All posts by Marc Cornelius

Nadine Dorries

Nadine Dorries was appointed Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in Johnson’s recent cabinet reshuffle.

Have a look at the Wikipedia article on her and ask yourself one question: Is she a fit person to be a Secretary of State?

I used to think that the cabinet was largely composed of second rate politicians. Dorries’ appointment (and the rest of the recent cabinet reshuffle) has made me revise that opinion. I now think that the cabinet is largely composed of third-rate politicians. 

What on earth have we done to deserve this shambles? 

 

 

Beyond belief!

Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg has hailed Health Secretary Matt Hancock as a “successful genius” – after he was allegedly branded “hopeless” by the PM. 

Mind you, having heard what Rees-Mogg said, he didn’t sound at all convinced in the truth of his own statements.

Have a look at what Dominic Cummings has to say about Hancock here.

This put me in mind of the following quotation:

“When you are dead you don’t know that you’re dead. All of the pain is felt by others. The same thing happens when you’re stupid.”

 

 

 

Message to The Government

More specifically a message to the Rt Hon Oliver Dowden, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
We are most distinctly not American. We don’t need flags as  “a proud reminder of our history and the ties that bind us”. That’s actually one of the things that makes us British. 

Comparisons 2

Five local authorities in England now have a 7-Day Case Rate below 100:

  • Torridge 48.3
  • North Devon 63.8
  • Exeter 82.9
  • North East Lincolnshire 90.9
  • Ryedale 99.3

However there are ten which have a case rate higher than 500 and a massive 201 with a case rates above 250.

There are 315 local authorities in England  at least for the purposes of this exercise there are! (The Isles of Scilly figures are always included with those of Cornwall, and the City of London is included with Hackney.)

More than 60% of English local authorities have a case rate higher than 250 and more than 98% have a case rate higher than 100. 

Contrast this with Germany where ‘only’ 36% have a case rate higher than 100! Their highest case rate is 340.2, England’s highest is 684.7 (twice as high).

So when people (usually new breed Conservatives) tell you that this government is doing a good job, don’t believe them. To be fair, the vaccination programme is going well. However even there, there are concerns. For example, the exceedingly small number of people who have received a second vaccination.

The government shouldn’t be comparing its performance against countries that are doing badly, but against countries that are doing well.

Comparisons

A comparison between the Covid-19 seven day case rates in German local authorities and those in English local authorities. 

Germany is in blue and England is in red.

The vertical axis show the number of local authorities and the horizontal axis shows the case rates. The latter are divided into ‘bins’.  The first ‘bin’ shows the number of authorities with case rates between 0 and 25 (there’s just one authority in that ‘bin), the second ‘bin’ shows the number of authorities with case rates between 25 and 50 (this contains 22 local authorities) all the way to the final ‘bin’ which shows cases rates between  975 and 1,000.

Note the very wide range of case rates in England – ranging from 55.7 in Torridge to 961.1 in Knowsley. The lowest case rate in Germany (24.3)  is in Kreis Friesland and the highest (426.6) is in Burgenlandkreis. It’s easy to see that Germany has much lower case rates than England. 

Comparisons

On 12 January North Devon had the second lowest seven day case rate (111.2)  of any local authority in England – beaten by Torridge (90.8).

Devon is in the bottom five so-called Upper Tier Local Authorities (counties and unitary authorities) with a case rate of 205. North Lincolnshire has the lowest case rate of 149.7.

The worst hit local authority is Knowsley in the North West, which has a case rate of 1,273.3! 

Contrast this with Germany: their highest case rate is 601.8. No other German local authority has a case rate higher than 500, and  70 (out of a total of 412)  have a case rate lower than Torridge!! Germany’s lowest case rate, in Zweibrücken, is 32.2.  

Almost a third of England’s local authorities (91 out of 315) have a case rate higher than Germany’s highest case rate.

And people still say that Johnson and his cabinet of incompetents are doing a good job under the circumstances!  To me it’s quite clear that they’re not.