One of the great things to come out of the lock down has been that many are becoming accomplished at using the excellent and easy to use video conferencing platform Zoom. It is so nice being able to have conversations with groups of friends who you can’t meet face to face at the moment. I’m doing at least one a day and it just adds to the feeling that you are not cut off. Anyway – have a good night…
A lot of questions have been raised about the daily death toll data that has been issued. A problem has been that it only included those who died in hospital. The above table, based on day of death data, certainly points to the peak being reached a week ago. If that is the case then just perhaps we might have an indication that the corner has been turned which would be a major milestone. This is one that we should…
The cost of fighting the coronavirus It has always been the case since the the scale of the crisis became clear that making saving lives the priority was going to come at a huge economic cost. The OBR report yesterday with all its projections starts to quantify the challenge ahead and in the meantime the new Chancellor has to find a way of balancing what appears to be the irreconcilable. Sunak starts with a lot of goodwill on his side…
So the lockdown conitnues and looks set to be with us in the UK for at least another three weeks. What is quite remarkable is how well the public, that is all of us, are putting up with it. In fact the polling shows that people in the UK give more backing to the lockdown than in similar countries where the same measure has been put in place. The other big development is the sheer scale of what has been…
Unlike in the UK where for less importance is attached to leader ratings the approval numbers for an incumbent US president are generally seen as a good indicator of how the next election is going to shape out. YouGov, which is now very well established in the US, just put out its latest chart showing the trend since just after Trump became president in early 2017 till the present day. What can be seen is that he has had much…
What to make of the latest bout of Labour in-fighting? (Or, as it might just as easily have been described: Part 197 of the The People’s Front for Judaea vs The Popular Front of Judaea.) 1. Corbyn’s allies have been saying for years that allegations of anti-Semitism against Labour Party members, even when true, have been weaponised by his opponents to do him down and derail the Corbynite project. There is an element of truth in this, though the Corbynites have rather…
The first holiday weekend of the coronavirus emergency and I find that I am watching a lot more television and not doing all the things that I hoped I would do. The hard part is simply not knowing that knowing when and how this is going to end. Whatever PB continues. Mike Smithson
Just a week after becoming Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has this weekend seen his first approval ratings and the numbers are certainly hugely different from those of his predecessor. He starts with an opinion net 26% lead for those saying he’s has their approval against those who say he doesn’t have their approval. The party/referendum vote split will be encouraging for the Starmer camp. He’s clearly doing well amongst LAB remainers and GE2019 LDs and, as the graphic shows…