7-Feb-2022 : LAB: 42 / CON: 32 / LDEM: 9 / GRN: 6

[steve]

mercian

Nothing in European union membership prevents European union member countries from preventing imports of oil and gas from Russia on an individual basis.
If one member state continues to do so that's their decision.

A bizarre Brexit bonus claim of a non existent bonus.

[somerjohn]

Danny: "It is concerning that leavers don't seem to have understood the rules of the organisation they wanted to leave, and believed it imposed so much upon the Uk which it did not. No wonder they made such a huge mistake."

Much of the Leave campaign was based on planting and encouraging such misunderstandings, but there's nothing new about the cynical manipulation of popular opinion and emotion, enabled by generally poor understanding of complex issues.

In more extreme form, Putin is now playing the same game with his own population, who mostly seem to have been willing to be persuaded that the attack on Ukraine was an act of necessary self-defence. Even some in the West seem receptive to such messaging...

[alec]

There was some discussion recently about the WHO excess deaths and covid figures published recently, which appeared to show the UK in quite a positive light compared to Germany, among others. This article is noteworthy - covidactuaries.org/2022/05/09/who-excess-deaths/

As posted at the time, calculating excess deaths is not a simple procedure, with each countries denominator determined individually, so therefore the method of calculating that denominator can have a large effect on the end results. In the above discussion, the CAG have critiqued the WHO's statistical methodology and demonstrated how, in the case of Germany and Sweden, it is likely to have significantly underestimated Swedish excess deaths and overestimated German excess deaths. They don't offer an alternative analysis for the UK, but given that German figures were put alongside those for the UK to argue we had done well, these findings offer an explanation.

So while excess deaths are in theory the best way to compare countries performance on covid, the job of deciding how to calculate them is far from simple.

[crossbat11]

I think it would be naive to think there isn't considerable political calculation involved in Starmer's decision to offer his resignation in advance of the conclusion of the Durham Police investigation. You could argue that it was the only sensible course of action available to him in the circumstances, but there were others and I'm sure both Starmer and his team of advisers mulled over them.

He could have said that he would comment no further while the police investigation was in progress, nor would he discuss hypothetical outcomes. On the other hand, he could have temporarily stood down as leader, and Rayner too as deputy, whilst under police investigation, and a caretaker leadership (Nandy and Reeves) could have stepped in until the investigation had concluded. I rather liked this option but it's gone now.

The first of those two options probably didn't separate him enough from Johnson's stance and, more than likely, wouldn't have killed the media speculation and furore either. The second option would have done though, on both counts, although it might have implied guilt. It would probably have given too much time in the spotlight for potential leadership rivals too!

I think his gamble is a daring one but potentially a politically cute one too. He's used it as an opportunity to compare and contrast with Johnson, which he did well at his press conference yesterday, probably seen by millions on the evening TV news bulletins too, and he's neutered the right wing media attack line upon him. They would have wanted him to swing in the wind whilst the investigation dragged on. Now he's able to say clearly what his position is and move on.

I'm sure the fact that it does increase the pressure on Durham Police isn't lost on Starmer's team either.

The howls of "foul" echoing around Toryworld suggest Starmer has got this just about right. He's in some trouble but is showing some political acumen and nous to escape it.

That augurs well.

By the way, my view is that there isn't a chance in hell Durham Police will be issuing him with a FPN. It just isn't going to happen. We're witnessing a carefully choreographed charade by all parties.

[johntel]

May 10, 2022 7:46:06 GMT alec said:

There was some discussion recently about the WHO excess deaths and covid figures published recently, which appeared to show the UK in quite a positive light compared to Germany, among others. This article is noteworthy - covidactuaries.org/2022/05/09/who-excess-deaths/

As posted at the time, calculating excess deaths is not a simple procedure, with each countries denominator determined individually, so therefore the method of calculating that denominator can have a large effect on the end results. In the above discussion, the CAG have critiqued the WHO's statistical methodology and demonstrated how, in the case of Germany and Sweden, it is likely to have significantly underestimated Swedish excess deaths and overestimated German excess deaths. They don't offer an alternative analysis for the UK, but given that German figures were put alongside those for the UK to argue we had done well, these findings offer an explanation.

So while excess deaths are in theory the best way to compare countries performance on covid, the job of deciding how to calculate them is far from simple.

alec Thanks for this. They may well be right, but considering the Actuaries Response Group are experts in statistics, I'm surprised they didn't dig a bit deeper and compare the historical relative accuracy of the the 2 extrapolation methods.  It makes me think they were trying to prove a point rather than get to the facts.  

[crossbat11]

I thought this was an excellent and thought-provoking analysis of the demographic challenges that still pose problems for Labour's electoral and political recovery. It touches on the political importance still of social class identification, based much more on culture and education as opposed to economic or employment circumstance. It's where Labour are still suffering in terms of their appeal in formerly solidly Labour voting parts of the country. Corbynism offered no solution to this, and probably hastened the process of alienation, but Starmer's Labour is struggling with it too.

The author doesn't offer easy solutions but points to what the party needs to do. I don't think, as Owen Jones argues in another article today, that more socialism is the answer. Somehow Labour has to shed the image that it's a party that just isn't interested in the humdrum and prosaic problems of most people's everyday lives. That they look down on people who often express inconvenient and uncomfortable frustrations with life. Frustrations expressed in ways that may anger meeting rooms full of the righteous and converted.

That's the challenge for Labour I think. Don't pander to bigotry, but understand its origins and be humble too that the party's failures and image might just be part of the reason so many people reject them and instead buy populist Tory quack solutions.

Anyway, it's an interesting read and, yes, like the author, I've been that middle class lefty intellectual travelling with a bunch of pissed up football fans who can't understand why I'm there!! A poignant metaphor.



www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/10/starmer-working-class-voters-labour-leader-brexit

[Deleted]

May 10, 2022 6:51:58 GMT alec said:

mercian - A bit pathetic really, and you are usually way better than that.

Oh no he isn't.

[lens]

May 10, 2022 6:51:58 GMT alec said:

lens - the idea that people in hospital with covid are only there incidentally is one of those persistent myths. The majority of those admitted with covid are admitted because of covid, but even where they are admitted and subsequently found to have covid (well below half of all admissions) that doesn't mean covid is not related to their admission.

Alec - just admit that in the case of under-5's you put 2 and 2 together and got 7. The whole concept of being in hospital with Covid rather than because of it is far from a myth, though undoubtably being in hospital for any reason and catching a secondary infection is to be avoided.

Most importantly, the "with" and "because of" figures don't normally take into account age. Right from early on it was obvious that Covid death was far, far more likely if the patient was old and obese - I believe the AVERAGE age of those dying from it was 83? It follows that whilst under 5's may catch it, serious effects (let alone death) are very, very rare for them. Of the 500 a week you quote it's going to be the case that a high percentage were asymptomatic, and the majority of the rest might have had a bit of a runny nose or sore throat. The numbers don't break down how many (if any) were actually admitted because of Covid, but for you to assume that "500 children went to hospital, so 500 went there because they were ill with Covid" is simply ridiculous.

May 10, 2022 6:51:58 GMT alec said:

I think it's also an incredibly weak argument to suggest that because your wife didn't see anyone from her school go to hospital the figures must be wrong. There are 24,314 schools in England (https://www.besa.org.uk/key-uk-education-statistics/) which gives you a statistical flavour of how likely it would be for your wife to experience a serious case in her school.

If you read my post properly, you'd see that I'm not suggesting anything of the kind. Think of it like doing a quick and rough calculation to see if a properly worked sum makes sense. In this case that my wife's experiences led me to investigate what you linked to, as what you were saying seemed in a different world. And sure enough, you were wrongly conflating "testing positive for Covid" and "hospital admission for Covid". Alec - you got your interpretation wrong. Just admit it.

[moosepoll]

There is a difference between Beer Gate and Downing Street Gate. Sir Keir's beer was in April 2021 as lockdown restrictions were easing and the rule of 6 was in place. Pubs were open to outside business and things were getting back to normal. The downing street events happened during full lockdown conditions. I personally am sick of this whole thing. The cost of living crisis needs to find some unique and clever solutions. Instead, we are focusing on mud-slinging and political capital and the press is all over this. There are far more important things to worry about. For instance, as the energy prices are going up the government's VAT take is also. Could a mechanism not be put in place to stop VAT on energy costs once they go past the previous cap. This should help slightly. I think that the Durham police are stuck in a horrible position as I do not think they have the necessary proof to issue a fine. If they fail to do so they are piling the pressure on the PM, if they do issue a fine and resignations take place what on earth happens next.

[patrickbrian]

If - it's a big If - Starmer resigns over the beer thing, then I think the chances of Boris going are pretty negligible. His supporters in the press have already got a narrative going for him, and he believes the image will always triumph over the facts, and has been proved right so far. What Jo Public makes of it I don't know. i suspect most people just don't care that much. Some may think being honourable is a weakness
in a senior politician.

[moby]

May 10, 2022 8:30:10 GMT crossbat11 said:

I thought this was an excellent and thought-provoking analysis of the demographic challenges that still pose problems for Labour's electoral and political recovery. It touches on the political importance still of social class identification, based much more on culture and education as opposed to economic or employment circumstance. It's where Labour are still suffering in terms of their appeal in formerly solidly Labour voting parts of the country. Corbynism offered no solution to this, and probably hastened the process of alienation, but Starmer's Labour is struggling with it too.

The author doesn't offer easy solutions but points to what the party needs to do. I don't think, as Owen Jones argues in another article today, that more socialism is the answer. Somehow Labour has to shed the image that it's a party that just isn't interested in the humdrum and prosaic problems of most people's everyday lives. That they look down on people who often express inconvenient and uncomfortable frustrations with life. Frustrations expressed in ways that may anger meeting rooms full of the righteous and converted.

That's the challenge for Labour I think. Don't pander to bigotry, but understand its origins and be humble too that the party's failures and image might just be part of the reason so many people reject them and instead buy populist Tory quack solutions.

Anyway, it's an interesting read and, yes, like the author, I've been that middle class lefty intellectual travelling with a bunch of pissed up football fans who can't understand why I'm there!! A poignant metaphor.



www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/10/starmer-working-class-voters-labour-leader-brexit

Yes good article that. Many of us in the Labour Party do tend to lecture, rather than listen. I was aghast when my home town Wrexham turned tory in 2019 for the first time in its history. During all too infrequent visits to the town to see family over the last 30 years I observed how it was becoming more and more depressed. The issues my brothers and sister living there raised during visits bothered me. They frequently talked about immigration from Eastern Europe and how they now faced competition for jobs in factories and the care sector, access to housing, GP apps etc. I saw them as insular and slightly bigoted but we avoided conflict. I remember going on one of the huge remain marches in London and sending pictures to one of my brothers on Whats App of me posing with Steven Bray as banter. He wasn't interested though and just commented 'people need to accept brexit and move on'.  I could see he liked Boris Johnson as well. Although we don't discuss politics I knew in my gut he'd voted for brexit and probably tory for the first time. Johnson knew something was happening as I used to see him frequently going to Wrexham before the 2019 election. I thought why are you spending so much time in a depressed market town.....we soon saw why! The good news is these same family members are now clearly sick of Johnson but they still have no great love for Labour either.

[laszlo4new]

I really tried keep out of it, but then have given up.

I have been in Durham Miners' Club some years ago at an event of remembering the miners' strike of 1984-85. The person who made the video had to go from the street through the front garden (about 40 meters) to get to the building...

[domjg]

May 10, 2022 8:30:10 GMT crossbat11 said:

I thought this was an excellent and thought-provoking analysis of the demographic challenges that still pose problems for Labour's electoral and political recovery. It touches on the political importance still of social class identification, based much more on culture and education as opposed to economic or employment circumstance. It's where Labour are still suffering in terms of their appeal in formerly solidly Labour voting parts of the country. Corbynism offered no solution to this, and probably hastened the process of alienation, but Starmer's Labour is struggling with it too.

The author doesn't offer easy solutions but points to what the party needs to do. I don't think, as Owen Jones argues in another article today, that more socialism is the answer. Somehow Labour has to shed the image that it's a party that just isn't interested in the humdrum and prosaic problems of most people's everyday lives. That they look down on people who often express inconvenient and uncomfortable frustrations with life. Frustrations expressed in ways that may anger meeting rooms full of the righteous and converted.

That's the challenge for Labour I think. Don't pander to bigotry, but understand its origins and be humble too that the party's failures and image might just be part of the reason so many people reject them and instead buy populist Tory quack solutions.

Anyway, it's an interesting read and, yes, like the author, I've been that middle class lefty intellectual travelling with a bunch of pissed up football fans who can't understand why I'm there!! A poignant metaphor.



www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/10/starmer-working-class-voters-labour-leader-brexit

The problem is that as we've learned these last few years the moment you start pandering to the idea that people have 'legitimate concerns over immigration' to go back to 2010 for example you're opening a pandora's box where you're saying that part of  a spectrum of nativism/bigotry is acceptable and the right will always then offer them more and then more and more will be demanded.

To lead and to clearly say we believe in a multicultural, open society but we also have some really good ideas to make the lives of all 'working class' (meaningless term really these days) peoples lives easier and focus more on that is better I think. Otherwise you're constantly being forced to give answers you don't really believe in to questions posed by the right wing press giving them a hold over you. Also by doing that you're validating the right wing proposition that the practical issues people face are somehow due to immigration or a lack of 'patriotism' which is obviously false. The right want them to believe this of course to distract from the real cause of their problems which is the broken very English social and economic system that the right of course represents. 

We need to just keep talking about practical issues and practical solutions, there are sure as hell enough practical issues to talk about. It's the right who want to keep the battleground on 'culture' as they don't have practical solutions. We shouldn't let them. 

[alec]

lens - the persistent downplaying of the harms to children of covid, particularly in the Omicron, which affected children far more than previous waves, is something I find alarming. I'm struggling to understand why we can't just have a realistic view of this. No one is saying that children are dying in large numbers, or that all children are doomed etc etc. I'm just restating facts.

There are several things wrong with your analysis on this. The most notable is that we saw a marked difference in the composition of hospitalisations of children once Omicron hit. Previously, few children were admitted, but if you argument had any validity, there would have been just as many, as most covid +ve admissions were incidental. This isn't what happened. Prior waves saw few admissions, particularly in the under 5s. But as Omicron mainly affected the upper respiratory tract, which is more serious for children, we then saw an alarming rise in child covid admissions and children forming a higher % of overall admissions than earlier in the pandemic.


To be honest, there really isn't any argument abut this, and it has been noted and commented on widely by experts who have been tracking the figures and treating the sick. There was real pressure on pediatric from the Omicron wave witnessed in many countries, so I'm surprised you are claiming that this was somehow all explainable by incidental infection.

[lululemonmustdobetter]

Hi moby and crossbat11

The good news is these same family members are now clearly sick of Johnson but they still have no great love for Labour either.

Where I think many in the Labour party have gone wrong is not realising that the decision by some of their former voters to go for Brexit and then Johnson was not necessarily a reactionary impulse. A lot is made of the supposed desire of Brexit voters to 'turn the clock back', etc but in reality many voted that way due to their desire for change. For these voters membership of the EU was the status quo, and hadn't reversed economic decline and had helped decrease wc salaries. Labour when in power, nationally and locally, hasn't delivered the rejuvenation of the former industrial heartlands (which were hit hard by the economic downturn and then austerity). Educated MC voters may have scoffed at the naivety of thinking Brexit would bring the industrial jobs back - but from the perspective of these voters what else did they have to lose.

Corbyn offered something - and hence did relatively well in the red wall. Johnson learnt from '17, stole some of Corbyn's clothes and offered these voters what they wanted.

The lesson for Labour should not be that these voters are looking for a middle of the road Blairite party, or a slightly pinker version of Teresa May - they want to positively vote for an option that will deliver for their areas and a party they think understands their 'values'.

Conversely, if the Tories do drop Johnson they don't really have anyone else who will tick the boxes with these voters.

[robbiealive]

May 10, 2022 8:49:02 GMT nickp said:

May 10, 2022 6:51:58 GMT alec said:

mercian - A bit pathetic really, and you are usually way better than that.

Oh no he isn't.

Mercian's position on here is akin those tribespeople anthropologists used to encounter in the deepest Amazon in the '50s. All other members of the tribe had been wiped out by western diseases transmitted by previous anthropologists & the one survivor speaks a language no one else understood. Frantic efforts are made by linguists to interpret but the language follows no known rules & remains unintelligible: the forlorn survivor expires, his picture appearing in the Sunday People under the headline the world's loneliest man. 

In WW2 members of a v small USA native American tribe who spoke a v complex language known only to themselves were used to make combat radio transmissions monitored by the Germans. One would send the message in his language which was received by a fellow speaker who translated it. The US military checked no German anthropologists had learned the language & discovered only one or two Danes (as usual!) had visited & done so. 

[crossbat11]

moby

Firstly, I hope you appreciate the favour the Villa did you Toffeemen at Turf Moor last Saturday. We're determined to continue the most played fixture in English football, obviously! Villa v Everton. The game wouldn't be the same without it!

I can relate to your Wrexham experiences. Whilst I no longer live in the town, I spent my entire childhood, and a good chunk of my adult life too, in Redditch. It's the place I cut my tooth on as a political campaigner too. I know it very well and whilst the town spent a long time subsumed in a bigger Tory voting constituency, it has been a Labour leaning place for much of its life. Not without a decent Tory vote historically, but tending to elect Labour councils and since becoming a one town constituency in 1997, Labour MPs too. However, since 2010, it has become increasingly a Tory voting town, returning big majority Tory councils and MPs. It's no longer even remotely marginal so couldn't really be called a Red Wall constituency. Solid five figure Tory majorities are usual now and, until last Thursday, the council only had 3 Labour councillors. The party ran the council seven years ago.

Redditch voted Brexit in 2016 and has many of the socio-economic ailments you'll find in many Midlands towns that have gone Tory in the last 5 years. Broadly the same demographics too. Young people tend to leave to find better employment and social prospects elsewhere. My son was one such person in 2016. The population is ageing and the proportion of property owning retirees swelling.

But the points made in the article I posted a link too are valid in Redditch. Brexit changed the atmosphere radically, as it did everywhere, and became a de facto cultural wedge issue for many, but Labour suddenly went from being ousted because of governmental disappointment, 1997-2010, to a party feared and loathed by many. Toxic even. I can't quite put my finger on the why or when, but the doorstep reaction mutated from "Brown bust the economy" to "you're just not a party interested in people like us anymore "

The first rejection is based on perfectly recoverable political pendulum swinging, the second is almost existential.

It's the second reason for rejection in places like Redditch that signifies the electoral and political mountain Labour must now climb.

[domjg]

crossbat11 Reading that article the following jumped out at me:

"Why do substantial numbers of former Labour voters sense a cultural gulf between themselves and what they think the party now represents? Why do they feel Labour is “not the same” as them any more?" -

Did these same people really feel back in the nineties that Blair was the same as them? They knew he was highly liberal and would be very relaxed about immigration. I suspect part of the explanation is aspiration. The nineties were a culturally and economically optimistic time and it would have felt obvious to many 'working class' people to aspire to be part of the kind of middle class that Blair represented (I have a vague memory about a phrase Blair uttered at one point about us 'all being middle class now', in aspiration I suspect he meant).

I have an inkling that many in that demographic have now completely abandoned that aspiration and instead fallen back on a kind of class tribalism with an attitude of 'if you can't join them, beat them'.. This attitude is encouraged by the right who have no meaningful aspiration to offer them either so are happy to rely on stoking class based cultural grievance instead.

[wb61]

My own socialism has always been based in the dislike of disparate impact of the current economic systems on different classes. When a party concentrates, in terms of policy development, on this and other day to day issues that affect ordinary people there is a natural means of communication. What seems to have happened over my lifetime, certainly in terms of LOC politics, is a concentration on other peripheral issues. As a for instance the foreign policy issues that seem to dominate so many discussions are often about, or at least appear to be about, the internal politics of another country. One anecdotal example, I was at the NOLS (National Organisation of Labour Students) conference in 1986 where one of the motions called upon the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua to nationalise the coffee industry: Nicaragua was at war at the time!!

Concentrate on raising economic standards for ordinary people a proper share of the nations wealth

[domjg]

May 10, 2022 10:04:49 GMT robbiealive said:

May 10, 2022 8:49:02 GMT nickp said:

Oh no he isn't.

Mercian's position on here is akin those tribespeople anthropologists used to encounter in the deepest Amazon in the '50s. All other members of the tribe had been wiped out by western diseases transmitted by previous anthropologists & the one survivor speaks a language no one else understood. Frantic efforts are made by linguists to interpret but the language follows no known rules & remains unintelligible: the forlorn survivor expires, his picture appearing in the Sunday People under the headline the world's loneliest man. 

In WW2 members of a v small USA native American tribe who spoke a v complex language known only to themselves were used to make combat radio transmissions monitored by the Germans. One would send the message in his language which was received by a fellow speaker who translated it. The US military checked no German anthropologists had learned the language & discovered only one or two Danes (as usual!) had visited & done so. 

Iirc I think the British used to use Welsh speakers to the same end (you'd think Manx or something would have been a more secure option) I guess the Germans weren't as good at languages then as they later became!

[Deleted]

robbiealive

“ Frantic efforts are made by linguists to interpret but the language follows no known rules & remains unintelligible: the forlorn survivor expires, his picture appearing in the Sunday People under the headline the world's loneliest man.”

Maybe he was using Cockney rhyming slang.   

[shevii]

Stats for Lefties
@leftiestats
·
6m
🚨 NEW: Labour lead drops to 1pt (+/- since 26-27 Apr)

🔴 Lab 36% (-3)
🔵 Con 35% (+2)
🟠 LD 10% (-1)
🟢 Grn 8% (+2)
🟡 SNP 5% (-)
🟣 Ref 4% (+1)

Seats (+/- since 2019):

🔵 Con 281 (-84)
🔴 Lab 270 (+68)
🟡 SNP 56 (+8)
🟠 LD 19 (+8)
🟢 Grn 1 (-)

Via
@yougov
, 5-6 May

[steve]

PM should not have to copy any Starmer resignation, says minister
Policing minister Kit Malthouse says Labour leader has to ‘set his own standards’

As those standards include basic decency and honesty no danger of Spaffer following the example is there!

[mercian]

steve @danny

Re EU and Russian oil

uk.news.yahoo.com/eu-russian-oil-ban-hits-131311689.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMU3KNiGFeDDtoCyCaAQJa8dtNn0kX77r0UW8A8SO7qnWAZytSy1NkhgWhWGWXQb0sqm5jmgeBNGso4fEkKVrTbHdNa5S2nA-OS44Bdv_XDR_fKrMLeqVabdQuaWOgLCzZgcpxnyrgjJoWg1KNco81ZIFcpiSHv2d44aRiFXMmll

[JohnC]

May 10, 2022 10:20:27 GMT wb61 said:

My own socialism has always been based in the dislike of disparate impact of the current economic systems on different classes. When a party concentrates, in terms of policy development, on this and other day to day issues that affect ordinary people there is a natural means of communication. What seems to have happened over my lifetime, certainly in terms of LOC politics, is a concentration on other peripheral issues. As a for instance the foreign policy issues that seem to dominate so many discussions are often about, or at least appear to be about, the internal politics of another country. One anecdotal example, I was at the NOLS conference in 1986 where one of the motions called upon the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua to nationalise the coffee industry: Nicaragua was at war at the time!!

Concentrate on raising economic standards for ordinary people a proper share of the nations wealth

I recall attending union meetings in the '80s where the more activist were obsessed with Nicaragua. About as far away as you could get from the economic issues of most members.

[alec]

lens - a bit of data on child admissions with covid and the contrasts between waves -

/photo/1

Omicron 5x more likely to lead to hospitalization with Omicron compared to Delta.

[alec]

And here, research suggests over half of covid suffers get long covid - www.psu.edu/news/research/story/how-many-people-get-long-covid-more-half-researchers-find/

There has been some separate research published recently, based on modeling, which suggests that if we assume two covid waves a year with similar infectivity as Omicron, similar long covid rates and with the continuation of current US health protection regulations, then 1bn people are likely to be suffering long covid worldwide within three years. 

This is an enormous unknown. We do know that viruses can cause long term effects, although no known virus has the sheer scale and breadth of long term impacts we now know are arising from covid. We also know that some 'harmless' viruses can cause significant, live threatening illnesses later in life, like the HPV virus and cervical cancer, and the Epstein-Barr virus has recently been associated with a hugely increased risk of developing MS.

We already know that severe covid causes cause significant brain impacts, but recent published research - www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5 - shows conclusive evidence of changes in brain structure, grey matter mass and cognitive abilities even after mild covid. These are significant impacts, although we don't yet know whether they are reversible.

So it wouldn't be in the least surprising to find that we are in line for another pandemic of some other cancer or neurological degenerative disease among the large cohort of those who have contracted the disease, even though this may take years to manifest.

I just don't think that collectively we've really grasped what viruses can do, and from what we know of covid, that it's likely to be at the nastier end of viruses, in terms of long term impacts. The fixation on deaths was understandable in the initial acute phase, but it i now being used as an excuse to hide from the potential for further harms, which could feasibly end up proving more destructive than the initial infection. I always felt that the 'Protect the NHS' mantra was misplaced, in that it focused attention purely on one metric, of health system pressure, rather than doing this as a broader message about community health and the long term risks of having a novel pathogen circulating.

The deeply frustrating thing about all of this is that many of the necessary measures are simple and highly effective, and could actually benefit the economy if we invested in them.

[moby]

May 10, 2022 10:10:15 GMT crossbat11 said:

moby

Firstly, I hope you appreciate the favour the Villa did you Toffeemen at Turf Moor last Saturday. We're determined to continue the most played fixture in English football, obviously! Villa v Everton. The game wouldn't be the same without it!

I can relate to your Wrexham experiences. Whilst I no longer live in the town, I spent my entire childhood, and a good chunk of my adult life too, in Redditch. It's the place I cut my tooth on as a political campaigner too. I know it very well and whilst the town spent a long time subsumed in a bigger Tory voting constituency, it has been a Labour leaning place for much of its life. Not without a decent Tory vote historically, but tending to elect Labour councils and since becoming a one town constituency in 1997, Labour MPs too. However, since 2010, it has become increasingly a Tory voting town, returning big majority Tory councils and MPs. It's no longer even remotely marginal so couldn't really be called a Red Wall constituency. Solid five figure Tory majorities are usual now and, until last Thursday, the council only had 3 Labour councillors. The party ran the council seven years ago.

Redditch voted Brexit in 2016 and has many of the socio-economic ailments you'll find in many Midlands towns that have gone Tory in the last 5 years. Broadly the same demographics too. Young people tend to leave to find better employment and social prospects elsewhere. My son was one such person in 2016. The population is ageing and the proportion of property owning retirees swelling.

But the points made in the article I posted a link too are valid in Redditch. Brexit changed the atmosphere radically, as it did everywhere, and became a de facto cultural wedge issue for many, but Labour suddenly went from being ousted because of governmental disappointment, 1997-2010, to a party feared and loathed by many. Toxic even. I can't quite put my finger on the why or when, but the doorstep reaction mutated from "Brown bust the economy" to "you're just not a party interested in people like us anymore "

The first rejection is based on perfectly recoverable political pendulum swinging, the second is almost existential.

It's the second reason for rejection in places like Redditch that signifies the electoral and political mountain Labour must now climb.

Yes I was grateful and I think you have the opportunity to the same again on 19/05! I'm really sick of them at present generally....awful transfer policy and a series of crap managers and awful boardroom. Heaven only knows why we sold Digne to you and got El Ghazi back on loan. He's never played for us! I remember a hard fought series of 3 matches between our sides to win the League Cup in '77. Chris Nicholl scored an amazing 40 yard screamer and Brian Little broke my heart in the last minute. Ronnie Goodlass I think had almost won it for us a few minutes earlier. We did get Andy Gray and John Gidman off you as compensation though later! 

[mandolinist]

In the south west of England, and particularly in Somerset and Bristol, there is one really straightforward promise the Labour party should make. To make NHS dentistry available and affordable to all.
It is all very well the government promising more apointments etc, but it is impossible to sign on with an NHS dentist if you move house, your dentist retires, or if they switch to private treatment.
I understand from a family member, who is an NHS dentist, that the post-covid contracts have been an utter disaster and he, like many others, is retiring early because he just cannot fulfill the contracts in current circumstances.

[Mark]

crossbat11 said:

I thought this was an excellent and thought-provoking analysis of the demographic challenges that still pose problems for Labour's electoral and political recovery. It touches on the political importance still of social class identification...

An interesting piece, but, IMO, flawed.

The writer starts off by recalling a trip to see the local football club playing, contrasting himself, the son of a techer, with the 'brickies' that made up much of the coach, saying that the difference was seen by both parties.

This sets the scene for the rest of the article, which strongly infers that 'brickies' and other manual workers are naturally socially conservative or reactionary.

While there is a demographic that is economically LOC but socially conservative that has traditionally voted Labour for their own economic interests but now votes Tory on social issues, this factor amplified by brexit, that is one hell of a broad brush.

I speak as someone that has spent time on the dole, that has never earned more than minimum wage, that, at times, has literally scrabbled round the skirting for pennies.

The perception of class here is misplaced. Firstly, teachers could be said to be working class, although I get that someone who is a manual worker may see a teacher as someone in a higher class, but, if this is the case, why would someone who though this, that may see Labour as the same, vote for the party of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Rishi Sunak?

The underlying problem for Labour is more the economic LOC that have now switched, on social issues, actually oppose what Labour stand for, for which, bar putting purely economic issues loudly front and centre and staying largely schtum of social issues, I cannot see a solution for Labour, especially now that the Tories know how to play the social issues in a way to appeal to this demographic.