Knowing that political forecasts are even more of a mug's game than economic forecasts, and having already done the latter, let me risk reputation and offer some forecasts for politics in the UK in 2021. First some assumptions are necessary.
Covid 19
The pandemic will get very much worse in the UK before there is any chance that it will get better. This will be because of government inaction. Many more people will die as a consequence, including from non-Covid emergencies that will go untreated.
New Covid variants
Failure to give double dose vaccines will significantly increase the risk that the UK and other countries endorsing single dose action will encourage the well-known risk of vaccine tolerant variants of Covid 19 developing that will prove much harder to treat.
The NHS
The NHS will be overwhelmed this spring, through no fault of its own. The stress will create considerable staff losses and leave it seriously weakened for some considerable time to come.
The economy
The economy will see little or no growth. There will be significant increases in insolvencies, even amongst government agencies. This will result in substantial increases in unemployment. The government will try austerity and this will create significant social tension. QE will fund a deficit very much higher than forecast. The UK will be the worst performer in Europe and maybe the OECD because of Covid and Brexit.
The environment
No real action will be taken. COP26 will be a zoom call. The planet will march relentlessly towards Armageddon.
The forecasts
As the new year arrived there was the first hint that faith in the government amongst diehard Tories might be cracking. As the year goes on substantial excess deaths, social and economic chaos, unemployment and stresses in supply chains resulting from Brexit will all pile in on the government as any prospect of a return to what looks like normal life becomes increasingly remote. That any return to normality might be bought at the cost of an enormous number of unnecessary deaths will be apparent to everyone.
The government's political support will whither as 2021 progresses. In England local elections will become a referendum on its management of the crisis. In Wales and Scotland devolved government elections will have even greater significance.
The SNP will have a majority in Scotland, and with other pro-independence parties, a significant one. The demand for a referendum will grow. If Westminster refuses Edinburgh will be unable to do so, come what may. The threat of social disorder without acceding to the demand will be too great to resist. To prevent allegations of misuse if public money the election will be crowd funded.
Wales will not go so far, as yet. The rise of independent parties will be significant, however. Labour will be under considerable pressure from Wales on devolution. Whether the English leadership will understand that is open to doubt.
Local government will become increasingly vocal, and active, in opposing government policy in England. Its rise will make it clear that the Tories might be in office but not in control.
The chance that the Tories will seek to ban parliament from sitting is very high. They will pass law to prevent legal objections before doing so. Rule by emergency power will be enacted. As opposition grows I suspect habeas corpus will be suspended. Social unrest, likely fuelled by government actions, is probable.
At some point, probably before mid-year, Johnson will be ousted by Tories anxious to retain power. They will seek to form a new government. There will be an almighty power battle to lead it. The new leader will not appease the country.
Labour will prevaricate until after the May elections, when results that are not as it hoped in Wales and Scotland, or as overwhelming as they should be elsewhere, will force it into partnership discussions with other parties.
The call for a general election will grow by the summer. The attempt to maintain order will start with a Tory offer of a national government, and end with an election.
The SNP will support Labour on condition that a legal referendum is granted on independence, and that Wales is given more powers. Other parties may cut a deal to deliver seats from the Tories, knowing that electoral reform is essential when Scotland leaves the Union. This will explicitly be on offer.
A new government will begin a long and very painful rebuilding process. A Tory rump in parliament will continually shout about the corrupt overthrow of their government and seek to undermine democracy from an increasingly far right position whenever they can.
The alternative
Johnson weathers it all out. He might. I think it unlikely.
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I think Johnson will weather things.
Who amongst modern politicians would want to inherit his mess? None of them have got the guts or work ethic to undo his ‘work’. They might consider Jeremy Hunt as the more acceptable face of the Nasty Party, sure.
And the ERG actually runs this Government – not Boris. As does Boris’ funders in the City who hope to capitalise on the chaos.
Also consider that Boris is a bit like Trump – he can’t afford to go in case the Russian connection is revealed and someone actually sorts out what happened during BREXIT and we get a full blown enquiry into COVID. Our weak MSM and constitution might enable him to stick around a lot more – the FTPA helps him to cling on too and build a well defended keep in his castle like his predecessor.
What with the ‘programmed in’ ignorance of the so-called ‘Red Wall’ voters – I can see the Tories once again drawing on their command of fascist tactics.
The real pig in the poke will be Labour. What are they about now? Other than the recent call for a proper lockdown I can’t tell. This means that voters might still gravitate to the party that continues to hurt them as is often the case.
It could very well be that Labour are made up of that cynical, gutless type of politician too? They have a lot of work to convince me otherwise – that is for sure.
What I’m saying is that all sorts of things might go south in 2021.
But people have to be aware that there is a better choice, otherwise………………..?
I mean Blair is out and about opening his trap again. Will someone tell him to please go away. For Starmer, it’s not good being endorsed by a war criminal – someone who took us to war and got people killed for no good reason.
Going a bit further, I believe that you have forecast Scotland leaving Gt Britain, and that you have given an unassailable case for Scotland to have its own currency. Suppose that Scotland did leave and decided to have a Sass as its currency. To start off the Scottish government might offer 1 Sass for 1 Pound in Scottish bank accounts, and that would set an initial exchange rate of 1. Unfortunately there would almost certainly be unforeseen start-up difficulties and Murdoch and his cronies would charge in with bad press, so that the rate falls significantly. This will give an excellent opportunity for the evil billionaires to rush in and pay peanuts for anything worth having. How should the new Scottish government respond?
There is extensive commentary ion this on Scottish sites, and more is coming
Personally I can see no reason why the Scottish pound would be devalued against the £. Tell me why when Scotland has all the energy and the Uk ahs not?
reasons to be cheerful
an autumn election with the Tories kicked out sounds good
any chance of a referendum on Europe at the same time ?
🙂
Alternatively, Johnson isn’t an aberration, but actually “is” the living, breathing represenatative of a very substantial proportion of the much deeper British ‘possessive individualist’, and simultameously Hobbesian reality of the British Union today; someone whose swaggering, preposterous behaviour, inconsistencies and complacent arrogance both charms and motivates a sufficient number of voters; who underpin the neoliberal ideology of present day Britain (mainly, but by no means exclusively residing in England).
I assure you I do not propose that Scotland leaves the Union for trifling reasons.
I know you don’t
Jeremy Hunt might angle for the Tory leadership. We have come to a pretty pass when he seems a great relief from Johnson. But as has been noted the ERG rule the roost so it wont happen.
“The chance that the Tories will seek to ban parliament from sitting is very high. They will pass law to prevent legal objections before doing so. Rule by emergency power will be enacted. As opposition grows I suspect habeas corpus will be suspended. Social unrest, likely fuelled by government actions, is probable.”
I think your tin foil hat is on a bit too tight this morning.
Parliament is not sitting this week
It’s really not hard to see the trend continuing, is it?
And measures to prevent criticism are growing by the day
………….and that is how Johnson will weather the storm so to speak by attempting to close any outlets for dissent.
One thing I would say though is that this idea that Johnson and his voters have some sort of ‘affinity’ is in my view mis-represented. Many decent people who might have the odd petty prejudice in this country and are suffering from 10 years of austerity have had these prejudices nudged and ramped up mercilessly by the Right wing media and Tory pollsters who have through modern analytics been able to segment these people out and target them.
I say this not to excuse these people but in order to say that it shows that offering a new/different narrative/vision COULD be the way to address this issue. Minds could be changed. We can’t write these people off. They have been cruelly used – manipulated. And we don’t have to accept the Tory Right framing of all this either as Kenan Malick is right to say:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/03/its-too-easy-to-lapse-into-stereotypes-when-we-talk-about-red-wall-seats
So, over to Labour first. Kier – can you hear?
Forgive me, but it is not a matter of “writing people off”, but neither are we here by misadventure. The ‘misadventure’ is taken by neoliberals as the stoically accepted (and acceptable) downside of possessive individualism, and is therefore necessary to adopt and shrug off; built into a narrative of sturdy resistance against outrageous fortune; about which it is unreasonable to expect a free society to do much about, and through which neoliberalism must ever endure for the sake of ‘freedom’, ‘markets’, ‘taking back control’ and the reassuring familiarities of conservatism (small ‘c’, but capital ‘c’ when a vote is required).
It is not as if we have no experience of boom-and-bust, financial crash, Austerity and repetitive government chaos, repeated endlessly (and on increasingly epic scale) over forty years of neoliberalism; not to realise that somehow it comes with the territory of neoliberalism, indeed has become our familiar cultural furniture, to which many are strongly attached; it is a repetitive disaster, so familiar that it is easily, endlessly and all too familiarly reinterpreted as the price of neoliberal ‘freedom’. This is its terms of endearment.
Michael Oakshott (1901-1990), the Conservative political philosopher described this well: “the pedigree of every political ideology shows it to be the creature, not of premeditation in advance of political activity, but of meditation upon a manner of politics.” (From, ‘Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays’, 1962)
In the end, all of it is a matter of values, and faith in ideology. This has a long, long history in Britain, or it would have vanished long ago.
The Good Law Project’s view, with reference to the Hansard Society
The powers awarded to individual Ministers enables them to make decisions without reference to Parliament – European Union Act 2020.
Mr Murphy is perhaps not so ‘tin foil hat’ wearing after all.
https://action.goodlawproject.org/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1&id=73cbbbcdfa02d335
“…The government’s political support will whither as 2021 progresses….”
In real terms, despite the inevitable moaning, that will depend on the extent to which Starmer can deliver an alternative prospect which the electorate (and of course the media) sees as plausible (not that I’m expecting this government to end its term early) Much as I came to despise Tony Blair he had the ability to sell a vision and garner support. I can’t imagine Starmer being able to do that. Neither can I imagine him able to get Labour working in concert with other parties (certainly not the SNP).
So….. I reckon Johnson is safe in office. I expect him to bumble on until the party sees some prospect of light at the end of the current tunnel whereupon his Party will likely discard him along with a package of bad memories. If he’s still in No10 this time next year I will not be in the least bit surprised.
Given, as Richard says, that political forecasts are an even bigger mugs game than economic ones, my forecasts, for what they’re worth, mostly agree with Richards.
Covid – I’m really frightened by the speed at which the situation is getting worse, but also unsurprised given the incompetence, indecisiveness and ideological bent of this government. We’re currently OK getting food delivered, but if pandemic keeps spreading at this rate, will the basic functions of society be kept running?
NHS – I hope to God staff in the NHS will be able to cope, but however amazing they are, there are limits to peoples’ physical and mental endurance. A lot more people will die both from Covid, and non-Covid conditions left untreated due to Covid.
(My partner is in the extremely vulnerable category, so we really have to be careful. She’s currently trying to arrange a blood test with her GP, and cannot get through on the phone at all. And since you can’t go to the practice itself to book appointments due to Covid, she’s stuck.)
Economy – just as Richard says, I suspect. I do think that Sunak will be forced to extend the business support measures (again) into the summer, if not further.
Environment – COP26 will be hosted by our useless government, so unfortunately, I agree with Richard again.
Politics – this is really difficult, but the more obvious ones are.
1) The SNP will have a significant majority following the Scottish Parliament elections, and demand for a 2nd referendum will grow. Johnson will refuse, and infuriate the Scots even more by doing so, further increasing the desire for independence.
2) Agree with Richard again Wales.
3) Will Johnson go? Yes, if the government’s popularity sinks really low due to his utter incompetence. Naturally, it’ll be an internal coup that does for him.
As for the rest, I’ve no idea. All I can do personally is hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Good luck
Especially for your wife
Phoning the GP is the best use I have ever found for the redial facility on mobile phones
Thanks Richard. Nifty things, mobile phones.
“My partner is in the extremely vulnerable category, so we really have to be careful. She’s currently trying to arrange a blood test with her GP, and cannot get through on the phone at all. And since you can’t go to the practice itself to book appointments due to Covid, she’s stuck”
Good luck.
My GP does not do blood tests anymore. In fact, they don’t seem to do much at all. Given the wide range of covid symptoms, most people qualify to not be seen!
The main hospital phlebotomy clinic was closed and blood tests transferred to another unit, a mile away, where since they can only seat 20 people, 2-metres from each other, people needing blood tests queue outside. It’s cold and wet. There were old people queuing outside for an hour, slowly moving forward.
I decided it was either risk haemorrhage (I’m on anticoagulants with an unstable INR), or risk hypothermia. I went home. I’m 71.
Your wife, and you, have my sympathy.
Have you no community phlebotomy service?
We have one in this town, which is obviously overworked!
Thanks for the advice JohnM. However, I’m glad to say she’s managed to get a test arranged for tomorrow morning. So its not all doom and gloom.
🙂
Bring back the Telegram!!
On Scotland: I personally demand a plebiscite in the May Holyrood election, not any referendum (sometime in the future and if it suits Westminster). Demanding a referendum is passé.
A plebiscite resolves a number of issues, not least among them: it saves on cost for having a referendum that specifically asks the question about independence, and also reduces the health risks in carrying out another nationwide vote possibly in quick succession (hah, as if). It also resolves the bizarre arguments about a ‘legal’ referendum and whether or not we require permission from Westminster. Anyone that accepts that Scotland is a nation in its own right, and that applies a modicum of thought to it, can see that needing ‘permission’ makes no sense,,,
In January, we have the Court of Session Judicial Review testing the question: does the law, as it currently stands (very important caveat when Westminster has the habit of changing laws half way through court cases so the point is then moot), allow the Scottish Parliament to legislate for an independence referendum (that is, without a s.30) – the case in favour is very strong and the defendants have failed, so far, to answer the substance of the argument. If won this would allow parliament to put a Bill through without having to,,, test it in the courts. A plebiscite election would not hinge on this being won anyway. The section 30 and s.31 are parts of the Scotland Act (whatever year) that are the relevant parts of the law pertaining to the devolved parliament.
If a plebiscite revealed a pro-independence majority (for any and all candidates standing on that platform) in May, then a later referendum would be on the terms of our leaving, not on independence itself, and saves any begging just to be allowed to choose in the first place. Other options for how a plebiscite could be used are available.
I don’t think anyone, except maybe the SNP themselves, want SNP MPs in Westminster. Apparently they get a fair amount of dosh though, in salary of course, but also in short money that the SNP probably need rather badly, so I doubt they’d pull the MPs out of Westminster anytime soon – but, what if there was a UK GE soon after say that hypothetical plebiscite Holyrood GE? That would be awkward, I’ll have to look into what a transition period would entail, I’d have thought immediate withdrawal from Westminster – but can that be done before we have fiscal autonomy?
I have a niggling suspicion that the vast number of UK GE’s we have had these last few years (‘fixed term’ parliament is a bit laughable at this stage) have merely been to weaken the smaller parties – it costs a lot to campaign for a GE – perhaps even to weaken the SNP specifically. If there is GE in the summer the best political move the SNP could make would be to hold a plebiscite election in May – their accounts don’t look so healthy that they could fight a Holyrood then a Westminster GE as well as look at a referendum within 2 years. Labour would never agree to a referendum, they are as much establishment as the Tories.
2021 will probably be an interesting year rather than a fun one. Electoral reform seems necessary whatever happens.
Thanks and that conclusion is right
Will buyer’s remorse set in that quickly over Bojo? I do not think so. As the perennial outsider, I was bemused by the referendum result, worried by the Theresa May election result, and appalled by the massive Johnson majority. I accept that I do not understand what motivates most voters, and can only find solace in dogs and fine wine.
I try those two
And a few other things
“Failure to give double dose vaccines will significantly increase the risk that the UK and other countries endorsing single dose action will encourage the well-known risk of vaccine tolerant variants of Covid 19”
Most vaccines are administered as a single dose. Their efficacy can be somewhat less than total, for example as low as 50% with some flu vaccines, but there’s really no evidence that this is a cause of harmful virus mutations. Even 50% can be the difference between R being greater or less than 1. The higher the R rate the higher the presence of the virus in the population and the higher chance of new variants emerging.
“The economy will see little or no growth……. The UK will be the worst performer in Europe”
It looks like the Govt has managed to back a winning horse in choosing to order 100 million doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. Some will say that’s just luck! However, if we can get the vaccine, even a single dose, into enough arms quickly, the virus will be stopped in its tracks by Easter.
This will probably be a lot quicker than we’ll see in the rest of Europe. So we’ll be OK for this year. The danger will be in 2022 and beyond if the Govt starts fretting about debts and deficits. The EU could start fretting too!
“Johnson weathers it all out. He might. I think it unlikely.”
Maybe a little wishful thinking? If the vaccine does work well, he could decide to quit while he is ahead but that won’t change anything. Who’s going to follow him?
None of these vaccines has been approved for single dose use
Which makes you, to be polite, as complete an idiot as those approving it for use in this way, all of whom should eventually be subject to homicide charges in my opinion.
@ Richard,
I hate to give an ‘argument from authority’ because I know that doesn’t work with Economics, but Professor Van Tam, the Govt’s deputy medical adviser, makes the point that second doses are being delayed, rather than being ‘failed to deliver’, because “every time we vaccinate someone a second time, we are not vaccinating someone else for the first time” and “If a family has two elderly grandparents and there are two vaccines available, it is better to give both 89% than to give one 95% protection with two quick doses, and the other grandparent no protection at all.”
So even if we change the 89% to 60%, it still makes good sense. Or are we both idiots to think that?
Yes
Because the risk – as those who really know about this stuff point out – is that a half dose significantly increases the risk of a new vaccine tolerant variant arising
And that risk is massive
Do you have a reference which quantifies this “massive” risk? I’ve found this which seems to indicate that a reduced dose of vaccine can’t be compared to, say, a sub optimal dose of an antibiotic. The vaccine isn’t directly acting on a the Covid virus in the same way that penicillin is acting on a bacerium
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304978/
Pfizer say it is not licnced for this use
Just read what serious medics say on the issue
Look at what Anthony Fauci said
Richard,
You claimed that a single dosage (as opposed to two) increases the risk of vaccine-tolerant variants developing. You were then challenged to provide evidence for this assertion, and you failed to do so. The fact that Pfizer have not licensed it for single dose does not prove that a single dose increases the risk of vaccine-tolerant variants developments.
Fauci has not made that claim either.
Perhaps you should stick to your area of expertise (whatever that is), rather than call people idiots in matters you clearly know little to nothing about, lest you look like an idiot yourself.
The suggestion is being widely made by medical experts
Try Anthony Costello
And please don’t call again
The Pfizer vaccine has recommended intervals of minimum 21 days between doses, and the AstraZeneca vaccine a minimum 28 days.
The hospital is vaccinating staff at those intervals, irrespective of the govt.
As to your concerns of vaccine resistance, they seem to be unfounded. At least for conventional vaccines. Re: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28356449/
Presumably the vaccine manufacturer knows their particular vaccine better….it may well be that the Pfizer vaccine has a problem. The Astra vaccine is more conventional. Incidentally, France has vaccinated only a few hundred people, as of this morning, and the Astra/Oxford vaccine may well not be through the vetting process in the EU for several months…so BoJo is not the only one not taking this seriously. Germany seems to be ignoring the EU and going it alone, vaccine-wise that is.
Thats a very unusual thing re: a virus mutating *because* only one dose of vaccine is administered – I will have to look into what’s being said about it.
The vaccine/virus interaction is nothing like that of bacteria/antibiotics. Antibiotics kill bacteria directly – so if you do not finish a course of antibiotics there can be a population of (pathogenic) bacteria left living, dividing, and mutating in your body that you have no defence against because it was only the antibiotic that was acting against them. A vaccine acts by stimulating your own immune system to kill the virus – it only works when you take it before infection, it won’t cure anything, but it is your own body’s defences that are doing the killing. Once stimulated the body should carry on doing the killing.
So if one dose of vaccine does not offer as much protection, then you are more likely to be vulnerable to the disease – though by all accounts these vaccines seem to offer protection from becoming very ill rather than anything else (no information on preventing transmission, or stopping you catching it), and if one dose does more than no dose then there should be some benefit. Not ideal, and obviously the key people to get the vaccine first should be the ones given the maximum protection, that is, the two doses. What I can’t see is how it would affect the rate of mutation in the virus(es), any more than if there was no vaccine at all… Possibly a weaker immune response would give it time to ,,, anyway, it’s not obvious, I’ll have to check it out. One dose should still reduce virus replication to some extent and so reduce rate of mutation, on the face of it.
I don’t agree or disagree with a policy of administering only one dose – it should be a clinical decision, always.
(Oh sorry I see that PeterM has mentioned antibiotics too, sorry. And I don’t agree with anything Peter Martin said above!)
Remember this is not a normal vaccine
Most vaccines require injecting the disease
This one does not, at all
It works by preventing the vaccine attaching to cells by repelling the spikes on the coronavirus cell
It does not create antibodies.
The fear is only one dose will mean the virus will mutate to find ways to attach desoure the vaccines. So comparison with other vaccines does not make sense. Concern about mutation does. And the scientific community does have that concern
If we administer an antibiotic we can never expect 100% success. Even if the failure rate is very low , say 0.1%, that can be enough to allow an antibiotic resistant variant to survive, escape and reproduce. Once it has escaped the exponential nature of its reproduction rate will mean that it can soon catch up with antibiotic vulnerable strains. It isn’t going to matter too much if the initial failure rate was 0.01 % or 0.1%. It’s just a question of time.
Also it won’t matter much where in the world this might be happening. Any new variant will be just a few hours flight time away.
So the question is whether we’ll see the same effect with the Covid 19 virus and developed vaccines, and whether even a 95% success rate is going to be good enough.
None of us are experts in the field so we can’t say with any authority, but it doesn’t look like it will. So we’d better just hope that those experts who say we don’t have the same problem with vaccine acquired resistance are right! Otherwise we really are in trouble.
John S Warren
You’re forgiven. Of course you’re entitled to disagree but it changes nothing for me.
Your assertion is one of political philosophy and valid it is; my moral sentiments are driven about what we now know about technology and politics.
Oakshott, died did he not before we had algorithms, Cambridge Analytica and so forth? Come on now – things have moved on since 1990 – a hell of a lot.
Why after 2008 and all that, did the system not crumble?
Fancy watching some documentaries?
‘Social Dilemma’ – where Shoshana Zubhoff states quite clearly that many people are ‘totally clueless’ that they are being profiled whilst using ISPs and data is being collected and readied for further use to the highest bidder; try talking to the web developers in this film or Brittany Kaiser of Cambridge Analytica who can be seen in the film ‘The Great Hack’ coming to terms with how their art has been put to use.
All these young idealistic IT tech people have been used by the market and political forces you describe and are having real problems coming to terms with it (Kaiser ended up working for Alexander Nix at CA because she worked hard for the Obama campaign as in intern and did not get paid for it!!; her family fell on hard times and Nix offered her a job. The rest is history). Kaiser was present when Vote Leave kicked off. A lot of this stuff using algorithms is about changing people’s behaviour (as Jaron Lanier points out in ‘Social Dilemma’).
And then consider (say) the margin between Leave and Remain or how the Trump vote was actually ran online (they targeted people with no known voting intention and set out to influence them over and over and over again – influencing the margins).
All I’m saying John is that the politics has upped the ante.
On line exposure to messaging has weaponised information.
The bubbles of what you say we know of ‘boom-and-bust, financial crash, Austerity and repetitive government chaos, repeated endlessly’ have still not been popped by reality because there are people working very hard and spending buckets loads of cash keeping them inflated.
It’s relevant John – which is why I’m saying that we should not write people off who have been mass-manipulated and see them as capable of being turned.
And we can only do that by continuing to engage with such people and taking engagement as an opportunity to put things straight.
That’s all.
I have read Zuboff carefully and agree with her analysis. She provides the most acute appreciation of the dot.com boom and its consequences, which led us into the hands of ‘surveillance capitalism’; but it doesn’t change my conception of the ideology, or our political history; not abstract, but real. All surveillance capitalism has done is weaponise the politics of ‘possessive individualism’ beyond the dreams of avarice.
Because of the nature of surveillance capitalism the public, brought up on neoliberal free-market consumer dogma for forty years, is now delivering itself freely – information, identity, everything – into the hands of surveillance capitalists for the sake of the new idolatry: the seductive gratification of one-click, instant personal convenience. George Orwell’s Big Brother doesn’t need to spy on us; we spy on ourselves to order; he doesn’t need a Room 101 to deliver Winston Smith’s assent; we are now bought and sold daily – by ourselves.
Quite correct John – BUT – we have to face up to the fact that if the internet is the new battle ground, those with a counter vailing narrative have to be there, and in the same amount in terms of money and messaging.
We talk about the biased MSM all of the time here. It is even more insipid on the internet.
There is mass manipulation going on – so therefore I contend that what people are ‘feeling’ has been placed there by information streams and other reinforcement techniques that bring out the worst in people. I suppose it’s the ‘Forgive them father for they know not what they do’ approach I am advocating.
There are two responses – call them ‘thick’ and blame them or see them as an opportunity to be won over. Humanise them I say, do not dehumanise them. That is what the Right wingers and market extremists want.
If we write these people off, we risk writing ourselves off – or any countervailing argument.
I am not “writing them off”; I simply accept that whatever you do there remains a very significant constituency that are ‘not for turning’: they never were, they never will be. They prevail in Britain, and support even survives the clear and present, disastrous incompetence of what must be (almost, save Chamberlain?) the worst British Government since the 19th century. There is no certainty, even now, the Conservatives would lose a general election. I am a tolerant Scot, if that is Britain, so be it. I repeat – I am not promoting that Scotland leaves the Union for reasons that can be changed. Scotland should leave for a fundamental reason that Isaiah Berlin expressed best; some differences between people are incommensurable. Period.
Richard and Contrary
Florian Krammer is Professor at the Department of Microbiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He says on twitter:
“Florian Krammer
@florian_krammer
· 16h
1) If we want to generate difficult viral escape mutants in the lab (e.g. for epitope mapping), we subject the virus to low antibody pressure and then slowly move up. A little bit like after one vaccine dose. I think it would be good to give the second dose as soon as possible.
Thanks
“A false positive result occurred in two of 2981 PCR negative people–a specificity of 99.93% (99.76% to 99.99%). But lateral flow tests missed 23 of the 45 PCR positive participants, giving a sensitivity of 48.89% (33.70% to 64.23%).”
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4848#:~:text=A%20false%20positive%20result%20occurred,(33.70%25%20to%2064.23%25).
MHRA approved use of the flow test with this caveat. ” A negative testresult means that the test has not detected the presence of the covid-19 virus, at the time the test was taken. Anyone receiving a negative test result should continue to follow the latest guidance for their area.”
Lateral flow tests do not seem to be regulated to test university students to travel nor for the use of testing relatives in care homes or children in schools. Their use has been suspended in Liverpool, Sheffield and Manchester. The UK government are legally liable, one assumes, for the consequences arising from the unregulated use of these tests.
Also, those missed positive tests, of which there is a high percentage, will make the test, trace, isolate more difficult at a time when new cases of infection are now much higher than before.
You are right
The p[retenece that these prove someone ahs not got Covid 19 is dangerous and a massive waste of money
Sure I am fatigued
I am fatigued by those who promote the risk that many more might die as a result of promoting the cause of the Great Barrington Declaration
As you do
Join the banned list
And start reading some stuff from people in the NHS and those who know about vaccines and viruses and then wonder why they are scared witless of being told to use a vaccine for unlicensed purpose
I think we really should leave decisions on how to use the vaccines to immunology experts. Some of the ways that the vaccines work is technically complicated.
What is unarguable is that the bigger the population of virus, the bigger the chance of it’s mutation. They do it all the time.
So if it is true that spreading the inoculations wider but thinner reduces the number of people getting infected and thus reduces the number of people spreading the infection, it is quite possible to surmise that the overall total population of the virus could be reduced, making mutations less likely.
BUT THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE EFFORT MUST BE MADE TO PRODUCE ENOUGH VACCINE QUICKLY TO DO THE JOB PROPERLY!
I am arguing vaccine decisions should be left to experts
They overwhelmingly say that this is licensed for two stage use in a limited time period for a reason
So let’s presume they did that for good reason
I do not trust anyone who just wants to maximise arms that have been jabbed
I smell neoliberalism and populism in that, plus danger
Yes, but you have picked your experts, and their assumptions. The manufacturers are probably expecting that enough vaccines have been made and purchased to do the job. This is now a different ball game.
I worry too that this incompetent bigoted government can well misread the SAGE advice, either for their own ends, or just with a reiteration of their incompetence.
Suire I have picked my experts
I have picked those who have consistently appeared to be right
It’s a good basis for selection bias
I’m not clear if there has been sufficient discussion of the following.
The UK Government’s proposal for the new dosing regime is here – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/letter-to-the-profession-from-the-uk-chief-medical-officers-on-the-uk-covid-19-vaccination-programmes/letter-to-the-profession-from-the-uk-chief-medical-officers-regarding-the-uk-covid-19-vaccination-programmes
That’s primarily based on a JCVI evidence statement (linked in the above), which says –
“Based on the timing of cases accrued in the phase 3 study, most the vaccine failures in the period between doses occurred shortly after vaccination, the period before any immune response is expected.”
https://app.box.com/s/iddfb4ppwkmtjusir2tc/file/759357623956
Hence they conclude for the Pfizer vaccine efficacy – “This estimate of ~ 90% is much higher than the 52.4% reported in the paper where the early cases post the first dose were included.”
So they are effectively saying that the official vaccine efficacy data from the trials is wrong, and the resulting claim for higher efficacy, along with “(unpublished data)” and some other claims in the JCVI evidence, justifies the new dosing regime.
(sarcasm font) Only a sceptic would argue against this, and suggest that over-hyping the availability of the vaccine in the UK prompted this new approach when the usual claims for UK exceptionalism failed to work.
Would the JCVI’s re-interpretation have been done much earlier if Boris & Co had not over-hyped how many doses had been ordered by the UK? e.g. Triumphally stated in the last few days by Matt Hancock to be more than all the countries of the EU added together.
(sarcasm font off) The re-interpretation of the vaccine efficacy seems reasonable to me. I assume the methods of analysis prescribed for Phase 3 trials do not allow headline results based on the kind of analysis used by JCVI.
I have seen no serious commentator with the real ability to appraise this data who is happy about this approach
Pfizer is explicitly not happy about it
The US will not endorse it
I read politics at play and not medical evidence
I do not trust this arrangement and think no wise person should given past politically driven government intervention in this crisis
Hi John
Ok – you are not ‘writing them off’ – accepted – it’s just a turn of phrase I used whose real suggestion remains that the fight is still on. We could still change minds.
The film ‘Social Dilemma’ details the amount of money that has been invested in these behaviour changing and predictive algorithms and the amounts of money are staggering – all originally designed to unlock purchasing behaviour but now also used in a political system near you.
If that amount of money had been used to cure cancer, or poverty or MMT we would not be where we are now.
Also worth watching is ‘Screened Out’ which concentrates on and confirms the behaviour changing effects of the online world on young people.
The film ‘The Great Hack’ (where you will meet Brittany Kaiser) is also good and Carole Cadwaladr from the Guardian makes a number of appearances.
I appreciate your predicament. I understand the need for the ‘good fight’; but I do not believe Britain is ready to change, or will change. We have had over forty years of this, with gathering and more strident, intolerant momentum and it scales upwards in a ruthless and ever more reckless, irresponsible direction that is repugnant to me, and many Scots to whom culturally and socially its consequences remain unacceptable. I no longer believe that even a change of British Government would change the underlying ideology.
Even in transient electoral defeat neoliberalism will merely regroup, and it will return with greater force, later – or much more likely, sooner. I say this because it is an ideology with origins long before neoliberalism. In post-war neoliberalism an older ideology at last found a political economics that would actually deliver for the political philosophy of possessive individualism, beyond its conventional expectations, and even achieve its most extreme ambitions, especially following modern radical changes in personal communications. From 1979 when the neoliberals first took power, they have slowly consolidated, and pulled off the unexpected; neoliberalism took over the Hobbesian State, lock, stock and barrel; and turned it to the exclusive service of possessive individualism.
Neoliberalism could readily abandon the already half-forgotten philosophical sensibility of Smithian social responsibility. Adding insult to injury the neoliberals even stole Adam Smith’s name. They now contemplate not merely their obsessively solipsistic freedom, but aspire to deliver the ‘sovereign individual’, by definition very, very few; with absolute power, responsible to no one. This is not a society in which I wish to live.
Many seem to think my comments on new Covid variants and vaccination policy in this post are inappropriate or ill-informed. I disagree. In support I offer this from Prof Devi Sridhar of Edinburgh University who may be the most prominent if not eminent, commentator on this issue now. She said in the Guardian today:
“The immediate priority should be surviving the next few months without the NHS collapsing, and planning for a robust response to eliminate Covid in the spring and summer.
Vaccinating as many people as quickly as possible will be key to this. The UK has decided to vaccinate more people with one dose rather than fewer people with two. This is an ethical and political judgment rather than a scientific one; waiting for follow-up doses to be delivered carries huge costs.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/05/vaccines-pandemic-covid-variant-lockdown
I have based my view on opinions such as hers.
There is an ethical judgement here – call it neoliberal, if you wish – and a political judgement here – call it populist if you wish – but not a scientific one, as the science is quite clear. The potential huge cost is in deaths, failure to beat the virus by not delivering immunity and the risk of new variants.
Am I entitled to call these who will apply neoliberal and populist thinking to this issue ‘idiots’? I think so. You may disagree, but the evidence that the populist, neoliberal approach has already failed is in the fact that we already have the third-highest death rate per million in the world, and rising. I prefer the science, myself.
Some eminent professors – see Trish Greenhalgh, for example – are somewhat more robust. But she lost her mother to Covid recently and has every bit of evidence to back up her claims as a result.
“……..the science is quite clear”
If that were the case, there wouldn’t be any controversy.
Andrew Costello, who you previously mentioned with some approval, has said:
” Modellers believe that spreading out our limited supply of vaccine as single doses for 3 months will save up to 6000 lives. (Presumably in the UK – PM) One concern though is whether single doses might lead to ‘vaccine resistance’ through virus mutation. ”
So the question has to be how we balance the 6000 lives with the risk of virus mutation. And can virus mutation still be an issue even if we have 95% or so efficacy? In which case the same argument can be used for not vaccinating at all. So what about 90% or 85% or 70%? Where do we draw the line?
I doubt there is any clarity to be found just yet. It will only be a matter of opinion.
I have nopt the sliughest idea who you are
I do know who Devi Sridhar is and trust her
She’d ay you’re wrong
I’d say Anthony Costello’s great fear is justified
And I do know you are no longer welcome here
Rather like Google has banned Talk Radio (and good for them) so am I banning Covidiots
Others take note
One thing that I have not seen mentioned – forgive me if I have missed it – is that after 12 weeks the second dose is “mandatory”. So the gain in numbers vaccinated appears to be only for those treated in the first 12 weeks. Maybe an exponential rise in vaccine production rate might spoil my argument? (Assuming that sufficient vaccinators are available).
I suspect I must be being simplistic, but the full rationale should have been stated. Tell me if I have lost the plot!
They are talking about mixing vaccines to achieve this
There is no evidence that works because no one has tested this
Nicola Sturgeon had said that the vaccines will not be mixed in Scotland.
Good
As evidence suggests
In the U.K., where England and Scotland have entered a third national lockdown as officials battle a more contagious variant of coronavirus, officials have said they will allow more than 21 days between doses of Pfizer’s vaccines and would consider allowing people to get vaccinated with two different vaccines.
“But Hahn and Marks rejected those policies for the United States.
“The available data continue to support the use of two specified doses of each authorized vaccine at specified intervals,” they wrote. It’s understandable that people may want to stretch the vaccine supply, but it’s not safe to do so, they added.
“If people do not truly know how protective a vaccine is, there is the potential for harm because they may assume that they are fully protected when they are not, and accordingly, alter their behavior to take unnecessary risks,” they explained.”
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-01-05/top-fda-officials-say-two-full-doses-of-covid-vaccines-a-must
Thanks
I am pleased to note that the WHO has expressed its concerns about delaying second doses of vaccine today. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-who/who-recommends-two-doses-of-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-within-21-28-days-idUKKBN29A26M I rather hope some who called here take note. I had done my research.