18-OCT 2023 : LAB 44% / CON 28% / LDM 9% / REF 7%

[steve]

"Farage as popular as Matt Hancock who also came third."

The difference was Hancock actually did well in all the physical tasks required and didn't win because the ex special forces presenters decided he didn't meet the trust criteria. As he was a lying untrustworthy git who couldn't be relied upon not to get you killed.
If AntorDeck had been given the opportunity to say the same of the frog faced hate gimp then it might have made interesting viewing

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Dec 11, 2023 0:31:16 GMT mercian said:

c-a-r-f-r-e-w
"A separate poll by Focaldata has revealed that 59 per cent of voters believe Sunak intentionally hid his WhatsApp messages from the Covid inquiry. Even among Conservative voters, 48 per cent believe he deliberately kept his the messages hidden."

I wonder how many Don't Knows were excluded from the figures? I like to think that I follow politics more closely than average and I didn't even know Sunak had been accused of hiding messages. Or did you mean Johnson?

well I quoted the article, which was talking about Sunak, but yes Sunak not giving any WhatsApp messages - in contrast to Johnson who gave a fraction at least - has been in the news, see NeilJ’s subsequent post

ukpollingreport2.proboards.com/post/113094/thread

and 

“Sunak fails to hand WhatsApp messages from time as chancellor to Covid inquiry”

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/02/sunak-fails-to-hand-whatsapp-messages-from-time-as-chancellor-to-covid-inquiry

[Danny]

Dec 10, 2023 13:24:17 GMT alec said:

I have to say - without addressing covid the NHS will go rapidly backwards. Data from Finland among many other countries is pointing towards an increase in health service demands in the order of 30% after each wave of covid, due to a myriad of new and worsening conditions apparently triggered by viral infection.

So after is it three waves of covid in the Uk, out NHS demand is now 120% higher than before covid? (compound interest and all that?) Demand on the NHS has more than doubled because of covid? Now there is no way the NHS could be coping with twice the illness rate in the UK compared to before covid, with presumably twice the Uk death rate. Where are these 500,000 extra annual deaths, are thay all being hidden by the government?

Come on Alec, think before you write!

[Danny]

Dec 10, 2023 16:05:56 GMT chrisc said:

Dec 10, 2023 16:01:06 GMT chrisc said:

This is the problem. Individually the easiest way to lost weight is to stop eating (obvs). So people think this is the way to reduce obesity for a population. And it might work if you could manage it. But at a population level the data show this is not what is actually happening. People are not eating more, they are exercising less. What we have over the last 10-20 years is a physical activity crisis not an obesity one. This is really clear from the data in schools. 

Basically then, being ordered to stay in your homes for months was a disaster.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Dec 11, 2023 0:45:05 GMT mercian said:

Dec 10, 2023 22:06:31 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Chart from the Times, of IPSOS polling, concerning what people consider to be signs of success. (Click on the image to see a bigger, more readable version), see what you think. Any surprises?

View Attachment

I don't suppose any two people would produce exactly the same order, but I was pleased to see that stuff like designer clothes and holidays abroad came quite low down. I was surprised that 'Being happy' wasn't there. Possibly it wasn't on the list that was presented to people.   

yes it seems people don’t like showy things:

“What’s more, we were unshowy about it. While 48 per cent of us said we spent on “high quality” products even though they cost more, only 10 per cent said they liked to own things that displayed their wealth — the exquisitely British trait of shopping at Waitrose but hiding the bags. The most showy, according to the poll, were those from ethnic minority backgrounds, and the least were older, female and Scottish (which fits with my Scottish grandmother’s mania for modesty).”



Regarding happiness:

“When people were asked to score out of ten how successful they considered themselves to be, 56 per cent gave themselves a high to extremely high (seven to ten) score, with 13 per cent rating themselves at a nine or a ten, vastly outweighing the numbers who scored themselves at the extremely low end. The majority agreed with this statement: “I am happy with what I have, even if I know some things could be better.” Only a third felt like unfulfilled strivers.”

[Danny]

Dec 10, 2023 16:26:23 GMT colin said:

With US funding now being questioned and paused, and political opposition bubbling up in Ukraine, one has to seriously start considering "peace talks" between an exhausted and unsupported Ukraine, and a militarised Russia with unabated appetite for bigger chunks of Ukraine. Throw in a Trump Presidency and US pulling out of NATO and you have a European Continent facing enormous challenges on the defence front. 

If Russia consolidates the territory it has taken this time round, it will be back in a few years for more. Maybe in Ukraine, maybe elsewhere. Putin's route to stay in power will be his militrary success and future military successes. Not unlike Netanyahu in Israel.

While the US will have shown itself an unreliable ally. Presidents have been warning for probably decades now that Europe cannot rely upon the US for its defence, and here we are. Its not even just a question of money, we have no industrial capacity to supply the Ukraine war on the scale necessary.

I get that Lab. supporters are chuffed with the polls and what looks like certain Labour Government. But I think that getting shot of the evil Tories  is a high which will only last for a while.

This reflects the argument con need to go early, because the news is only going to get worse....

Actually I think that both Sunak & Stamer would be equally diligent and committed in tackling the problems they will face. I doubt personally that there would be that much difference between them -Starmer the more effective politician perhaps, Sunak the more effective manager perhaps. But Sunak hasn't got control of his Party-and Starmer has.  Well I certainly hope he will have.

The nominla leader is besides the point. The leader doesnt doctate policy, he follows the MPs, and there is no more obvious example of that than Sunaks impossible position because he is getting conflicting instructions.

[alec]

@danny - yes, demand for NHS treatment has increased by about 20 - 30% after each wave, settling back over time, before icreasing again after the next wave. That's what is happening all over the world.

[Danny]

Dec 10, 2023 18:30:38 GMT guymonde said:

Dec 10, 2023 18:15:19 GMT alec said:

Some really bad numbers for Cons in these recent analyses. Wonder how long the ship can hold together.

I said 'ship'.

I occasionally weaken and watch a bit of Question Time. Fiona Bruce asked the audience - no doubt carefully selected for balance - for those who supported Rwanda policy to put their hands up. One hand wen up and a rather weedy support was given. She said surely there must be others. Another hand went up but it turned out he didn't support Rwanda!
That ship had sailed

R4 this moning had news government is lettign a contract for near £1 bn over ten years to operate a camp near Dover for 'illegal' refugee processing.

It would seem they want to commit the next government to Rwanda deportations before there is even an election. (though of course if con are already ignoring international law, the lab could too and simply cancel the policy. Russia laughing all the way). Or is it they dont believe the boats will stop coming?

[Danny]

Dec 10, 2023 19:43:39 GMT alec said:

He advised Germans to mask on buses and trains, work from home where possible, avoid indoor Christmas parties, test before meeting up with people and book whatever vaccine boosters you are eligible for.

Has any of that eradicted covid yet? No.

In fact, covid is currently endemic in the UK with permanent levels of 1 million cases all the time, for the last 2 years. Either this is normal for all diseases and we are only seeing it because of mass testing for covid. Or what we did trying to intervene changed history and changed covid from a epidemic disease with occasional big bursts to an endemic one we cannot get rid of. It remains an open question whether the massive vaccination and in particular repeat vaccination program is responsible.

You do seem to agree that the vaccination program has failed?

[alec]

Chief medical officer of Canada now advising citizens to avoid catching covid if at all possible. She says their research shows a rising risk of debilitating long covid after each infection, that catching it doesn't protect against these risks in the future (ore infections makes that risk higher) and mild infections are just as likely to lead to LC as severe cases.

More countries starting to sound the alarm.

[steve]

alec
The role of luck.
A few years back Faith and I had a side gig providing distance and workplace learning for care workers, Faith was a qualified nurse tutor and I am also qualified to deliver NVQ level assessment, so it was a good match for our skill set.
It really took off  the courses were fully funded by the government at the time and free for the students and I was actually earning more from it than as a police officer and for Faith, who earned a lot more than I did at the time it pushed her income to well over £100,000 pa.
We thought this is it we're going to be able to retire by 50 things are going well.

Then the owner of the company providing the NVQ courses flew his helicopter into a power cable and died.
Bad luck for him and the other five people on board of course. But bad news for the company which was based for its huge volume of NHS work on his personal contacts at the department of health, the work immediately dried up and the banker greed crisis of 2008-10 put the nail in the coffin as did the arrival of the coalition government who removed the funding for the courses.
In three years from an £80,000 second income we went to £0.

The consequences of random events.

[Danny]

Dec 11, 2023 7:35:38 GMT alec said:

Chief medical officer of Canada now advising citizens to avoid catching covid if at all possible. She says their research shows a rising risk of debilitating long covid after each infection, that catching it doesn't protect against these risks in the future (ore infections makes that risk higher) and mild infections are just as likely to lead to LC as severe cases.

This is becoming repetitious.

Several people have pointed out to you that a sampling process where you take a group which repeatedly acts the same way is not going to be representative of the national population. For example, consider the last ten elections. A person selected for having voted con ten times in a row will be different in outlook to someone who voted lab ten times in a row. Instead of politics insert 'got bad covid' and 'failed to get bad covid'.

[steve]

What do Garry Lineker, Brian Cox and former head of the British army Richard Dannatt have in common.

Clue it isn't because they've all played for Barcelona.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/11/gary-lineker-and-brian-cox-back-call-to-scrap-rwanda-scheme

[alec]

Danny - "Several people have pointed out to you that a sampling process where you take a group which repeatedly acts the same way is not going to be representative of the national population."

So it's just as well that StatCan, like most of the other studies into long covid prevalence, use a randomly sampled selection of the entire population to derive their statistics, isn't it?

But yes, it is getting repetitious, having to explain to people like you that you can choose to follow the evidence, or you can choose to pretend everything's just fine, you can choose to invent unseen pandemics in small seaside towns, etc etc. I prefer the evidence.

[hireton]

It seems that Labour is preparing the ground to support Tory policy to restrict British citizens' choice to marry a foreign citizen to the well-off:

[Danny]

On the fatness debate, R4 news had a piece intervieweing the doctor who does a regular series on tips how to have a healthier lifestyle.

He was reporting that people who live in colder spaces adapt by growing more brown fat cells which burn fat, and other biochemistry changes to generate heat. In short, we adapt to stay warm.

The corollary of this will be that as home heating had expanded over the last 50 years, we will all have adapted to burn less calories simply to stay warm. The implication seems to be that central heating is fattening. Certainly its expansion coincides with the growth of obesity in the UK.

He also incidentally noted that optimum jogging temperature is 2-3 degrees. Its because the lower temperature allows the generated heat to escape more easily.

[Danny]

Dec 11, 2023 7:59:22 GMT alec said:

So it's just as well that StatCan, like most of the other studies into long covid prevalence, use a randomly sampled selection of the entire population to derive their statistics, isn't it?

Just tried to look that up, and the links to the canadian government website all say https connection failure. Do you have a a working link to an actual published paper?

However, news coverage mentions highghlights including that people who have long covid have extended symptoms of covid for a long time, six months or more. They reckon about 10% of the population has had long symptoms. I'm in good company then, because I had my cough after catching covid november 2019 right up to when we started talking about covid national outbreak the next spring. But....I still just carried on as usual.

The report says more than 1 in 5 canadians has had covid more than once. thats curios, beause the UK has had covid continuously with 1-2 million cases at any one time (usually deemed to last 1-2 weeks, about 100,000 new cases a day) for the last two and half years. Thats 100,000,000 cases. So either everyone has had it twice, or some people have had it a lot more times.

Sadly the news article makes no mention of whatever statistical basis might be used to determine this.

[steve]

hireton
I've liked your post however a five second snippet from the interview stands a pretty high chance of not being reflective of everything Kendall said, if it is reflective it's just another reason why Labour are not going to be graced with my membership again and why it's going to have to involve some serious nose pinching to vote for them if that's the best way to defenestrate the local Tory.

[EmCat]

Dec 11, 2023 6:25:21 GMT steve said:

One of the gems of their balance was during the period of 2015-16 they had 20 appearances by European union parliament meps, at the time the large majority of UK Meps were Labour, lib dems or Tory , however the BBC decided that 18 of the 20 times they had an MEP on it should be Nigel Farage on the other two occasions they managed to find another UKIP member for " balance ".

When "Big Brother" was first announced, it was claimed that it was a sociological experiment on what would happen when different individuals were cooped up with only each other for company.

However, it quickly became apparent that, far from having a spread of character types to see how a "society in miniature" would interact, contestants were chosen on how well they could project an image. The image being one that would attract ratings.

This ratings chasing spilled over to other programmes. Like Question Time. Hence their balance was more on which panellists (and, to a lesser extent, which audience members) made for that fine line between "that will be interesting to watch {particular person}" and "throwing things at the TV in exasperation". Which will tend towards the latter, simply as provoking an emotional response from the viewers will encourage some to watch again next week.

[pjw1961]

Dec 10, 2023 23:38:07 GMT mercian said:

Dec 10, 2023 13:03:19 GMT leftieliberal said:

I noticed that there is now a split in the Green Party of England and Wales over the gender issue. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67546751

They have kicked out their Womens Group, which holds gender-critical views. This is an issue where the splits are within parties rather than between parties.

I think the Greens would be more successful if they ditched all the woke stuff and just concentrated on (sensible) green issues such as preserving woodlands, encouraging people with gardens to make them friendly towards birds and animals together with a gradual approach to reducing reliance on fossil fuels, encouraging house insulation and so on.  If they did that I'd consider voting for them myself.  

Too late for gradual now. A 1.5 degree rise is already unavoidable. The choice now is between doing things quickly that people won't like or seeing much higher levels of global heating. Looking at how COP has been 'owned' by the fossil fuel industries, it is pretty clear that that it is gong to be the latter. 

[EmCat]

Dec 11, 2023 7:01:08 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Dec 11, 2023 0:45:05 GMT mercian said:

I don't suppose any two people would produce exactly the same order, but I was pleased to see that stuff like designer clothes and holidays abroad came quite low down. I was surprised that 'Being happy' wasn't there. Possibly it wasn't on the list that was presented to people.   

Regarding happiness:

“When people were asked to score out of ten how successful they considered themselves to be, 56 per cent gave themselves a high to extremely high (seven to ten) score, with 13 per cent rating themselves at a nine or a ten, vastly outweighing the numbers who scored themselves at the extremely low end. The majority agreed with this statement: “I am happy with what I have, even if I know some things could be better.” Only a third felt like unfulfilled strivers.”

Despite the best efforts of the polling company to have the sample properly weighted, the poll is still answered by people who feel that they are successful enough that they have enough time to answer the poll. Hence their personal success scores will tend to be slightly higher than it might otherwise be.

The people who are sinking in a sea of debt will likely shy away from responding, as they will feel that they don't have the time or the mental energy to consider such abstract concepts as "success", as they are struggling with day to day existence.

[steve]

Seasonal greetings

[crossbat11]

Dec 11, 2023 7:56:02 GMT steve said:

What do Garry Lineker, Brian Cox and former head of the British army Richard Dannatt have in common.

Clue it isn't because they've all played for Barcelona.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/11/gary-lineker-and-brian-cox-back-call-to-scrap-rwanda-scheme

But they did all play for Leicester City, although I believe Dannatt's one and only first team appearance was as a second half substitute for, ironically, one Brian Cox. Cox's injury, sustained in the game as a result of a bad tackle from none other than John Cleese, ended his promising career. He went into acting, I believe. Dannatt, whose father was from a military background, followed in those well trodden footsteps and joined the Army.

Lineker, as we know, went on to great things at Everton, Spurs and Barcelona, not to mention his international career with England.

[pjw1961]

Dec 11, 2023 8:43:04 GMT steve said:

hireton
I've liked your post however a five second snippet from the interview stands a pretty high chance of not being reflective of everything Kendall said, if it is reflective it's just another reason why Labour are not going to be graced with my membership again and why it's going to have to involve some serious nose pinching to vote for them if that's the best way to defenestrate the local Tory.

I heard a full interview on this on R4 Today programme where Kendall was asked about each aspect of the Cleverly proposals in turn and on each and every occasion she essentially sat on the fence by referring everything to the Migration Advisory Committee. However, contrary to hireton's suggestion, she did not endorse the Tory proposals and implied the £38k figure was too high. It looks like a wish to avoid the trap the Conservative's are setting of forcing Labour to tie themselves to a specific figure. However, it did also come over as dodging the question and so rather weak.  

I was unaware of the Migration Advisory Committee previously and I have no idea what they would be likely to recommend, but if they act like a typical quango they will probably split the difference and go for something higher than current (£18,600 if I recollect correctly) but lower than the Tory one.

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/migration-advisory-committee/about

[pjw1961]

Dec 11, 2023 9:04:18 GMT crossbat11 said:

Dec 11, 2023 7:56:02 GMT steve said:

What do Garry Lineker, Brian Cox and former head of the British army Richard Dannatt have in common.

Clue it isn't because they've all played for Barcelona.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/11/gary-lineker-and-brian-cox-back-call-to-scrap-rwanda-scheme

But they did all play for Leicester City, although I believe Dannatt's one and only first team appearance was as a second half substitute for, ironically, one Brian Cox. Cox's injury, sustained in the game as a result of a bad tackle from none other than John Cleese, ended his promising career. He went into acting, I believe. Dannatt, whose father was from a military background, followed in those well trodden footsteps and joined the Army.

Lineker, as we know, went on to great things at Everton, Spurs and Barcelona, not to mention his international career with England.

Matt Smith (the 11th Doctor Who and more recently the younger Duke of Edinburgh in The Crown) actually captained Leicester's youth team. From wikipedia: 

"His grandfather had played football for Notts County and Smith had also planned to play football, having played for the youth teams of Northampton Town, Nottingham Forest, and Leicester City, becoming captain of the latter's youth team. A serious back injury resulted in spondylolysis, and he was unable to continue with a footballing career."

[domjg]

Dec 11, 2023 9:07:19 GMT pjw1961 said:

Dec 11, 2023 8:43:04 GMT steve said:

hireton
I've liked your post however a five second snippet from the interview stands a pretty high chance of not being reflective of everything Kendall said, if it is reflective it's just another reason why Labour are not going to be graced with my membership again and why it's going to have to involve some serious nose pinching to vote for them if that's the best way to defenestrate the local Tory.

I heard a full interview on this on R4 Today programme where Kendall was asked about each aspect of the Cleverly proposals in turn and on each and every occasion she essentially sat on the fence by referring everything to the Migration Advisory Committee. However, contrary to hireton's suggestion, she did not endorse the Tory proposals and implied the £38k figure was too high. It looks like a wish to avoid the trap the Conservative's are setting of forcing Labour to tie themselves to a specific figure. However, it did also come over as dodging the question and so rather weak.  

I was unaware of the Migration Advisory Committee previously and I have no idea what they would be likely to recommend, but if they act like a typical quango they will probably split the difference and go for something higher than current (£18,600 if I recollect correctly) but lower than the Tory one.

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/migration-advisory-committee/about

Hireton is determined to play whatever incredibly small part he can by following the current SNP playbook to the letter in trying to alienate the left wing Labour vote. Just like Trevor was doing recently. 
Now what political interests could those two possibly have in common? Oh yes of course, continued tory government at the UK level, albeit for different reasons.

This SNP strategy of using every opportunity to paint Labour as indistinct from the tories does puzzle me in a Scottish context (can see why it makes sense in England). Presumably the SNP want unionists in Scotland to not vote Labour and doesn't depicting Labour as similar to the tories have the danger of encouraging Scottish tory voters to feel safe lending their pan-unionist vote to Labour in ABSNP tactical voting?

[steve]

Talking about how frustrating the BBC can be .
Here's Michael Gove spouting total weapons grade Brexit bollocks on the Laura Kunessberg show and going completely unchallenged.
It's this obvious, persistent ,bias and total unwillingness to call a lie a lie that's the most aggravating element from our public service broadcaster.

To be fair it doesn't just relate to their chums in the Tory party. In U.S. News cover the traitor has lied tens of thousands of times since 2016, these are only the provable canards, nearly every sentence he utters contains at least one probable lie.

With the exception of his far right media outlets and occasionally even fox news does, the US media call him a liar.

The only major non partisan broadcaster in the US that doesn't is BBC world.

The BBC aren't the only offender in broadcasting in the UK but they're the only one we're required to finance and they should set a standard of honesty and frankness and they abjectly fail to do so.

youtu.be/AxsHkC00GfA?si=o5fVceLWhvkXvrgR

[steamdrivenandy]

Dec 10, 2023 17:41:22 GMT @isa said:

Dec 10, 2023 17:22:35 GMT steamdrivenandy said:

My maternal grandad was a cinema manager from the silent era through to the early '60's. At some of the cinemas he managed my granny would be up front banging away on a piano, an early example of  a film soundtrack.

I think he lost count of the cinemas he'd managed. In the early days it was an almost nomadic existence. During WWll he managed a whole circuit of cinemas and had a special petrol ration to get round them all as cinema was regarded as a vital morale boosting element. 

In later years he stayed at cinemas for longer stints, ending his career with a dozen years at the Grange, Kilburn. He took me to a number of press showings of films that were about to go on release and the stars and production teams were present during a reception afterwards. We've a small collection of framed black and white photographs of grandad with various stars, including Terry Thomas, Kenneth More, a very youthful Bill Owen (Compo) and Harry H Corbett among others. 

View AttachmentView Attachment

That's very interesting, SDA. One of the chaps in those pics looks like Davy Crockett, so I'm wondering whether it's Fess Parker doing a promotional tour for the 1955 film about Crockett? 

It was and I have a vague memory of seeing the film at grandad's cinema. I also remember the unique aroma of the cinema's store room with shelves of chocolate, cigarettes and Kia Ora etc. I don't recall any popcorn at all.

[steve]

crossbat11
I think all were also scooped up by the hatters on a free transfer, Brian was however given several months time off to appear in Succession ,but as he played centre forward no one noticed.

[birdseye]

Dec 11, 2023 6:38:59 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Dec 11, 2023 0:31:16 GMT mercian said:

c-a-r-f-r-e-w
"A separate poll by Focaldata has revealed that 59 per cent of voters believe Sunak intentionally hid his WhatsApp messages from the Covid inquiry. Even among Conservative voters, 48 per cent believe he deliberately kept his the messages hidden."

I wonder how many Don't Knows were excluded from the figures? I like to think that I follow politics more closely than average and I didn't even know Sunak had been accused of hiding messages. Or did you mean Johnson?

well I quoted the article, which was talking about Sunak, but yes Sunak not giving any WhatsApp messages - in contrast to Johnson who gave a fraction at least - has been in the news, see NeilJ’s subsequent post

ukpollingreport2.proboards.com/post/113094/thread

and 

“Sunak fails to hand WhatsApp messages from time as chancellor to Covid inquiry”

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/02/sunak-fails-to-hand-whatsapp-messages-from-time-as-chancellor-to-covid-inquiry

You, like the |Grauniad, are assuming that Sunak is lying when he says that he has several times changed phones and no longer has those old messages. Do you have evidence that he is lying?