Mrs RP not at work today following yesterday's playground accident. Had a call from the headteacher - they are planning to open up on 1st June as directed, but have consulted with parents about plans.
Expected take-up of the provision for reception, years 1 & 6? 35% at best. So the attacks are bound to switch from feckless workshy teachers to feckless workshy parents.
Its Perfectly Safe to reopen schools. As France has proved.
Could one of the mods have a gentle word with ScottP - last night there was a veritable flood of single tweet posts from him, and today it looks like more of the same. It would be great if he could be encouraged to offer a few words with each retweet to explain how he feels this particular Tweet is pertinent or adds to the debate here. Unlike Twitter, we can't 'unfollow' a user, so treating the comment threads here like Twitter doesn't really work.
Could one of the mods ban one of my opponents, because I dislike messages which counter my own world view.
There, sorted that for you.
Its another irregular verb -
I repost valuable information You are off topic He is a spammer
Actually the proposal that if you're posting a Tweet you write some of your own words to say why its relevant is not an unreasonable one.
Share Tweets as often as you like then, with your own thoughts. Not just copy and pasting other people's thoughts.
The French army outside the Maginot line got pasted.
Doesn't the second point directly contradict the first?
The Maginot line worked largely as designed and implemented. The French army outside the Maginot line screwed up their bit - despite the advantages the fixed fortifications provided them.
Starmer is doing well in Scotland thus far: he’s in a +5 to +10 range, which is approximately where Ruth Davidson used to poll before she got the boot.
Starmer is certainly miles ahead of Richard Leonard, and galaxies ahead of Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn ratings.
The problem is he is well behind Sturgeon.
The missing man is Jackson Carlaw, who theoretically is the main Unionist candidate to be Next FM. In reality he is nothing of the sort.
Starmer is doing as well as a LoTO could do, I think
I disagree. He would be doing much better if he had a half-decent team behind him. He lacks heavy-hitters.
If you look back to Blair’s shadow cabinet during the Major years, he had several quality big-hitters, plus a decent corps of junior supporters. Poor Starmer has almost no back-up.
One thing about lockdown, it means different things to different people. In my department my colleagues with school age kids are finding WFH more stressful than I am or my colleague with grown up kids.
Starmer is doing as well as a LoTO could do, I think
I disagree. He would be doing much better if he had a half-decent team behind him. He lacks heavy-hitters.
If you look back to Blair’s shadow cabinet during the Major years, he had several quality big-hitters, plus a decent corps of junior supporters. Poor Starmer has almost no back-up.
He needs to grow the talent, I think. It wasn't there in the Corbyn years and stuffing his shad cab full of EdM-era candidates is politically impossible.
Also, can all of those people who said that the app would be fine please stand up. It looks like schools reopening will be delayed by not having it ready in time. The reason it isn't ready is because the government didn't use the Apple/Google solution as everyone said and now the economy is going to take a huge hit for another three weeks. Will Matt Hancock pay the bill for that?
It is also quite extraordinary that they have not been running parallel development efforts in case one failed (we seem more than happy to finance what are likely far more expensive vaccine programs).
It's pretty well a repeat of the mistakes we made in getting testing up and running back in February/March. There seems still to be no appreciation of the value/costs of time, despite the mistakes earlier this year costing us many billions and thousands of lives.
This 'could be seen as a difficult time' for Starmer as you say, but Boris is being tested in the areas he is absolutely weakest on: coping with decline, loss of liberty, message to play everything safe etc in a context where competent and boring delivery, communicated with accuracy and simplicity is really the only thing needed. To be LOTO when you can do the simple and boring accuracy (only simple if you know your stuff - ask any lawyer) and don't have to deliver is a lot easier than many contexts for taking over as LOTO.
In the long run Boris will be fortunate and brave if can overcome this one. At the moment the communication skills of government is much worse than I would have expected.
The government Comms have been terrible because the only thing they are good at is lying and the current situation requires them to be truthful. Nobody believes a word they say now, even when they are telling the truth.
That is why England is a failing state. She has passed a point of no return.
More or Less worth a listen again. Comparison with Germany very interesting, but ran the testing story again. The deception here really is disgraceful.
They picked the 15/5 when 136,000 tests were done but they are not only including posted tests but also non diagnosed tests carried out by Uni and Research Labs (30,000) so useful for other reasons but not tests to determine if people have or don't have Covid. Also 2nd tests are not generally because the previous test needs verifying, but because say the test was dropped on the floor or the testee vomited on the first test. Also a spit and nasal test is counted as two.
Total people tested = 43,000 out of a quoted figure of 136,000
It really is an appalling deception.
I have never heard 'More or Less' get so annoyed in its fact checking.
Again not news.
On the very day the 100,000 test target was announced, they announced five strands of testing including diagnostic and yes non-diagnostic testing etc - someone from the media asked what was meant by the 100,000 and Hancock replied that it was "all tests from all strands".
So that some are non-diagnostic is not news. It was what was said would be counted literally on day one.
A dropped test counts as 2 tests? You are defending the indefensible
Not the dropped test no, that's ridiculous to log that, but the non-diagnostic is what I referred to.
Who's dropping tests though and why are they logging them? I'd doubt that's a high proportion, at least I'd hope not.
It appears that the 2nd tests are because of failures to take the test in the first place largely not because they are going back to retest, but because of vomiting on the test, dropping the test, etc because of the difficulty in taking the test. Also a throat and nasal test is counted as 2 tests! I don't know why some tests are single swabs and some are 2 swabs, but it is still 1 test in my book if the test consists of 2 swabs (nose and throat). The lab might do 2 tests but it is 1 person tested. The number of 2 tests on that day was 26,000 for all reasons.
I disagree, a swab test and a nasal test is 2 tests. It literally is 2 tests - one person, 2 tests.
Would you consider a swab test and a blood test to be just one test?
I said the lab will do 2 tests but only 1 person has been tested and the Govt has been misrepresenting this quite blatantly to massage figures and pointlessly so.
Most people don't look at the data, they look at the headline figure. It is interesting that professional statisticians and their professional bodies have been backing up the misrepresentation claims quite loudly.
People will refer to the fact that they have gone to the Doctors for a test, when that will consist of several blood samples, urine sample, swab, etc.
The only purpose of making it a plural is for stock or knowing the number of tests the labs carry out. As far as the individual is concerned they have been for a test.
Just the same as when you go for an xray. You will never have 1.
Yes multiple xrays, number of examinations/test = 1
Plus what about all the other stuff that took 136K to 43K.
You think the population by and large understands that 30K weren't used to see if specific individuals had Covid or not, regardless of what was put in the small print of the announcement.
Mrs RP not at work today following yesterday's playground accident. Had a call from the headteacher - they are planning to open up on 1st June as directed, but have consulted with parents about plans.
Expected take-up of the provision for reception, years 1 & 6? 35% at best. So the attacks are bound to switch from feckless workshy teachers to feckless workshy parents.
Its Perfectly Safe to reopen schools. As France has proved.
I wish someone would actually consider what happens at the end of the school day. It may be correct that children themselves are pretty immune to covid, but they can still carry it. Then they bring it back to the house, causing someone to be positive for it. If one of these people are elderly, then the child has succeeded in infecting (and possibly killing) granny.
If social distancing is maintained as a policy then all forms of social closeness and intimacy and the activities by which humans express and show and enjoy this will effectively be banned or impossible. This is pretty much every form of human activity save for that work which can be done from home or while tooled up in protective gear
This is not an economic issue fundamentally but about how we want to live.
Pretending that lockdown can be lifted and these activities can continue “with social distancing measures” in place is a big fat lie.
A life, a society where can there be no social closeness is unbearable, to me anyway. And a huge overreaction. Societies have lived with contagious and deadly diseases before without closing down everything in sight for months or years on end.
No-one is pretending anything, or lying on this. Of course it's going to be a horrible mess crawling our way out of this, with the disagreeable consequences you mention. But what's the alternative? If a country doesn't go for a partial restoration of normality, its choices are either complete lockdown or complete letting rip. Neither is conceivable.
Pretence and lying have been endemic since day one on this and continues now with all this nonsense about partial reopenings and social distancing measures. Ministers open their mouths and lie, whether deliberately or through ignorance or contempt for us, it’s hard to say. It doesn't really matter. The effect is the same.
Testing, tracking and tracing and effective quarantine measures for those suffering or at high risk are the only way. Everything else has to be allowed to return to normality, with additional hygiene measures. That is what the government should have been preparing for and should be doing now during the lockdown phase. The WHO told them to keep testing but they didn’t - apparently relying on our “Blitz spirit”. FFS!
Even now the government is incapable of being honest about what testing it is doing, is being utterly amateurish in its app development, starting to blame its advisors rather than focusing on effectively putting in place the only measures which will work without totally shutting down all forms of civilised life and our economy.
Mrs RP not at work today following yesterday's playground accident. Had a call from the headteacher - they are planning to open up on 1st June as directed, but have consulted with parents about plans.
Expected take-up of the provision for reception, years 1 & 6? 35% at best. So the attacks are bound to switch from feckless workshy teachers to feckless workshy parents.
Its Perfectly Safe to reopen schools. As France has proved.
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
Without commenting either way on the Scottish government’s performance, I note that could easily be reconciled by noting that the lamentable failings in the initial decision-making at a UK-wide level were the responsibility of Boris Johnson.
Health is devolved. The lockdown decisions are devolved. What isn't devolved is external borders, and there, I agree the UK government has fallen short.
Sturgeon had "advanced warning" of the consequences of a super spreader event after the NIKE conference in Edinburgh (as did PHE which were in the loop) - which no doubt will feature prominently in the Inquiry.
One thing she is doing is being "mother of the nation" fronting all the press conferences (which she does well) something Boris conspicuously hasn't (and when he did, didn't do as well).
Faint praise is still praise. And coming from a rampant cyberbritnat like Carlotta it sounds like a megaphone.
Nicola 7 - Boris 0
I don't think anyone has denied that Nicola is a talented politician - I've said it many times.
Really? Weren't you sneering about how unlikely it was that a diddy politician like Sturgeon from a diddy country like Scotland would be offered a UN post? If I misread your tone or the point you were attempting to make, apologies.
No. I was saying she won't be offered a position, because I don't think she will be. I think her tenure as FM will end rather ignominiously (sadly) and for that reason she won't be taking the Barak/Blair/Clooney route to being one of those international people that fly around the world telling in the cause of low carbon/world peace etc. The insult you inferred to Nicola personally, and Scotland generally, is entirely on you - unsurprisingly...
Swedish schools (for under 16s) have been open throughout. It is a non-issue.
The problem with closing things is not the initial closure, but the much more difficult re-opening. It is a bit like the classic equity market problem: yes, of course it is fantastic to sell at or near the top, but you also need to buy at or near the bottom. In other words, you need to get it right *twice*, which is bloody hard, which is why most intelligent folks just shrug their shoulders and stay in.
The mental health repercussions of disrupted education and social life for the young, in combination with mass unemployment, could well outweigh the benefits of lockdown. We’ll have a better idea of that when we have the perspective of hindsight.
Very much agree with this, the country has basically gone insane, aided and abetted by politicians.
...
We need to get the death toll down to a trickle and the problems people talking about here largely disappear of their own accord. The governments are getting those numbers down but it's taking longer than it should because of previous and current mistakes. The only way of getting numbers down to a trickle right now is through continued social distancing. There aren't any shortcuts.
That's not true. People under 40 without any health conditions can essentially lead a normal life as long as they limit their contact to that group. Kids also don't give it to adults so schools should be back as long as teachers maintain social distancing measures between themselves and other staff.
There is a huge mental health toll on younger generations that isn't being addressed, kids aren't seeing their friends, teenagers aren't seeing their girlfriends and boyfriends, young adults aren't dating or seeing their friends, loads are sitting at home unemployed or furloughed in misery when it is not clear that they need to be.
It doesn't matter how ageist it looks to let everyone under 40 without health conditions get on with life as normal but that is what needs to happen. The government are too worried about how things will look.
How on earth do you partition the society into those over 40 anfd those under 40? That would also bring a huge toll on younger genertaions. There are a huge number of parents over 40 with children who are not old enough to look after themselves, even before you start to think of the jobs done by over 40s that people under 40 depend on.
So you'd rather have the nation shut down for everyone indefinitely instead of making a few tough decisions for people over 40? Don't forget their kids will still be going to school and seeing their friends everyday.
How about we squash the virus so that it is either eliminated altogether (like New Zealand) or down at containable levels? That way then everyone can get back to normalish while taking sensible precautions and using track, trace and isolation for those who do get the virus or get exposed and quarantining at the borders to stop it reentering the nation.
Why does there have to be a generational divide?
There doesn't. What you suggest has been blindingly obvious for at least a month now, and arguably considerably longer than that.
It is of course hindsight to say so, but had we locked down at the beginning of March, we'd have been in that position already.
Could one of the mods have a gentle word with ScottP - last night there was a veritable flood of single tweet posts from him, and today it looks like more of the same. It would be great if he could be encouraged to offer a few words with each retweet to explain how he feels this particular Tweet is pertinent or adds to the debate here. Unlike Twitter, we can't 'unfollow' a user, so treating the comment threads here like Twitter doesn't really work.
Could one of the mods ban one of my opponents, because I dislike messages which counter my own world view.
There, sorted that for you.
Oh do me a favour. Quite clearly I haven't asked for anyone to be banned. Furthermore, If I wanted to ban people expressing messages which counter my own world view, I'd be asking for the whole site to be banned. And debate here would be very boring.
I am asking for someone to be encouraged to make more of a contribution than being the site spambot. I would like to think that if anyone from the Brexiteer contingent treated the site the same, I'd feel the same. Can't test that theory because there isn't anyone.
(edited for rudeness!)
It’s ok, you can be as rude as you like.
Scott is total rubbish when he tries (very rarely) to write his own prose. His record on predictions for example is laughable (Edinburgh Pentlands anyone?)
Of course he posts far too much Twitter, and of course it is annoying, even to his fellow travellers. But he is good at it! Let the boy do what suits him, cos I’m not sure I could stand having to read the rubbish that his brain manages to concoct when it attempts original thought.
One thing about lockdown, it means different things to different people. In my department my colleagues with school age kids are finding WFH more stressful than I am or my colleague with grown up kids.
& the manufacturing team who have all been working as normal through this are all happy as larry.
Swedish schools (for under 16s) have been open throughout. It is a non-issue.
The problem with closing things is not the initial closure, but the much more difficult re-opening. It is a bit like the classic equity market problem: yes, of course it is fantastic to sell at or near the top, but you also need to buy at or near the bottom. In other words, you need to get it right *twice*, which is bloody hard, which is why most intelligent folks just shrug their shoulders and stay in.
The mental health repercussions of disrupted education and social life for the young, in combination with mass unemployment, could well outweigh the benefits of lockdown. We’ll have a better idea of that when we have the perspective of hindsight.
Very much agree with this, the country has basically gone insane, aided and abetted by politicians.
...
We need to get the death toll down to a trickle and the problems people talking about here largely disappear of their own accord. The governments are getting those numbers down but it's taking longer than it should because of previous and current mistakes. The only way of getting numbers down to a trickle right now is through continued social distancing. There aren't any shortcuts.
That's not true. People under 40 without any health conditions can essentially lead a normal life as long as they limit their contact to that group. Kids also don't give it to adults so schools should be back as long as teachers maintain social distancing measures between themselves and other staff.
There is a huge mental health toll on younger generations that isn't being addressed, kids aren't seeing their friends, teenagers aren't seeing their girlfriends and boyfriends, young adults aren't dating or seeing their friends, loads are sitting at home unemployed or furloughed in misery when it is not clear that they need to be.
It doesn't matter how ageist it looks to let everyone under 40 without health conditions get on with life as normal but that is what needs to happen. The government are too worried about how things will look.
How on earth do you partition the society into those over 40 anfd those under 40? That would also bring a huge toll on younger genertaions. There are a huge number of parents over 40 with children who are not old enough to look after themselves, even before you start to think of the jobs done by over 40s that people under 40 depend on.
So you'd rather have the nation shut down for everyone indefinitely instead of making a few tough decisions for people over 40? Don't forget their kids will still be going to school and seeing their friends everyday.
I have never written I'd "rather have the nation shut down for everyone indefinitely " that is just rediculous. It is almost as rediculous as the idea that under 40s and over 40s can be completely partitioned.
What is a family with two parents aged 42 and 45 to do with their two kids aged 5 and 10? Does your wife have to move out because you are 45 and she is 38? Do you make one train/bus for the over 40s and one for the under 40s.... how do you organise shops?
This is a good point. I'm baffled by how many batty schemes people want to come up with, when the simple course of action is to test widely, trace and test the contacts of anyone who tests positive, and quarantine anyone who is infectious. At this point there isn't any need for speculation, as we've seen this exact strategy work in Taiwan and South Korea (both prosperous first-world democracies that are not so different from the UK).
I notice Sunak is nervously breaking the bad news about the economy. Of course most people have still got their eyes shut and their fingers in their ears.
The next big scandal/crisis will involve equity release schemes, that could get very nasty
What is the problem with equity release (a subject I know nothing about)?
The interest rolls up the debt, many will find themselves in negative equity as property values fall
I have never written I'd "rather have the nation shut down for everyone indefinitely " that is just rediculous. It is almost as rediculous as the idea that under 40s and over 40s can be completely partitioned.
What is a family with two parents aged 42 and 45 to do with their two kids aged 5 and 10? Does your wife have to move out because you are 45 and she is 38? Do you make one train/bus for the over 40s and one for the under 40s.... how do you organise shops?
People can use their own heads? If there is someone in the household over 40 then it stays in the social distancing measures, if not then life goes back to normal.
I am well over 40, but I am darn sight healthier than some under 40s I know and I am not prepared to be locked up.
The French army outside the Maginot line got pasted.
Doesn't the second point directly contradict the first?
The Maginot line worked largely as designed and implemented. The French army outside the Maginot line screwed up their bit - despite the advantages the fixed fortifications provided them.
Well, there's no doubt about that. Even without the allied forces the French had more tanks (with at least one superior model) than the Germans, they used them appallingly though.
More or Less worth a listen again. Comparison with Germany very interesting, but ran the testing story again. The deception here really is disgraceful.
They picked the 15/5 when 136,000 tests were done but they are not only including posted tests but also non diagnosed tests carried out by Uni and Research Labs (30,000) so useful for other reasons but not tests to determine if people have or don't have Covid. Also 2nd tests are not generally because the previous test needs verifying, but because say the test was dropped on the floor or the testee vomited on the first test. Also a spit and nasal test is counted as two.
Total people tested = 43,000 out of a quoted figure of 136,000
It really is an appalling deception.
I have never heard 'More or Less' get so annoyed in its fact checking.
Again not news.
On the very day the 100,000 test target was announced, they announced five strands of testing including diagnostic and yes non-diagnostic testing etc - someone from the media asked what was meant by the 100,000 and Hancock replied that it was "all tests from all strands".
So that some are non-diagnostic is not news. It was what was said would be counted literally on day one.
A dropped test counts as 2 tests? You are defending the indefensible
Not the dropped test no, that's ridiculous to log that, but the non-diagnostic is what I referred to.
Who's dropping tests though and why are they logging them? I'd doubt that's a high proportion, at least I'd hope not.
It appears that the 2nd tests are because of failures to take the test in the first place largely not because they are going back to retest, but because of vomiting on the test, dropping the test, etc because of the difficulty in taking the test. Also a throat and nasal test is counted as 2 tests! I don't know why some tests are single swabs and some are 2 swabs, but it is still 1 test in my book if the test consists of 2 swabs (nose and throat). The lab might do 2 tests but it is 1 person tested. The number of 2 tests on that day was 26,000 for all reasons.
I disagree, a swab test and a nasal test is 2 tests. It literally is 2 tests - one person, 2 tests.
Would you consider a swab test and a blood test to be just one test?
I said the lab will do 2 tests but only 1 person has been tested and the Govt has been misrepresenting this quite blatantly to massage figures and pointlessly so.
Most people don't look at the data, they look at the headline figure. It is interesting that professional statisticians and their professional bodies have been backing up the misrepresentation claims quite loudly.
People will refer to the fact that they have gone to the Doctors for a test, when that will consist of several blood samples, urine sample, swab, etc.
The only purpose of making it a plural is for stock or knowing the number of tests the labs carry out. As far as the individual is concerned they have been for a test.
Just the same as when you go for an xray. You will never have 1.
Yes multiple xrays, number of examinations/test = 1
Plus what about all the other stuff that took 136K to 43K.
You think the population by and large understands that 30K weren't used to see if specific individuals had Covid or not, regardless of what was put in the small print of the announcement.
Just to add:
To the average punter how is a non diagnosis test any different to the one dropped on the floor?
The only purpose the numbers being quoted serve is to determine the reorder amount of tests. Other than that it gives no informative information to the viewer so is useless (unless of course your purpose is to mislead)
Swedish schools (for under 16s) have been open throughout. It is a non-issue.
The problem with closing things is not the initial closure, but the much more difficult re-opening. It is a bit like the classic equity market problem: yes, of course it is fantastic to sell at or near the top, but you also need to buy at or near the bottom. In other words, you need to get it right *twice*, which is bloody hard, which is why most intelligent folks just shrug their shoulders and stay in.
The mental health repercussions of disrupted education and social life for the young, in combination with mass unemployment, could well outweigh the benefits of lockdown. We’ll have a better idea of that when we have the perspective of hindsight.
Very much agree with this, the country has basically gone insane, aided and abetted by politicians.
The evidence for outdoor transmission is limited, the evidence for child to adult transmission is limited and yet we're still not allowed to interact socially outdoors and schools are still closed.
Someone in government needs to step up and explain all of this to the public in a clear and concise manner, laying out the scientific arguments in favour. In an age when we need a political colossus we have a bunch of pygmys all too scared of their own shadows to make decisions.
I know I bang on about my poor mother in a care home - sorry - but I talked to the care home manager yesterday (again). I pressed her on why I can`t see my mother - why is the care home refusing my request for them to load mum in a wheelchair, wheel her outside into the car park and allow us to see her 2 metres away. We can`t allow that, the manager said, the government says no and care home`s are politically hot topic at the moment.
No recognition of the mental health of the residents at all.
Unfortunately what the manager said could just be an easy reply. Perhaps the real reason is "I believe that you will keep 2 metres distance the whole time, but we can't trust everyone to do that, and if we let one guest do that then we have to let all of them do it."
Well, if that`s the case then the obstruction is the home`s not the government`s, and they are acting illegally. She said to me that it is against the government`s guidance to care homes. I doubt this is true but can`t prove it. I suspect the guidance may say "no unnecessary visitors" or some such vague comment - I doubt it says that the resident can`t be seen outside of the home. I feel a letter coming on (to Helen Whately I guess).
Could one of the mods have a gentle word with ScottP - last night there was a veritable flood of single tweet posts from him, and today it looks like more of the same. It would be great if he could be encouraged to offer a few words with each retweet to explain how he feels this particular Tweet is pertinent or adds to the debate here. Unlike Twitter, we can't 'unfollow' a user, so treating the comment threads here like Twitter doesn't really work.
Could one of the mods ban one of my opponents, because I dislike messages which counter my own world view.
There, sorted that for you.
Its another irregular verb -
I repost valuable information You are off topic He is a spammer
Actually the proposal that if you're posting a Tweet you write some of your own words to say why its relevant is not an unreasonable one.
Share Tweets as often as you like then, with your own thoughts. Not just copy and pasting other people's thoughts.
These regular complaints about tweets are almost as irritating as the tweets themselves.
Pretence and lying have been endemic since day one on this and continues now with all this nonsense about partial reopenings and social distancing measures. Ministers open their mouths and lie, whether deliberately or through ignorance or contempt for us, it’s hard to say. It doesn't really matter. The effect is the same.
Testing, tracking and tracing and effective quarantine measures for those suffering or at high risk are the only way. Everything else has to be allowed to return to normality, with additional hygiene measures. That is what the government should have been preparing for and should be doing now during the lockdown phase. The WHO told them to keep testing but they didn’t - apparently relying on our “Blitz spirit”. FFS!
Even now the government is incapable of being honest about what testing it is doing, is being utterly amateurish in its app development, starting to blame its advisors rather than focusing on effectively putting in place the only measures which will work without totally shutting down all forms of civilised life and our economy.
Basic efficient competence seems beyond it.
Now you are just lashing out randomly at the government. None of that has the slightest bearing on my post on how I think emerging from lockdown is going to work in practice, which wasn't even a comment on the UK specifically; all European countries are going to have to face the same issues and similar messy sets of restrictions as they tentatively go back towards partial normality. The toolkit will include social distancing, quarantines, test-and-trace, isolation of the most vulnerable, etc etc. There's no magic bullet.
Mrs RP not at work today following yesterday's playground accident. Had a call from the headteacher - they are planning to open up on 1st June as directed, but have consulted with parents about plans.
Expected take-up of the provision for reception, years 1 & 6? 35% at best. So the attacks are bound to switch from feckless workshy teachers to feckless workshy parents.
Its Perfectly Safe to reopen schools. As France has proved.
I wish someone would actually consider what happens at the end of the school day. It may be correct that children themselves are pretty immune to covid, but they can still carry it. Then they bring it back to the house, causing someone to be positive for it. If one of these people are elderly, then the child has succeeded in infecting (and possibly killing) granny.
Beginning and end of the school day, as hundreds of parents congregate outside the school...
With 35% attendance, of course, the problems would be much reduced.
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
Without commenting either way on the Scottish government’s performance, I note that could easily be reconciled by noting that the lamentable failings in the initial decision-making at a UK-wide level were the responsibility of Boris Johnson.
Health is devolved. The lockdown decisions are devolved. What isn't devolved is external borders, and there, I agree the UK government has fallen short.
Sturgeon had "advanced warning" of the consequences of a super spreader event after the NIKE conference in Edinburgh (as did PHE which were in the loop) - which no doubt will feature prominently in the Inquiry.
One thing she is doing is being "mother of the nation" fronting all the press conferences (which she does well) something Boris conspicuously hasn't (and when he did, didn't do as well).
Faint praise is still praise. And coming from a rampant cyberbritnat like Carlotta it sounds like a megaphone.
Nicola 7 - Boris 0
I don't think anyone has denied that Nicola is a talented politician - I've said it many times.
Really? Weren't you sneering about how unlikely it was that a diddy politician like Sturgeon from a diddy country like Scotland would be offered a UN post? If I misread your tone or the point you were attempting to make, apologies.
Starmer is doing as well as a LoTO could do, I think
I disagree. He would be doing much better if he had a half-decent team behind him. He lacks heavy-hitters.
If you look back to Blair’s shadow cabinet during the Major years, he had several quality big-hitters, plus a decent corps of junior supporters. Poor Starmer has almost no back-up.
Actually, I think Starmer's team is very strong, with a few exceptions. Intellectually and politically, they are much stronger than the current Cabinet. With the exception of Starmer and Ashworth (who has done well), however, they have had little opportunity to display their ability. In due course Dodds, Thomas-Symonds, Nandy, Reeves, Reynolds, Miliband and others will show their skills, and that they are mostly stronger than their Tory counterparts. I would accept, however, that the Labour front bench lacks experience and is therefore perceived to lack big hitters; but they've got 4 years to solve that one.
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
Without commenting either way on the Scottish government’s performance, I note that could easily be reconciled by noting that the lamentable failings in the initial decision-making at a UK-wide level were the responsibility of Boris Johnson.
Health is devolved. The lockdown decisions are devolved. What isn't devolved is external borders, and there, I agree the UK government has fallen short.
Sturgeon had "advanced warning" of the consequences of a super spreader event after the NIKE conference in Edinburgh (as did PHE which were in the loop) - which no doubt will feature prominently in the Inquiry.
One thing she is doing is being "mother of the nation" fronting all the press conferences (which she does well) something Boris conspicuously hasn't (and when he did, didn't do as well).
Faint praise is still praise. And coming from a rampant cyberbritnat like Carlotta it sounds like a megaphone.
Nicola 7 - Boris 0
I don't think anyone has denied that Nicola is a talented politician - I've said it many times.
Really? Weren't you sneering about how unlikely it was that a diddy politician like Sturgeon from a diddy country like Scotland would be offered a UN post? If I misread your tone or the point you were attempting to make, apologies.
No. I was saying she won't be offered a position, because I don't think she will be. I think her tenure as FM will end rather ignominiously (sadly) and for that reason she won't be taking the Barak/Blair/Clooney route to being one of those international people that fly around the world telling in the cause of low carbon/world peace etc. The insult you inferred to Nicola personally, and Scotland generally, is entirely on you - unsurprisingly...
I did offer an apology in advance. Thanks for the 'clarification', even if it's in the standard aggressively whiny form.
Starmer doing genuinely very well so far, I think we will see that best PM gap continue to reduce and I wouldn't be surprised to see parity at some time in the next year or so.
Starmer is doing as well as a LoTO could do, I think
I disagree. He would be doing much better if he had a half-decent team behind him. He lacks heavy-hitters.
If you look back to Blair’s shadow cabinet during the Major years, he had several quality big-hitters, plus a decent corps of junior supporters. Poor Starmer has almost no back-up.
Will also could be a problem in an election - he potentially could go for a Clegg/Sturgeon one person band approach and hide everyone else I suppose.
Starmer is doing well in Scotland thus far: he’s in a +5 to +10 range, which is approximately where Ruth Davidson used to poll before she got the boot.
Starmer is certainly miles ahead of Richard Leonard, and galaxies ahead of Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn ratings.
The problem is he is well behind Sturgeon.
The missing man is Jackson Carlaw, who theoretically is the main Unionist candidate to be Next FM. In reality he is nothing of the sort.
I split my sides at Carcrash as potential FM
Jackson Carlaw is the biggest Unionist gift to the SNP since Johann Lamont.
Our inability to test people within 24h so they are isolated quickly means we will have social distancing measures in place until a vaccine. The 30m doses order shows where the government has placed it's bet, we just have to hope it pays off.
Does anyone know why testing takes so long? Is everything still routed through PHE?
Could one of the mods have a gentle word with ScottP - last night there was a veritable flood of single tweet posts from him, and today it looks like more of the same. It would be great if he could be encouraged to offer a few words with each retweet to explain how he feels this particular Tweet is pertinent or adds to the debate here. Unlike Twitter, we can't 'unfollow' a user, so treating the comment threads here like Twitter doesn't really work.
Could one of the mods ban one of my opponents, because I dislike messages which counter my own world view.
There, sorted that for you.
Its another irregular verb -
I repost valuable information You are off topic He is a spammer
Actually the proposal that if you're posting a Tweet you write some of your own words to say why its relevant is not an unreasonable one.
Share Tweets as often as you like then, with your own thoughts. Not just copy and pasting other people's thoughts.
These regular complaints about tweets are almost as irritating as the tweets themselves.
Starmer is doing as well as a LoTO could do, I think
I disagree. He would be doing much better if he had a half-decent team behind him. He lacks heavy-hitters.
If you look back to Blair’s shadow cabinet during the Major years, he had several quality big-hitters, plus a decent corps of junior supporters. Poor Starmer has almost no back-up.
He needs to grow the talent, I think. It wasn't there in the Corbyn years and stuffing his shad cab full of EdM-era candidates is politically impossible.
You imply that he has decent seedlings to nourish and water. He doesn’t.
from a conservative point of view the real heroes of this crisis are Liz Truss and Priti Patel.
They have driven through the platform the government was elected on while Johnson, Sunak, Hancock and co wet their nappies and junked every single conservative principle in the book.
This isn't seen now, but it will be when the catastrophe of long lockdown becomes clear, as summer turns to autumn.
Patel isn;t clever, but she has that priceless ability to ignore the shrieks of the commentariat and the left in pursuing her goals. She resisted almost every attempt to water down her immigration bill, even in respect of potentially dangerous NHS workers.
These are the coming tories. And they may be coming quicker than many think.
Mrs RP not at work today following yesterday's playground accident. Had a call from the headteacher - they are planning to open up on 1st June as directed, but have consulted with parents about plans.
Expected take-up of the provision for reception, years 1 & 6? 35% at best. So the attacks are bound to switch from feckless workshy teachers to feckless workshy parents.
Its Perfectly Safe to reopen schools. As France has proved.
I wish someone would actually consider what happens at the end of the school day. It may be correct that children themselves are pretty immune to covid, but they can still carry it. Then they bring it back to the house, causing someone to be positive for it. If one of these people are elderly, then the child has succeeded in infecting (and possibly killing) granny.
Beginning and end of the school day, as hundreds of parents congregate outside the school...
With 35% attendance, of course, the problems would be much reduced.
Mrs RP not at work today following yesterday's playground accident. Had a call from the headteacher - they are planning to open up on 1st June as directed, but have consulted with parents about plans.
Expected take-up of the provision for reception, years 1 & 6? 35% at best. So the attacks are bound to switch from feckless workshy teachers to feckless workshy parents.
Its Perfectly Safe to reopen schools. As France has proved.
I wish someone would actually consider what happens at the end of the school day. It may be correct that children themselves are pretty immune to covid, but they can still carry it. Then they bring it back to the house, causing someone to be positive for it. If one of these people are elderly, then the child has succeeded in infecting (and possibly killing) granny.
Beginning and end of the school day, as hundreds of parents congregate outside the school...
With 35% attendance, of course, the problems would be much reduced.
Starmer is doing as well as a LoTO could do, I think
I disagree. He would be doing much better if he had a half-decent team behind him. He lacks heavy-hitters.
If you look back to Blair’s shadow cabinet during the Major years, he had several quality big-hitters, plus a decent corps of junior supporters. Poor Starmer has almost no back-up.
He needs to grow the talent, I think. It wasn't there in the Corbyn years and stuffing his shad cab full of EdM-era candidates is politically impossible.
You imply that he has decent seedlings to nourish and water. He doesn’t.
He needs to prune his MPs - get the space cadets like Sultana deselected.
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
More or Less worth a listen again. Comparison with Germany very interesting, but ran the testing story again. The deception here really is disgraceful.
They picked the 15/5 when 136,000 tests were done but they are not only including posted tests but also non diagnosed tests carried out by Uni and Research Labs (30,000) so useful for other reasons but not tests to determine if people have or don't have Covid. Also 2nd tests are not generally because the previous test needs verifying, but because say the test was dropped on the floor or the testee vomited on the first test. Also a spit and nasal test is counted as two.
Total people tested = 43,000 out of a quoted figure of 136,000
It really is an appalling deception.
I have never heard 'More or Less' get so annoyed in its fact checking.
Again not news.
On the very day the 100,000 test target was announced, they announced five strands of testing including diagnostic and yes non-diagnostic testing etc - someone from the media asked what was meant by the 100,000 and Hancock replied that it was "all tests from all strands".
So that some are non-diagnostic is not news. It was what was said would be counted literally on day one.
A dropped test counts as 2 tests? You are defending the indefensible
Not the dropped test no, that's ridiculous to log that, but the non-diagnostic is what I referred to.
Who's dropping tests though and why are they logging them? I'd doubt that's a high proportion, at least I'd hope not.
It appears that the 2nd tests are because of failures to take the test in the first place largely not because they are going back to retest, but because of vomiting on the test, dropping the test, etc because of the difficulty in taking the test. Also a throat and nasal test is counted as 2 tests! I don't know why some tests are single swabs and some are 2 swabs, but it is still 1 test in my book if the test consists of 2 swabs (nose and throat). The lab might do 2 tests but it is 1 person tested. The number of 2 tests on that day was 26,000 for all reasons.
I disagree, a swab test and a nasal test is 2 tests. It literally is 2 tests - one person, 2 tests.
Would you consider a swab test and a blood test to be just one test?
You’re getting ridiculous with this literal interpretation of everything now. Come on. It doesn’t matter in the big picture if they are “1 test” or “2 tests”, but the implication is that the Government is testing more people than they actually are. Leaving politics aside, it’s better if we’re testing more people. The number of “tests” is irrelevant. The number of people tested is relevant.
I'm not sure on the specificity or sensitivity of the tests but couldn't testing someone twice lead to theoretically more accurate results ?
OH yes, if the two events are independent. BUT if the same problem recurs, then it won't be more accurate. For instance if someone is doing the DIY swab up the nose wrongly, or the viral excretion is low for some reason (IANAE). (This is the notorious fallacy of the cot death babies in a major law case - a woman was convicted on the dodgy use of stats which didn't consider that her successive children had similar genetic or environmental hazards leading to cot death.)
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
Without commenting either way on the Scottish government’s performance, I note that could easily be reconciled by noting that the lamentable failings in the initial decision-making at a UK-wide level were the responsibility of Boris Johnson.
Health is devolved. The lockdown decisions are devolved. What isn't devolved is external borders, and there, I agree the UK government has fallen short.
Sturgeon had "advanced warning" of the consequences of a super spreader event after the NIKE conference in Edinburgh (as did PHE which were in the loop) - which no doubt will feature prominently in the Inquiry.
One thing she is doing is being "mother of the nation" fronting all the press conferences (which she does well) something Boris conspicuously hasn't (and when he did, didn't do as well).
Faint praise is still praise. And coming from a rampant cyberbritnat like Carlotta it sounds like a megaphone.
Nicola 7 - Boris 0
I don't think anyone has denied that Nicola is a talented politician - I've said it many times.
Really? Weren't you sneering about how unlikely it was that a diddy politician like Sturgeon from a diddy country like Scotland would be offered a UN post? If I misread your tone or the point you were attempting to make, apologies.
Britnats have selective memories.
They certainly forget the hundreds (thousands?) of predictions they've made about Scottish politics and the demise of the SNP. More self aware types might be ashamed to trot out the same turgid guff time after time, but these chaps are made of sterner stuff.
Mrs RP not at work today following yesterday's playground accident. Had a call from the headteacher - they are planning to open up on 1st June as directed, but have consulted with parents about plans.
Expected take-up of the provision for reception, years 1 & 6? 35% at best. So the attacks are bound to switch from feckless workshy teachers to feckless workshy parents.
Its Perfectly Safe to reopen schools. As France has proved.
I wish someone would actually consider what happens at the end of the school day. It may be correct that children themselves are pretty immune to covid, but they can still carry it. Then they bring it back to the house, causing someone to be positive for it. If one of these people are elderly, then the child has succeeded in infecting (and possibly killing) granny.
Beginning and end of the school day, as hundreds of parents congregate outside the school...
With 35% attendance, of course, the problems would be much reduced.
How about staggered start and finish times?
That will help a little, but the children will still have to be at home some time with Mum and Dad etc.
Starmer is doing well in Scotland thus far: he’s in a +5 to +10 range, which is approximately where Ruth Davidson used to poll before she got the boot.
Starmer is certainly miles ahead of Richard Leonard, and galaxies ahead of Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn ratings.
The problem is he is well behind Sturgeon.
The missing man is Jackson Carlaw, who theoretically is the main Unionist candidate to be Next FM. In reality he is nothing of the sort.
I split my sides at Carcrash as potential FM
Jackson Carlaw is the biggest Unionist gift to the SNP since Johann Lamont.
Good heavens, I'd forgotten her. Scots genetically programmed not to be able to make political decisions, forsooth. And that was only six years and immemorial numbers of British-unionist party leaders in Holyrood ago.
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The fact Tories are so rattled by the idea of the Lib Dems getting behind Starmer says it all really.
They certainly forget the hundreds (thousands?) of predictions they've made about Scottish politics and the demise of the SNP. More self aware types might be ashamed to trot out the same turgid guff time after time, but these chaps are made of sterner stuff.
More or Less worth a listen again. Comparison with Germany very interesting, but ran the testing story again. The deception here really is disgraceful.
They picked the 15/5 when 136,000 tests were done but they are not only including posted tests but also non diagnosed tests carried out by Uni and Research Labs (30,000) so useful for other reasons but not tests to determine if people have or don't have Covid. Also 2nd tests are not generally because the previous test needs verifying, but because say the test was dropped on the floor or the testee vomited on the first test. Also a spit and nasal test is counted as two.
Total people tested = 43,000 out of a quoted figure of 136,000
It really is an appalling deception.
I have never heard 'More or Less' get so annoyed in its fact checking.
Again not news.
On the very day the 100,000 test target was announced, they announced five strands of testing including diagnostic and yes non-diagnostic testing etc - someone from the media asked what was meant by the 100,000 and Hancock replied that it was "all tests from all strands".
So that some are non-diagnostic is not news. It was what was said would be counted literally on day one.
A dropped test counts as 2 tests? You are defending the indefensible
Not the dropped test no, that's ridiculous to log that, but the non-diagnostic is what I referred to.
Who's dropping tests though and why are they logging them? I'd doubt that's a high proportion, at least I'd hope not.
It appears that the 2nd tests are because of failures to take the test in the first place largely not because they are going back to retest, but because of vomiting on the test, dropping the test, etc because of the difficulty in taking the test. Also a throat and nasal test is counted as 2 tests! I don't know why some tests are single swabs and some are 2 swabs, but it is still 1 test in my book if the test consists of 2 swabs (nose and throat). The lab might do 2 tests but it is 1 person tested. The number of 2 tests on that day was 26,000 for all reasons.
I disagree, a swab test and a nasal test is 2 tests. It literally is 2 tests - one person, 2 tests.
Would you consider a swab test and a blood test to be just one test?
I said the lab will do 2 tests but only 1 person has been tested and the Govt has been misrepresenting this quite blatantly to massage figures and pointlessly so.
Most people don't look at the data, they look at the headline figure. It is interesting that professional statisticians and their professional bodies have been backing up the misrepresentation claims quite loudly.
People will refer to the fact that they have gone to the Doctors for a test, when that will consist of several blood samples, urine sample, swab, etc.
The only purpose of making it a plural is for stock or knowing the number of tests the labs carry out. As far as the individual is concerned they have been for a test.
Just the same as when you go for an xray. You will never have 1.
Yes multiple xrays, number of examinations/test = 1
Plus what about all the other stuff that took 136K to 43K.
You think the population by and large understands that 30K weren't used to see if specific individuals had Covid or not, regardless of what was put in the small print of the announcement.
There's no misrepesentation. The headline data the government sets out includes the number of people tested. They have that in the headline chart they send out.
If the media aren't reporting that well blame the media. The data is there and clear. Numbers of tests and number of people are reported simultaneously.
If social distancing is maintained as a policy then all forms of social closeness and intimacy and the activities by which humans express and show and enjoy this will effectively be banned or impossible. This is pretty much every form of human activity save for that work which can be done from home or while tooled up in protective gear
This is not an economic issue fundamentally but about how we want to live.
Pretending that lockdown can be lifted and these activities can continue “with social distancing measures” in place is a big fat lie.
A life, a society where can there be no social closeness is unbearable, to me anyway. And a huge overreaction. Societies have lived with contagious and deadly diseases before without closing down everything in sight for months or years on end.
No-one is pretending anything, or lying on this. Of course it's going to be a horrible mess crawling our way out of this, with the disagreeable consequences you mention. But what's the alternative? If a country doesn't go for a partial restoration of normality, its choices are either complete lockdown or complete letting rip. Neither is conceivable.
Pretence and lying have been endemic since day one on this and continues now with all this nonsense about partial reopenings and social distancing measures. Ministers open their mouths and lie, whether deliberately or through ignorance or contempt for us, it’s hard to say. It doesn't really matter. The effect is the same.
Testing, tracking and tracing and effective quarantine measures for those suffering or at high risk are the only way. Everything else has to be allowed to return to normality, with additional hygiene measures. That is what the government should have been preparing for and should be doing now during the lockdown phase. The WHO told them to keep testing but they didn’t - apparently relying on our “Blitz spirit”. FFS!
Even now the government is incapable of being honest about what testing it is doing, is being utterly amateurish in its app development, starting to blame its advisors rather than focusing on effectively putting in place the only measures which will work without totally shutting down all forms of civilised life and our economy.
Basic efficient competence seems beyond it.
That's where the temperaments of the the current occupants of Downing Street have been so calamitous.
We have a Prime Minister who has always- since that school play where he decided it would be easier and funnier not to learn his lines- sought the easy way out.
He has a Chief Adviser who has always sought to do things "differently". To hack established processes to get better results. To find things that look clever, but might just be too clever by half.
It's a new virus, but it's just a virus. Since John Snow- hell, since Eyam- we've known how to deal with infectious diseases. The fact that we didn't do those things for too long is why we in this state, why we're going to be stuck in this situation for longer than others and there are so many dead people.
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The fact Tories are so rattled by the idea of the Lib Dems getting behind Starmer says it all really.
Unless they merge there really is no point in splitting the anti-blue vote.
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The Lib Dems will have to get behind the Tories or Labour, as that is their realistic chance of being in Government. We know that happens when they proclaim they can govern alone or have their leader as PM.
Since they hate Johnson and hate Brexit, I would assume they'll go for the less hated option which is clearly Labour. Seems logical to me.
This 'could be seen as a difficult time' for Starmer as you say, but Boris is being tested in the areas he is absolutely weakest on: coping with decline, loss of liberty, message to play everything safe etc in a context where competent and boring delivery, communicated with accuracy and simplicity is really the only thing needed. To be LOTO when you can do the simple and boring accuracy (only simple if you know your stuff - ask any lawyer) and don't have to deliver is a lot easier than many contexts for taking over as LOTO.
In the long run Boris will be fortunate and brave if can overcome this one. At the moment the communication skills of government is much worse than I would have expected.
The government Comms have been terrible because the only thing they are good at is lying and the current situation requires them to be truthful. Nobody believes a word they say now, even when they are telling the truth.
That is why England is a failing state. She has passed a point of no return.
It does rather feel like it. The thing I found genuinely terrifying was the sight of Johnson leading his Cabinet in the chant of the lie about the hospitals. It was like something from a death cult, or a theocratic junta. Could you imagine Thatcher doing it? Or indeed any of Johnson's predecessors? I thought, this is how great nations die.
This is an excellent paper, and demonstrates that all pandemic modelling should be approached with considerable caution.
Asymptotic estimates of SARS-CoV-2 infection counts and their sensitivity to stochastic perturbation https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0008834 Despite the importance of having robust estimates of the time-asymptotic total number of infections, early estimates of COVID-19 show enormous fluctuations. Using COVID-19 data from different countries, we show that predictions are extremely sensitive to the reporting protocol and crucially depend on the last available data point before the maximum number of daily infections is reached. We propose a physical explanation for this sensitivity, using a susceptible–exposed–infected–recovered model, where the parameters are stochastically perturbed to simulate the difficulty in detecting patients, different confinement measures taken by different countries, as well as changes in the virus characteristics. Our results suggest that there are physical and statistical reasons to assign low confidence to statistical and dynamical fits, despite their apparently good statistical scores. These considerations are general and can be applied to other epidemics....
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The fact Tories are so rattled by the idea of the Lib Dems getting behind Starmer says it all really.
Unless they merge there really is no point in splitting the anti-blue vote.
from a conservative point of view the real heroes of this crisis are Liz Truss and Priti Patel.
They have driven through the platform the government was elected on while Johnson, Sunak, Hancock and co wet their nappies and junked every single conservative principle in the book.
This isn't seen now, but it will be when the catastrophe of long lockdown becomes clear, as summer turns to autumn.
Patel isn;t clever, but she has that priceless ability to ignore the shrieks of the commentariat and the left in pursuing her goals. She resisted almost every attempt to water down her immigration bill, even in respect of potentially dangerous NHS workers.
These are the coming tories. And they may be coming quicker than many think.
I don't think Truss understands geographical proximity in trade, let alone anything more complicated.
"The last chance to agree an extension to the transition period will come in June but Frost writes that the government does not believe it would be in British interests to stay in the customs union and single market after the end of the year."
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The fact Tories are so rattled by the idea of the Lib Dems getting behind Starmer says it all really.
I'm not rattled I'm confused!
Why doesn't the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer just get behind Manchester City?
Why doesn't whoever Arsenal's manager is now just get behind Chelsea?
Why doesn't Biden just get behind Trump?
I don't understand what you're trying to say. The Lib Dems are their own party they're not the Labour Party. If the new Lib Dem leader wants a Labour government he or she should join the Labour Party and the Lib Dems should elect a new leader.
Could one of the mods have a gentle word with ScottP - last night there was a veritable flood of single tweet posts from him, and today it looks like more of the same. It would be great if he could be encouraged to offer a few words with each retweet to explain how he feels this particular Tweet is pertinent or adds to the debate here. Unlike Twitter, we can't 'unfollow' a user, so treating the comment threads here like Twitter doesn't really work.
Could one of the mods ban one of my opponents, because I dislike messages which counter my own world view.
There, sorted that for you.
Its another irregular verb -
I repost valuable information You are off topic He is a spammer
Actually the proposal that if you're posting a Tweet you write some of your own words to say why its relevant is not an unreasonable one.
Share Tweets as often as you like then, with your own thoughts. Not just copy and pasting other people's thoughts.
These regular complaints about tweets are almost as irritating as the tweets themselves.
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The fact Tories are so rattled by the idea of the Lib Dems getting behind Starmer says it all really.
I'm not rattled I'm confused!
Why doesn't the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer just get behind Manchester City?
Why doesn't whoever Arsenal's manager is now just get behind Chelsea?
Why doesn't Biden just get behind Trump?
I don't understand what you're trying to say. The Lib Dems are their own party they're not the Labour Party. If the new Lib Dem leader wants a Labour government he or she should join the Labour Party and the Lib Dems should elect a new leader.
It doesn’t really matter if you’re confused to be honest. If the Lib Dems would prefer a Labour-led government to a Tory one, then spending less time and money in Labour held seats or Labour target seats is sensible.
Likewise avoiding attacks on Starmer directly, unless really warranted.
The Lib Dems will have to get behind the Tories or Labour, as that is their realistic chance of being in Government. We know that happens when they proclaim they can govern alone or have their leader as PM.
Since they hate Johnson and hate Brexit, I would assume they'll go for the less hated option which is clearly Labour. Seems logical to me.
What makes you think that the LibDems want to be in government? They've tried that, and they found the entire experience to be thoroughly miserable. They are won't want to repeat the experience for many years, if ever.
Starmer doing genuinely very well so far, I think we will see that best PM gap continue to reduce and I wouldn't be surprised to see parity at some time in the next year or so.
I was surprised to see someone post that they think being LotO is a difficult job at the moment, I think it is a series open goals. A deadly virus with no cure is killing hundreds of thousands of people globally, and whoever is in charge is being blamed.
What is slightly strange is that Starmer has drifted to 3 to be next PM, despite his improved ratings. I laid him at 2.68 for smalls because I thought the next PM being a non Boris Tory was quite likely, and maybe Starmer is the PM after that. Perhaps @david_herdson's article pointing that out moved the odds
Pretence and lying have been endemic since day one on this and continues now with all this nonsense about partial reopenings and social distancing measures. Ministers open their mouths and lie, whether deliberately or through ignorance or contempt for us, it’s hard to say. It doesn't really matter. The effect is the same.
Testing, tracking and tracing and effective quarantine measures for those suffering or at high risk are the only way. Everything else has to be allowed to return to normality, with additional hygiene measures. That is what the government should have been preparing for and should be doing now during the lockdown phase. The WHO told them to keep testing but they didn’t - apparently relying on our “Blitz spirit”. FFS!
Even now the government is incapable of being honest about what testing it is doing, is being utterly amateurish in its app development, starting to blame its advisors rather than focusing on effectively putting in place the only measures which will work without totally shutting down all forms of civilised life and our economy.
Basic efficient competence seems beyond it.
Now you are just lashing out randomly at the government. None of that has the slightest bearing on my post on how I think emerging from lockdown is going to work in practice, which wasn't even a comment on the UK specifically; all European countries are going to have to face the same issues and similar messy sets of restrictions as they tentatively go back towards partial normality. The toolkit will include social distancing, quarantines, test-and-trace, isolation of the most vulnerable, etc etc. There's no magic bullet.
IMO social distancing in the long-term is neither an effective nor a desirable policy. Nor is it particularly easy or effective to implement.
Shouting at people close up spreads an airborne disease. No shit, Sherlock! So we’ll make people stand 2 metres apart so they have to shout even louder at each other to make themselves heard. What on earth is the point of that?
Social distancing makes life pretty unbearable, closes businesses, stops pretty much most enjoyable human activities and make people unemployed.
That may be the way we are going. But it is worth asking the question whether it is the right way to go and whether it is worth it.
I have been slow to criticise the government. But the longer this has gone the more evidence is emerging that it really is not very good at its basic job. That incompetence is costing lives and will cost lots of people their jobs, including mine and those of my family. Your “lashing out” is my (to me) criticism of the government.
Anyway, time for a walk and my daily chat with the local sheep.
They certainly forget the hundreds (thousands?) of predictions they've made about Scottish politics and the demise of the SNP. More self aware types might be ashamed to trot out the same turgid guff time after time, but these chaps are made of sterner stuff.
This time next year, you'll be Indy, eh lads?
Oh wait...
I've never made that prediction.
While we're on that subject of looking into the future, let's take a little trip to the past.
'Scott_P Posts: 21,367 June 25
JackW said:
4. Next PM. It's May for me, anyone but Boris.
5. Corbyn should go too. A total tool. About as effective as a leader and potential PM as a fart in a hurricane.
6.Lastly and this will shock many but Scotland should now opt for independence. There I said it. The will of the Scottish people on the EU, a matter of the most crucial significance for the future, was clear. Hopefully it will be an amicable uncoupling. I would vote for YES in SINDY2, if still around.
SINDY2 should take place within 18 months and a YES vote take effect on the date of BREXIT two years after Article 50 is enabled or before 2020 whichever is sooner.
Could one of the mods have a gentle word with ScottP - last night there was a veritable flood of single tweet posts from him, and today it looks like more of the same. It would be great if he could be encouraged to offer a few words with each retweet to explain how he feels this particular Tweet is pertinent or adds to the debate here. Unlike Twitter, we can't 'unfollow' a user, so treating the comment threads here like Twitter doesn't really work.
Could one of the mods ban one of my opponents, because I dislike messages which counter my own world view.
There, sorted that for you.
Its another irregular verb -
I repost valuable information You are off topic He is a spammer
Actually the proposal that if you're posting a Tweet you write some of your own words to say why its relevant is not an unreasonable one.
Share Tweets as often as you like then, with your own thoughts. Not just copy and pasting other people's thoughts.
These regular complaints about tweets are almost as irritating as the tweets themselves.
Almost.
The two things are, of course, additive.
Indeed. Finding a reasonable solution for one will bring about a reasonable solution for the other too.
It will also deal with the regular complaints about the regular complaints about tweets which are almost as irritating as the complaints about tweets too.
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The fact Tories are so rattled by the idea of the Lib Dems getting behind Starmer says it all really.
I'm not rattled I'm confused!
Why doesn't the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer just get behind Manchester City?
Why doesn't whoever Arsenal's manager is now just get behind Chelsea?
Why doesn't Biden just get behind Trump?
snip
OI!!
Arsenal's manager is...er...no he's gone...er...no give up. Dammit
Boris still comfortably leads Starmer on preferred PM still.
Net approval ratings are not enough on their own either eg in 1979 Thatcher's Tories unlike Starmer's Labour led on voting intention as well as Thatcher leading on net approval even when she trailed Callaghan as preferred PM
from a conservative point of view the real heroes of this crisis are Liz Truss and Priti Patel.
They have driven through the platform the government was elected on while Johnson, Sunak, Hancock and co wet their nappies and junked every single conservative principle in the book.
This isn't seen now, but it will be when the catastrophe of long lockdown becomes clear, as summer turns to autumn.
Patel isn;t clever, but she has that priceless ability to ignore the shrieks of the commentariat and the left in pursuing her goals. She resisted almost every attempt to water down her immigration bill, even in respect of potentially dangerous NHS workers.
These are the coming tories. And they may be coming quicker than many think.
I don't think Truss understands geographical proximity in trade, let alone anything more complicated.
Maybe. You may or may not agree with the UK's new trade arrangements, but they stem from decidedly conservative principles. Cleverness right now isn't that important. Political bottle is.
Look at Rishi Sunak. I think yesterday it actually dawned on him he might go down in history as the man who broke Britain. Anybody with an ounce of courage would have resigned weeks ago.
Also, no matter how much partisans such as @Philip_Thompson and @HYUFD want it to be, politics is not, and should not, be like supporting a football team.
It’s about achieving aims, not about “your team” winning for the sake of it.
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The fact Tories are so rattled by the idea of the Lib Dems getting behind Starmer says it all really.
I'm not rattled I'm confused!
Why doesn't the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer just get behind Manchester City?
Why doesn't whoever Arsenal's manager is now just get behind Chelsea?
Why doesn't Biden just get behind Trump?
snip
OI!!
Arsenal's manager is...er...no he's gone...er...no give up. Dammit
Good interview with Arsenal's last manager here. I feel he was very unfairly scapegoated
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
Without commenting either way on the Scottish government’s performance, I note that could easily be reconciled by noting that the lamentable failings in the initial decision-making at a UK-wide level were the responsibility of Boris Johnson.
Not to say Sturgeon would have done better if she'd been running the show - we can't know that - but there is a correlation between the countries with an above average virus performance and female leaders.
It also appears that the worst type of leader to have in this situation is a Strongman. The Putins, the Bolsonaros, the Lukashenkos. These guys have their qualities but they are handicapped in meeting the challenge of Covid-19 by a pronounced tendency to not give a shit about people dying.
I exempt President Donald Trump from the above since he is a wannabee Strongman rather than the real thing. He has the requisite indifference to pain and suffering but - thankfully for USA - he lacks the power to give full vent to it. The states are able to mitigate.
The problem with "strongman" leaders is that people become afraid to speak truth to power. Look how Trump sacks anyone he perceives as disloyal; Chinese whistleblowers disappear; Russian doctors fall out of windows. And how #ClassicDom had SpAds frogmarched out while Boris purged even the most eminent dissentors.
Yep - you can be a Strongman or a strong man. You can't be both.
Back to Trump, I think the biggest trope that needs nailing before election day is the rather sweet notion which many of his more simple-minded supporters still cling to - that he is "not a politician" but a "businessman" who "goes a bit far sometimes" but "tells it like it is" and "knows how to bang heads together and get things done".
I see this ludicrously false but quite widely believed sentiment potentially playing well against a physically and mentally feeble opponent. In my worst nightmares it costs the Dems the landslide and Biden only gets it by a whisker.
Serology for SARS-CoV-2: Apprehensions, opportunities, and the path forward https://immunology.sciencemag.org/content/5/47/eabc6347 ...Making data-driven decisions on how to fight the COVID-19 pandemic without completely shutting down economies will require better tools to understand the extent of transmission. The current crisis presents an opportunity to rethink how health systems generate and use surveillance data, and how to harness the power of serological tests and seroepidemiology. The world’s health systems are rushing to develop and implement testing for clinical use, evaluations of social policy, and quantification of population-level risk, which has brought into sharp focus the challenges facing surveillance programs throughout the world. There is an urgent need to monitor variations in disease transmission across populations and geographies in near real-time. Rapid detection of active cases and contact tracing – using direct tests for presence of the virus (acute phase diagnosis) – is the cornerstone of containment strategies. For later phases of pandemic control – when the key questions involve when, where, and how to lift confinement measures, and relax social distancing constraints – serological testing to measure antibody responses to the virus becomes paramount to refine understanding of transmission intensity and population susceptibility.
Antibody tests to detect exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, are rapidly becoming available (a list is maintained by FIND at https://www.finddx.org/covid-19/pipeline/), with the majority configured for detection of IgG antibodies to the Spike (S) protein of the virus, though other isotypes and antigens are being explored...
... The performance of different test platforms is likely to vary considerably; for instance, point of care lateral flow assays are likely to be fraught with more problems of sensitivity/specificity than ELISA formats, however their low cost and ease of use will facilitate more rapid scale-up and widespread adoption.
Despite enormous and ongoing efforts to study immune responses to COVID-19 in different clinical settings, to date there is insufficient data and poor understanding of the magnitude and duration of antibody responses (IgM, IgG, and IgA) following asymptomatic, mild, and severe infections. We do not yet understand how antibody responses vary across diverse populations with different genetic backgrounds, comorbidities, or infection histories. In this article, we discuss the use case for individual- versus population-level serological testing, with a focus on IgG testing applications. We emphasize the dangers of using current serologic tests for individual-level risk assessments, but highlight the potential power of deploying population-level serological testing (i.e., serosurveillance or seroepidemiology) – even with assays of moderate sensitivity/specificity....
"The last chance to agree an extension to the transition period will come in June but Frost writes that the government does not believe it would be in British interests to stay in the customs union and single market after the end of the year."
And you think that is "job done"? That no further Brexit-related issues will happen?
Also, no matter how much partisans such as @Philip_Thompson and @HYUFD want it to be, politics is not, and should not, be like supporting a football team.
It’s about achieving aims, not about “your team” winning for the sake of it.
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The Lib Dems will have to get behind the Tories or Labour, as that is their realistic chance of being in Government. We know that happens when they proclaim they can govern alone or have their leader as PM.
Since they hate Johnson and hate Brexit, I would assume they'll go for the less hated option which is clearly Labour. Seems logical to me.
The Lib Dems don't have to get behind either, they need to try and get as many Lib Dem MPs as possible that is their aim.
If the post-election electoral mathematics means they can be in government then what will result will depend upon what the post-election landscape looks like. That might mean they (like the DUP or SNP) can stand back and not enter office but instead make demands in order to get bills passed, while voting down whatever they dislike. Or they might align with either Labour or the Tories. But that won't be determined until after the election, not before it.
The Lib Dems need to make it clear what the party stands for - and to have that be something the voters want. If what they stand for is the Labour Party then why shouldn't voters just vote Labour?
Also, no matter how much partisans such as @Philip_Thompson and @HYUFD want it to be, politics is not, and should not, be like supporting a football team.
It’s about achieving aims, not about “your team” winning for the sake of it.
Says Labour partisan Gallowgate
Good one. I’ve been a Labour party member for the best part of 5 months. Prior to that I was a member of the Lib Dems.
I’m as far from being a “Labour partisan” as can be.
Also, no matter how much partisans such as @Philip_Thompson and @HYUFD want it to be, politics is not, and should not, be like supporting a football team.
It’s about achieving aims, not about “your team” winning for the sake of it.
Says Labour partisan Gallowgate
Good one. I’ve been a Labour party member for the best part of 5 months. Prior to that I was a member of the Lib Dems.
I’m as far from being a “Labour partisan” as can be.
Doesn't that prove my point?
If what you want is a Labour government then join the Labour Party. Not the Lib Dems.
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The fact Tories are so rattled by the idea of the Lib Dems getting behind Starmer says it all really.
Unless they merge there really is no point in splitting the anti-blue vote.
An informal alliance worked for Blair in 1997.
Did it work for the Lib Dems? Did they get their policies implemented?
My thoughts - the Lib Dems should stake out some interesting, radical policies, based around their existing values. Then pitch that they would negotiate for them in return for supply-and-confidence in the event of a no-majority parliment.
This 'could be seen as a difficult time' for Starmer as you say, but Boris is being tested in the areas he is absolutely weakest on: coping with decline, loss of liberty, message to play everything safe etc in a context where competent and boring delivery, communicated with accuracy and simplicity is really the only thing needed. To be LOTO when you can do the simple and boring accuracy (only simple if you know your stuff - ask any lawyer) and don't have to deliver is a lot easier than many contexts for taking over as LOTO.
In the long run Boris will be fortunate and brave if can overcome this one. At the moment the communication skills of government is much worse than I would have expected.
The government Comms have been terrible because the only thing they are good at is lying and the current situation requires them to be truthful. Nobody believes a word they say now, even when they are telling the truth.
That is why England is a failing state. She has passed a point of no return.
It does rather feel like it. The thing I found genuinely terrifying was the sight of Johnson leading his Cabinet in the chant of the lie about the hospitals. It was like something from a death cult, or a theocratic junta. Could you imagine Thatcher doing it? Or indeed any of Johnson's predecessors? I thought, this is how great nations die.
There is only one route open now: England needs to start telling the truth, not least to herself. The facts are ugly, but they must be presented and fully digested. The Conservatives are incapable of this, so the long, slow decline of once great England will continue, until a more noble group of leaders can wrestle power from the charlatans.
Also, no matter how much partisans such as @Philip_Thompson and @HYUFD want it to be, politics is not, and should not, be like supporting a football team.
It’s about achieving aims, not about “your team” winning for the sake of it.
Says Labour partisan Gallowgate
Good one. I’ve been a Labour party member for the best part of 5 months. Prior to that I was a member of the Lib Dems.
I’m as far from being a “Labour partisan” as can be.
Doesn't that prove my point?
If what you want is a Labour government then join the Labour Party. Not the Lib Dems.
I don’t “want a Labour government”. On the available options, I think Keir Starmer would be the best Prime Minister, and probably implement policies I would broadly support. I also think that most Lib Dems would prefer Keir Starmer as Prime Minister than Boris Johnson.
Thus, as in 1997, it makes sense for Lib Dems to “go easy” on Labour. Especially if an arrangement can be made on the subject of Proportional Representation.
Also, no matter how much partisans such as @Philip_Thompson and @HYUFD want it to be, politics is not, and should not, be like supporting a football team.
It’s about achieving aims, not about “your team” winning for the sake of it.
This may be news to someone as used to losing elections as yourself but the way party politicians get their aims implemented is to either win the election or for minor parties to raise awareness for their aims so that a major party does it.
If your aim is a Labour Party government then why would you be leading the Liberal Democrats? If you're leading the Liberal Democrats it should be because your aims differ from the Labour Party's aims. In which case you need to set out what your party stands for and seek to convince people to vote for that.
If you don't stand for anything then why stand as a separate party?
This 'could be seen as a difficult time' for Starmer as you say, but Boris is being tested in the areas he is absolutely weakest on: coping with decline, loss of liberty, message to play everything safe etc in a context where competent and boring delivery, communicated with accuracy and simplicity is really the only thing needed. To be LOTO when you can do the simple and boring accuracy (only simple if you know your stuff - ask any lawyer) and don't have to deliver is a lot easier than many contexts for taking over as LOTO.
In the long run Boris will be fortunate and brave if can overcome this one. At the moment the communication skills of government is much worse than I would have expected.
The government Comms have been terrible because the only thing they are good at is lying and the current situation requires them to be truthful. Nobody believes a word they say now, even when they are telling the truth.
That is why England is a failing state. She has passed a point of no return.
It does rather feel like it. The thing I found genuinely terrifying was the sight of Johnson leading his Cabinet in the chant of the lie about the hospitals. It was like something from a death cult, or a theocratic junta. Could you imagine Thatcher doing it? Or indeed any of Johnson's predecessors? I thought, this is how great nations die.
Which lie was that, please? Not being critical at all - simplyh interested.
The new Lib Dem leader would surely be wise to get behind Starmer.
What!?
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
The fact Tories are so rattled by the idea of the Lib Dems getting behind Starmer says it all really.
Unless they merge there really is no point in splitting the anti-blue vote.
An informal alliance worked for Blair in 1997.
Did it work for the Lib Dems? Did they get their policies implemented?
My thoughts - the Lib Dems should stake out some interesting, radical policies, based around their existing values. Then pitch that they would negotiate for them in return for supply-and-confidence in the event of a no-majority parliment.
I can imagine that most Lib Dems supported the investment in schools, healthcare, and the devolution settlements. So yes, it probably did work reasonably well for Lib Dem supporters.
Remember that to voters, it doesn’t matter if their “party” does well. What matters is whether policies they want get implemented.
Patel isn;t clever, but she has that priceless ability to ignore the shrieks of the commentariat and the left in pursuing her goals. She resisted almost every attempt to water down her immigration bill, even in respect of potentially dangerous NHS workers.
That is not an admirable quality. It just means she rammed through a piece of legislation that will either unravel quickly or have more holes in it than Emmental cheese. If a bill cannot survive intense scrutiny in its passage, it does not deserve to make it on to the statute books.
Having a tin ear is a great quality if you are a despot or dictator, less so in normal politics.
Comments
Share Tweets as often as you like then, with your own thoughts. Not just copy and pasting other people's thoughts.
If you look back to Blair’s shadow cabinet during the Major years, he had several quality big-hitters, plus a decent corps of junior supporters. Poor Starmer has almost no back-up.
It's pretty well a repeat of the mistakes we made in getting testing up and running back in February/March. There seems still to be no appreciation of the value/costs of time, despite the mistakes earlier this year costing us many billions and thousands of lives.
EDIT: Here is a poll
Most people don't look at the data, they look at the headline figure. It is interesting that professional statisticians and their professional bodies have been backing up the misrepresentation claims quite loudly.
People will refer to the fact that they have gone to the Doctors for a test, when that will consist of several blood samples, urine sample, swab, etc.
The only purpose of making it a plural is for stock or knowing the number of tests the labs carry out. As far as the individual is concerned they have been for a test.
Just the same as when you go for an xray. You will never have 1.
Yes multiple xrays, number of examinations/test = 1
Plus what about all the other stuff that took 136K to 43K.
You think the population by and large understands that 30K weren't used to see if specific individuals had Covid or not, regardless of what was put in the small print of the announcement.
Testing, tracking and tracing and effective quarantine measures for those suffering or at high risk are the only way. Everything else has to be allowed to return to normality, with additional hygiene measures. That is what the government should have been preparing for and should be doing now during the lockdown phase. The WHO told them to keep testing but they didn’t - apparently relying on our “Blitz spirit”. FFS!
Even now the government is incapable of being honest about what testing it is doing, is being utterly amateurish in its app development, starting to blame its advisors rather than focusing on effectively putting in place the only measures which will work without totally shutting down all forms of civilised life and our economy.
Basic efficient competence seems beyond it.
What you suggest has been blindingly obvious for at least a month now, and arguably considerably longer than that.
It is of course hindsight to say so, but had we locked down at the beginning of March, we'd have been in that position already.
Scott is total rubbish when he tries (very rarely) to write his own prose. His record on predictions for example is laughable (Edinburgh Pentlands anyone?)
Of course he posts far too much Twitter, and of course it is annoying, even to his fellow travellers. But he is good at it! Let the boy do what suits him, cos I’m not sure I could stand having to read the rubbish that his brain manages to concoct when it attempts original thought.
I doubt most voters will actually notice, which suggests that Starmer should instead try and win some battles the normies do care about.
To the average punter how is a non diagnosis test any different to the one dropped on the floor?
The only purpose the numbers being quoted serve is to determine the reorder amount of tests. Other than that it gives no informative information to the viewer so is useless (unless of course your purpose is to mislead)
If the Mail need a new sub, pm me.
Boris Johnson 39% (-7 from mid-April)
Keir Starmer 27% (+5)
Don't know 29% https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1263045754500849664/photo/1
With 35% attendance, of course, the problems would be much reduced.
Thanks for the 'clarification', even if it's in the standard aggressively whiny form.
Perhaps they need a good time and motion person.
Being SpareLabour isn't really a pitch for anything other than marginal relevance.
They have driven through the platform the government was elected on while Johnson, Sunak, Hancock and co wet their nappies and junked every single conservative principle in the book.
This isn't seen now, but it will be when the catastrophe of long lockdown becomes clear, as summer turns to autumn.
Patel isn;t clever, but she has that priceless ability to ignore the shrieks of the commentariat and the left in pursuing her goals. She resisted almost every attempt to water down her immigration bill, even in respect of potentially dangerous NHS workers.
These are the coming tories. And they may be coming quicker than many think.
How do you figure that? You do realise the Lib Dems are not a subordinate branch of the Labour Party. Why doesn't Starmer just get behind Johnson? Why doesn't Carlaw just get behind Sturgeon? That's what you've just proposed.
Unlike Nippy...
And then there is the suspended zombie project known as Brexit....
Oh wait...
If the media aren't reporting that well blame the media. The data is there and clear. Numbers of tests and number of people are reported simultaneously.
Ipsos custodes...
We have a Prime Minister who has always- since that school play where he decided it would be easier and funnier not to learn his lines- sought the easy way out.
He has a Chief Adviser who has always sought to do things "differently". To hack established processes to get better results. To find things that look clever, but might just be too clever by half.
It's a new virus, but it's just a virus. Since John Snow- hell, since Eyam- we've known how to deal with infectious diseases. The fact that we didn't do those things for too long is why we in this state, why we're going to be stuck in this situation for longer than others and there are so many dead people.
Since they hate Johnson and hate Brexit, I would assume they'll go for the less hated option which is clearly Labour. Seems logical to me.
Asymptotic estimates of SARS-CoV-2 infection counts and their sensitivity to stochastic perturbation
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0008834
Despite the importance of having robust estimates of the time-asymptotic total number of infections, early estimates of COVID-19 show enormous fluctuations. Using COVID-19 data from different countries, we show that predictions are extremely sensitive to the reporting protocol and crucially depend on the last available data point before the maximum number of daily infections is reached. We propose a physical explanation for this sensitivity, using a susceptible–exposed–infected–recovered model, where the parameters are stochastically perturbed to simulate the difficulty in detecting patients, different confinement measures taken by different countries, as well as changes in the virus characteristics. Our results suggest that there are physical and statistical reasons to assign low confidence to statistical and dynamical fits, despite their apparently good statistical scores. These considerations are general and can be applied to other epidemics....
"The last chance to agree an extension to the transition period will come in June but Frost writes that the government does not believe it would be in British interests to stay in the customs union and single market after the end of the year."
Why doesn't the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer just get behind Manchester City?
Why doesn't whoever Arsenal's manager is now just get behind Chelsea?
Why doesn't Biden just get behind Trump?
I don't understand what you're trying to say. The Lib Dems are their own party they're not the Labour Party. If the new Lib Dem leader wants a Labour government he or she should join the Labour Party and the Lib Dems should elect a new leader.
Likewise avoiding attacks on Starmer directly, unless really warranted.
What is slightly strange is that Starmer has drifted to 3 to be next PM, despite his improved ratings. I laid him at 2.68 for smalls because I thought the next PM being a non Boris Tory was quite likely, and maybe Starmer is the PM after that. Perhaps @david_herdson's article pointing that out moved the odds
Shouting at people close up spreads an airborne disease. No shit, Sherlock! So we’ll make people stand 2 metres apart so they have to shout even louder at each other to make themselves heard. What on earth is the point of that?
Social distancing makes life pretty unbearable, closes businesses, stops pretty much most enjoyable human activities and make people unemployed.
That may be the way we are going. But it is worth asking the question whether it is the right way to go and whether it is worth it.
I have been slow to criticise the government. But the longer this has gone the more evidence is emerging that it really is not very good at its basic job. That incompetence is costing lives and will cost lots of people their jobs, including mine and those of my family. Your “lashing out” is my (to me) criticism of the government.
Anyway, time for a walk and my daily chat with the local sheep.
While we're on that subject of looking into the future, let's take a little trip to the past.
'Scott_P Posts: 21,367
June 25
JackW said:
4. Next PM. It's May for me, anyone but Boris.
5. Corbyn should go too. A total tool. About as effective as a leader and potential PM as a fart in a hurricane.
6.Lastly and this will shock many but Scotland should now opt for independence. There I said it. The will of the Scottish people on the EU, a matter of the most crucial significance for the future, was clear. Hopefully it will be an amicable uncoupling. I would vote for YES in SINDY2, if still around.
SINDY2 should take place within 18 months and a YES vote take effect on the date of BREXIT two years after Article 50 is enabled or before 2020 whichever is sooner.
Nice to see you Jack
I agree on all 3 points.'
It will also deal with the regular complaints about the regular complaints about tweets which are almost as irritating as the complaints about tweets too.
Arsenal's manager is...er...no he's gone...er...no give up. Dammit
Net approval ratings are not enough on their own either eg in 1979 Thatcher's Tories unlike Starmer's Labour led on voting intention as well as Thatcher leading on net approval even when she trailed Callaghan as preferred PM
Look at Rishi Sunak. I think yesterday it actually dawned on him he might go down in history as the man who broke Britain. Anybody with an ounce of courage would have resigned weeks ago.
It’s about achieving aims, not about “your team” winning for the sake of it.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/may/15/unai-emery-arsenal-couldnt-protect-me-truth-is-i-felt-alone
Back to Trump, I think the biggest trope that needs nailing before election day is the rather sweet notion which many of his more simple-minded supporters still cling to - that he is "not a politician" but a "businessman" who "goes a bit far sometimes" but "tells it like it is" and "knows how to bang heads together and get things done".
I see this ludicrously false but quite widely believed sentiment potentially playing well against a physically and mentally feeble opponent. In my worst nightmares it costs the Dems the landslide and Biden only gets it by a whisker.
https://immunology.sciencemag.org/content/5/47/eabc6347
...Making data-driven decisions on how to fight the COVID-19 pandemic without completely shutting down economies will require better tools to understand the extent of transmission. The current crisis presents an opportunity to rethink how health systems generate and use surveillance data, and how to harness the power of serological tests and seroepidemiology. The world’s health systems are rushing to develop and implement testing for clinical use, evaluations of social policy, and quantification of population-level risk, which has brought into sharp focus the challenges facing surveillance programs throughout the world. There is an urgent need to monitor variations in disease transmission across populations and geographies in near real-time. Rapid detection of active cases and contact tracing – using direct tests for presence of the virus (acute phase diagnosis) – is the cornerstone of containment strategies. For later phases of pandemic control – when the key questions involve when, where, and how to lift confinement measures, and relax social distancing constraints – serological testing to measure antibody responses to the virus becomes paramount to refine understanding of transmission intensity and population susceptibility.
Antibody tests to detect exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, are rapidly becoming available (a list is maintained by FIND at https://www.finddx.org/covid-19/pipeline/), with the majority configured for detection of IgG antibodies to the Spike (S) protein of the virus, though other isotypes and antigens are being explored...
... The performance of different test platforms is likely to vary considerably; for instance, point of care lateral flow assays are likely to be fraught with more problems of sensitivity/specificity than ELISA formats, however their low cost and ease of use will facilitate more rapid scale-up and widespread adoption.
Despite enormous and ongoing efforts to study immune responses to COVID-19 in different clinical settings, to date there is insufficient data and poor understanding of the magnitude and duration of antibody responses (IgM, IgG, and IgA) following asymptomatic, mild, and severe infections. We do not yet understand how antibody responses vary across diverse populations with different genetic backgrounds, comorbidities, or infection histories. In this article, we discuss the use case for individual- versus population-level serological testing, with a focus on IgG testing applications. We emphasize the dangers of using current serologic tests for individual-level risk assessments, but highlight the potential power of deploying population-level serological testing (i.e., serosurveillance or seroepidemiology) – even with assays of moderate sensitivity/specificity....
Well, it's a view I suppose...
If the post-election electoral mathematics means they can be in government then what will result will depend upon what the post-election landscape looks like. That might mean they (like the DUP or SNP) can stand back and not enter office but instead make demands in order to get bills passed, while voting down whatever they dislike. Or they might align with either Labour or the Tories. But that won't be determined until after the election, not before it.
The Lib Dems need to make it clear what the party stands for - and to have that be something the voters want. If what they stand for is the Labour Party then why shouldn't voters just vote Labour?
I’m as far from being a “Labour partisan” as can be.
If what you want is a Labour government then join the Labour Party. Not the Lib Dems.
My thoughts - the Lib Dems should stake out some interesting, radical policies, based around their existing values. Then pitch that they would negotiate for them in return for supply-and-confidence in the event of a no-majority parliment.
Thus, as in 1997, it makes sense for Lib Dems to “go easy” on Labour. Especially if an arrangement can be made on the subject of Proportional Representation.
If your aim is a Labour Party government then why would you be leading the Liberal Democrats? If you're leading the Liberal Democrats it should be because your aims differ from the Labour Party's aims. In which case you need to set out what your party stands for and seek to convince people to vote for that.
If you don't stand for anything then why stand as a separate party?
Remember that to voters, it doesn’t matter if their “party” does well. What matters is whether policies they want get implemented.
Having a tin ear is a great quality if you are a despot or dictator, less so in normal politics.