19-Nov-2021 : CON 36 / LAB 34 / GREEN 10 / LIBDEM 7

[Deleted]

Mark.



I can see it ok.

[Deleted]

Nov 24, 2021 16:12:09 GMT Mark said:

Sadly I cannot see it eithor. The same goes for your earlier post.

Using Firefox here, so not sure it's browser specific if Edge is not displaying it eithor.

If others also cannot see it, please say - and state which browser you are using, just in case it's browser related, and I'll take the issue to Proboards.

Thanks Mark. I assumed that if I could see the graphical data on Chrome and Safari then it was a 'user error' problem so thank you for the clarification. Do you at least see the twitter link to R&W polling site? I can retype out the data but if most folks can see the graphical data or just click on the link to see it then maybe go with that?

PS As you're the 'admin' guy and host then note a new main thread has been created by Jayblanc. As 'ref' then your decision is final but FWIW then my 2c would be 'admin' lock off an old main thread once a new one starts. Maybe a final decision on when a new main thread is worth starting as well? As we're seeing then folks will continue to post on current/old thread and that will likely be a widespread issue (folks keeping current page open in background or refreshing it from history).

[birdseye]

Nov 24, 2021 16:01:30 GMT steve said:

Dominic Raab said he used to watch Peppa pig with his parents in an attempt to deflect from Spaffer's apparent lapse into la la land.
Peppa pig first aired in 2004 when Mr Raab would have been 30!

No problem. At 76 I happily watch Shaun the Sheep. And I am far from the only one doing that in old age.

[lululemonmustdobetter]

@ letieliberal, colin and barbara

As the one who bought religion into this in the first place, just wanted to stress that you can find plenty of cases in history of religious groups being aligned too or a key element of progressive movements. Christian Socialist were a key element and driving force in the formation of the Labour Party. Attlee saw no conflict between his deeply held Christian faith and his socialism, the former being a key element in his adoption of the latter. You can also site support for left-wing movements in central and South America by sympathetic elements of the Catholic Church. In terms of the history of political thought, socialism can very much be seen as part of the same strain as Christianity, which was very much Nietzche view and he despised both.

As a determinant of voting/political allegiance, prior to WW1 religion was more critical than class. Class proved the main determinant throughout the c20 in the Europe and the US, but since the 70's in the US with the rise of fundamentalism and politicisation of religion you could make a strong case that religion has now returned to its former position in the US. The emergence and growth of fundamentalist branches in virtually all of the major religions has been a key feature of the social/political landscape for the past 50 years. If you are a fan of Hegel's dialectics, you can as many have, argue that it has emerged as the true counter to capitalism. In general these movements are unlikely to drive / support a 'progressive agenda.

[Mark]

Yes, I can see the twitter link inside the quoted text, although it comes up blank in the actual post.

Re-the new thread, I'll have a ponder (about to go offline). Those that want to put their 2c in, please do so on the 'what the board should look like' thread.

[Danny]

Nov 24, 2021 8:15:42 GMT steamdrivenandy said:

Being nearly 74 years old, running on just one, slightly dodgy kidney, with a bit of a heart problem, suffering neuropathy and with MGUS hovering in the background, I really don't wish to contract Covid.

It strikes me that if you follow Danny's suggestion that governmental preventative action is wasted effort, then so was the expense of removing my cancerous kidney eight years ago and the cost of the SHINE clinic I attended in the summer, plus the diagnosis and monitoring by urology, haematology, neurology etc. Surely arguing to just let things proceed as they would naturally occur is arguing that we may as well not intervene in any medical issue?

Sweden adopted the sort of approach I would have favoured  for this epidemic. They concentrated on minimising restrictions, and in particular avoiding ones with little effect. They did not impose general lockdown, they did not forbid travel, they only asked people with symptoms specifically to avoid contacts. They did ask for voluntary working from home, avoiding unnecessary outings and curtailed mass meetings. They still allowed smaller public gatherings where people could space out. Whereas the Uk seems to have taken the view that if a measure would reduce spread even a little bit, then we  doubled down on it. Its all rather reminiscent of the UK implementing EU regulations more officiously than anyone else.

Sage started out advising government this will only end when enough people have had covid and become immune. Do it slow or fast, the deaths/cases total will be the same. This advice is only slightly changed if you substitute vaccination for infection as the  way you do create immunity. The unique belief this time was that a vaccine could be developed before the epidemic would end naturally. That has never been possible in the past and was a leap of faith. In the event we have at best mediocre vaccines which reduce deaths somewhat, can temporarily reduce infections, but longer term at best have no effect on the infection total (the current data allows they might make infection more likely), with long term effect on deaths to be determined.

This isnt surprising, because thats what happens with flu, another respiratory disease. While past vaccine development programs for colds were simply abandoned. We dont vaccinate the whole population against flu because its pointless. It has to be repeated every year.  I always imagined this was because the virus mutates, but it seems we still vaccinate using the same recipe if there are no new strains, just as  we are now doing for covid.

During April 2020 cases fell 90%.  This seems to have been very very unfortunate. Modelling had predicted millions of hospital admissions and half to 1 million deaths. When nothing like this took place and cases fell so much, it seems likely SAGE believed this was because the restrictions had been highly effective. The theory how this works said if you could cut cases 90% in April, then the same measures would do that again in May, June. So by then there would hardly any covid left, and we could have followed Australia by containing it with testing. Thats why sage recommended extending lockdown. BUt it didnt work, cases plateaued instead of dying out.

It is not credible that pacific rim countries all managed to apply restrictions and testing the right way so as to prevent spread, while Europe and the rest of the other side of the globe dismally failed. Your chances of containing covid have always been most defined by where on the globe your country is placed. I dont think anyone believes thats down to the nature of the soil: the most likely explanation is that those areas had more pre existing immunity to covid, and that made the job of containment easier.  Or state that the other way about, the early evidence from that part of the world that covid was containable was false. It was luck, probably due to past bad luck in having had more other corona virus infections, which enabled them to contain covid. This information misled SAGE despite it essentially being a re-statement of their own advice, it ends when enough people have caught it and become immune.

While in the UK Covid became established here before SAGE believed possible. When they thought it was growing very fast, it was growing but what they were really doing was uncovering more and more cases by doing more testing.  It had spread so much indeed that by 1 april it had already reached its natural peak. There is evidence for this from the cases/hospitalisation and deaths data, which peaked before lockdown began. So again, Sage thought lockdown had turned around a fast rising trend, but it was already turning down and they credited that natural turndown to lockdown.  We have seen similar effects twice since, where SAGE have claimed runaway exponential growth is taking place...but it just died away- usually before they announced it, it was already slowing. It has NEVER, anywhere in the world, seemingly involved the whole population but has always ended naturally with only a small percentage of the population reporting illness.

And then the call to stock up ready for a lockdown caused the greatest overcrowding in supermarkets I have seen. Whle the media argued whether the Chelthenam races had become a mass spreading event, the whole nation was indulging in overcrowded trips to supermarkets..which included the old and vulnerable who in normal circumstances dont go to many events whch would have enabled mass spread. Government policy actually boosted spread into vulnerable groups prior to the lockdown date. It was quite funny at the time, one day rammed supermarket. The next, everyone queing all round the car park at 2m spacings and few allowed inside at once.  So, on the day of lockdown we didnt just see slowing because of restrictions but slowing because the governent ended its own policy which had been encouraging particularly dangerous spread.

We have seen two strains of covid come and then die out, its all indian strain now. The arrival of a new strain does not automatically cause another to die out. If strain B spreads twice as fast, what you might expect is both keep spreading, but B outpaces A. Thats not what happened, the earlier ones died out. We became immune to them.  So as Sage said, we had reached the necessary number of cases for this to happen. QED, we didnt prevent deaths by imposing a lockdown- it just sread them over a longer time.

We always needed a split herd approach where high risk people did their best to shelter (with help!), while the yonger half of the population should have got on with life, and the faster they became infected the faster the old would become safe.

The cost of telling all these essentially safe people to stay at home has been immense. far in excess of your other medical treaments. It was very clear last year that more lives could be saved, on the most optimistic  numbers saved by lockdown, if that money had been spent conventionally on more treatments such as you  describe. The decision to lock down was made assuming it would actually work to halt essentially all cases and life could return to normal, albeit with testing to keep it so. This would have been a cheapish strategy...but it utterly failed. I doubt sage would have recommended what they did had they known how all this would turn out.

If you recall, johnson himself was ill at the critical time. Cummings seems to have drunk the technological cool aid and believed this daring expermental plan might work.  Without Johnson no one dared defy the logic of lockdown, or point out these obvious facts that unless covid could be brought to negligible levels, then the strategy was unaffordable.  And then when the vaccine did arrived, it failed to stop deaths and failed to create herd immunity. Fail after fail after fail.

[Deleted]

YG ask: Do you have a positive or negative view of the cartoon character Peppa Pig?

Very/fairly +ve: 41%
Fairly/very -ve: 20%
N/A never heard of Peppa Pig[1]: 5% 
DK: 34%

Net +ve: 21% (and note very high favourability with younger voters  )

yougov.co.uk/topics/media/survey-results/daily/2021/11/23/9b053/3

Still a case of WTF (IMO) but those hoping for any polling impact might be disappointed. Sleaze looks to have had 'cut-thru' but polling seems to have settled down at about a 38-38 'tie' (maybe small lead for LAB).

Boris might have a 'cunning plan' on a new version of 'a good day to bury bad news' but I'll leave the conspiracy theories to 'others'. 'Boris being Boris' IMO and 'less' would be more (also IMO), although if he wants to spend all day every day on Grampy Rabbit’s Sailing Club boat ride and leave Rishi as CEO then 'fine by me'.

[1] No changes but that might well have been lower last week! Maybe Boris is on commission? 

[alec]

somerjohn - not sure if you are around, but you might be interested in this observation. On the Energy Markets and Net Zero thread he set up, @tw posted this yesterday - "Quick 'fag packet' maths for illustration only as we don't know exactly how much hedging (buying forward) likes of Bulb had done or exactly what Kwarteng will do (eg lock in the lose at current prices, run the risk, use loans or grants, etc)"

That suggests to me that he might actually be reading our posts after all, as this seems a remarkable softening of the previous repeated insistence that Bulb and other suppliers didn't hedge.

I feel all our work is worthwhile!

[Danny]

Nov 24, 2021 16:18:37 GMT alec said:

Seems like we are seeing some really positive data coming through on third booster jabs.

Several bits of data have shown that the third jab confers a higher level of anitbody and T cell production than either of the first two jabs, and there is some emerging data to suggest that it is also leading to much better sterilizing immunity.This now appaers to be showing through in the UK data, where cases are rising sharply, but with a pretty precipitous fall in hospitalisations and deaths. This may yet turn out to be another case of assuming the pandemic is over too soon, but some of the more cautious experts are now wondering out loud whether a 'three jabs and you're done' regime could be what we are seeing.

The Novovax shot is also up for approval in the UK and US, and this protein based vaccine has shown good efficacy with much reduced toxicity (side effects) which could be good news for the vaccine hesitant. Patch vaccines are in use in Thailand and nasal sprays being developed in several countries. Things genuinely seem positive now, at last. [Too many sources to post for all this, so take my word for it].

Only slight cloud - variant C.1.2 has appeared in S Africa, and this has a series of horrible looking spike mutations. Let's hope it isn't a major breakthrough variant.

Well its not surprising response to third vaccination will be greater. But equally it will not be surprising if this reponse falls away on a similar timescale to previous vaccinations.  This is a far cry from the concept of a childhood vaccination which protects you for life.

Zoe data has shown falls of cases amongst the old since start of November. However overall  its back up to R=1.1 now. It takes a couple of weeks for changes to propagate to older age groups, driven as they have always been by cases amongst the young. This has always been youngster's prevalence, rises or falls, pushing prevalence amongst the old. Its too soon to tell if this will stabilise since schools return post half term, but its clear at the moment the fall in cases amongst the old has halted with the stronger driver from the young post schools return. We shall see if this turns into a rise, and we shall see if Zoe data whch is about all cases is true for severe cases or deaths. Lets hope not.  (my hunch is vacination 3 will  trend down cases amongst the old, just as it looked like vaccination 2 wearing off had been trending them up)

As I posted elsewhere, t cells fall into at least two types for our purposes. helper t cells which recognise an infection and create an immune response, and killer t cells which destroy already infected cells to end an infection. These two are very different in their effects but are being lumped together. I have never seen a Breackdown discussing different types created by vaccines.

[shevii]

I think this is new for on here?

Lab 39% (+3)
Con 38% (-3)
LD 9% (-1)
Grn 6% (+1)
SNP 4% (-)


Via
@panelbasemd
, 10-19 Nov (+/- since Sep)

[jimjam]

Last on UKPR #1 I think Shevii.

[Deleted]

New polling from Savanta ComRes

Con 36 (+2)
Lab 38 (-2)
LDM 10 (=)
Grn 5 (=)
SNP 4 (-1)
Other 8 (+1)

November wave of our Monthly Political Tracker sees Johnson's LOWEST ever net favourability score.

Net favourability:
Johnson -14% (-5)
UK gov -16% (-4)
Starmer -9% (-3)
Sunak +10% (-1)

Yet:
Despite Labour's lead in Westminster VI and Johnson's falling favourability, he is still NINE points ahead of Starmer in our 'Best PM' rating.

Best PM rating:
Johnson 39% (=)
Starmer 30% (-2)
Don't know 32% (+2)

twitter.com/SavantaComRes

[lululemonmustdobetter]

@ TW

Yet:
Despite Labour's lead in Westminster VI and Johnson's falling favourability, he is still NINE points ahead of Starmer in our 'Best PM' rating.

I do think its long time since when Labour has had its media strategy in order - you could argue not since the days of Campbell. The main point about Starmer that probably has stuck in public consciousness in the past couple of weeks is most likely the fact that he did some paid work whilst as an MP.

[jib]

I think the fact that Johnson still is ahead of Starmer in the best PM category does show how much more work Starmer must do to have a shot at beating him in 2024.

Whatever you say about Johnson, the jolly good optimism and unconventional approach is still a formidable asset.

Starmer needs a very strong, dedicated and on message team to fight that.

[oldnat]

Nov 24, 2021 12:46:24 GMT wb61 said:

Is it just me or were politicians generally more competent when I was young!

One of the interesting aspects of that Barbara Castle interview from yesteryear is that she is talking about the need for decent men's pensions, so that their widows would be looked after.

Such an assumption about the roles of the different sexes makes the discussion very dated - though one has to admire the civilised way in which the discussion took place.

[Danny]

30 migrants drown off Calais. The PM says his thoughts and sympathies are with the victims.

What was that quote about the ruler of Britain, 'when I die you will find Calais written in my heart"

We seem to be having exponential growth of refugees arriving in the UK, what with having taken control of our own borders.

[jib]

Nov 24, 2021 18:36:28 GMT Danny said:

30 migrants drown off Calais. The PM says his thoughts and sympathies are with the victims.

What was that quote about the ruler of Britain, 'when I die you will find Calais written in my heart"

We seem to be having exponential growth of refugees arriving in the UK, what with having taken control of our own borders.

Really sad situation.

As I wrote last night, whether Patel has the necessary skillset to work with France to sort this out is being judged now.

Won't get anywhere in tackling this without 100% from UK and France to tackle the exploiters running this.

[js]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59399702.amp

Traffic light it is then.

Ambitious plans for the new coalition as well. Fingers crossed for policies driving higher wages in Germany, Europe needs it.

[somerjohn]

Nov 24, 2021 17:09:23 GMT alec said:

somerjohn - not sure if you are around, but you might be interested in this observation. On the Energy Markets and Net Zero thread he set up, @tw posted this yesterday - "Quick 'fag packet' maths for illustration only as we don't know exactly how much hedging (buying forward) likes of Bulb had done or exactly what Kwarteng will do (eg lock in the lose at current prices, run the risk, use loans or grants, etc)"

That suggests to me that he might actually be reading our posts after all, as this seems a remarkable softening of the previous repeated insistence that Bulb and other suppliers didn't hedge.

I feel all our work is worthwhile!

Twas ever thus. I don't know why pretending to ignore others has such an appeal for the TWs. All of a part with projecting embarrassment, ignorance and failure onto others, I think. A reflection of life experience, perhaps.

But, to give credit where it's due, there does seem to be an element of self-reform in evidence; even an attempt at building an elder statesman / grand master persona. I don't suppose it will last, but as long as it does we may be spared the more egregious boorishness.

And if the TWs want to set up a room and sit in it with the door locked, I have no problem with that!

[robert]

Nov 24, 2021 16:38:21 GMT birdseye said:

Nov 24, 2021 16:01:30 GMT steve said:

Dominic Raab said he used to watch Peppa pig with his parents in an attempt to deflect from Spaffer's apparent lapse into la la land.
Peppa pig first aired in 2004 when Mr Raab would have been 30!

No problem. At 76 I happily watch Shaun the Sheep. And I am far from the only one doing that in old age.

I didn't find peppa pig till I was 60, with young grandchildren and then wished I hadn't. How can a side view of the thing show two eyes from the left and the right view? I mean a 4 eyed pig is just ridiculous, although a talking one is pretty unusual. Bring back Betty Boop, Top Cat & Tom & Jerry.🤪

[mercian]

"I didn't find peppa pig till I was 60, with young grandchildren and then wished I hadn't. How can a side view of the thing show two eyes from the left and the right view?"

Not a big fan of Picasso then? Nor me.

[Deleted]

Nov 24, 2021 19:03:12 GMT js said:

Traffic light it is then.

Hopefully with the 'traffic light' mostly on Green 

I had hoped they stick with the tri-colour national flags for consistency: Jamaica, Kenya and the chosen one being Senegal (although I can see that neither SPD or FDP would be keen for the Greens to get the star)



Attachment Deleted 

[davwel]

I would suggest that Johnson and Patel provide a ferry crossing once or twice a week for the next few months to bring asylum seekers from France to England. It would save money patrolling and rescuing, and possibly a few more lives.

And it would put the "smugglers" out of business.

[oldnat]

Nov 24, 2021 18:36:28 GMT Danny said:

What was that quote about the ruler of Britain, 'when I die you will find Calais written in my heart"

“When I am dead and opened, you will find Calais lying in my heart.”

That was reported in the Holinshed Chronicles as being the lament of Mary I, Queen of England and Ireland, on hearing that the French had retaken Calais in 1558. Like many such stories, it is likely to be apocryphal.

[eor]

Nov 24, 2021 16:12:09 GMT Mark said:

Sadly I cannot see it eithor. The same goes for your earlier post.

Using Firefox here, so not sure it's browser specific if Edge is not displaying it eithor.

If others also cannot see it, please say - and state which browser you are using, just in case it's browser related, and I'll take the issue to Proboards.

Hi Mark - I can see each post fine both in Google Chrome and in Samsung's delivered android browser on my phone. 

[eor]

Nov 24, 2021 2:00:28 GMT oldnat said:

EOR

"My point was that there are relatively very few seats where a genuine contest to win takes place between LoC parties with the result that the Tories win the seat when they otherwise might not - that applies to the data in Scotland and Wales as in England"

Nope. That's not how FPTP elections in Scotland or NI work - whether for Westminster or Holyrood. The central fault line is not between your "LoC" parties and the Tories. It's the constitutional issues. While not as strong in Wales, that is increasingly becoming a factor.

However, far be it from me to stop you trying to persuade ex-SLab voters to vote for a LoC party like the SNP or SGP, instead of the Tories as many of them currently do, for ex SCon/SLD voters from voting SLab in Edinburgh South which produces SLab's only (rather RoC) MP.

Assuming that the fault line in your polity is common to others is a mistake.

Yes it would be a mistake and one that I did not in fact make. 

It is rare anywhere, and as I have pointed out (twice) I was at pains to say it was even less likely to be true in Wales or Scotland than in England. Hence my rejection of the initial reasoning (a comfortable majority of voters say to the GB pollster that they'll vote for parties that are perceived to be LoC, therefore they should organise themselves such that they remove the Tories from Westminster government) applies everywhere, and indeed as you and I have both noted applies even more strongly outwith England. 

[mercian]

Nov 24, 2021 20:49:21 GMT davwel said:

I would suggest that Johnson and Patel provide a ferry crossing once or twice a week for the next few months to bring asylum seekers from France to England. It would save money patrolling and rescuing, and possibly a few more lives.

And it would put the "smugglers" out of business.

It wouldn't be for the next few months.  It would just increase the demand.  It would be better to provide a ferry crossing to immediately take them all back to France (or at least French waters if the French won't take them). That would also put the smugglers out of business.

[alec]

@mark - I seem to be missing some of the quoted sections too. Using Firefox.

[eor]

Nov 24, 2021 18:01:12 GMT oldnat said:

Nov 24, 2021 12:46:24 GMT wb61 said:

Is it just me or were politicians generally more competent when I was young!

One of the interesting aspects of that Barbara Castle interview from yesteryear is that she is talking about the need for decent men's pensions, so that their widows would be looked after.

Such an assumption about the roles of the different sexes makes the discussion very dated - though one has to admire the civilised way in which the discussion took place.

Chimes with a conversation I had with a pensions manager a few years ago, she reckoned that were it not for the need to provide indefinite partner benefits then Defined Benefit pensions would have remained viable in the private sector far longer, and probably still be widespread, albeit on less generous accrual terms than they used to be.

[thexterminatingdalek]

Davwel
Couldn't agree more. I can't begin to describe my fury at Johnson for pretending thirty deaths provide him with any pause for thought, other than his advisors telling him he ought to say something.

In the spirit of Anthony, I will keep the rest of my thoughts to myself.