Honey Honey

Deaths on a given day are typically from infections 14-30 days ago. What matters more are new cases and where (geographically and whether in general public or care/hospital setting). 8k a day and a small uptick in London last week. England is a massive country. More people live on my street than live in Wales. I'm surprised England isn't taking a regional approach to lockdown relaxation based on hot spots found in testing.

Only seen John Edmunds. Are there others?

One dissenter within SAGE briefing the media that lockdown relaxation at this current point is a political decision and not a scientific one.

Let's hear it for the spreadsheet champions. £34.7m profit in a year that Mike Ashley also took £30m out of the club.

Great questions. Would love to know the thinking behind it. Speculating but could be for business purposes. Could be to see if there is a spike in new cases before the rule day. Majority will stick to rule day. Could be because they're so excited to have come up with a new idea they can't hold it in

The Norwegian PM was asked the other day why countries with female leaders seemed to do better with COVID, like New Zealand. Her response was that though she'd like to think it is because they're women her social psychologists would tell her it is more likely down to being flat hierarchies with high levels of public trust and that those environments also allow women to be leaders. As opposed to the UK where the ranting nonsense of males like you lot fuels a society that looks to masculine forms of leadership

Head of Norweigen equivalent to PHE said the other day that Norway's lockdown was pointless because R was 1.1 at the time so outbreak could have been managed without closing schools and such.

I'm on the floor laughing at Nick Ferrari's interruption there Gove clearly finds this all funny as well. Not sure what the end game with this is, perhaps to just wait it out.

sorry to hear that.

President of Austria just did that after he broke lockdown rules. Though not quite the same. He stayed in a restaurant beyond the time it was legally allowed to be open. Blamed chatting and losing track of time.

Looks like Phil

In London it takes less than 0.1% of local population to do that for those images and park experiences so it's hard to tell how many have given up. However from my personal unrepresentative sample 95% have broken the 1 person from each household can meet outside rule and all were aware they were breaking the rules. As with most things involving personal risk judgement, once the rule is broken and no consequences were observed it will be broken again, then again some more, then further and bigger. This is what has happened in the last few weeks and is usually how rule breaking forms. Be it driving over the speed limit or streaming illegal football. The twist with the virus is what Cummings is saying. The "exercise your own judgement" line. Ultimately that is what all the rule breakers I know believe they've been doing. Now that line is coming from a government source we are out of most of the lockdown and now argubly in a "common sense" phase, whatever that means.

Local park extremely busy again today, maybe as many as 1000 people. Police walking around looking confused and unsure of themselves. I've received an invite to yet another BBQ, same instigators as the last but this time with people from 7 or 8 different households. We just have to hope locking down businesses, offices and public transport is enough to suppress the R because at family and friend level the majority seem to have given up on the lockdown.

The only reason Grant Schapps is being brought out is because he hasn't had a hair cut so looks like he's been following the rules

That research was carried out before the Donkey story, not that the story will have any impact.

Key here is the public backers in the party and cabinet are almost publicly exposing how dependent they have been and are on Cummings for power. Don't forget Cummings by some suggested leaks played a role in driving Javid out. Sunak probably wouldn't have gotten that hot seat without playing by the rules Cummings was likely enforcing. Losing Cummings could cause the sort of vacuum that weakens some Cabinet members power. Sunak in particular has very little powerful Tory support behind him by the sounds of some accounts.

Argubly Calderwood is more comparable to Ferguson than Cummings. An easy push. Cummings is powerful, that is what we are seeing. He plays a key role in the power structure of Boris Johnson's Conservative Party. I'm not surprised they're wriggling to keep him. You say the force of public pressure isn't working on them but this will damage their image by not following social protocol. There are consequences to it, that's the whole point of it. The whole point of pushing is to avoid that under the premise that it all adds up eventually. Would they have made a different decision closer to an election? Most likely it is built into their judgement. Early polling already indicating 41% of those who voted Conservative 6 months ago think he should go. Lib Dem voters 72%, Labour 66%. 6% difference between those two likely resides im social class.

Popping up in the commentariat analysis has routinely been what election pivots are going on for at least the last 6 months if not more. The public not actively thinking about who to vote for doesn't really matter. For a governing power this is a key moment to ensure you go into the door knocking stage in control of the topics and with positive perceptions.

So your own first point that difference is about protecting perceptions of image was potentially bullshit according to yourself?

If anything on those lines more likely to do with being 6 months into a 5 year tenure versus SNP having elections next year.

Love it.

Statement out, see tweet for what was said. Or save yourself the hassle of what is next with these quick summaries Summary for normal people - The defence from no.10 has began claiming this wasn't against the rules. There needs to be a grilling of the claims. If it doesn't stand up they're in trouble. Summary for online mouth frothers - the disgusting far right BBC are doing the governments bidding again

Side effects include heavily bloated and covered in freckles

fuck me. 5 million human beings have the virus, human trials going on across the world, but there's labs with monkeys locked in cages being deliberately infected to see if they can get it again. This adds absolutely nothing to science.