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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Biden note that’s made Harris odds on favourite once again

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited July 2020 in General
imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Biden note that’s made Harris odds on favourite once again for the VP pick

On Betfair the betting on who Joe Biden will choose as his VP has been totally shaken up overnight following a photographer snapping a note seen in his hands in which Harris, the longtime favourite, is at the top and rated highly.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    dixiedean said:
    Starmer said: “We are lucky to have many world-class tourist destinations across the UK. But the jobs crisis facing tourist towns is stark.”

    Starmer's started saying it now!
    What's wrong with that?
    Because saying something is "world class" doesn't make it so.
    What a daft comment from you. (I was a lot ruder than that but decided to temper it.)

    I travel all over the world. Have done most of my life. There are plenty of destinations in the UK which are world-class. Furthermore, our leaders need right now to encourage people not to travel. To 'Staycation.'

    So Starmer and Johnson are absolutely right to emphasise our own world-class options. It's called leadership.

    If you can't find anything sensible to criticise go away and do something useful.
    So true: Hampstead, St John's Wood, Fitzrovia, Belsize Park, Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, Primrose Hill. The UK is full of world class destinations
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    edited July 2020
    IanB2 said:

    Honestly, the government releases 50,000 free £50 bike repair vouchers late last night, and even at 5.30 am the website has collapsed under the pressure. I have wasted the last 45 minutes fruitlessly trying to register for the scheme, but it is like trying to buy tickets for the Olympics. And I don’t think parts of the government website even work, at least on an iPad.

    Fix Your Bike Voucher Scheme
    Due to extreme volumes of traffic this resource has been temporarily paused whilst we take action to improve performance for users

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    felix said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Spain had a very strict lockdown, plus everyone wearing facemasks, even outside. Why are they experiencing a rise in cases?

    Note your own use of the past tense “had”. Then factor in imported cases due to tourism.

    The elephant in the room is airports. Not just in Spain, but worldwide. Governments need to come down on them like a ton of bricks, eg. with total prohibition of shops and restaurants within airports; and “quarantine” meaning quarantine.
    Travel per se is dangerous and holidays abroad this year are a daft idea. However, the vast majority of outbreaks here in Spain relate to agricultural workers and internal tourism - family gatherings, parties, dscos, etc. The hard lockdown needed to be eased more gradually and night time venues should have been much more strictly controlled. I believe they are still closed in the UK which makes sense.
    Travel is just moving through space, which all except those hiding indoors are already doing. Travel by air is clearly a significant risk but it is perfectly possible to travel abroad just as safely as travelling to the supermarket or local pub.

    If you restrict travel to relatively safe locations abroad, all you do is increase further the crush at popular UK resorts. Last week I was in the Cotswolds, Cornwall and the Dorset coast, and now I am back on the island, and the crush at some of the popular spots has to be seen to be believed. The island so far is the least crowded, presumably the additional cost and hassle of crossing the water remains a deterrent.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    For anyone pondering a travel destination, note that the “Uzbekistan Safe Travel Guarantee” will pay you $3000 if you travel there as a tourist and come down with the virus.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    rcs1000 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    dixiedean said:
    Starmer said: “We are lucky to have many world-class tourist destinations across the UK. But the jobs crisis facing tourist towns is stark.”

    Starmer's started saying it now!
    What's wrong with that?
    Because saying something is "world class" doesn't make it so.
    What a daft comment from you. (I was a lot ruder than that but decided to temper it.)

    I travel all over the world. Have done most of my life. There are plenty of destinations in the UK which are world-class. Furthermore, our leaders need right now to encourage people not to travel. To 'Staycation.'

    So Starmer and Johnson are absolutely right to emphasise our own world-class options. It's called leadership.

    If you can't find anything sensible to criticise go away and do something useful.
    So true: Hampstead, St John's Wood, Fitzrovia, Belsize Park, Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, Primrose Hill. The UK is full of world class destinations
    Post of the week?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    FPT @SeaShantyIrish2

    EPG said:

    After 9 out of 58 elections the vice-president took over the office during the term. I was surprised it was that many.

    4 deaths from illness:
    WH Harrison > Tyler
    Taylor > Fillmore
    Harding > Coolidge
    FD Roosevelt > Truman

    3 assassinations:
    Lincoln > A Johnson
    McKinley > T Roosevelt
    Kennedy > LB Johnson

    Gerald Ford succeeded Nixon, but was never elected Vice President (or President)

    You missed James Garfield to Chester Arthur, 1881 (assassination).
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Honestly, the government releases 50,000 free £50 bike repair vouchers late last night, and even at 5.30 am the website has collapsed under the pressure. I have wasted the last 45 minutes fruitlessly trying to register for the scheme, but it is like trying to buy tickets for the Olympics. And I don’t think parts of the government website even work, at least on an iPad.

    Fix Your Bike Voucher Scheme
    Due to extreme volumes of traffic this resource has been temporarily paused whilst we take action to improve performance for users

    Purely a PR stunt. Unless you are living in poverty abstain for applying for things like this.

    Most people can repair a bicycle: 80% of repair & maintenance is within the competence of anybody (Google is your friend, and most libraries stock a book on cycle maintenance), and the 20% that is tricky and usually needs an experienced bike technician is relatively cheap.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited July 2020
    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited July 2020

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Honestly, the government releases 50,000 free £50 bike repair vouchers late last night, and even at 5.30 am the website has collapsed under the pressure. I have wasted the last 45 minutes fruitlessly trying to register for the scheme, but it is like trying to buy tickets for the Olympics. And I don’t think parts of the government website even work, at least on an iPad.

    Fix Your Bike Voucher Scheme
    Due to extreme volumes of traffic this resource has been temporarily paused whilst we take action to improve performance for users

    Purely a PR stunt. Unless you are living in poverty abstain for applying for things like this.

    Most people can repair a bicycle: 80% of repair & maintenance is within the competence of anybody (Google is your friend, and most libraries stock a book on cycle maintenance), and the 20% that is tricky and usually needs an experienced bike technician is relatively cheap.
    Having been my own cycle repair guy these last few months this is true. I have bought a couple of new inner tubes, a set of tyres, and a set of brake pads and calipers, and had to fiddle with the gearing.

    Then again if the £50 includes those spares that's a help. If not absolutely needed.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959
    On topic - does Biden really need those notes to remember those points?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    edited July 2020
    rcs1000 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    dixiedean said:
    Starmer said: “We are lucky to have many world-class tourist destinations across the UK. But the jobs crisis facing tourist towns is stark.”

    Starmer's started saying it now!
    What's wrong with that?
    Because saying something is "world class" doesn't make it so.
    What a daft comment from you. (I was a lot ruder than that but decided to temper it.)

    I travel all over the world. Have done most of my life. There are plenty of destinations in the UK which are world-class. Furthermore, our leaders need right now to encourage people not to travel. To 'Staycation.'

    So Starmer and Johnson are absolutely right to emphasise our own world-class options. It's called leadership.

    If you can't find anything sensible to criticise go away and do something useful.
    So true: Hampstead, St John's Wood, Fitzrovia, Belsize Park, Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, Primrose Hill. The UK is full of world class destinations
    You seem to have missed out Leicester...

    The problem with a UK holiday is that many of the attractions are closed. Seeing the sights of London is tricky when they are shut. The seaside and hills are better options, and camping the best accommodation. A whole new generation could enjoy the English camping tradition:

    https://youtu.be/Q21gn93G1N0
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 13,225
    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    TOPPING said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Honestly, the government releases 50,000 free £50 bike repair vouchers late last night, and even at 5.30 am the website has collapsed under the pressure. I have wasted the last 45 minutes fruitlessly trying to register for the scheme, but it is like trying to buy tickets for the Olympics. And I don’t think parts of the government website even work, at least on an iPad.

    Fix Your Bike Voucher Scheme
    Due to extreme volumes of traffic this resource has been temporarily paused whilst we take action to improve performance for users

    Purely a PR stunt. Unless you are living in poverty abstain for applying for things like this.

    Most people can repair a bicycle: 80% of repair & maintenance is within the competence of anybody (Google is your friend, and most libraries stock a book on cycle maintenance), and the 20% that is tricky and usually needs an experienced bike technician is relatively cheap.
    Having been my own cycle repair guy these last few months this is true. I have bought a couple of new inner tubes, a set of tyres, and a set of brake pads and calipers, and had to fiddle with the gearing.

    Then again if the £50 includes those spares that's a help. If not absolutely needed.
    I read it to include parts. But as the website has crashed it isn’t possible to double check.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013

    On topic - does Biden really need those notes to remember those points?

    He's old? He wants to get the key talking points down? He likes to write things out longhand to help formulate his ideas?
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    edited July 2020

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    Isn't there a Green and/or Libertarian this year?
    And Good Morning fellow Pb-ers!

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    He might turn out like Reagan, and be the pleasant buffer happy to smile and shake the hands (or whatever passes for such nowadays) and let a serious team behind him do the thinking and most of the work. Trump’s problem is that he is both incapable and wants to lead from the front.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    I agree it is contrived and released for a deliberate reason. However it if is inadvertant then the "Do not hold grudges" at the top is interesting. To me that reads more as a reminder to him not to show the grudge he holds! If he does hold such a grudge she should not be odds on imo.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    He might turn out like Reagan, and be the pleasant buffer happy to smile and shake the hands (or whatever passes for such nowadays) and let a serious team behind him do the thinking and most of the work. Trump’s problem is that he is both incapable and wants to lead from the front.
    Yes, I quite like Grandpa Joe. Even functioning at Brainstem level his values show through.

    A setpiece speech like the State of the Union might be cringeworthy though.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    edited July 2020

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    Isn't there a Green and/or Libertarian this year?
    And Good Morning fellow Pb-ers!

    A Librarian would be good for the US after the current fiasco. At least his or her mistakes would be in some sort of logical order.
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 13,225
    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited July 2020

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Scott_xP said:
    All this may be true, (may being an understatement) but i’m not sure it’s actually helpful or fair to examine individual elements of the Govt response in isolation outside of the wider picture.

    It doesn’t take too much thought to produce the reasoning for what happened and there is also a need to consider the potential consequences of alternatives. Especially given the limited resources at the time (on things like PPE, testing) restricted the options available.

    - clearly there was a great fear that hospitals would be over-run
    - it was correctly believed that hospitals would be a very dangerous place for elderly people (because of the risks of catching the virus)

    Both of the above factors strongly support a need to clear non covid patients, particularly elderly ones, from hospitals. And it is quite probable that this will have saved many lives (because hospitals weren’t overrun, but might have been, and many uninflected elderly patients will have been released and avoided getting COVID as a result).

    Of course the flip side is what happened. Risk assessments on whether the released patients had COVID had to be made without comprehensive testing (because the testing capacity wasn’t available to test everyone and wait for results). The assessments relied too much on a poor understanding of the risks of asymptomatic carriers. And probably there was a knock on that care homes weren’t made sufficiently aware of the need to take additional precautions for the people they were receiving.


  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    IanB2 said:

    Trump’s problem is that he is both incapable and wants to lead from the front.

    He doesn't really want to lead.

    He wants to be adored.

    Just like BoZo.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    alex_ said:

    Scott_xP said:
    All this may be true, (may being an understatement) but i’m not sure it’s actually helpful or fair to examine individual elements of the Govt response in isolation outside of the wider picture.

    It doesn’t take too much thought to produce the reasoning for what happened and there is also a need to consider the potential consequences of alternatives. Especially given the limited resources at the time (on things like PPE, testing) restricted the options available.

    - clearly there was a great fear that hospitals would be over-run
    - it was correctly believed that hospitals would be a very dangerous place for elderly people (because of the risks of catching the virus)

    Both of the above factors strongly support a need to clear non covid patients, particularly elderly ones, from hospitals. And it is quite probable that this will have saved many lives (because hospitals weren’t overrun, but might have been, and many uninflected elderly patients will have been released and avoided getting COVID as a result).

    Of course the flip side is what happened. Risk assessments on whether the released patients had COVID had to be made without comprehensive testing (because the testing capacity wasn’t available to test everyone and wait for results). The assessments relied too much on a poor understanding of the risks of asymptomatic carriers. And probably there was a knock on that care homes weren’t made sufficiently aware of the need to take additional precautions for the people they were receiving.


    Moving people out of hospitals makes sense. But why mix them with the existing care home population. We had 750k people volunteering to help and a similar number of empty hotel rooms.
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 13,225

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    Isn't there a Green and/or Libertarian this year?
    And Good Morning fellow Pb-ers!

    A Librarian would be good for the US after the current fiasco. At least his or her mistakes would be in some sort of logical order.
    Surely a postie is ideal? They always deliver.
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 13,225
    edited July 2020
    Scott_xP said:

    IanB2 said:

    Trump’s problem is that he is both incapable and wants to lead from the front.

    He doesn't really want to lead.

    He wants to be adored.

    Just like BoZo.
    He is really a deeply unpleasant and dangerous man. It really speaks volumes about the state of the USA that he got elected, never mind that he could even get a second term.

    Mind you I wouldn't be much kinder about Boris and the UK.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    TOPPING said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Honestly, the government releases 50,000 free £50 bike repair vouchers late last night, and even at 5.30 am the website has collapsed under the pressure. I have wasted the last 45 minutes fruitlessly trying to register for the scheme, but it is like trying to buy tickets for the Olympics. And I don’t think parts of the government website even work, at least on an iPad.

    Fix Your Bike Voucher Scheme
    Due to extreme volumes of traffic this resource has been temporarily paused whilst we take action to improve performance for users

    Purely a PR stunt. Unless you are living in poverty abstain for applying for things like this.

    Most people can repair a bicycle: 80% of repair & maintenance is within the competence of anybody (Google is your friend, and most libraries stock a book on cycle maintenance), and the 20% that is tricky and usually needs an experienced bike technician is relatively cheap.
    Having been my own cycle repair guy these last few months this is true. I have bought a couple of new inner tubes, a set of tyres, and a set of brake pads and calipers, and had to fiddle with the gearing.

    Then again if the £50 includes those spares that's a help. If not absolutely needed.
    But surely it is best to let the less well off/unemployed use this scheme?
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    alex_ said:

    Scott_xP said:
    All this may be true, (may being an understatement) but i’m not sure it’s actually helpful or fair to examine individual elements of the Govt response in isolation outside of the wider picture.

    It doesn’t take too much thought to produce the reasoning for what happened and there is also a need to consider the potential consequences of alternatives. Especially given the limited resources at the time (on things like PPE, testing) restricted the options available.

    - clearly there was a great fear that hospitals would be over-run
    - it was correctly believed that hospitals would be a very dangerous place for elderly people (because of the risks of catching the virus)

    Both of the above factors strongly support a need to clear non covid patients, particularly elderly ones, from hospitals. And it is quite probable that this will have saved many lives (because hospitals weren’t overrun, but might have been, and many uninflected elderly patients will have been released and avoided getting COVID as a result).

    Of course the flip side is what happened. Risk assessments on whether the released patients had COVID had to be made without comprehensive testing (because the testing capacity wasn’t available to test everyone and wait for results). The assessments relied too much on a poor understanding of the risks of asymptomatic carriers. And probably there was a knock on that care homes weren’t made sufficiently aware of the need to take additional precautions for the people they were receiving.


    Moving people out of hospitals makes sense. But why mix them with the existing care home population. We had 750k people volunteering to help and a similar number of empty hotel rooms.
    Probably because there wasn’t enough thinking outside the box. But i’m not sure that depositing people in need of full time care into “empty hotel rooms” would have been a universally good solution. If the Nightingale hospitals had been available a bit earlier on the other hand...

    But that’s not my point. I’m not arguing that the Govt didn’t get it wrong. They might have done (although consider the caveats applied above). In good faith and on the basis of the best available evidence or through failures/incompetence. I’m in no position to say. I’m just saying that criticism needs to be made and lessons to be learned by considering the whole picture, not in isolation.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 13,225

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    I liked Cameron but Brexit rules him out. (He opposed it and failed.) He wasn't in power that long either and didn't really have any major achievements. Decent man, disappointing result.

    Agree re Boris. I may yet be pleasantly surprised but I remember voting for him as Mayor London, and in the end was unpleasantly surprised.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Macmillan (Profumo, Night of Long Knives notwithstanding) ahead of Churchill. Churchill was 77 and had had a series of strokes by 1951, so had a somewhat limited grasp of what was happening around him - by 1954, indeed, he had almost completely lost it.

    Kennedy is very much hyped because of his good looks, but when you look at him with a cold eye he wasn’t actually that good. For example, he spent more time seducing his teenage interns than he did working on civil rights.
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382

    Scott_xP said:

    IanB2 said:

    Trump’s problem is that he is both incapable and wants to lead from the front.

    He doesn't really want to lead.

    He wants to be adored.

    Just like BoZo.
    He is really a deeply unpleasant and dangerous man. It really speaks volumes about the state of the USA that he got elected, never mind that he could even get a second term.

    Mind you I wouldn't be much kinder about Boris and the UK.
    At least Boris is not self-pitying.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    Scott_xP said:

    IanB2 said:

    Trump’s problem is that he is both incapable and wants to lead from the front.

    He doesn't really want to lead.

    He wants to be adored.

    Just like BoZo.
    He is really a deeply unpleasant and dangerous man. It really speaks volumes about the state of the USA that he got elected, never mind that he could even get a second term.

    Mind you I wouldn't be much kinder about Boris and the UK.
    At least Boris is not self-pitying.
    Give it another three months....
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,346
    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    Scott_xP said:
    All this may be true, (may being an understatement) but i’m not sure it’s actually helpful or fair to examine individual elements of the Govt response in isolation outside of the wider picture.

    It doesn’t take too much thought to produce the reasoning for what happened and there is also a need to consider the potential consequences of alternatives. Especially given the limited resources at the time (on things like PPE, testing) restricted the options available.

    - clearly there was a great fear that hospitals would be over-run
    - it was correctly believed that hospitals would be a very dangerous place for elderly people (because of the risks of catching the virus)

    Both of the above factors strongly support a need to clear non covid patients, particularly elderly ones, from hospitals. And it is quite probable that this will have saved many lives (because hospitals weren’t overrun, but might have been, and many uninflected elderly patients will have been released and avoided getting COVID as a result).

    Of course the flip side is what happened. Risk assessments on whether the released patients had COVID had to be made without comprehensive testing (because the testing capacity wasn’t available to test everyone and wait for results). The assessments relied too much on a poor understanding of the risks of asymptomatic carriers. And probably there was a knock on that care homes weren’t made sufficiently aware of the need to take additional precautions for the people they were receiving.


    Moving people out of hospitals makes sense. But why mix them with the existing care home population. We had 750k people volunteering to help and a similar number of empty hotel rooms.
    Probably because there wasn’t enough thinking outside the box. But i’m not sure that depositing people in need of full time care into “empty hotel rooms” would have been a universally good solution. If the Nightingale hospitals had been available a bit earlier on the other hand...

    But that’s not my point. I’m not arguing that the Govt didn’t get it wrong. They might have done (although consider the caveats applied above). In good faith and on the basis of the best available evidence or through failures/incompetence. I’m in no position to say. I’m just saying that criticism needs to be made and lessons to be learned by considering the whole picture, not in isolation.
    Scott thinks the Government should have made a perfect response to an unknown disease which had led people to be left outside hospital's dying in the street in our European counterparts.

    Even now Governments are struggling to deal with Covid even though we know a lot more about it e.g. Israel, Hong Kong, Australia etc.

    The idea that any future enquiry is going to hold the Government negligent is just daft. Of course there will be lessons to be learned but this is a brand new very odd disease, the Government have done their best, they have made mistakes, but these have been in good faith.

  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    Scott_xP said:
    All this may be true, (may being an understatement) but i’m not sure it’s actually helpful or fair to examine individual elements of the Govt response in isolation outside of the wider picture.

    It doesn’t take too much thought to produce the reasoning for what happened and there is also a need to consider the potential consequences of alternatives. Especially given the limited resources at the time (on things like PPE, testing) restricted the options available.

    - clearly there was a great fear that hospitals would be over-run
    - it was correctly believed that hospitals would be a very dangerous place for elderly people (because of the risks of catching the virus)

    Both of the above factors strongly support a need to clear non covid patients, particularly elderly ones, from hospitals. And it is quite probable that this will have saved many lives (because hospitals weren’t overrun, but might have been, and many uninflected elderly patients will have been released and avoided getting COVID as a result).

    Of course the flip side is what happened. Risk assessments on whether the released patients had COVID had to be made without comprehensive testing (because the testing capacity wasn’t available to test everyone and wait for results). The assessments relied too much on a poor understanding of the risks of asymptomatic carriers. And probably there was a knock on that care homes weren’t made sufficiently aware of the need to take additional precautions for the people they were receiving.


    Moving people out of hospitals makes sense. But why mix them with the existing care home population. We had 750k people volunteering to help and a similar number of empty hotel rooms.
    Probably because there wasn’t enough thinking outside the box. But i’m not sure that depositing people in need of full time care into “empty hotel rooms” would have been a universally good solution. If the Nightingale hospitals had been available a bit earlier on the other hand...

    But that’s not my point. I’m not arguing that the Govt didn’t get it wrong. They might have done (although consider the caveats applied above). In good faith and on the basis of the best available evidence or through failures/incompetence. I’m in no position to say. I’m just saying that criticism needs to be made and lessons to be learned by considering the whole picture, not in isolation.
    I agree there wasnt enough thinking outside the box. I am not suggesting dumping them in empty hotel rooms by the way. There were about 25k moved from hospital to care homes. We could easily have created an emergency care staff from the volunteers, got some experienced staff from care homes to lead them (and replace those with more volunteers in the care home), and offer even 24hr one to one care in hotel accommodation for a quarantine period.

    Many of the 750k volunteers have done very little, absolutely through no fault of their own, but because govt didnt even think about how to best use them.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    Isn't there a Green and/or Libertarian this year?
    And Good Morning fellow Pb-ers!

    A Librarian would be good for the US after the current fiasco. At least his or her mistakes would be in some sort of logical order.
    Only if one is a Terry Pratchett fan!
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 13,225
    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Macmillan (Profumo, Night of Long Knives notwithstanding) ahead of Churchill. Churchill was 77 and had had a series of strokes by 1951, so had a somewhat limited grasp of what was happening around him - by 1954, indeed, he had almost completely lost it.

    Kennedy is very much hyped because of his good looks, but when you look at him with a cold eye he wasn’t actually that good. For example, he spent more time seducing his teenage interns than he did working on civil rights.
    Yeah, agree with that. Churchill and MacMillan both marginal calls for me. On reflection, the only two safe calls for me on the UK side would be Atlee and Major, although by popular acclaim I guess I'd have to say Thatcher too.

    Kennedy was certainly a close call for me but again, by popular acclaim....
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880



    Most people can repair a bicycle: 80% of repair & maintenance is within the competence of anybody (Google is your friend, and most libraries stock a book on cycle maintenance), and the 20% that is tricky and usually needs an experienced bike technician is relatively cheap.

    Your neglected Halfords 200 quid piles of shit that this scheme is aimed at will likely need new chains and BBs. That's not cheap at a bike shop who employ exclusively from the ranks of liars, idiots and thieves.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited July 2020
    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    Scott_xP said:
    All this may be true, (may being an understatement) but i’m not sure it’s actually helpful or fair to examine individual elements of the Govt response in isolation outside of the wider picture.

    It doesn’t take too much thought to produce the reasoning for what happened and there is also a need to consider the potential consequences of alternatives. Especially given the limited resources at the time (on things like PPE, testing) restricted the options available.

    - clearly there was a great fear that hospitals would be over-run
    - it was correctly believed that hospitals would be a very dangerous place for elderly people (because of the risks of catching the virus)

    Both of the above factors strongly support a need to clear non covid patients, particularly elderly ones, from hospitals. And it is quite probable that this will have saved many lives (because hospitals weren’t overrun, but might have been, and many uninflected elderly patients will have been released and avoided getting COVID as a result).

    Of course the flip side is what happened. Risk assessments on whether the released patients had COVID had to be made without comprehensive testing (because the testing capacity wasn’t available to test everyone and wait for results). The assessments relied too much on a poor understanding of the risks of asymptomatic carriers. And probably there was a knock on that care homes weren’t made sufficiently aware of the need to take additional precautions for the people they were receiving.


    Moving people out of hospitals makes sense. But why mix them with the existing care home population. We had 750k people volunteering to help and a similar number of empty hotel rooms.
    Probably because there wasn’t enough thinking outside the box. But i’m not sure that depositing people in need of full time care into “empty hotel rooms” would have been a universally good solution. If the Nightingale hospitals had been available a bit earlier on the other hand...

    But that’s not my point. I’m not arguing that the Govt didn’t get it wrong. They might have done (although consider the caveats applied above). In good faith and on the basis of the best available evidence or through failures/incompetence. I’m in no position to say. I’m just saying that criticism needs to be made and lessons to be learned by considering the whole picture, not in isolation.
    There is anecdotal evidence to suggest in the West Midlands to suggest there was plenty of malice involved.

    For example, sending care home residents home from hospital at 2am. This is because had a manager been on duty they might have refused to take them back in. The trifling detail that protocols demanded a manager be present to accept these residents was overlooked, and threats were used to force the on duty staff to take the patients.

    Now I can’t prove that that is true, but I trust my source, whom I will not identify beyond saying he’s a doctor who works for a Birmingham trust. He also says that the legal teams are bracing themselves to deal with manslaughter charges. More likely to be hyperbole, but it does suggest the Trusts know they got this hopelessly, even criminally wrong.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    edited July 2020
    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Macmillan (Profumo, Night of Long Knives notwithstanding) ahead of Churchill. Churchill was 77 and had had a series of strokes by 1951, so had a somewhat limited grasp of what was happening around him - by 1954, indeed, he had almost completely lost it.

    Kennedy is very much hyped because of his good looks, but when you look at him with a cold eye he wasn’t actually that good. For example, he spent more time seducing his teenage interns than he did working on civil rights.
    Kennedy was a bit like Cameron; wanted to be President/PM 'because they thought they'd be good at it'. An LBJ/Kennedy Presidency would have been better for the US, and would have probably given Kennedy two terms as President after LBJ.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    Isn't there a Green and/or Libertarian this year?
    And Good Morning fellow Pb-ers!

    A Librarian would be good for the US after the current fiasco. At least his or her mistakes would be in some sort of logical order.
    Surely a postie is ideal? They always deliver.
    A fisherman would be a good catch.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    Id say Cameron was a good PM but got his most important decision wrong. So I would differentiate between him being a good PM (he was suited to it and competent) and his time as PM being good for the country (it wasnt because of Brexit and the related divisions that have deepened in country).
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    I liked Cameron but Brexit rules him out. (He opposed it and failed.) He wasn't in power that long either and didn't really have any major achievements. Decent man, disappointing result.

    Agree re Boris. I may yet be pleasantly surprised but I remember voting for him as Mayor London, and in the end was unpleasantly surprised.
    Blair was on your list but he reneged on his pledge to hold a referendum on Lisbon (though it was Brown in the end that signed it too). Do you think honourably holding and losing a referendum on a very divisive issue is worse than pledging to hold one, then reversing that after the election because you knew you'd lose it and implementing what you'd pledged not to without a referendum anyway?

    Cameron and Osborne saved the economy from a catastrophic deficit. For that alone they deserve to be listed amongst the greats for me. Introducing equal marriage was the cherry on the cake.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited July 2020

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Macmillan (Profumo, Night of Long Knives notwithstanding) ahead of Churchill. Churchill was 77 and had had a series of strokes by 1951, so had a somewhat limited grasp of what was happening around him - by 1954, indeed, he had almost completely lost it.

    Kennedy is very much hyped because of his good looks, but when you look at him with a cold eye he wasn’t actually that good. For example, he spent more time seducing his teenage interns than he did working on civil rights.
    Yeah, agree with that. Churchill and MacMillan both marginal calls for me. On reflection, the only two safe calls for me on the UK side would be Atlee and Major, although by popular acclaim I guess I'd have to say Thatcher too.

    Kennedy was certainly a close call for me but again, by popular acclaim....
    In the current #MeToo era, he’d be facing a prison sentence, not popular acclaim.

    But then, I’m always wary of judging standards across eras. It makes it difficult to understand them.

    My bigger concern was his brinksmanship over both Cuba and Berlin that brought the world within literally seconds of nuclear war.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Macmillan (Profumo, Night of Long Knives notwithstanding) ahead of Churchill. Churchill was 77 and had had a series of strokes by 1951, so had a somewhat limited grasp of what was happening around him - by 1954, indeed, he had almost completely lost it.

    Kennedy is very much hyped because of his good looks, but when you look at him with a cold eye he wasn’t actually that good. For example, he spent more time seducing his teenage interns than he did working on civil rights.
    Kennedy was a bit like Cameron; wanted to be President/PM 'because they thought they'd be good at it. An LBJ/Kennedy Presidency would have been better for the US, and would have probably given Kennedy two terms as President after LBJ.
    I doubt if Johnson would have beaten Nixon in 1960.

    Anyway, I have a sick car to go and fetch. Later.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
    No I don't mean the financial crash. Crashes happen. Recessions happen.

    The disaster was not having a crash. The disaster was the decisions made before the crash. The disaster was the Chancellor hubristically believing he'd "abolished boom and bust" and so leaving the country completely unprepared for the inevitable next bust.

    During the recession the deficit changed by 7% from trough to peak which is fairly standard for recessions - the financial crash was actually not that exceptional a recession.

    What was exceptional, what was catastrophic, was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the recession hit. Had the country been running a small surplus before the recession hit then the deficit would have risen to 7% instead of 10% which is an order of magnitude more manageable.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
    No I don't mean the financial crash. Crashes happen. Recessions happen.

    The disaster was not having a crash. The disaster was the decisions made before the crash. The disaster was the Chancellor hubristically believing he'd "abolished boom and bust" and so leaving the country completely unprepared for the inevitable next bust.

    During the recession the deficit changed by 7% from trough to peak which is fairly standard for recessions - the financial crash was actually not that exceptional a recession.

    What was exceptional, what was catastrophic, was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the recession hit. Had the country been running a small surplus before the recession hit then the deficit would have risen to 7% instead of 10% which is an order of magnitude more manageable.
    Didn't Cameron and Osborne pledge to match Labour spending pre crash?
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    rcs1000 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    dixiedean said:
    Starmer said: “We are lucky to have many world-class tourist destinations across the UK. But the jobs crisis facing tourist towns is stark.”

    Starmer's started saying it now!
    What's wrong with that?
    Because saying something is "world class" doesn't make it so.
    What a daft comment from you. (I was a lot ruder than that but decided to temper it.)

    I travel all over the world. Have done most of my life. There are plenty of destinations in the UK which are world-class. Furthermore, our leaders need right now to encourage people not to travel. To 'Staycation.'

    So Starmer and Johnson are absolutely right to emphasise our own world-class options. It's called leadership.

    If you can't find anything sensible to criticise go away and do something useful.
    So true: Hampstead, St John's Wood, Fitzrovia, Belsize Park, Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, Primrose Hill. The UK is full of world class destinations
    Why not list those destinations in your post then instead of including a bunch of second rate London districts?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Macmillan (Profumo, Night of Long Knives notwithstanding) ahead of Churchill. Churchill was 77 and had had a series of strokes by 1951, so had a somewhat limited grasp of what was happening around him - by 1954, indeed, he had almost completely lost it.

    Kennedy is very much hyped because of his good looks, but when you look at him with a cold eye he wasn’t actually that good. For example, he spent more time seducing his teenage interns than he did working on civil rights.
    Kennedy was a bit like Cameron; wanted to be President/PM 'because they thought they'd be good at it. An LBJ/Kennedy Presidency would have been better for the US, and would have probably given Kennedy two terms as President after LBJ.
    I doubt if Johnson would have beaten Nixon in 1960.

    Anyway, I have a sick car to go and fetch. Later.
    Boris or Nixon, what a rotten hypothetical.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959

    On topic - does Biden really need those notes to remember those points?

    He's old? He wants to get the key talking points down? He likes to write things out longhand to help formulate his ideas?
    It's either phoney - or his mind is so far gone he has to write down that he shouldn't hold grudges.

    Neither option would make me want to go out and vote for him.

  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Alistair said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
    No I don't mean the financial crash. Crashes happen. Recessions happen.

    The disaster was not having a crash. The disaster was the decisions made before the crash. The disaster was the Chancellor hubristically believing he'd "abolished boom and bust" and so leaving the country completely unprepared for the inevitable next bust.

    During the recession the deficit changed by 7% from trough to peak which is fairly standard for recessions - the financial crash was actually not that exceptional a recession.

    What was exceptional, what was catastrophic, was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the recession hit. Had the country been running a small surplus before the recession hit then the deficit would have risen to 7% instead of 10% which is an order of magnitude more manageable.
    Didn't Cameron and Osborne pledge to match Labour spending pre crash?
    For 2 years yes, but they also were warning about the deficit and were pledging to "share the proceeds of growth" to reducing it . . . and Howards 2005 campaign had also been warning about the deficit.

    Brown's hubris in believing he had abolished busts led to catastrophe. Busts can't be abolished, they happen . . . what sane governments need to do is to ensure we are well prepared for when they next shock happens not hubristically gloat that we have abolished them.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    IanB2 said:

    For anyone pondering a travel destination, note that the “Uzbekistan Safe Travel Guarantee” will pay you $3000 if you travel there as a tourist and come down with the virus.

    I spent a couple of weeks travelling through UZB a couple of years ago and would thoroughly recommend it. It is a fascinating country, easy to get around by train and ridiculously cheap. However, probably wait until October and November as it is absurdly hot in the summer.
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 13,225
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Macmillan (Profumo, Night of Long Knives notwithstanding) ahead of Churchill. Churchill was 77 and had had a series of strokes by 1951, so had a somewhat limited grasp of what was happening around him - by 1954, indeed, he had almost completely lost it.

    Kennedy is very much hyped because of his good looks, but when you look at him with a cold eye he wasn’t actually that good. For example, he spent more time seducing his teenage interns than he did working on civil rights.
    Yeah, agree with that. Churchill and MacMillan both marginal calls for me. On reflection, the only two safe calls for me on the UK side would be Atlee and Major, although by popular acclaim I guess I'd have to say Thatcher too.

    Kennedy was certainly a close call for me but again, by popular acclaim....
    In the current #MeToo era, he’d be facing a prison sentence, not popular acclaim.

    But then, I’m always wary of judging standards across eras. It makes it difficult to understand them.

    My bigger concern was his brinksmanship over both Cuba and Berlin that brought the world within literally seconds of nuclear war.
    Yup, I accept that. Interesting that he's the only one on the US side that I would regard as marginal and might, on reflection, shove over to the 'not half-decent' side.

    Much more ambivalence for me on the UK side.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
    No I don't mean the financial crash. Crashes happen. Recessions happen.

    The disaster was not having a crash. The disaster was the decisions made before the crash. The disaster was the Chancellor hubristically believing he'd "abolished boom and bust" and so leaving the country completely unprepared for the inevitable next bust.

    During the recession the deficit changed by 7% from trough to peak which is fairly standard for recessions - the financial crash was actually not that exceptional a recession.

    What was exceptional, what was catastrophic, was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the recession hit. Had the country been running a small surplus before the recession hit then the deficit would have risen to 7% instead of 10% which is an order of magnitude more manageable.
    How was it catastrophic? Gilt yields have been low - indeed often negative in real terms - throughout the 2010s.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Honestly, the government releases 50,000 free £50 bike repair vouchers late last night, and even at 5.30 am the website has collapsed under the pressure. I have wasted the last 45 minutes fruitlessly trying to register for the scheme, but it is like trying to buy tickets for the Olympics. And I don’t think parts of the government website even work, at least on an iPad.

    Fix Your Bike Voucher Scheme
    Due to extreme volumes of traffic this resource has been temporarily paused whilst we take action to improve performance for users

    Purely a PR stunt. Unless you are living in poverty abstain for applying for things like this.

    Most people can repair a bicycle: 80% of repair & maintenance is within the competence of anybody (Google is your friend, and most libraries stock a book on cycle maintenance), and the 20% that is tricky and usually needs an experienced bike technician is relatively cheap.
    Having been my own cycle repair guy these last few months this is true. I have bought a couple of new inner tubes, a set of tyres, and a set of brake pads and calipers, and had to fiddle with the gearing.

    Then again if the £50 includes those spares that's a help. If not absolutely needed.
    But surely it is best to let the less well off/unemployed use this scheme?
    Yes absolutely. I don't see why not. Is there a means test on the application?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Macmillan (Profumo, Night of Long Knives notwithstanding) ahead of Churchill. Churchill was 77 and had had a series of strokes by 1951, so had a somewhat limited grasp of what was happening around him - by 1954, indeed, he had almost completely lost it.

    Kennedy is very much hyped because of his good looks, but when you look at him with a cold eye he wasn’t actually that good. For example, he spent more time seducing his teenage interns than he did working on civil rights.
    Kennedy was a bit like Cameron; wanted to be President/PM 'because they thought they'd be good at it. An LBJ/Kennedy Presidency would have been better for the US, and would have probably given Kennedy two terms as President after LBJ.
    I doubt if Johnson would have beaten Nixon in 1960.

    Anyway, I have a sick car to go and fetch. Later.
    Yes Nixon would probably have beaten Johnson in 1960 and got Ike's third term, JFK only won by the narrowest of margins and partly because he was better on TV
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Bill Clinton too and Cameron and Macmillan
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    Isn't there a Green and/or Libertarian this year?
    And Good Morning fellow Pb-ers!

    A Librarian would be good for the US after the current fiasco. At least his or her mistakes would be in some sort of logical order.
    A rather Dewey eyed view of the profession, I fear.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Dura_Ace said:



    Most people can repair a bicycle: 80% of repair & maintenance is within the competence of anybody (Google is your friend, and most libraries stock a book on cycle maintenance), and the 20% that is tricky and usually needs an experienced bike technician is relatively cheap.

    Your neglected Halfords 200 quid piles of shit that this scheme is aimed at will likely need new chains and BBs. That's not cheap at a bike shop who employ exclusively from the ranks of liars, idiots and thieves.
    One man's Halford's 200 quid pile of shit is another's street weapon.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Macmillan (Profumo, Night of Long Knives notwithstanding) ahead of Churchill. Churchill was 77 and had had a series of strokes by 1951, so had a somewhat limited grasp of what was happening around him - by 1954, indeed, he had almost completely lost it.

    Kennedy is very much hyped because of his good looks, but when you look at him with a cold eye he wasn’t actually that good. For example, he spent more time seducing his teenage interns than he did working on civil rights.
    Yeah, agree with that. Churchill and MacMillan both marginal calls for me. On reflection, the only two safe calls for me on the UK side would be Atlee and Major, although by popular acclaim I guess I'd have to say Thatcher too.

    Kennedy was certainly a close call for me but again, by popular acclaim....
    In the current #MeToo era, he’d be facing a prison sentence, not popular acclaim.

    But then, I’m always wary of judging standards across eras. It makes it difficult to understand them.

    My bigger concern was his brinksmanship over both Cuba and Berlin that brought the world within literally seconds of nuclear war.
    Yup, I accept that. Interesting that he's the only one on the US side that I would regard as marginal and might, on reflection, shove over to the 'not half-decent' side.

    Much more ambivalence for me on the UK side.
    Wilson's first term was pretty good, particularly on social issues
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Harris does nothing for Biden in my view, dull, from California which he will win easily and despite being African American her record as a prosecutor could even turn off the black vote
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
    No I don't mean the financial crash. Crashes happen. Recessions happen.

    The disaster was not having a crash. The disaster was the decisions made before the crash. The disaster was the Chancellor hubristically believing he'd "abolished boom and bust" and so leaving the country completely unprepared for the inevitable next bust.

    During the recession the deficit changed by 7% from trough to peak which is fairly standard for recessions - the financial crash was actually not that exceptional a recession.

    What was exceptional, what was catastrophic, was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the recession hit. Had the country been running a small surplus before the recession hit then the deficit would have risen to 7% instead of 10% which is an order of magnitude more manageable.
    How was it catastrophic? Gilt yields have been low - indeed often negative in real terms - throughout the 2010s.
    Gilt yields were only low because the printing presses were turned on and because the government had a decade of austerity to bring the deficit back under control.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    ydoethur said:

    alex_ said:

    alex_ said:

    Scott_xP said:
    All this may be true, (may being an understatement) but i’m not sure it’s actually helpful or fair to examine individual elements of the Govt response in isolation outside of the wider picture.

    It doesn’t take too much thought to produce the reasoning for what happened and there is also a need to consider the potential consequences of alternatives. Especially given the limited resources at the time (on things like PPE, testing) restricted the options available.

    - clearly there was a great fear that hospitals would be over-run
    - it was correctly believed that hospitals would be a very dangerous place for elderly people (because of the risks of catching the virus)

    Both of the above factors strongly support a need to clear non covid patients, particularly elderly ones, from hospitals. And it is quite probable that this will have saved many lives (because hospitals weren’t overrun, but might have been, and many uninflected elderly patients will have been released and avoided getting COVID as a result).

    Of course the flip side is what happened. Risk assessments on whether the released patients had COVID had to be made without comprehensive testing (because the testing capacity wasn’t available to test everyone and wait for results). The assessments relied too much on a poor understanding of the risks of asymptomatic carriers. And probably there was a knock on that care homes weren’t made sufficiently aware of the need to take additional precautions for the people they were receiving.


    Moving people out of hospitals makes sense. But why mix them with the existing care home population. We had 750k people volunteering to help and a similar number of empty hotel rooms.
    Probably because there wasn’t enough thinking outside the box. But i’m not sure that depositing people in need of full time care into “empty hotel rooms” would have been a universally good solution. If the Nightingale hospitals had been available a bit earlier on the other hand...

    But that’s not my point. I’m not arguing that the Govt didn’t get it wrong. They might have done (although consider the caveats applied above). In good faith and on the basis of the best available evidence or through failures/incompetence. I’m in no position to say. I’m just saying that criticism needs to be made and lessons to be learned by considering the whole picture, not in isolation.
    There is anecdotal evidence to suggest in the West Midlands to suggest there was plenty of malice involved.

    For example, sending care home residents home from hospital at 2am. This is because had a manager been on duty they might have refused to take them back in. The trifling detail that protocols demanded a manager be present to accept these residents was overlooked, and threats were used to force the on duty staff to take the patients.

    Now I can’t prove that that is true, but I trust my source, whom I will not identify beyond saying he’s a doctor who works for a Birmingham trust. He also says that the legal teams are bracing themselves to deal with manslaughter charges. More likely to be hyperbole, but it does suggest the Trusts know they got this hopelessly, even criminally wrong.
    I suspect that were a family to claim that story to be true and sought a private prosecution of the hospital manager involved the gofundme campaign would be over subscribed in minutes - heck I would contribute towards it.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400
    Scott_xP said:
    It's dead and we all know it.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,002
    kle4 said:

    Scott_xP said:
    It's dead and we all know it.
    It is inconceivable to be honest, but you cannot expect Heathrow to admit to it
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400
    Scott_xP said:

    IanB2 said:

    Trump’s problem is that he is both incapable and wants to lead from the front.

    He doesn't really want to lead.

    He wants to be adored.

    Just like BoZo.
    A bit. Boris is capable of far more seriousness at least. We overdo the comparison a lot.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
    No I don't mean the financial crash. Crashes happen. Recessions happen.

    The disaster was not having a crash. The disaster was the decisions made before the crash. The disaster was the Chancellor hubristically believing he'd "abolished boom and bust" and so leaving the country completely unprepared for the inevitable next bust.

    During the recession the deficit changed by 7% from trough to peak which is fairly standard for recessions - the financial crash was actually not that exceptional a recession.

    What was exceptional, what was catastrophic, was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the recession hit. Had the country been running a small surplus before the recession hit then the deficit would have risen to 7% instead of 10% which is an order of magnitude more manageable.
    Disappointed to see another floating of this long discredited 'Tory Story' drivel. It's been less than a week.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013
    Alistair said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
    No I don't mean the financial crash. Crashes happen. Recessions happen.

    The disaster was not having a crash. The disaster was the decisions made before the crash. The disaster was the Chancellor hubristically believing he'd "abolished boom and bust" and so leaving the country completely unprepared for the inevitable next bust.

    During the recession the deficit changed by 7% from trough to peak which is fairly standard for recessions - the financial crash was actually not that exceptional a recession.

    What was exceptional, what was catastrophic, was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the recession hit. Had the country been running a small surplus before the recession hit then the deficit would have risen to 7% instead of 10% which is an order of magnitude more manageable.
    Didn't Cameron and Osborne pledge to match Labour spending pre crash?
    An outrageous quoting of the facts to try and divert away from the spin. Shame...

    Oh go on then. We could afford to run a small deficit for investment because overall debt had dropped. According to Cameron's Office for Budget Responsibility debt had risen to an outrageous 33.4% in 2007 vs a far more acceptable and clearly lower 36.1% in 1996 (https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/government-debt-to-gdp).

    You can spend more in deficit when your overall borrowing is lower because the economy is growing. As Cameron the LOTO pledged to do, match every pound Brown was spending AND share in the proceeds of (further, faster) economic growth with a tax cut on top.

    Top class revisionist history Philip. Bravo.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,002
    kle4 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    IanB2 said:

    Trump’s problem is that he is both incapable and wants to lead from the front.

    He doesn't really want to lead.

    He wants to be adored.

    Just like BoZo.
    A bit. Boris is capable of far more seriousness at least. We overdo the comparison a lot.
    Scott certainly does
  • The idea we'd have been better off in the GFC when the Tories wanted less regulation is laughable
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    kinabalu said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
    No I don't mean the financial crash. Crashes happen. Recessions happen.

    The disaster was not having a crash. The disaster was the decisions made before the crash. The disaster was the Chancellor hubristically believing he'd "abolished boom and bust" and so leaving the country completely unprepared for the inevitable next bust.

    During the recession the deficit changed by 7% from trough to peak which is fairly standard for recessions - the financial crash was actually not that exceptional a recession.

    What was exceptional, what was catastrophic, was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the recession hit. Had the country been running a small surplus before the recession hit then the deficit would have risen to 7% instead of 10% which is an order of magnitude more manageable.
    Disappointed to see another floating of this long discredited 'Tory Story' drivel. It's been less than a week.
    Its not discredited its a matter of undeniable fact.

    Brown claimed to have abolished boom and bust. He didn't. He left the country weak and exposed when a crash then hit.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,586
    kle4 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    IanB2 said:

    Trump’s problem is that he is both incapable and wants to lead from the front.

    He doesn't really want to lead.

    He wants to be adored.

    Just like BoZo.
    A bit. Boris is capable of far more seriousness at least. We overdo the comparison a lot.
    I thought Johnson was on fire yesterday, then I remembered he is supposed to be running the country rather than campaigning. A good day of campaigning nonetheless.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    HYUFD said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Bill Clinton too and Cameron and Macmillan
    I agree that Clinton merits a high rating. Tarnished by the Lewinsky affair though - there's no getting around that. Tacky and exploitative behaviour.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    kle4 said:

    Scott_xP said:
    It's dead and we all know it.
    Particularly as the PM would love an excuse to kill it off.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    New thread? But it looks like spam?
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    edited July 2020

    Fishing said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
    No I don't mean the financial crash. Crashes happen. Recessions happen.

    The disaster was not having a crash. The disaster was the decisions made before the crash. The disaster was the Chancellor hubristically believing he'd "abolished boom and bust" and so leaving the country completely unprepared for the inevitable next bust.

    During the recession the deficit changed by 7% from trough to peak which is fairly standard for recessions - the financial crash was actually not that exceptional a recession.

    What was exceptional, what was catastrophic, was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the recession hit. Had the country been running a small surplus before the recession hit then the deficit would have risen to 7% instead of 10% which is an order of magnitude more manageable.
    How was it catastrophic? Gilt yields have been low - indeed often negative in real terms - throughout the 2010s.
    Gilt yields were only low because the printing presses were turned on and because the government had a decade of austerity to bring the deficit back under control.
    No on austerity - it was counter-productive because of the paradox of thrift and the householder fallacy. Basic first-year macro.

    As the government can finance a large deficit by QE, how is having one catastrophic?

    If we were in the high interest rate environment of the 80s, I would agree with you. But deficits cannot be catastrophic if they can be financed at very low interest rates. Indeed, arguably it is the government's duty to run one, if the social discount rate exceeds the interest rate.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    kinabalu said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    I'd add Cameron to your list for the UK so that's all majority election winners of my lifetime (born under Thatcher).

    Too early to judge on Boris.
    What did Cameron achieve with his majority win? A disasterous referendum campaign and early retirement is hardly even quarter-decent
    For me his two greatest achievements:

    * He saved the country from an economic catastrophe that Brown had bequeathed.

    * Introduced equal marriage.

    Losing an election doesn't count him out for me. Europe was a ticking timebomb in this country for decades and I hold Blair and Brown in more contempt for pushing through Lisbon without a referendum (having pledged one) because they knew they'd lose it, rather than Cameron for fighting honourably and losing. Had Blair/Brown not played silly buggers over Lisbon then I don't think Cameron's referendum would have ever happened or needed to happen.
    You said Cameron for his majority win. Gay marriage was a LibDem initiative during the coalition. And by Brown's economic catastrophe I take it you mean the financial crash? Where Cameron and Osborne argued for less regulation of the banking sector because Brown was trying the city up in red tape...
    No I don't mean the financial crash. Crashes happen. Recessions happen.

    The disaster was not having a crash. The disaster was the decisions made before the crash. The disaster was the Chancellor hubristically believing he'd "abolished boom and bust" and so leaving the country completely unprepared for the inevitable next bust.

    During the recession the deficit changed by 7% from trough to peak which is fairly standard for recessions - the financial crash was actually not that exceptional a recession.

    What was exceptional, what was catastrophic, was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the recession hit. Had the country been running a small surplus before the recession hit then the deficit would have risen to 7% instead of 10% which is an order of magnitude more manageable.
    Disappointed to see another floating of this long discredited 'Tory Story' drivel. It's been less than a week.
    As the discrediting has itself been discredited many times I think this one will run and run.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    The idea we'd have been better off in the GFC when the Tories wanted less regulation is laughable

    We'd have been better off if Brown wasn't so arrogant as to believe he'd abolished busts and so was running a 3% deficit BEFORE the bust.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    edited July 2020
    On topic that much of a move based on that little bit of evidence seems a bit bonkers.

    But the problem with this is that as he gets close to the pick there are probably quite a few people who know who it is, so unless you're one of them the winning move is probably not to play.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    edited July 2020
    I think we should all stay on this thread and politely ignore the next piece about virtual data something
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    It seems the wordpress / article side of this site has another security issue and someone has once again managed to hack into it.

  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    ydoethur said:

    In the current #MeToo era, he’d be facing a prison sentence, not popular acclaim.

    But then, I’m always wary of judging standards across eras. It makes it difficult to understand them.

    My bigger concern was his brinksmanship over both Cuba and Berlin that brought the world within literally seconds of nuclear war.

    Yes, being attractive, being nice and being safe are three different things. Nixon was unattractive and unscrupulous, but quite possibly safer than Kennedy, who was attractive, charming and willing to take risks with the whole world.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    edited July 2020

    Threads are coming thick and fast today.

    But fake.

  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    Most people can repair a bicycle: 80% of repair & maintenance is within the competence of anybody (Google is your friend, and most libraries stock a book on cycle maintenance), and the 20% that is tricky and usually needs an experienced bike technician is relatively cheap.

    Your neglected Halfords 200 quid piles of shit that this scheme is aimed at will likely need new chains and BBs. That's not cheap at a bike shop who employ exclusively from the ranks of liars, idiots and thieves.
    One man's Halford's 200 quid pile of shit is another's street weapon.
    Didn’t realize Halfords recruited from the Tory party!
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,586
    edited July 2020
    HYUFD said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    HYUFD said:

    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic:

    More likely to be cockup than conspiracy. Remember that Met officer who was photographed with all the government’s key counter-terrorism plans in a see through wallet facing outwards.

    It doesn’t suggest though that Biden has overcome his habit of making silly mistakes.

    Just seen the photoo and it looks contrived. It's not a natural way to hold a piece of paper and why is he scribbling highly legible notes like that and walking around with them?

    It’s entirely possible that it’s because of his usual carelessness and muddle-headedness.

    Which is why he would be completely the wrong person to be President if the alternative were anyone other than Donald Trump.
    That is very unfair, he is also more suited than the other Presidential runner, Mr West.
    True.

    Out of roughly 170 million eligible people, HTAF did they end up with this lot?
    The voting system mostly eliminates people for their negatives, rather than selecting for their positives. Trump is the ones that tests the rule, since negatives were the positives in the eyes of his base, but he only got the job because he was up against Clinton, and she only got the candidature because she was up against Bernie, and so on down the line.
    Yes, it's a bad system that promotes all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons, but we're hardly in a position to sneer.
    Every majority election winner in our system in recent decades has been positively rated themselves regularly and not just riding in on their opponents negatives.
    So who do you think were the half-decent Presidents/PMs post WW2?

    USA - Truman, Eisenhower (I think), Kennedy, GHW Bush, Obama

    UK - Atlee, Churchill (when sober), Thatcher, Major, Blair (ignoring Iraq).

    Guess it could have been worse.

    Perhaps it's telling that I found it easier to pick the US ones. Seemed to be a clearer difference between the good and the bad. Eisenhower was the only marginal call for me.

    The UK seemed to present greater mediocrity. I hesitated over Heath/Wilson for example.

    Fun game. Sure there will be plenty of disagreement.
    Bill Clinton too and Cameron and Macmillan
    Reserving judgement on Johnson for the moment?

    I would include Reagan for collapsing the Soviet Union, if more by accident than design.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    IanB2 said:

    Threads are coming thick and fast today.

    But fake.

    Nope, spam is...
This discussion has been closed.