The virus. PPE. Part 1

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Uncle Fester said:
Sturgeon has just addressed reports of supplies of PPE going to England and not Scotland at her daily briefing.
She said that the Scottish Government were investigating and that the Scottish Chief Medical Officer would be speaking to Hancock. She also said that if it were true, then that would be "unconscionable and unacceptable".
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Scottish Government Clinical Director apparently considers the idea of restriction on PPE for Scotland to be rubbish.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52279578
 
myotis said:
Scottish Government Clinical Director apparently considers the idea of restriction on PPE for Scotland to be rubbish.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52279578
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I think the story in the link in your post must have been updated. It now reads:

"Nicola Sturgeon has voiced her extreme concern over claims the NHS in England is being prioritised for personal protection equipment ahead of Scotland. "
 
KitsuneAndy said:
I've been going to the shops once a week for our food shopping. And out for a 1 hour ride on the bike a day, on the road so avoiding parks etc.

Travelling between first and second homes has been specifically mentioned in the briefings, so for them to do this just makes more people feel like it's OK for them to ignore the rules too.

Yes the actual health impact is negligible, but if you expect the public to follow the rules, then the people putting them in place have to be following them just as strictly.
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Count me out of that group, I am more than grown up to understand what is going on and WHY the PM has special privileges (where else is he supposed to go ?) in this case there is no breach of the rules, he has gone to a home to recuperate, which one is irrelevant, hes not holidaying in a cottage in wales for a weekend is he ?
 
Studio488commercial said:
Count me out of that group, I am more than grown up to understand what is going on and WHY the PM has special privileges (where else is he supposed to go ?) in this case there is no breach of the rules, he has gone to a home to recuperate, which one is irrelevant, hes not holidaying in a cottage in wales for a weekend is he ?
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Matt Hancock said he doesn't consider people travelling to their second home to be a "necessary journey".

He could have gone to his primary residence.
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
The link doesn't mention the Scottish Government Clinical Director....
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No but it did, it was long post entirely reporting an interview he had done earlier today, no mention of Nicola Sturgeon in the original link. Very strange that they should replace it with an entirely different post. I can't find the original post so it seems to have been entirely replaced.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
That's an interesting assertion.

If the government had listened to its expert advisers in 2016, when Exercise Cygnus showed the gaping holes in the UK's preparations for dealing with novel and fast moving infections, the country might have been prepared for the current situation.

If the government had listened to its expert advisors in 2017, when the Cabinet Office reported a high risk of pandemic flu resulting in 20,000 to 750,000 UK deaths, the country might have been prepared for the current situation.

If the government had listened to its expert adviser Prof Sir Ian Boyd in 2018, when he warned that previous advice on pandemic preparations had not been properly implemented, the country might have been prepared for the current situation.

...so blaming "its experts" for giving poor advice sounds rather like yet another case of being economical with the actualité.
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Well we "could have" stocked up on PPE, and ventilators, but then I expect that the opposition would have challenged the government on all that money tied up doing nothing. A lot of PPE has a shelf life so I understand, so that would need replacing periodically. It's a lose/lose situation if your glass is half empty. Whether they should of had a different strategy will come out in the wash, but as they say, hindsight is 20:20 vision....
 
KitsuneAndy said:
He could have gone to his primary residence.
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He may have been advised to go to Chequers by his medical team. We don't know, but if he was, that would have been the journey from hospital to "home" on medical grounds. I for one would not have expected him to return to No 10.
 
Jelster said:
He may have been advised to go to Chequers by his medical team. We don't know, but if he was, that would have been the journey from hospital to "home" on medical grounds. I for one would not have expected him to return to No 10.
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And his girlfriend?

The point is, it's yet another example of them not following the rules they expect the general public to follow.

I have friends who are separated from their spouses because of where they were when the lockdown was announced, and they're not allowed to travel to the other residence.
 
Studio488commercial said:
Count me out of that group, I am more than grown up to understand what is going on and WHY the PM has special privileges (where else is he supposed to go ?) in this case there is no breach of the rules, he has gone to a home to recuperate, which one is irrelevant, hes not holidaying in a cottage in wales for a weekend is he ?
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Sadly, you may be grown up but don’t seem well educated :), the point is about presentation when you (HMG) are telling people to follow certain guidelines but apparently not flowing them yourselves :( . What is so hard to understand? Nobody is saying PM shouldn’t go to Chequers (place of work as well as residence, like Downing Street) nor that his GF should not go there (though arguable) but an explanation should have been given. We know why they didn’t :(. They just think it’s their right to do what they want, as with all the other “curfew” breakers :(.
 
KitsuneAndy said:
And his girlfriend?

The point is, it's yet another example of them not following the rules they expect the general public to follow.

I have friends who are separated from their spouses because of where they were when the lockdown was announced, and they're not allowed to travel to the other residence.
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Are they pregnant? Just been released from hospital?
 
myotis said:
..., although there have been issues in the past with Governments (of all persuasions) using data before the ONS considered them to be robust. There is a historical "tension" between the ONS and Government.
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And not surprisingly. Didn’t Margaret Thatcher, one of the few (Harold Wilson can’t can think of as another) Ministers who could count beyond ten, fiddle with the basis on which some statistics were collected?

Edit: typo, for clarity.
 
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Jelster said:
A very good article from Alex Massie that seems to hit the mark well.

Alex Massie
Tuesday April 14 2020, 12.01am, The Times

It seems we are all experts now, which means I’ve had enough of most of you. Everyone knows that the United Kingdom has blundered, let down by its political leaders who have been overwhelmed by this crisis. A thousand people a day are dying from Covid-19 and that doesn’t even include the numbers perishing in care homes. It could hardly be more horrific and it is a fiasco of historic proportions.

So why weren’t we better prepared? One possible answer to at least part of this important question is that the government was listening to its own expert advisers. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies [Sage], which reports to the government, held its first formal meeting about Covid-19 on January 22. It followed a meeting the previous day of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group [Nervtag] which had raised the threat level posed by the coronavirus from “very low” to “low”. By the end of the month, the risk was considered only “moderate”.

On February 13 Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, still talked about a UK outbreak as an “if, not a when” possibility. The first UK death from coronavirus was recorded on March 5 but as late as March 9 Sage rejected the idea of a nationwide lockdown. Three days later the threat level was finally raised from “moderate” to “high”. By then the virus was already at large. On March 23 we went into lockdown. Too late, perhaps, but better late than never.

Could an earlier lockdown have saved lives and limited the spread of the virus? It seems almost certain that it would have. Was a week lost amid overly optimistic assumptions? Perhaps. But would you, if you were charged with making this decision, have ignored or overruled the advice you were receiving from some of the country’s leading scientists? No, come on, be honest. I don’t think you would have.

That’s not a criticism of expertise, merely an acknowledgement that expertise exists in a realm of uncertainty. It is the best we have and much better than nothing; that does not make it perfect. Politicians must make a judgment based on the advice they receive and their estimation of what the country will accept. An earlier lockdown was rejected, in part, because the government — and its scientific advisers — thought that the public would not accept such restrictions. Indeed Downing Street has been surprised by the extent to which the British people have put up with, and honoured, their confinement.

There is another data point supporting this suggestion that the government has been paying careful attention to expert advice. That data point has a name: Nicola Sturgeon. Yesterday the first minister reminded the country that she had taken all her decisions “based on the best advice I had”. Those people who do not trust Boris Johnson might reflect that Ms Sturgeon, in general terms, agrees with the prime minister; some who mistrust the first minister might put aside their prejudices and note she is not doing very much that is very different from what is being done elsewhere in the kingdom.

This Scottish government, as an institution, has every incentive to diverge from UK policy wherever possible. That is a matter of instinct and reasoned preference. And yet, in the broad terms of how this crisis is being handled, Ms Sturgeon has not split from a carefully built pan-UK consensus. There has been an occasional difference of emphasis — the Scottish government moved a little faster on closing schools — but the bigger picture has been one of surprising uniformity.

Perhaps this consensus will crumble; it probably cannot hold for ever. And yet, even in the murky world of off-the-record whispering, it is remarkably difficult to pick up murmurings of dissent. The absence of disagreement is unusual and significant. Still, as Ms Sturgeon says: “If the evidence tells us that we need to do something different in Scotland than the rest of the UK, or on a different timescale, we will not hesitate to do that.” That moment is not yet here and this is revealing too.

Much of this crisis is horrific; little of it is easy. The experts disagree too. On the one hand, public health experts insist the lockdown must continue for weeks or even months; on the other, epidemiologists seem more likely to favour an earlier easing of restrictions. These are generalisations, of course; there is a lot of grey between black and white.

Because, bluntly, in the absence of a vaccine a lot more of us are going to have to be infected with the virus before we can get through this. That assumes immunity can be built up or reinfection minimised. “Herd immunity” is a dispassionate term, not a suggestion the public be the subjects of some wild public health experiment and it is, I think, irresponsible to claim otherwise.

If there is a second wave — and most people who know about these things seem to expect one — there may, subject to capacity, be an opportunity to do things differently then. That, to my amateur eye, seems likely to involve emulating Germany’s example of testing and contact tracing, to the extent that is possible. By the autumn you’d think it should be. All the while, those most susceptible to the virus will have to be shielded from it as best can be done.

And as time passes, the indirect impact of the lockdown becomes ever more apparent; Covid-19 deaths are not the only deaths and, even if they are stripped out of consideration, mortality rates appear to be spiking. Then there is the economic fallout, as yet unknowable in the sense we do not yet know if it will be cataclysmic or merely horrific. This is not some reductive choice between saving the economy and saving lives but, rather, a balance that must be found. For now the lockdown is more important.

The public inquiry which must follow this emergency will wish to examine all the decisions that have been made; it must probe for mistakes and weaknesses. Testing capacity and provision of personal protective equipment will, rightly, be part of that. That inquiry must be a full reckoning. We must be better prepared next time.

So by all means keep insisting the government should have moved more quickly. But as recently as a month ago the experts were telling the government a lockdown was either impossible or not required. The government listened to them. What they know now is not what they knew, for sure, then. If our politicians have blundered, they may have done so for the right reasons. This is little comfort amid the wreckage but it still matters.
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The vice episode on YouTube with Edward snowdon is worth a watch.

He highlights the fact that they had been warning of a pandemic with an outcome like this was only a mater of time, and how badly prepared most countries actual were.
Especially in America where it became a bidding war on equipment and supplies.

They talk about a report from Harvard stating that we won’t get a second wave but a 3rd or 4th wave and we will have to continue to have lockdowns to control it, unless a vaccine can be produced.(I haven’t actually looked into this though)

The thing that I found lost interesting was about the virus tracking and how countries like Taiwan and South Korea had used phones and apps to track everyone.

He said that even though they say they will anonymise it that it would be realistic as they need so much info just to track it properly, and what would happen to all this data and apps after it was over, who would have and use the information and would this become standard life being fully tracked where ever you went. He expect that it would be abused by governments all over the world.

Funnily about 3/4h after watching it the NHS advertised such a tracking app, not mandatory here yet though at least.
 
JohnC6 said:
If anyone is interested in what's going on in China there's a programme just started on Radio4 about how this pandemic is affecting the Party.
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Thanks, listened to it on catch-up later, it was interesting.
 
All this bickering is becoming tiresome, and pointless because it doesn't change anything.
He's at Chequers, she's at chequers, get over it and move on....
I know I don't have to read it, but I can't help myself....
:p
 
pmac said:
The vice episode on YouTube with Edward snowdon is worth a watch.

He highlights the fact that they had been warning of a pandemic with an outcome like this was only a mater of time, and how badly prepared most countries actual were.
Especially in America where it became a bidding war on equipment and supplies.

They talk about a report from Harvard stating that we won’t get a second wave but a 3rd or 4th wave and we will have to continue to have lockdowns to control it, unless a vaccine can be produced.(I haven’t actually looked into this though)

The thing that I found lost interesting was about the virus tracking and how countries like Taiwan and South Korea had used phones and apps to track everyone.

He said that even though they say they will anonymise it that it would be realistic as they need so much info just to track it properly, and what would happen to all this data and apps after it was over, who would have and use the information and would this become standard life being fully tracked where ever you went. He expect that it would be abused by governments all over the world.

Funnily about 3/4h after watching it the NHS advertised such a tracking app, not mandatory here yet though at least.
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They had only to take on board Bill Gates’ excellent TED talk to know what was going to happen — you would think if they were going to listen to anyone, they’d listen to him. It shows how poor our rulers are :(.
 
Jelster said:
A very good article from Alex Massie that seems to hit the mark well.

Alex Massie
Tuesday April 14 2020, 12.01am, The Times

It seems we are all experts now, which means I’ve had enough of most of you. Everyone knows that the United Kingdom has blundered, let down by its political leaders who have been overwhelmed by this crisis. A thousand people a day are dying from Covid-19 and that doesn’t even include the numbers perishing in care homes. It could hardly be more horrific and it is a fiasco of historic proportions.

So why weren’t we better prepared? One possible answer to at least part of this important question is that the government was listening to its own expert advisers. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies [Sage], which reports to the government, held its first formal meeting about Covid-19 on January 22. It followed a meeting the previous day of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group [Nervtag] which had raised the threat level posed by the coronavirus from “very low” to “low”. By the end of the month, the risk was considered only “moderate”.

On February 13 Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, still talked about a UK outbreak as an “if, not a when” possibility. The first UK death from coronavirus was recorded on March 5 but as late as March 9 Sage rejected the idea of a nationwide lockdown. Three days later the threat level was finally raised from “moderate” to “high”. By then the virus was already at large. On March 23 we went into lockdown. Too late, perhaps, but better late than never.

Could an earlier lockdown have saved lives and limited the spread of the virus? It seems almost certain that it would have. Was a week lost amid overly optimistic assumptions? Perhaps. But would you, if you were charged with making this decision, have ignored or overruled the advice you were receiving from some of the country’s leading scientists? No, come on, be honest. I don’t think you would have.

That’s not a criticism of expertise, merely an acknowledgement that expertise exists in a realm of uncertainty. It is the best we have and much better than nothing; that does not make it perfect. Politicians must make a judgment based on the advice they receive and their estimation of what the country will accept. An earlier lockdown was rejected, in part, because the government — and its scientific advisers — thought that the public would not accept such restrictions. Indeed Downing Street has been surprised by the extent to which the British people have put up with, and honoured, their confinement.

There is another data point supporting this suggestion that the government has been paying careful attention to expert advice. That data point has a name: Nicola Sturgeon. Yesterday the first minister reminded the country that she had taken all her decisions “based on the best advice I had”. Those people who do not trust Boris Johnson might reflect that Ms Sturgeon, in general terms, agrees with the prime minister; some who mistrust the first minister might put aside their prejudices and note she is not doing very much that is very different from what is being done elsewhere in the kingdom.

This Scottish government, as an institution, has every incentive to diverge from UK policy wherever possible. That is a matter of instinct and reasoned preference. And yet, in the broad terms of how this crisis is being handled, Ms Sturgeon has not split from a carefully built pan-UK consensus. There has been an occasional difference of emphasis — the Scottish government moved a little faster on closing schools — but the bigger picture has been one of surprising uniformity.

Perhaps this consensus will crumble; it probably cannot hold for ever. And yet, even in the murky world of off-the-record whispering, it is remarkably difficult to pick up murmurings of dissent. The absence of disagreement is unusual and significant. Still, as Ms Sturgeon says: “If the evidence tells us that we need to do something different in Scotland than the rest of the UK, or on a different timescale, we will not hesitate to do that.” That moment is not yet here and this is revealing too.

Much of this crisis is horrific; little of it is easy. The experts disagree too. On the one hand, public health experts insist the lockdown must continue for weeks or even months; on the other, epidemiologists seem more likely to favour an earlier easing of restrictions. These are generalisations, of course; there is a lot of grey between black and white.

Because, bluntly, in the absence of a vaccine a lot more of us are going to have to be infected with the virus before we can get through this. That assumes immunity can be built up or reinfection minimised. “Herd immunity” is a dispassionate term, not a suggestion the public be the subjects of some wild public health experiment and it is, I think, irresponsible to claim otherwise.

If there is a second wave — and most people who know about these things seem to expect one — there may, subject to capacity, be an opportunity to do things differently then. That, to my amateur eye, seems likely to involve emulating Germany’s example of testing and contact tracing, to the extent that is possible. By the autumn you’d think it should be. All the while, those most susceptible to the virus will have to be shielded from it as best can be done.

And as time passes, the indirect impact of the lockdown becomes ever more apparent; Covid-19 deaths are not the only deaths and, even if they are stripped out of consideration, mortality rates appear to be spiking. Then there is the economic fallout, as yet unknowable in the sense we do not yet know if it will be cataclysmic or merely horrific. This is not some reductive choice between saving the economy and saving lives but, rather, a balance that must be found. For now the lockdown is more important.

The public inquiry which must follow this emergency will wish to examine all the decisions that have been made; it must probe for mistakes and weaknesses. Testing capacity and provision of personal protective equipment will, rightly, be part of that. That inquiry must be a full reckoning. We must be better prepared next time.

So by all means keep insisting the government should have moved more quickly. But as recently as a month ago the experts were telling the government a lockdown was either impossible or not required. The government listened to them. What they know now is not what they knew, for sure, then. If our politicians have blundered, they may have done so for the right reasons. This is little comfort amid the wreckage but it still matters.
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Not to take away any criticism of the advisers, which may be justified, but it must be remembered, in judging the performance of the Civil Service generally that, apart from any reduction in numers, many of them have been temporarily assigned to working on Brexit for the last 2-4 years.

At least Cummings hadn’t had time to replace them all with his “weirdos“ :).
 
KitsuneAndy said:
And his girlfriend?

The point is, it's yet another example of them not following the rules they expect the general public to follow.

I have friends who are separated from their spouses because of where they were when the lockdown was announced, and they're not allowed to travel to the other residence.
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But as I have said, rules cannot always be followed 100% of the time - what if an elderly living alone relative had a fall at home and was in some way unable to function as they had been, maybe they needed help using the bathroom or could not stand (and so make drinks, food).You had space in your home and could pick them up and live with you for a bit. Would you stick to the rules and leave them there or would you move them?

What if someone is suffering domestic abuse - should they have to stay with that person or move out?

What if Boris wanted to remain at Downing St but for security/medical/other reasons, he was told otherwise. AFAIK you cant move homes but he didnt go from home to home, he went from hospital to home - not sure its that bad!

Your point about friends being separated because of lockdown - i think you were able to travel to your home (i.e. if you were away working and it came into place then) so the only way they are apart is if they are not living together?
 
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cambsno said:
But as I have said, rules cannot always be followed 100% of the time - what if an elderly living alone relative had a fall at home and was in some way unable to function as they had been, maybe they needed help using the bathroom or could not stand (and so make drinks, food).You had space in your home and could pick them up and live with you for a bit. Would you stick to the rules and leave them there or would you move them?

What if someone is suffering domestic abuse - should they have to stay with that person or move out?

What if Boris wanted to remain at Downing St but for security/medical/other reasons, he was told otherwise. AFAIK you cant move homes but he didnt go from home to home, he went from hospital to home - not sure its that bad!

Your point about friends being separated because of lockdown - i think you were able to travel to your home (i.e. if you were away working and it came into place then) so the only way they are apart is if they are not living together?
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Two homes, for different reasons. But both supposed to be moving to one home later this year.

One is doing one up, one works away from home a lot and they're both planning on moving. They were at separate homes when it was announced, and have asked, and been both been told that it would be an unnecessary journey to travel between the homes. Different local authorities, same advice though.

Which of course is completely stupid. But that's the advice that's being given to the public at present.

If it was me I'd be travelling anyway tbh. But it would be risking being fined.
 
KitsuneAndy said:
Two homes, for different reasons. But both supposed to be moving to one home later this year.

One is doing one up, one works away from home a lot and they're both planning on moving. They were at separate homes when it was announced, and have asked, and been both been told that it would be an unnecessary journey to travel between the homes. Different local authorities, same advice though.

Which of course is completely stupid. But that's the advice that's being given to the public at present.

If it was me I'd be travelling anyway tbh. But it would be risking being fined.
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Same here, I would just do it, but I reckon lots of people would have done it on the day it was all announced.
 
cambsno said:
But as I have said, rules cannot always be followed 100% of the time - what if an elderly living alone relative had a fall at home and was in some way unable to function as they had been, maybe they needed help using the bathroom or could not stand (and so make drinks, food).You had space in your home and could pick them up and live with you for a bit. Would you stick to the rules and leave them there or would you move them?

What if someone is suffering domestic abuse - should they have to stay with that person or move out?

What if Boris wanted to remain at Downing St but for security/medical/other reasons, he was told otherwise. AFAIK you cant move homes but he didnt go from home to home, he went from hospital to home - not sure its that bad!

Your point about friends being separated because of lockdown - i think you were able to travel to your home (i.e. if you were away working and it came into place then) so the only way they are apart is if they are not living together?
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But where was this all said by HMG?
 
Jelster said:
A very good article from Alex Massie that seems to hit the mark well.

Alex Massie
Tuesday April 14 2020, 12.01am, The Times

It seems we are all experts now, which means I’ve had enough of most of you. Everyone knows that the United Kingdom has blundered, let down by its political leaders who have been overwhelmed by this crisis. A thousand people a day are dying from Covid-19 and that doesn’t even include the numbers perishing in care homes. It could hardly be more horrific and it is a fiasco of historic proportions.

So why weren’t we better prepared? One possible answer to at least part of this important question is that the government was listening to its own expert advisers. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies [Sage], which reports to the government, held its first formal meeting about Covid-19 on January 22. It followed a meeting the previous day of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group [Nervtag] which had raised the threat level posed by the coronavirus from “very low” to “low”. By the end of the month, the risk was considered only “moderate”.
.....
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So he suggests that the government were listening to the scientific advice. Why weren't they listening following the pandemic scenario planning Exercise Cygnus that so clearly highlighted the lack of ventilators?
Sounds like an early attempt by right wing media commentators to start spreading the blame.

EDIT
Continuing to read the thread i see that Andrew had almost identical thoughts...
 
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cambsno said:
Same here, I would just do it, but I reckon lots of people would have done it on the day it was all announced.
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But nobody would have known unless you were “caught”! These others were announced or found by the watching media!
 
KitsuneAndy said:
Two homes, for different reasons. But both supposed to be moving to one home later this year.

One is doing one up, one works away from home a lot and they're both planning on moving. They were at separate homes when it was announced, and have asked, and been both been told that it would be an unnecessary journey to travel between the homes. Different local authorities, same advice though.

Which of course is completely stupid. But that's the advice that's being given to the public at present.

If it was me I'd be travelling anyway tbh. But it would be risking being fined.
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But these were announced!
 
Rapscallion said:
So he suggests that the government were listening to the scientific advice. Why weren't they listening following the pandemic scenario planning Exercise Cygnus that so clearly highlighted the lack of ventilators?
Sounds like an early attempt by right wing media commentators to start spreading the blame.
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I did predict that on an earlier post about a later Inquiry :). If memory serves, I said the first part of the inquiry would blame the advisers :).
 
KitsuneAndy said:
I have friends who are separated from their spouses because of where they were when the lockdown was announced, and they're not allowed to travel to the other residence.
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Short of their spouses being in a different country, when lockdown started, they had the option of returning to their spouses. They obviously chose not to.
 
nilagin said:
Short of their spouses being in a different country, when lockdown started, they had the option of returning to their spouses. They obviously chose not to.
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Chose, or had to continue working because the lockdown was half-arsed.

Still doesn't change current advise though either way does it?
 
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KitsuneAndy said:
Chose, or had to continue working because the lockdown was half-arsed.

Still doesn't change current advise though either way does it?
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Chose, they could still carry on working.
As it stands, Chequers is Boris's home residence, Downing Street is his work address. So after his stay in hospital he can go to his home residence. When he is well enough, he can return to work, which he is fortunate enough to have living accommodation at.

No one else has a problem with it, just the "few" on here it would seem.
 
nilagin said:
Chose, they could still carry on working.
As it stands, Chequers is Boris's home residence, Downing Street is his work address. So after his stay in hospital he can go to his home residence. When he is well enough, he can return to work, which he is fortunate enough to have living accommodation at.

No one else has a problem with it, just the "few" on here it would seem.
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I think you are just making that up, I would say Downing Street is PM‘s home residence and Chequers is his weekend residence used for entertaining official and unofficial guests and sometimes meetings of Cabinet colleagues.:).
 
sphexx said:
I did predict that on an earlier post about a later Inquiry :). If memory serves, I said the first part of the inquiry would blame the advisers :).
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It’s quite likely that Chris Witty will be incarcerated in the Tower of London when this is all over and done with.
 
sphexx said:
And not surprisingly. Didn’t Margaret Thatcher, one of the few (Harold Wilson ain’t can think of as another) Ministers who could count beyond ten, fiddle with the basis on which some statistics were collected?
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I'm not sure about the fiddling with the basis of how statistics were collected, it's more about the use and interpretation of the statistics, and Harold Wilsons name comes up as the only PM who has ever really understood statistics.

But it's not restricted to MPs as various Government Chief Scientists have come under fire from the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) for not understanding the statistics behind and, therefore, the scientific evidence they have presented to Government. Unfortunately, many scientists aren't that good with statistics, in spite of their crucial importance to scientific understanding.

A few years ago the RSS (in association with the ONS) put together some training for MPs and Journalists, to help them better understand statistics in decision making, but at the end of the first year (as I remember) several journalists had signed up, but no MPs.

(Begin rant) The biggest problem I think, is that most people seem to expect some sort of "objective certainty" from statistics, we see this with meaningless marketing phrases along the line of "clinically proven" or "scientifically proven" which is the exact opposite of what science and statistics do. Statistics can only ever provide an objective measure of "uncertainty" about scientific data, and even then there is always an element of subjectivity (professional judgement) involved. (End rant)
 
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