steve
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Post by steve on Jul 6, 2023 10:18:05 GMT
I thought Starmer handled the climate change protesters with a fair amount of tact and courtesy , comparisons with Tory conference removals come to mind.
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Post by Rafwan on Jul 6, 2023 10:21:55 GMT
Makes perfect sense to me! So I guess it is simply one more sign in the growing mountain of evidence that I am, in fact, going doolally ... . I have been expecting this for a while. Fear not, it could be down to me and your cryptic words and thoughts are beyond my limited ken. I knew a Ken once and, thinking about it, he was very limited in a number of respects. Thanks for feedback, CB. Don’t mean to be cryptic so will try harder in future! In that particular case, I was trying to say that I thought the Cambridge result was (ridiculously) aberrant, since two-thirds of voters backed candidates calling for one thing, but they ended up with a candidate backing the opposite. I couldn’t square this with (I think) your suggestion that this was OK because it was “local democracy in action”. (God, that still sounds pretty cryptic, but I am doing my best here!) Then I thought pj was saying (in his post immediately following yours) that such distortion only happens at local level, and wouldn’t happen at national level. Apologies both if I have misconstrued you. |
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Post by alec on Jul 6, 2023 10:38:50 GMT
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 6, 2023 10:45:55 GMT
lens - "Rubbish!" Rather than exert a knee jerk reaction against any efforts to contain covid transmission, I think it's more appropriate to look at the data. Yes, this article was written by someone who declared an interest in the development of apps, but it references independently verified data and makes other valid insights. yes, I also looked at the article you cited and the obvious criticism that it was not research but the view of someone who had been involved in creating the apps. It does though link more independant articles, which I did not have time to read through. However the wider of these studies about the widespread use of the app rather than the Isle of Wight trial, www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36495-z , started off: " Results of our statistical analyses of anonymised, aggregated app data include that app users who were recently notified were more likely to test positive than app users who were not recently notified.... ". For goodness sake! A claim someone with a ping was more likely to get sick than someone without one? How low a standard is that! If it wasn't true it would be making things worse! The general study goes on, "An evaluation of the initial roll-out of NHS Test and Trace on the Isle of Wight, which included the first version of the NHS COVID-19 app, found a marked improvement in the course of the epidemic on the island but there was no data available to separate out the impact of the app from the other aspects of the intervention9." They make a very good point, that the effectiveness of their app was never assessed in isolation or as part of a trial where in otherwise identical regions, one used the app and the other did not. However this point applies more generally, nor was the effectiveness of any other measure properly tested. The closest we came to this was when the government decided to use local lockdowns to suppress covid. In as much as this was a credible trial of the effectivenes of lockdown interventions, they concluded it did not work. I dont really see what was wrong with that as a trial, and it concluded lockdowns did not work. DID NOT WORK. Incidentally, this paper uses the word 'lockdown' in the sense of pretty much any legal restrictions on the public, for example being allowed into venues only if you had the app installed or a negative test result to hand. There is no evidence that whatever number of people got a warning, this actually caused them to change their behaviour and prevent any new cases. It is entirely an assumption that it did!
The paper talks about " the number of app-reported cases (positive test results received via the app or manually entered into the app)" and compares this to "the number of exposure notifications over time (blue) ", "and demonstrates how this broadly follows the number of app-recorded cases (orange)." ie, they say there is a steady relationship between number of notifications and number of real world cases. The problem I am having is I dont see how this is causal, ie after a notification it turns out a person really did catch covid more often than not. All they seem to be claiming is that both number of pings and number of app reported cases mirror the total of cases in society at that time. They arent claiming a link that first someone got a ping, and then they developed covid. (but see later)
The article quotes figures for CTAS manual contact tracing, which show about 2/3 of the contacts they traced were actually people in the same household. Well duh, they probably already knew they had been exposed. This isnt necessarily directly transferrable to the phone app, but its seems likely its contacts will have a big base number of people living in the same household. They say the number of contacts being redundantly reported by both methods is unknown. They argue that theoretically, the phone app can capture a different set of people, casual contacts outside the home. Interestingly, they mention a counter cyclic trend in manual tracing - as cases got bigger the number of contacts reported per case actually got less. " In fact, manual tracing shows an anticyclic trend in Fig. 4b, with reduced numbers of contacts per case reached during periods of high case load." They suggest this was due to lack of manual resources to keep up with cases, but it could also mean people restricted their contacts voluntarily when cases were high. They do say that adding automated procedures to manual tracing to sped them up, did not increase the number of contacts detected. It seeems they did try to establish a link between pings and infections, by asking everyone reporting a case if they had had a ping during the preceding 14 days plus isolation period. Isolation period varies a bit, but that might amount to about four weeks. They found the number of cases in the previously pinged group was x1.5 to x3 the national average, or in the range 5-7% of those pinged.
App reported cases after a ping averaged about 10% of all cases reported to the app, with a minimum when general cases were lowest of about 5% and max of 15% when general cases were highest. On the other hand, once the total number of cases nationally was taken into account, the app was least effective at detecting cases when the general epidemic was at it highest, with only 2.5% of pings being followed by cases, whereas at the time of least covid 25% of pings were followed by a case. ie, the more people in general had covid then the more pings were issued but the smaller the percentage of the population who got a timely warning ping. If it worked at all rather than the numbers being coincidence, then it worked least well in detecting cases at times the epidemic was greatest. We also know the app was scrapped because of the number of false positives being reported at times the epidemic was at its lowest. So even if it was detecting a larger percentage of genuine cases at that time, it was also sending a far higher total number of false warnings.
I also have a BIG problem with using the national case numbers to assess effectiveness of the app. Cases have always varied by age group, with the oldest having fewest cases by maybe x10. So the real level of community cases in the age groups likely to be using the app will be significantly higher than the national average. So the percentage of cases being detected by the app will be a lot worse than is suggested here.
The decision not to use phone app tracing is only wrong if there is decent evidence it works. The published report suggests it works least well at times of high general levels, but we also saw how it worked unacceptably badly at time of low cases by throwing too many false positives. And thats all before we consider whether it is cost effective. Every false positive is a cost of losing the work of that person for their isolation period, at least a fortnight. Whats that, £1000 per false report? There were 7,000,000 notifications and 90% of them were false. Thats a loss of economic activity of some £6 billion?
No, it doesnt mean that. Most notified cases were unrelated to pings, just people reporting they were ill. Only 10% at best of notified people actually then reported catching covid. 200,000 cases is neither here nor there! They claim to have averted more cases than that, but if they did it must be based upon future spread averted, its not based on these numbers.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jul 6, 2023 10:52:47 GMT
Savanna Poll, it appears their poll last week was a 'rogue' one
📈18pt Labour lead
🌹Lab 46 (+3)
🌳Con 28 (-3)
🔶LD 11 (+1)
➡️Reform 4 (-1)
🌍Green 4 (+1)
🎗️SNP 3 (-1)
⬜️Other 4 (=)
2,216 UK adults, 30 June - 2 July
(chg from 23-25 June)
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Post by leftieliberal on Jul 6, 2023 10:54:45 GMT
Just because the polling on independence and republicanism is similar doesn't mean it is the same people in both polls. For example I know Liberal Democrats who are republicans, and I have no doubt that is also true in the Labour party. You could very well have majorities for both but only a minority in favour of both, which was the point I made. Alex Salmond said he would keep the monarchy; Nicola Sturgeon as far as I can remember never said anything either way; it is Hamza Yousef who has come out as a republican. Yousef could become the SNP's Sunak, leading them to defeat. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 6, 2023 10:59:40 GMT
'Red Rishi' continued the 'cult of the NHS' where a CON HMG is throwing money at something that is clearly broken (which is a socialist approach) rather than reducing the role of the state (which would be a Tory approach) Actually when con came to power they continued increasing NHS spending, so in your terms throwing money at something clearly broken. At that time of course, the general view was that the NHS which had received expanding budgets under Blair was doing rather well. What they actually did was cut the rate of increase of its funding, together with slashing funding for social care. This has obliged the NHS to transfer some of its budget to what was previously covered by social care. ('more or less' covered that, and concluded the cuts in social care are huge percentages but added cost to the NHS was still small compared to total NHS budgets so didnt cancel out the rises) Under con four things have happened to the NHS. 1) Its growth of funding halved whereas its growth of demand continued. 2) Training programs for staff were cut. 3) We left the EU. Making european staff harder to get.
4) Con government had another round of reorganisation.
take your pick which one turned a successful NHS into a failing one?
Incidentally, 'more or less' also concluded that the official increases in numbers of employed staff are approximatley the same as the number of unfilled posts, so its number of employees has effectively stayed flat. About 100,000 short? That surely isnt helping, but its covered above by failing to increase funding enough to pay competitive wages.
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Post by leftieliberal on Jul 6, 2023 11:00:39 GMT
I see that the Just Stop Oil protestors at Wimbledon have switched from orange paint to orange confetti. Perhaps it's finally got through their thick middle-class skulls that damaging grass in a protest against climate change is not ecologically sound. For some reason they also targeted last Saturday's Pride procession in London, although what they have against Coca-Cola is beyond me. Call me old-fashioned, but I think they should be shot with radioactive lead bullets and then buried where their corpses can pollute the environment. Depleted uranium bullets would be better, the Army has a supply of materials for those (depleted uranium is almost pure U-238). Lead as the end-point of radioactive decay chains isn't naturally radioactive itself (which is why it is used to shield sensitive radiation detectors). |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 6, 2023 11:13:43 GMT
Firstly, I agree the current system is a mess. What is the purpose of local government? Most local government is simply a way of administering laws enacted by westminster. Its just a way to form a committee to make local choices of how to do it. Would make no difference if civil servants did all of it. Except that westminster would then be more directly accountable to the consequences of the laws imposed on local people, and your MP would be able to intervene much more directly when you complain about the council. Instead of pretending it is nothing to do with laws he made in parliament. The credibility of the scottish parliament lies in its ability to make different laws to those made in westminster. And we can see how much westminster resents those powers and is already fighting to take them back. The only point of having regions would be if they all had similar powers. Now that might be a good idea, but no one seems to be proposing it. |
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Post by leftieliberal on Jul 6, 2023 11:13:54 GMT
I suspect that voters in Scotland will have become even keener ' to join the party' by voting Labour to eject the Tories.
Of course, false arguments do sometimes work in politics, as the Brexit campaign amply demonstrated, so some voters in Scotland will be seduced by Labour's specious argument.Another false argument from one of our Scottish members. What Labour need to do is to win 326 seats and winning seats in Scotland from the SNP helps them do that. The SNP can never replace the Tories because they only stand in 59 seats (57 at the next General Election). Of course Labour will have to win seats in England as well, but the target is the same regardless of where in the UK that Labour win their seats. |
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Post by James E on Jul 6, 2023 11:15:14 GMT
Just because the polling on independence and republicanism is similar doesn't mean it is the same people in both polls. For example I know Liberal Democrats who are republicans, and I have no doubt that is also true in the Labour party. You could very well have majorities for both but only a minority in favour of both, which was the point I made. Alex Salmond said he would keep the monarchy; Nicola Sturgeon as far as I can remember never said anything either way; it is Hamza Yousef who has come out as a republican. Yousef could become the SNP's Sunak, leading them to defeat. Yes, it isn't simply the same 47% (or so) who support a Republic as those who want Independence. YouGov's most recent figures show 2014 "Yes" voters dividing 57/31 for an elected Head of State over the Monarchy. 2014 "No" voters divide 67/24 for the Monarchy, which is similar to as GB voters as a whole. But the point stands that Scotland is considerably less Monarchist than Britain as a whole. The 3 polls referenced in the 'whatscotlandthinks' link above show the pro-monarchy majority is around 25 points lower in Scotland. There is already a small-ish majority for a Republic among Scottish voters aged under 65. And in the same article, John Curtice notes the falls in support for the Monarchy among both Yes and No voters over recent months. docs.cdn.yougov.com/xfaufs6rcp/InternalResults_230420_Scotland_Royals.pdf |
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Post by James E on Jul 6, 2023 11:20:19 GMT
Savanna Poll, it appears their poll last week was a 'rogue' one 📈18pt Labour lead 🌹Lab 46 (+3) 🌳Con 28 (-3) 🔶LD 11 (+1) ➡️Reform 4 (-1) 🌍Green 4 (+1) 🎗️SNP 3 (-1) ⬜️Other 4 (=) 2,216 UK adults, 30 June - 2 July (chg from 23-25 June) That's Labour's (equal) highest lead with Savanta for 5 months - or 20 of their polls. Looking at their figures over that time, they generally show Labour leads around 3-4 points lower than the average. |
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Post by leftieliberal on Jul 6, 2023 11:27:43 GMT
To me the obvious problem with our current constitutional arrangements is the lack of an English parliament. This results in Westminster being a de facto English parliament rather than a UK parliament (due to population) and creates all sorts of problems and resentments on all sides. If England, like Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, had its own parliament elected by a form of proportional representation (I would prefer STV) and Westminster was a much smaller entity dealing with only UK issues (defence, some foreign affairs, etc.) most of the grievances would be addressed. I would have the small Westminster parliament indirectly appointed from the 4 elected national assemblies to avoid the need for another set of elections. The obvious objection to an English parliament is that it would do nothing to address the problem of overcentralisation which affects the English regions. I live in Yorkshire and I'm fed up of being governed from Westminster (or wherever else you put an English parliament). As far as a putative British federation goes, I don't think it would be viable to have it dominated by one member, which would be hard to avoid if it consisted of England, Scotland, Wales and NI. In any forum involving all the state premiers the English premier would expect his/her voice to carry the greatest weight - perhaps almost as much as that of the Federal PM/president. Using majority decision-making would be contentious (because England could be outvoted despite its dominance by population size). It would make it very difficult to have a second chamber in which all the states had equal representation.
As an aside, your proposal for an English parliament doesn't sound so very different from EVEL, which I think originated with Hague, way back when Scottish and Welsh devolution were introduced. , which although geographically in London does not represent London's views. I would be quite happy with Yorkshire as an equal partner in a federal system if I could have London as one of the partners. London voted Remain in 2016 (I still have my Britain Stronger In Europe T-shirt from the campaign). There are other natural units for a federal system including Cornwall, although for much of England it is difficult to draw natural borders. |
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Post by leftieliberal on Jul 6, 2023 11:39:21 GMT
I have already recognised that my opinion might be a minority one and I stand by it. People in England weren't given the opportunity to vote for a federal structure - nor were Scotland and Wales, for that matter. The Blair government's attempts at devolution were piecemeal - an ad hoc, temporary solution to discontent with a distant, overweening central government, not a coherent programme of constitutional reform - and we're paying the price now, in various ways. My parents were living in the NE at the time of that referendum and it was not presented as the first step towards a federation - quite a lot of people saw the proposals as a way of making them even more cut off from the centre of power than they already were. Nor did they much care to be treated as guinea pigs. Referenda on regional assemblies were presented as a sop to John Prescott (cf. the AV referendum), whose image was that of Blair's tame working class idiot (I've no idea whether that was Blair's doing or not). The lack of commitment at the very top of government was also clear from the limited powers that the regional assemblies were to be offered - they fell far short of those of the Scottish parliament and Welsh Assembly and this helped opponents to present the proposed assembly as just another layer of useless bureaucracy. It's also worth noting that if the proof of the pudding is in the eating, devolution puddings have proved very tasty. For example, the referendum on the establishment of the Welsh Assembly passed by a very narrow majority, but now that they've experienced it in operation very few Welsh residents would want to go back to the status quo ante. Firstly, I agree the current system is a mess. However, might I ask if you would propose to remove "unnecessary" layers in a regional assembly model for English regions? EG Pudsey, Leeds, W.Yorkshire. Pudsey being a market town between Bradford and Leeds Currently: 1/ Municipal Borough of Pudsey 2/ Leeds City Council and a Mayor for Leeds (Councillor Al Garthwaite) 3/ Leeds City Region (Not to be confused with Leeds or City of Leeds) which morphed into West Yorkshire Combined Authority and has a Mayor (Tracy Brabin) Would you propose to scrap some/all of those and instead have a 'Yorkshire and the Humber' Regional Assembly covering the area defined by arbitrary lines drawn on a map to define the region of 'Yorkshire and the Humber'? Scotland, Wales and NI have clear borders (although the last one is somewhat divisive). The 'regions' within England are quite arbitrary and combine cities with rural or coastal areas that have very different issues. FWIW then I'd be quite happy to scrap all the layers of unnecessary 'local' government chez nous and be part of a SEAL IT region (South East, Anglia, London Independent Territory) with devolved tax+spend powers, outwith the Barnett Formula (as we're a massive net contributor to the 'throwing money' aspect of national devolution). Quite happy to use the existing arbitrary lines on the map or chop out a few of the shitty* bits that East.Midlands (or the rebirth of Mercia) can have  * To be specific then in breaking up the "unnecessary" layer of "Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority" then Mercia can have Peterborough (for free!) cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.ukYou only need two levels: Regional government and Local government, reflecting the old County Council/District Council split across most of England. In London it is the GLA (which would have to be expanded to handle its new powers) and the Boroughs. Your SEAL is just fudge. |
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alurqa
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Freiburg im Breisgau's flag
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Post by alurqa on Jul 6, 2023 11:43:14 GMT
Trick question -- there is no helicopter, so he can't be there. |
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Post by leftieliberal on Jul 6, 2023 11:44:51 GMT
Just because the polling on independence and republicanism is similar doesn't mean it is the same people in both polls. For example I know Liberal Democrats who are republicans, and I have no doubt that is also true in the Labour party. You could very well have majorities for both but only a minority in favour of both, which was the point I made. Alex Salmond said he would keep the monarchy; Nicola Sturgeon as far as I can remember never said anything either way; it is Hamza Yousef who has come out as a republican. Yousef could become the SNP's Sunak, leading them to defeat. Yes, it isn't simply the same 47% (or so) who support a Republic as those who want Independence. YouGov's most recent figures show 2014 "Yes" voters dividing 57/31 for an elected Head of State over the Monarchy. 2014 "No" voters divide 67/24 for the Monarchy, which is similar to as GB voters as a whole. But the point stands that Scotland is considerably less Monarchist than Britain as a whole. The 3 polls referenced in the 'whatscotlandthinks' link above show the pro-monarchy majority is around 25 points lower in Scotland. There is already a small-ish majority for a Republic among Scottish voters aged under 65. And in the same article, John Curtice notes the falls in support for the Monarchy among both Yes and No voters over recent months. docs.cdn.yougov.com/xfaufs6rcp/InternalResults_230420_Scotland_Royals.pdfI'm not surprised by that. When you have had one monarch for over 70 years, longer than most people have been alive, you expect there to be some reaction. If Charles III is still reigning in 10 or 20 years time, it would be interesting to see what his popularity rating is then, rather than judging him in his first year. |
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Post by Mark on Jul 6, 2023 11:46:42 GMT
This is correct. There is a plausible argument that pound for pound the NHS was the highest performing health system in a major developed economy in 2010. And a very strong argument that it was the most improved. It is now a basketcase. And having been in the middle of some of what was going on in 2010 and 2011 defining what happened as a smash and grab raid aimed at defunding, demoralisation and removal of competent leaders in order to lead to, ultimately, privatisation (and it was only stopped - to their credit- by the Lib Dems - although this was the old SDP-types in the Lords rather than Clegg and his orange bookers) is pretty accurate. Some of the behaviour I personally witnessed ranged from deranged 23 year old ideologues overruling experts with 40 years of experience and a track record of success to straightforward corruption (of a type that was a dry run for PPE) As someone who has literally spent 30 years working in the administration of very different health systems across three continents, I am pretty convinced that, provided they are properly funded, universally available free (or nearly free) at the point of use services outperform other models, and those that are tax funded tend to be more efficient than those that are based on insurance schemes. The paradoxical weakness of tax funded systems is that they are easier for governments to underfund. Spot on! To add to that, if we are to get the NHS that we all want, it will cost money. Yes, there will ikely need to be, at least in the short term, a rise in taxation to pay for it - something that none of the major parties seem willing to tell people. Dialysis machies cost money, equiptment eventually gets old and knackered and needs replacing, which cost money, paying staff at a level that they can be retained costs money. There is no magic wand that suddenly gives us all this.....and when the NHS has been underfunded for years, the stuff that is needed, or needs replacing, builds up. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 6, 2023 11:48:40 GMT
Blair had the rallying cry of education,education,education after nearly two decades of Tory underfunding. Starmer says let's have debating classes! Where are the big ideas? #abitlessshitthantheTories Educational underfunding has also become worse. There was a crisis in schools when con took over and started cutting budgets. Starmer must know this, but the irony is the way con have managed the economy has made demands greater and available funding less. I dont see how it is possible to redress this quickly. There seems a bit of a truce not to start arguing about how much more money education needs. |
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steve
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Post by steve on Jul 6, 2023 11:49:14 GMT
No 10 indicates it will face down peers over illegal migration bill and seek to reverse most or all of 20 Lords defeats After yesterday’s debate, the government has now suffered 20 defeats in the House of Lords over the illegal migration bill. Tory spokesman in response said. "We recognise that the Lords will scrutinise this bill, as they do all of them. But for our part, we continue to believe that this bill is the right and appropriate way to stop the boats." They're trying to stop the wrong boats. Attachment Deleted |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 6, 2023 11:53:16 GMT
Well don't worry. They have also cut farm subsidies which will cut Uk food production too. Its a Brexit bonus we are now free to discontinue farm susbidy. |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jul 6, 2023 11:53:22 GMT
If we had a Federal Structure of N.I., Scotland, Wales and England I would assume the electoral system used would be some form of PR
That would almost certainly herald the end of the two party system, with parties almost certainly splitting and the subsequent Parliaments having a much wider range of views
I think this would make the worry about England being too dominant less problematic, with parties and people finding they have as much common interest with similar parties in other areas as their own
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Post by leftieliberal on Jul 6, 2023 11:56:09 GMT
A note on the Selby by-election. It turns out that Mike Jordan is standing for the Yorkshire Party in the by-election, having stood for the Yorkshire Party in the 2019 General Election against Nigel Adams. In between he joined the Tories, won a County council seat with them and then left them again, coincidentally on the same day that Nigel Adams announced he was standing down. This may explain why he seems to have a significant level of support in a recent constituency poll.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2023 11:57:51 GMT
I’m hearing that Labour’s latest, “new-Tory” idea is to treat all Scottish residents of England as illegal immigrants (even if the didn’t get here by boat) in the event that Scotland becomes independent. They will then extradite them to Angola if they refuse to head back North. I can see mercian voting for them if this becomes actual policy. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Jul 6, 2023 12:06:08 GMT
You'll have to translate your last paragraph, I'm afraid. I've read it a number of times and, quite simply, don't really understand a word of it . Makes perfect sense to me! So I guess it is simply one more sign in the growing mountain of evidence that I am, in fact, going doolally ... . I have been expecting this for a while. I took it as you simply saying that a split vote can potentially lead to a less democratic outcome. (If saying that doesn’t somehow complicate things further. In any event, Aussies have lost four wickets before lunch…) |
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Mr Poppy
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Teaching assistant and now your elected PM
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Post by Mr Poppy on Jul 6, 2023 12:22:36 GMT
Firstly, I agree the current system is a mess. However, might I ask if you would propose to remove "unnecessary" layers in a regional assembly model for English regions? EG Pudsey, Leeds, W.Yorkshire. Pudsey being a market town between Bradford and Leeds Currently: 1/ Municipal Borough of Pudsey 2/ Leeds City Council and a Mayor for Leeds (Councillor Al Garthwaite) 3/ Leeds City Region (Not to be confused with Leeds or City of Leeds) which morphed into West Yorkshire Combined Authority and has a Mayor (Tracy Brabin) Would you propose to scrap some/all of those and instead have a 'Yorkshire and the Humber' Regional Assembly covering the area defined by arbitrary lines drawn on a map to define the region of 'Yorkshire and the Humber'? Scotland, Wales and NI have clear borders (although the last one is somewhat divisive). The 'regions' within England are quite arbitrary and combine cities with rural or coastal areas that have very different issues. FWIW then I'd be quite happy to scrap all the layers of unnecessary 'local' government chez nous and be part of a SEAL IT region (South East, Anglia, London Independent Territory) with devolved tax+spend powers, outwith the Barnett Formula (as we're a massive net contributor to the 'throwing money' aspect of national devolution). Quite happy to use the existing arbitrary lines on the map or chop out a few of the shitty* bits that East.Midlands (or the rebirth of Mercia) can have * To be specific then in breaking up the "unnecessary" layer of "Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority" then Mercia can have Peterborough (for free!) cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.ukYou only need two levels: Regional government and Local government, reflecting the old County Council/District Council split across most of England. In London it is the GLA (which would have to be expanded to handle its new powers) and the Boroughs. Your SEAL is just fudge. Happy to agree that a load of the middle layers should be scrapped but in a separate reply* you state
"There are other natural units for a federal system including Cornwall, although for much of England it is difficult to draw natural borders"Cornwall has a population of <600,000 people. London is nudging 10million people and the somewhat arbitrary borders around "London" have a huge amount of 'movement' (ie above average income tax paying individuals commuting in to corporate HQs in London). How would you split out the tax powers between the arbitrary region of almost 10million people known as "London" and the surrounding arbitrary commuter regions (of SE England and Anglia)? EG Somewhere like 'North Ockendon' (outside M25 and historically part of Essex) now in The London Borough of Havering and hence arbitrarily placed in London rather than Anglia. If London wanted to whack up income tax then you might well see a lot of people move a few kms outside of London. Not many people live in the Scottish Borders and, for now, the income tax difference between Scotland and England is quite small but, millions of people live on either side of the arbitrary London border (and IIRC the arbitrary ULEZ border is causing a bit of a kerfuffle due in part to the arbitrary line drawn on a map). * ukpollingreport2.proboards.com/post/90985/threadPS As stated in my original reply to athena ** then UK HMG (which for a lot stuff is just England) has a lot of vastly more important things to do than mess around with something that is far from ideal but 'not broken' - although I certainly hope someone scraps the Barnett formula at some point (would be a vote winner in England and if CON aren't winning many seats in Wales or Scotland AND Starmer puts in some 'Clarity Acts' then.. well.. TBC ) ** ukpollingreport2.proboards.com/post/90820/thread |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2023 12:22:49 GMT
Makes perfect sense to me! So I guess it is simply one more sign in the growing mountain of evidence that I am, in fact, going doolally ... . I have been expecting this for a while. I took it as you simply saying that a split vote can potentially lead to a less democratic outcome. (If saying that doesn’t somehow complicate things further. In any event, Aussies have lost four wickets before lunch…) Seemed obvious to me as well. I’m a bit doubtful whether Batty can read that well - I know for a fact that his longer, mildly more interesting posts are done by AI. (Or school children perhaps it was.) |
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Post by Mark on Jul 6, 2023 12:29:17 GMT
Joined Threads Meta, not because I like Meta but because I dislike Musk more As of 2 hours to go they had 10 million signed up Still a while to go before they overtake Twitter, but wouldn't be surprised if they did While there is, as yet, no desktop version, I had a quick look at the URL (which does exist). Its simply a starry screen with the word "Threads" in the middle. That said, I gleaned from Firefox security add-on, Noscript, that running in the background was scripting from "fbcdn.com" (Facebook content delivery network). I'm guessing that, while login is through an Instagram account, a Threads account would also be linked to the users Facebook account. In related news, there is also a fairly similar site, long established but little used, run by a company in San Francisco, also called Threads, which people are reportedly joining up with, presumably thinking it's the site that has been all over the news recently. TBH, I doubt it'll take over from Twitter without a browser version and one where you don't have to already have an Instagram. (IE one where you cn sign up with email). While I can see why they chose the name, "Threads" to me, will always be associated with an apocalyptic drama about nuclear war... |
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steve
Member
Posts: 12,639
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Post by steve on Jul 6, 2023 13:58:29 GMT
In not remotely surprising but still positive news.
The government has lost its legal challenge to block Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApps, notebooks and diaries from being handed over to the official Covid inquiry, after a ruling by the high court.
Ministers launched a judicial review last week, with lawyers for the Cabinet Office arguing it should get to decide what material was “unambiguously irrelevant” to the inquiry.
But the inquiry’s lead counsel said the idea that the Cabinet Office could decide which documents were relevant “would emasculate this and future inquiries”.
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Mr Poppy
Member
Teaching assistant and now your elected PM
Posts: 3,774
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Post by Mr Poppy on Jul 6, 2023 15:06:22 GMT
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Post by lens on Jul 6, 2023 15:06:27 GMT
lens - "Rubbish!" Rather than exert a knee jerk reaction against any efforts to contain covid transmission, I think it's more appropriate to look at the data. Yes, this article was written by someone who declared an interest in the development of apps, but it references independently verified data and makes other valid insights. - I can assure you my reaction is far from "knee jerk"! I'm not going to say too much on a public forum, but right at the start I had contact with an acquaintance who had an interest in the app. In conversation this subject (false alarms) was brought up. I'd heard rumours that the stats were very poor, and asked directly - the silence was deafening. Likewise the public silence when the app was pulled after the "pingdemic". It's widely (if privately) acknowledged the app was overall a waste of money. And what you linked to is an attempt by someone with a vested interest to try to make out otherwise. The three things I would suggest you think about in a bit more depth are firstly the point about centralized vs de-centralized contact tracing. I think this point is well made, and ....... I have thought about it, it's a true enough point..... but completely irrelevant to the point here. It's like talking about the engine being finely tuned in a car that has no brakes and is falling apart with rust! It's the whole premise of the app that is flawed - viruses and radio waves behave in very different ways - not the software behind the scenes. I assume you are familiar with all the stories of neighbours being pinged through walls and ceilings? Second, the author is criticising the fact that governments and the WHO have dumped phone app tracing from their future pandemic planning, and calls for the learning from this exercise to be developed. I would have though we could all agree that this is a good suggestion. - governments and the WHO have dumped it because it's widely known it was overall a flop! You are being suckered in by someone who had (has?) a vested interest in it's promotion. Finally, the data. Reference 10 covers this. They estimate that the number who test positive after receiving an exposure notification (TPAEN) was around 5 - 7% as a lower bound, with PHE estimating at that time the number of positive cases was around 1.5 - 3 times higher than those captured by confirmed tests. This suggests something like 8 - 21% of pings were valid. That's potentially very good, if it's nearer the 1 in 5 level, but certainly room for improvement. What's the saying? "Statistics, statistics, and damn lies"? The data may be sound but interpretation is another matter. I gave a couple of reasons why the raw data can lead to the wrong conclusion. That someone may already be isolating because of test and trace when the ping arrives? Already isolating because of a family member.... and it's the ping *due to them* that subsequently arrives? Sheer delaying disease - not stopping it entirely? I also believe that TPAEN varied a lot over time. If 5% at one time, it was far lower after vaccination got well under way, simply because it is much more difficult for a vaccinated person to be infected. And hence the pingdemic and the silent acknowledgement the app was creating more harm than good. It would have been nice if the author had thought to include statistics about the economic harm all those false isolations caused maybe? So I don't think the data backs up your rather angry dismissal of the original article, although I would agree that we need to be careful in how we assess claims made by those who could be perceived to have a vested interest, which is exactly what I did before making the original post. Bottom line here is that we are going to face many more pandemics, and we need every tool in the box. Phone apps are a tool we are going to need, and I think it's a big mistake to abandon these. Oh come on, alec ! At the very least you should have stated in your original post that the author had a strong vested interest in putting a good light on the app performance! It would be wrong to say there were *no* benefits from it's use - but entirely accurate to say it was highly flawed and any benefits didn't justify the huge costs - both in direct costs and lost work due to false isolations. Am I angry? Yes, probably. Not so much with the decision to try it, given the circumstances when it was proposed (same with vaccines - nobody knew what the outcome would be when work started). Not even with the decision to drop it without fuss when it's failings started to become obvious. But to now massage the figures by vested interests in an attempt at justification? Yes, that does make me angry. The money that was wasted because of the app could (should) have been spent elsewhere in the health system. |
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