On on 'facts galore' , I'd challenge: "Swedish people are more dispersed than in the UK. Sweden has 25 people per square kilometre: the UK has 275. In the UK where the most common household type is a family home with children, but in Sweden more than 50 per cent of people live alone." This is BS. Sweden is massive, it has a shed load of empty countryside which skew the first stat. The population are not evenly sprea dout, they are living in towns and cities as averagely densely populated as anywhere else in Europe. In fact, more Swedes(87%) live in Urban Areas than Brits (81%). Also, it is not true that more than 50% of the population live alone. Just over 50% of households are single person. This is a significantly different stat (if the other 49% of households are 2-12 people). I don't have the figures to hand but it is something like 17% of their total population is single person dweller compared with something like 14% in the UK (that's from memory and I very much stand to be corrected). I don't share this just to dismiss the rest of the arguments in the piece which are well balanced - but facts do matter, and these misstatements muddy the otherwise very rational analysis.
That's a bit disingenuous. You have consultants who do private work keen to take no more than 10 PA contracts, whereas if they couldn't do private you can guarantee they'd be demanding 14 PA contracts. There is no doubt that the existence of private has impact on the capacity of the NHS. Whether that impact is overall for better or worse is an interesting debate.
This is the most thought provoking article I've read on this site for some time. As I was a young adult in the 199Os I remember it as the benchmark against which every other decade in my living experience inevitably disappoints. I'd like to disagree with the article out of my yearning for that time, and suspicion of the Government intervention. But the author has made excellent counter points which I'll now have to go and refect on...
He isn't merely an advisor though is he? He is effectively the architect of this government's strategy and delivery program. Boris won't sack him for the same reason Emu never sacked Rod Hull.
Each to their own. I found it depressing. It reminded me of one of those momentum 'with us or against' rants I used to amuse myself reading whilst that lot made themselves unelectable for a generation. A good test of how you really feel about a scandal is always to think If the protagonist in this saga wasn't my guy, but was say Alistair Cambell or Seamus Milne, what would I judge? Cummings should have resigned with honour, a statement along the lines of 'I had a choice to make between my job and my family, and I chose my family. And I would do every time. But I understand that if I stay in this role, it creates an impression that there is one rule for me, and another for others. I do not wish to be a distraction from the Prime Minister at this time." He could have gone home, recharged his CoVID drained batteries. The public would be happy they aren't mugs for following the rules with a more straightforward reading of them, and in nine months time he could have come back no issue, well before the next election, and early enough in the parliament to push through reform. Instead , he has become the story, caused a shitstorm, and damaged the trust of that load of people who 'lent' the tories their vote at the last election just because Johnson wasn't Corbyn.
You think northerners don't pay tax? I'll tell you now the
more narrow minded residents of say ,Harrogate , will resent the amount their hard earned taxes supporting, say, the residents of Hackney in the same eye swivelling manner that your post suggests you feel about the North. That infrastructure spend's not going to happen now though is it. The money's all gone in the furlough kitty.
I have every sympathy for him, and in the same circumstance I might do the same thing: family first always. But if I had his job, I would also certainly expect to have to resign if I was busted. It's a bit like a road copper who does over a hundred on a motorway to get to the birth of his first child, you 100% know why he did it, and sympathise, but you also know he has to lose the job.
This is doing the party savage damage - the 80 majority is built on votes that have been, in many cases reluctantly lent, and have to be earned again for next time. This is stupid,stupid issue to erode that valuable poliitcal capital on. He could have resigned, and be back honour restored (the man who put his family ahead of his job) in two years, well in time for the next general election. Instead he became the story and is adding some toxicity back to the party.
Just gone back through my emails when I realised it is a while since I completed one of these surveys and realised that it seems I got kicked off the survey list a year ago. Wonder why? Hardly representative if they kick folk off for off trend answers. How do you get back on?
You don't. But you are at no more significant risk of having an accident if you do. If people are driving to somewhere quieter and easier to social distance for their 'daily government constitutional' than their local streets, what on earth is the problem?
"The median age of those infected is 63 but the average age of those who have died is 79.5". Just to correct the first half of this - it should read "the median age of those who have tested positive is.....". There are likely 10s if not 100s of times more people infected than tested, but with tests seemingly limited to those who are pre-assessed as likely to both have the virus and have high risk once symptomatic, it is not surprising that the median age is high. If there were tests widely available I am pretty sure the 'median age of those infected' would be way less than 63.
For similar reasons the stats: "45 per cent of patients do not exhibit anything more than mild symptoms.
10 per cent of those with the illness display no symptoms at all." Could be massively understated as we have no idea how many people have the virus and are asymptomatic because we are not able to do enough tests.
Widespread testing of the asymptomatic population has to be a priority to get meaningful data to build a fact base to plan the next steps in this battle.
![[Avatar]](/images/avatar26.png){kind=avatar}
guythemac 
Medley