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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 23:24:38 GMT
A quote from this week's Bagehot column in the Economist: "Labour is often scrutinised as if it is in government, whereas the Conservatives are somehow able to campaign as an opposition in office." They don't mention the BBC specifically but it's fairly clear that's that's what is meant. That organisation will have serious questions to answer one day. In a few short years it has destroyed it's own credibility, just like the nation it reflects I suppose.. It all depends on your point of view I suppose. I regard the BBC as an extreme left-wing propaganda tool. Every time I turn on the radio it seems to be somebody whining about how terrible their life is, and there seem to be fewer and fewer informative programmes about science or history or whatever.
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Post by graham on Aug 18, 2022 23:28:57 GMT
The above post I found opague as it mixes so many different blocks of voters. You say the ROC voter can only vote Tory or abstain. So they can't vote Lib-Dem? & those who stolidly give a 3-4% return for Reform in polls are supporting a party that doesn't in effect exist, if Farage doesn't field candidates. How are these specilalist ROC voters identified? LibDems are LoC in many voters' eyes. Also, Farage doesn't ostensibly have anything to do with Reform UK which is led by Richard Tice. The LDs are widely seen as RoC since entering the Tory-led Coalition in 2010. I would never consider voting for them unless the only other candidates available were Tory /UKIP/BNP/SNP or Plaid.
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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 23:32:36 GMT
grahamI understand your point, but I think that many voters would see the LDs as left-wing, at least compared to the Tories. It's all a matter of opinion of course. Great subject for a poll!
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Post by graham on Aug 18, 2022 23:33:57 GMT
graham I understand your point, but I think that many voters would see the LDs as left-wing, at least compared to the Tories. It's all a matter of opinion of course. Great subject for a poll! But that's a bit like saying the Tories are left-wing compared with the BNP!
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oldnat
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Extremist - Undermining the UK state and its institutions
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Post by oldnat on Aug 18, 2022 23:37:16 GMT
LibDems are LoC in many voters' eyes. Also, Farage doesn't ostensibly have anything to do with Reform UK which is led by Richard Tice. The LDs are widely seen as RoC since entering the Tory-led Coalition in 2010. I would never consider voting for them unless the only other candidates available were Tory /UKIP/BNP/SNP or Plaid. NF, BUP, REFUK, TUSC et al (and even DUP or SF if you choose to move from England to NI) will be targeting you as a potential voter for them, given your preferences, which seem somewhat eclectic, even for a British Nationalist like yourself.
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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 23:40:43 GMT
grahamOk, Labour are right-wing compared to TUSC. So what, the original point that someone made was that Tory voters had no realistic choice other than to vote Tory or stay home. Then someone said that they could vote LibDem. My reply was that many voters would consider LibDems to be left-wing. You may not think so, but (IMO) a lot of Tory voters would. As we're just arguing our opinions, as I said, a poll on the subject would be very interesting.
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Post by eor on Aug 19, 2022 0:39:34 GMT
oldnat - I think the key difference is scale. None of those groups you mentioned is electorally significant, whereas some of those mercian cited (such as TUSC) regularly field candidates in opposition to Labour in local and Westminster elections in E&W. Also the ongoing discussion on here involving those who would vote for the Green party in E&W in preference to Labour. Whereas if Farage does crawl back under his rock (and noting mercian 's valid point about mostly taking votes from Labour in certain areas of E&W) then the ROC voter goes back to a much more straightforward "vote Tory or stay home" choice. That is of course an advantage that they've managed to turn into a spectacular weakness at times through corruption, impotence and venality, 1997/2001 in particular. Whether that will be the case again in 2024 we wait to see... The above post I found opague as it mixes so many different blocks of voters. You say the ROC voter can only vote Tory or abstain. So they can't vote Lib-Dem? & those who stolidly give a 3-4% return for Reform in polls are supporting a party that doesn't in effect exist, if Farage doesn't field candidates. How are these specilalist ROC voters identified? Yeah I take your point about clarity robbiealive: in particular the "ROC voter" I referred to as having the straightforward choice in E&W was specifically the sort of voter that might be tempted by one of the more extreme-right groups Oldnat mentioned. But yes, if Farage isn't in battle mode then most or all of that 3-4% may not end up with a Reform candidate to vote for in a given election. The contrast I was thinking of is that a voter on the right who finds the current Tories too centrist will often have no way to express that at the ballot box, other than to stay home. Whereas a voter on the left who finds the current Labour party too centrist may often have a choice between staying home or voting Green, TUSC, sometimes others. Tho that effect could also distort the perception of fragmentation - it's much easier to spot and count votes cast for fringe candidates than it is to gauge abstentions. So maybe the left just look more fragmented because they provide a means to count the dissenters
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Post by eor on Aug 19, 2022 1:06:28 GMT
@bedknobsandbroomstick - I think the key thing here is whether or not the concerns over inflation becoming embedded in expectations is valid. My current sense (as a non expert) is that it won't be. We are already seeing pay rises well below inflation, along with strong signals of stress in company balance sheets as they try to absorb as much of the cost rises as they can, as they judge consumers cannot afford the full price rises if these are all passed through. If companies are under financial stress in times of inflation, wages can either go up and companies fail, or they can can offer below inflation rises and try to survive. It's the latter that seems to be happening. So I tend to agree that raising interest rates will be very difficult. Where I am less certain is on the issue of falling commodity prices, but the evidence I have seen in the last week or so does suggest that this is happening. Anecdotally, petrol at my local garage is now £1.64/litre, a 13% fall from it's peak. If we really are seeing a sharp drop in input prices, then I think the BoE strategy begins to look like mindless self flagellation. colin - I would be interested in your take on this? alec - a few numbers from my day that are potentially relevant to what you're discussing here. 4% - this was quoted in a meeting as being the current median private sector pay increase. Notable for two reasons, firstly it's obviously a long way below the inflation rate, but it's also unusually high. 8.6% - this is the *mid-point* of the Low Pay Commission's estimate for the Minimum Wage increase next year. Whilst their calculations are usually catnip for politicians because they're spending someone else's money in order to look nice, that kind of increase is going to have some interesting impacts in certain sectors which rely on a great number of people being at or very close to minimum wage. The increase in the Living Wage Foundation's Real rate could be altogether more eyewatering, I don't think I'd be shocked by 15% from them, and that's going to give a few organisations who have signed up some serious headaches. £1.69 - the petrol price this evening, which was notably lower than the £1.90ish that's been Normal here for a little while. Tho as usual I expect the upward price surge to have reflected the increased costs, and the downward drop to reflect the reduced costs less a sizeable allowance for "if they were happy to pay that anyway...."
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Aug 19, 2022 5:49:38 GMT
A light hearted video with an interesting message
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 19, 2022 6:07:27 GMT
And the fantasy Tory campaign rumbles on as the crisis grows by the day.
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Post by alec on Aug 19, 2022 7:03:00 GMT
steve - "For those of us not focussed exclusively on covid the implications of lockdown and the cancellation of preventative health care were obvious." I think this is an unnecessarily aggressive post. All of us understood the impacts of lockdown on preventative health care. No one thinks lock downs were a good thing, everyone should be able to agree that they were a sign of the failure of more standard public health measures. Where I think you go off the rails here is in assigning outcomes now to lockdowns back then. There is absolutely categoric, clear and unambiguous evidence that covid impacts on the health sector caused by the unmitigated community spread of covid is causing huge disruption to preventative care, and that excess deaths today are predominantly caused by the fact that we are allowing repeated waves of infection to run riot. Here is one small part of the hard scientific evidence - www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2215-0366%2822%2900260-7Fully peer reviewed matched cohort study published in the Lancet following 1.2m people across several countries for two years, using medical records to assess the impact of covid infection on a range of neurological conditions, including dementia and brain bleeds. For some of these serious conditions, they found substantially elevated risks with no 'risk horizon' evident within the study period. In other words, the elevated risks of some forms of dementia, ischaemic stroke etc, increased dramatically after even mild covid infection and remained high for at least two years. They also found no difference between Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants, and by extension, no evidence that vaccination helped. So yes, lockdowns were terrible, and had some terrible consequences, alongside the tens of thousands of lives saved from the dreadful point we had reached. But you need to get real and understand what is causing the majority of deaths and sickness today; not lockdowns, but unmitigated spread of a novel pathogen that we barely understand, that is now proven to have wide ranging, serious and persistent health impacts, months and years after even mild infection. This isn't a common cold - it's a sars virus, and sars viruses are dangerous.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Aug 19, 2022 7:03:30 GMT
Lockdown effects feared to be killing more people than Covid No surprise. Even in 2020 someone published a paper saying lockdown could in no way be justified in terms of the cost per life saved. Right now we are seeing how that same money spent slowly over years would have done much more good. Though we are also seeing how in normal circumstances even that greater amount of good would be deemed too costly. The real issue with covid has always been twofold. First that it was feared it might be much more dangerous than it really is. Second that politicians needed to be seen to be doing something. It would have been better to have done nothing, though maybe best to have a response concentrated on isolating highly vulnerable groups. But few countries did this. Sweden did so because it's constitution placed the decision in the hands of medical experts and prevented politicians interfering.
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 19, 2022 7:06:17 GMT
Live report Grant Shapps currently lying his way through an interview on lbc. Just one among many lies The covid pandemic isn't" the worst pandemic of all time"and currently as it has been for 40 out of the last 42 years hiv/aids remains the biggest cause of premature death in women of child bearing age in the world and hiv aids remains the most serious pandemic of the 21st century.
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Post by alec on Aug 19, 2022 7:09:58 GMT
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Aug 19, 2022 7:17:32 GMT
steve - "For those of us not focussed exclusively on covid the implications of lockdown and the cancellation of preventative health care were obvious." I think this is an unnecessarily aggressive post. All of us understood the impacts of lockdown on preventative health care. No one thinks lock downs were a good thing, everyone should be able to agree that they were a sign of the failure of more standard public health measures. Where I think you go off the rails here is in assigning outcomes now to lockdowns back then. There is absolutely categoric, clear and unambiguous evidence that covid impacts on the health sector caused by the unmitigated community spread of covid is causing huge disruption to preventative care, and that excess deaths today are predominantly caused by the fact that we are allowing repeated waves of infection to run riot. Here is one small part of the hard scientific evidence - www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2215-0366%2822%2900260-7Fully peer reviewed matched cohort study published in the Lancet following 1.2m people across several countries for two years, using medical records to assess the impact of covid infection on a range of neurological conditions, including dementia and brain bleeds. For some of these serious conditions, they found substantially elevated risks with no 'risk horizon' evident within the study period. In other words, the elevated risks of some forms of dementia, ischaemic stroke etc, increased dramatically after even mild covid infection and remained high for at least two years. They also found no difference between Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants, and by extension, no evidence that vaccination helped. So yes, lockdowns were terrible, and had some terrible consequences, alongside the tens of thousands of lives saved from the dreadful point we had reached. But you need to get real and understand what is causing the majority of deaths and sickness today; not lockdowns, but unmitigated spread of a novel pathogen that we barely understand, that is now proven to have wide ranging, serious and persistent health impacts, months and years after even mild infection. This isn't a common cold - it's a sars virus, and sars viruses are dangerous. You need to get real that interventions did not mitigate the consequences of covid. We didn't save people from the consequences you like to highlight. All we did was keep the whole thing going for longer. It will only stop affecting ongoing health care once everyone has sufficient immunity to it, and vaccines to date have failed to achieve this The only way forward now and from the start was to just catch it. Covid absolutely is not unusual. It's likely people have always been dying from related corona viruses as part of the miscellaneous annual pneumonia deaths. while at the same time kids caught these same diseases several times a year. That is the outcome we need to reach for covid. It has to be normalised as something we ignore, and we will only get thete through regular exposure. There is no magic bullet.Spending a vast amount on a cure which doesn't exist has created a world recession and made everything so much worse.
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Post by alec on Aug 19, 2022 7:22:49 GMT
No Danny, we prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths, delayed spread until we had vaccines and treatments, and prevented a total social and health care collapse. We did that at that great expense, but at the time, it was the least worst option. Now, we've given up, and people like you are too foolish to understand what that is doing to our health and economy.
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Post by crossbat11 on Aug 19, 2022 7:24:30 GMT
No, but the Daily Telegraph has. Probably many years ago too. It's the house magazine for upper class twits these days.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Aug 19, 2022 7:35:18 GMT
you still don't get that being mentioned on death cert doesn't mean covid killed them. have cancer and covid, covid might hasten you death but if you had each alone then the cancer would have killed you and covid would not. go into hospital for anything and your chance of catching covid has always soared. As indeed has your chance of being detected as having covid. While incidence of covid has in recent months been at record highs as reported for the community by zoe, official government figures concentrate now on cases associated with medical treatment for something else, because that's when people get tested.
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Post by pete on Aug 19, 2022 7:38:13 GMT
Plenty of other jobs available. Totally missing the point. If we allow companies the ability to sack people because they can where does that leave rights etc? How does anybody plan life (mortgages, where they live schools etc knowing they can be just sacked?) Or are you saying employees are worthless to be used and abused by corporations? I thought you brexit supporters were for the little people? Obviously not, by your attitude. Also, and you're happy with P&O out and out lying?
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Post by alec on Aug 19, 2022 7:46:34 GMT
@danny - "you still don't get that being mentioned on death cert doesn't mean covid killed them."
Come on in to the real world - you never know - you might like it!
Lesson 1: If something is written on the death certificate, it means that the doctor issuing the certificate judges that it contributed to the death.
Get that simple fact into your head and you'll start to understand.
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Danny
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Posts: 9,811
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Post by Danny on Aug 19, 2022 8:02:39 GMT
No Danny, we prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths, delayed spread until we had vaccines and treatments, and prevented a total social and health care collapse. We did that at that great expense, but at the time, it was the least worst option. Now, we've given up, and people like you are too foolish to understand what that is doing to our health and economy. There is no evidence we prevented any significant number of deaths by interventions. we may have made matters worse since the uk has one of the worst death rates from covid in the world. I'd agree the death rate now after all that intervention isn't much better than in 2020, although the statistics are awful in that they do not differentiate people sick because of covid from those sick who also happen to have covid. We may be grossly over attributing deaths now. Certainly in terms of cases there are more now than in 2020, but society is functioning again BECAUSE there is no lockdown. Nowhere on earth has there been a total health care collapse because of covid. That's isn't because of government interventions it's everywhere, whatever anyone did or didn't do. It was never going to happen. It was always a scare based upon worse case scenarios which have never happened. Even UK SAGE has always based it's recommendations on worst case scenarios. Government asked it to do that and then acted as if SAGE believed they were the likely outcome -which obviously they didnt because they were always very clearly stated as worst possible case. Had we done nothing then the economy would have been largely unaffected. Some growth from increased medical spending and transfer of wealth from old to young. The point is the very great majority of working age people have always been safe. The economic harm has come from lockdowns and ordering people to stop working.
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 19, 2022 8:04:13 GMT
alec While lockdown clearly had serious debilitating impacts particularly in relation to mental health , education and the economy it was at least a valid, if not the most effective or appropriate response, in the circumstances The primary damaging impact of the covid focus I highlighted was the effective curtailment of preventative health care and routine repeat checks for nearly two years and the active discouragement of service users to seek advice. In my own case my cardiologist declared me free of heart failure two years after the last time any checks on my condition had been carried out, the routine echo check had been cancelled no less than eight times in 20-21 and I think the cardiologist made the assumption that as I hadn't died and hadn't been admitted to hospital I must be ok! I am sure my experience isn't remotely unusual, by pot luck in my instance this diagnosis by guess appears to have been correct. There will of course be tens of thousands of instances when it isn't
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Post by crossbat11 on Aug 19, 2022 8:06:50 GMT
pete
Good employers, and there are many, regard their employees as part of the extended enterprise and treat them as such. They can't totally protect them from the ravages of economic cycles and inevitable downturns, but they can provide as much security as possible. Decent severance packages for one as a bare minimum or, as the RMT are trying to obtain now, the sort of guarantee of no compulsory redundancies that we negotiated with the unions at MG Rover in the early 90s.
It was a groundbreaking deal at the time that ushered in a period of relatively good industrial relations. It transformed the way that employees/associates viewed the workplace and their relationship with the employer. It inculcated a state of mind that moved from hired hand to valued employee contributing to, and sharing in, the business as a whole.
I believe the deal still lives on in JLR, as do the very good conditions of employment relating to pensions, wages, sick pay etc. The use of agency labour towards the end of my time in the business reintroduced hire and fire practices though, driving a wedge between casual and permanent employees. I regretted that although the employer reaped enormous flexibility from it.
I think the point still stands though. If you treat people as valued members of the enterprise then the rewards for all concerned are enormous. Good work is as secure as it can be and well rewarded. Work for many is an essential part of who they are. Many dedicate their lives to one employer because they enjoy it and it's what their good at. It has a social element. A sense of belonging. Most people take pride in their work and what the business that employs them does. I met thousands of people in my working life, doing shop floor jobs, who were immensely proud of the products they made. Lifelong Jaguar, Land Rover, Triumph etc men and women. Prouder and more loyal than most here today gone tomorrow middle management.
To do what P&O did to these sort of people was callous and inhumane. An utter disgrace.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Aug 19, 2022 8:10:09 GMT
The LDs are widely seen as RoC since entering the Tory-led Coalition in 2010. I would never consider voting for them unless the only other candidates available were Tory /UKIP/BNP/SNP or Plaid. I guess you are correct and even since Blair labour they have tended to attract more right of centre than left. However I think it fair to say they are left of the conservative party, and that's why they have managed to take their more centrist voters. This has probably made con more rabidly right. It doesn't though prelude them from looking potentially quite attractive as a compromise or tactical vote. What does argue against this is how they rolled over and blindly supported cameron's conservatives. Though he too was way left of con now.
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 19, 2022 8:10:43 GMT
@danny You are clearly mistaken in your assumption that intervention has prolonged covid given that in those countries who have used different approaches there's no evidence that it's disappeared. That doesn't of course mean there were better approaches than taken here.
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Post by Mark on Aug 19, 2022 8:52:19 GMT
Lockdown effects feared to be killing more people than CovidThe Telegraph understands that the Department of Health has ordered an investigation into the figures amid concern that the deaths are linked to delays to and deferment of treatment for conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Over the past two months, the number of excess deaths not from Covid dwarfs the number linked to the virus. It comes amid renewed calls for Covid measures such as compulsory face masks in the winter.” Seriously??? There have been delays and deferments in regard to conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. That is fact. But...these are due to a decade of underfunding and mis-management of our NHS, meaning that when a health emergency such as covid comes along, there are bound to be delays. Nothing to do with wearing masks.
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Post by alec on Aug 19, 2022 9:15:58 GMT
steve - "While lockdown clearly had serious debilitating impacts particularly in relation to mental health.." Sorry to hear of your issues, but a minor correction to the above. While lockdowns were very negative for the mental health of some, several studies counterintuitively found that overall mental health improved through lockdowns, for various reasons. But that doesn't take away from the very difficult impacts they had on some people.
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Post by hireton on Aug 19, 2022 9:27:03 GMT
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Post by alec on Aug 19, 2022 9:28:57 GMT
An excellent and measured debunking of the myths in the D Tel article about lockdown here -
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alurqa
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Freiburg im Breisgau's flag
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Post by alurqa on Aug 19, 2022 9:29:08 GMT
Plenty of other jobs available. Apparently not, but then didn't P&O use Filipino workers: www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/19/overseas-hiring-spree-planned-for-care-homes-in-england-amid-winter-fearsOverseas hiring spree planned for care homes in England amid winter fears Foreign workers could be recruited for care homes in England amid concerns about staff shortages this winter, under government plans.
The health secretary, Steve Barclay, wants the overseas recruitment spree to include sending NHS managers to countries such as India and the Philippines to hire thousands of nurses, the Times reported.
The paper added that Barclay was also looking to make it easier for regulators to check international qualifications so that staff could begin working more quickly.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Our new international recruitment taskforce is considering innovative ways to boost staffing numbers within health and adult social care.
Wasn't brexit supposed to be one of the 'innovative ways to boost staffing numbers' to stop these bloody foreigners coming to this country with their willingness to accept low wages, and thereby force up the wages of care workers? Isn't that what the brexiters voted for? So now, according to the article, instead of Europeans (spit) coming over here, stealing our jobs, we are going to get Indians and Filipino workers coming here instead. Even brexiters must see this as a disaster, surely.
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