Author Archives: Mark Valladares

2 big stories

The Economist has launched its prediction model for the 2020 US Presidential election (registration required), and it makes for optimistic reading if you’re a liberal, with the current prediction suggesting that based on electoral college votes, the key state is Pennsylvania. The thing about that is that the current prediction indicates that Joe Biden has a 75% likelihood of winning Pennsylvania and, indeed, if their predictions are accurate, Biden is leading by 330 electoral college votes to 208.

Will it stay like that? With five months still to go until polling day, it’s unlikely, but if Donald Trump …

2 big stories

“We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, you can come too, too, too…” is probably not enough compensation for the suggestion by Professor Neil Ferguson that enforcing a lockdown just one week earlier would have saved 20,000 lives. And, as confidence in the Government’s handling of the crisis continues to decline, it does seem as though the response is to offer up as many opportunities for enjoyment as possible, regardless of whether or not it is safe to do so.

The suggestion that, whilst Russia interferes with our politics, China interferes with our perceptions, is an emerging viewpoint. …

2 big stories

There was a time when nuclear disarmament talks between the United States and the Soviet Union were a big thing. Admittedly, these days Russia might be more accurately described as a developing world county with nuclear weapons but any moves towards a reduction in nuclear capability is a good thing. Unfortunately, the American desire to include the Chinese in such talks is likely to be unsuccessful and, with China testing the strength of its neighbours on all sides, that offers a problem going forward.

As a review of Humphrey Hawksley’s book, Asian Waters, notes;

If China does get away

…

2 big stories

New Zealand appears to have dealt with Covid-19, with no new instances and the last case having been cleared. Clear messaging, early action and a community spirit has proved to be most effective, which perhaps puts the UK Government’s efforts into perspective.

Meanwhile, the dash away from science continues as far as Matt Hancock is concerned, with key measures dropped or downplayed in the haste to reopen the economy. The key question is, if you open things up, and people decide that they’d rather not take the risk, is more damage done to, say, the hospitality sector, by …

2 big stories

Oh what a tangled web we weave… The problem with taking increasingly ludicrous positions in public is that, eventually, either you have to give up, or the contortions become so absurd that everybody knows that that’s what they are, at which point the game is up. Health ministers, and the Prime Minister, trashing their own policies in order to justify Dominic Cummings’ moonlight flit to Durham, Michael Gove attempting to suggest that he too would test his eyesight by going for a drive, the scientific advisors silenced. And it does begin to beg the question, what does …

2 big stories

Frankly, I’m bored with Dominic Cummings. I freely accept that he doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him and will only quit when he feels like it – because his notional boss hasn’t got the backbone to do anything about him. But he has become a symbol of exactly what senior Conservatives think of the British public, for which we should be kind of grateful. That said, it appears that more and more Conservative MPs are beginning to realise how damaging his arrogance is becoming. Is it that they don’t like the grief they’re getting from constituents, …