Just in tiers with it all now ....

[dancemom]

New Thread, same old situation....

Ah. I didn't follow this at the time but according to a Times article I just read it says he stepped down after three years as intended.

Can't link because I'm crap

Hmm

https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/neil-olivers-term-as-president-ending

@Bytheloch thanks for drawing my attention to the Neil Oliver article. Very good.

I also think it’s scary to speak out without anonymity or you get called all sorts.

The ease with with which both 'sides' (seems juvenile but can't think of a better word) dish out the abuse is quite frankly disgusting. It honestly makes everything just so much harder.

I don't think he thinks that though.

I mean, I would never call unionism 'cancerous' that's a pretty powerful statement to make. He's not holding back his opinions out of any sort of fear.

He works in the media and knows full well the coverage statements like that will get. He's obviously got strong political views and isn't scared to share them.

This 'brave' thing is a way to make people get on board with the idea that we're living in a totalitarian state. Which is of course immensely silly.

I find it very sad state of affairs that people cannot have a honest and open discussion about something so major without the concern about backlash, trolls or receive abuse.

Ironically I would be more in favour of a independence referendum if we weren't in a pandemic and facing severe economic recession and crisis! For me now is not the time to spend millions of pounds on campaigns, voting and potential for billions of pounds on fighting it out with the UK government when people are on their knees. That money would be better spent supporting people, public services and getting the economy back to a reasonable state.

Whereas I'm the opposite. I think enough is enough of putting up with this shit. Now is exactly the time. For me anyway.

@WannaCapybara

I don't think he thinks that though.

I mean, I would never call unionism 'cancerous' that's a pretty powerful statement to make. He's not holding back his opinions out of any sort of fear.

He works in the media and knows full well the coverage statements like that will get. He's obviously got strong political views and isn't scared to share them.

This 'brave' thing is a way to make people get on board with the idea that we're living in a totalitarian state. Which is of course immensely silly.

Yeah. Abuse is never ever acceptable but I think he enjoys a bit of 'rigorous' debate. He certainly doesn't shy away from it and not should be I suppose. His turn of phrase can be a bit offensive at times but hey ho.

[quote StatisticallyChallenged]More like the ONS. Bloody phone

Anyway, here's the link to the WHO doc which has been noted as defining the test positivity rate with regards to sentinel sites. My understanding is these are not what we have - the ONS stats based on their random survey would be more in line with this

The definition is in a table towards the end

www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/considerations-in-adjusting-public-health-and-social-measures-in-the-context-of-covid-19-interim-guidance[/quote]
Great, thanks statistically! I confess I can't get my head around much of that this morning but I'll have another look once I've had more coffee... It does seem that they are distinguishing between test positivity (which they recognise will be problematic if there are few tests, and would miss mild or atypical cases if only some symptoms merit a test - but 5% is the "controlled" level) and case incidence ("New confirmed cases per 100k population per week" which is still dependent on whatever testing strategy is used, but 50 is the controlled level... so roughly equivalent to our "reported" measure rather than the ons whole population figure). They seem to say tests should cover 1 in 1000 of the population each week, which we are well over. But using this measure (and the mortality measure) does mean we are in "CT3" which is high community transmission, and not close to moving down a tier. Boooooo.

Nor should he that should read

I wholly agree that to have a referendum now would be horrendous. People need peace to recover from all this, not more bitter divisions and financial uncertainty.

@kurtrussellsbeard

Whereas I'm the opposite. I think enough is enough of putting up with this shit. Now is exactly the time. For me anyway.

Can I ask what "this shit" refers to?

For me I see the big hitters that you would vote for in a election already under the decision making control of the SG - education, NHS, mental health, social care, taxation, local authorities spending budget allocation.
The only thing Scotland isn't in control of is benefits system/furlough, inability to put a hard border in (which for me is a good thing), some of the taxation goes south but then comes back again and Scotland receives more per head of capita than England.
For me the majority of the "shit" is a result of Scottish government decisions not UK ones if looking at what effects peoples lives. The EU issue did pee me off a lot but I'm also well aware that if Scotland did go independent it's not a quick route back simply because of blocking issues which occur with Spain (which the Spanish were very vocal about last referendum). So in many ways that ship has sailed and would take many many years to get back.

this shit:

Brexit - which I have no doubt will lead to an erosion of our rights
Tory government.
Tory government acting illegally- nobody caring about this.
Tory government acting callously - people caring about this but unable to do much.
No decent opposition to the Tories whatsoever.
Brexit.
The old boys network which pervades Westminster.
The House of Lords - I recognise the need for a second chamber but WTF is wrong with us that we as British people need to create a class above based on finances or birthright 🤷🏻‍♀️.
The changes to the benefits systems over the last few years that are quite frankly cruel and inhumane.
Exponential rise of food banks.

Of course I have issues with the devolved sectors as well. Education in particular. My feeling is that these issues would be remedied more easily / challenged more effectively in an independent Scotland because there wouldn't be such an SNP majority at Holyrood.

And your post reads a wee bit as if we only don't have control of taxation and benefits. We have all the important things. Actually I'd see that as the opposite. They're pretty fundamental things in creating life circumstances for people which is why we're clearly not allowed near them!

So other than Brexit and house of Lords it's actually the Tory party is the majority of your objection.
I would say that a lot on your list could also be replaced with SNP BTW especially the lack of opposition or inability to challenge things due to a majority.

The Scottish government does control part of taxation hence I pay more than my London counterparts.

Everyone has their own opinion on things that's the joy of democracy but for me if I ask the question of is that enough to cause further economic instability and potential hardship for me it's a no not at this moment in time when so many people are just trying to survive.

@Scottishskifun absolutely and I made that point about the SNP majority in my post.

Yes my problem is the Tory party. I can't see how in a United Kingdom we'll ever get rid of them or their ilk. I was very hopeful when Corbyn became the leader of the Labour Party and my hopes for independence were dampened. Look what happened there.

For me, to now get a government that is reflective and responsive to our specific needs as a country the only way forward is independence.

Brexit has happened and independence would be a similar ill thought through, expensive, divisive, shitshow

@WouldBeGood in your opinion. In mine it's exactly what we need.

I'm actually more enraged at Labour just now than I am at the Tories. The Tories are doing just what we've come to expect, lining their own pockets at our expense (among other things) but Labour are now more than complicit because their silence is enabling this unlawful behaviour.
Hancock broke the law by giving taxpayer's £billions to friends and family and then hiding the evidence.
Yet when Starmer was questioned on this on TV this morning and asked if Hancock should resign, he said no. And better still, that 'the public don't want it.'

@NotAnActualSheep I need to look in more detail too, but I think that from what you're saying there are two different tests in their criteria

• positivity rate assessed from sentinel sites
• actual positive cases per 100k

At the moment we're over the 50 cases although not in all areas so the positivity rate is a slightly moot point but there have been times in the past when the positivity rate was used to keep areas in higher tiers.

For the sentinel type testing the way the test population are tested is as important as the sample size. If you are testing only symptomatic and high risk people then your positivity rate will be higher than it is in the actual population, so 5% positive in this group would not mean 5% in the population

Starmer is an unbelievable disappointment. Why doesn't he see that if he made Labour the pro-Europe party they'd be in Government at the next election?

Are you a labour member kurt? I can understand your disappointment and have friends that feel similar, but lifting people out of poverty is all about money. All these schemes like baby boxes are mucking about with the essential point that for a good section of society, income isn't high enough to cover costs.

We'll have less to redistribute in an indy Scotland, and I fear our best case is that we end up with piddly corporation taxes to keep jobs here, constantly relying on personal taxation and at the whim of multi-nationals. It's absolutely unclear what an independent Scotland has to offer anyone not employed by the public sector, or not working.

I can't see how Scottish society moves past this division at the moment, it gets me down. Perhaps time to add mumsnet into the list of things to give up for a bit!

[quote StatisticallyChallenged]@NotAnActualSheep I need to look in more detail too, but I think that from what you're saying there are two different tests in their criteria

• positivity rate assessed from sentinel sites
• actual positive cases per 100k

At the moment we're over the 50 cases although not in all areas so the positivity rate is a slightly moot point but there have been times in the past when the positivity rate was used to keep areas in higher tiers.

For the sentinel type testing the way the test population are tested is as important as the sample size. If you are testing only symptomatic and high risk people then your positivity rate will be higher than it is in the actual population, so 5% positive in this group would not mean 5% in the population[/quote]
Yes, that's how I understand it too.

The late lamented Scottish tiers seemed to be based on different numbers... So tier 2 was (from memory) 30-75 cases per 100k, and 3-5% positivity, tier 3 75-150 cases and 5-10% positivity and tier 4 over 150 cases per 100k and over 10% positivity (there were other criteria too, based on hospital capacity etc). But it was the "worst" criteria that mattered even if all the others indicated that an area should be in a lower tier. Which was why the % positive was so annoying, as it could so easily be lowered by changing the testing protocol (in March/ April when they were only testing people in hospital, it was 30-40%, which is obviously ridiculous, but it fell rapidly as soon as they introduced community symptomatic testing, but not low enough, seemingly). Edinburgh was in tier 3 forever even though cases were well below 100 in the autumn, but %positivity was always above 5%... until it fell to below 5%and it still wasn't moved!

My guess is that if they reintroduce tiers it will use the (harsher) WHO criteria rather than the previous ones.

And you're right - 5% of tests being positive isn't the same as 5% of the population having it. At the moment around 5% of tests are positive Scotland-wide, but only 0.55% of the population have it according to the ONS. But if we are to get to the magic 50 per 100k (even if we're only counting out of the tests done, so still likely to miss many infected people) we need to halve the current number of infections, even if we get the %positive figure really low! Obviously what we really need is for loads of people to test negative to get both figures down. But that's hardly a surprising observation

Whatever they do they need to be more transparent about it and the reasons the decisions were made.

My LA on paper should have been in tier 1 for a good amount of time but then the excuse was given that due to reliance on the next LA hospital and being intrinsically linked it wasn't possible...... Which raised the question what the point of the thresholds were!
Similar with Edinburgh really was deemed not a good idea as people would then go to Edinburgh..... That's hardly their fault and wasn't one of the criterias at all!

I am fed up with the lack of transparency on what data has been examined and what weighting that then had to setting a decision. People need to know its worth the continuing effort which definitely hasn't been the case previously.