future, now we should do the same.