What Divided 2019 British Voters Most

The 2019 UK General Election is the third in a row when the older generations played a major role in securing a Conservative victory, with a vote share of more than 60% in 2019. Labour's share of the vote fell among the over-65's from 31% in 2010, to 24% in 2017 and under 20% in 2019. This is in contrast to the period between 1987 and 2010, during which the Conservatives never scored higher than 48% among over-65's, while Labour never scored lower than 31%. 

In "red wall" constituencies in the north Labour did badly. Many are former coal mining areas that failed to find alternative sources of employment over 35 years. In those that do have high employment levels jobs often pay minimum wage or not much above. Young people tend to move away and leave older people behind. Like older generations elsewhere they did go for Brexit, but beyond this they put cultural issues higher than economic ones, plus Conservative promises of higher spending on the NHS.

Poverty and cost of living were important for young voters. In contrast, immigration was a bigger issue for over-65s (almost 20%) than the 18-24 age group (less than 5%). The dramatic rise of pensioner income over the past 30 years means that a tiny minority of older people need to worry about income.

In order to win an election majority a political party will need to look at the issues for different age groups. Climate change was the most important issue for 32% of the 18-24 age group but only 13% of over-65's. If climate change is the most important thing for a party, then policies should be designed to protect older people. And likewise for other issues.

Source: Age, not class, is now what divides British voters most by Philip Inman in The Guardian, 21 Dec. 2019

Rethinking Intelligence

Historically, intelligence has been defined as the ability to adapt to the environment. Intelligent people can learn, reason, solve problems and make decisions that fit their specific circumstances. 

Alfred Binet, the co-creator of the first modern intelligence test (1905), clearly understood this. He believed intelligence is modifiable, and wanted to identify children who did not respond to regular schooling but needed special instruction to help them become smarter and have more opportunities regardless of social class.

Binet died in 1911 without developing the idea fully. The law of unintended consequences then took over. The early tests measured memory skills and a narrow range of analytical skills - vocabulary recall, information-processing, numerical operations, spatial visualisation and so on. UK psychologist Charles Spearman noted that if you scored highly in one, people tended to do well in all. He interpreted this as a measure of intelligence - the founding principle of IQ tests. The problem was that Binet used academic types of problem to predict academic performance in typical schooling. 

Because of this, there were few serious attempts to measure other broader abilities - thinking creatively, or solving practical problems. New tests were validated against old ones, perpetuating this thinking. IQ tests and school assessments and examinations used the same narrow range of recall and analysis, which impacted on opportunities and career paths open to people. Binet had seen tests as tools to help people realise their full potential, but they developed into ways of restricting opportunities.

Parents who were able to help children with schooling, socialisation and other experiences that allowed them to do well in the tests, gained a self-perpetuating advantage. Their children did well, and passed on the same advantages to their own children. Largely white, well off individuals with a certain academic background held narrow views on what constituted intelligence.

Sternberg and colleague Lynn Okagaki's research showed that different socially defined racial, ethnic and socio-economic groups in the US prioritise different skills in socilaising young people to be intelligent. European-American and Asian-American parents typically focused on cognitive skills, while Latino-American parents emphasised social skills. Predominantly European-American and Asian-American teachers then estimated the abilities of these children to be higher. 

US university admission tests favour the skills of white and Asian students and downplay those of black and Hispanic students. The dominant tests don't even measure aspects of analytical reasoning (needed in science, technology, engineering and mathematics) particularly well. 

Real world problems are different from the characteristics of problems used in standard tests, which don't work well for complex, new, high stakes (and often emotionally charged) problems we can now face. For example, how to balance individual liberty and public health during the Covid pandemic. 

Adaptive intelligence uses four skills to adapt to, shape and select environments. Creative skills to come up with new ideas. Broad-based analytical skills to assess which ideas will work. Practical skills to implement ideas and convince others that they work. Wisdom-based skills to ensure our ideas help to achieve a common good by balancing the interests of ourselves and of others.

Adding creative, practical and wisdom based skill tests to university admission tests increases the accuracy of predictions of both academic and extra-curricular success. They also decreased differences between socially defined racial and ethnic groups. We need to change our views on what it means to be intelligent.

Source: Rethinking Intelligence by Robert J. Sterberg in New Scientist, 16 Jan 2021
[Adaptive Intelligence: Surviving and thriving in times of uncertainty by R.J. Sternberg to be published in Feb. 2021

Healthy Waist Measurement

Carrying excess body fat is known to raise the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and some cancers, and doubles the chance of complications from Covid-19.

Fat around the waist is especially harmful and waist size is increasingly regarded as a more important measurement than body mass index (BMI). 

Waist measurement for all women should be less than 80 cm (about 31.5 in).

Waist measurement for most men should be less than 94 cm (about 37 in).

Waist measurement for men of South Asian descent should be less than 90 cm (around 35 in), who are more at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

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Why UK Covid Death Toll is so High

 On 26 Jan. 2020, the death toll from Covid-19 passed 100,000. How did this happen? There is no single, simple answer, but rather a sequence of poor decisions alongside facts about the UK - age profile, obesity levels, travel hubs and more.

How countries record Covid-19 cases and deaths

The criteria for designating Covid1-9 as the primary cause of death varies from country to country. Some countries are thought to have been, or are currently thought to be, under-reporting cases and deaths. In some countries, especially in rural areas, deaths may not normally be recorded anyway. At times, Covid-19 deaths are thought to be overwhelming the reporting systems. Some countries are thought to be deliberately under-reporting the extent of their problem. Countries vary in the amount of testing carried out, which leads to mild and asymptomatic cases not being recorded.

UK Government decisions

The UK government delayed the first lockdown till March 2020, later than much of western Europe. The week between announcement and actual lockdown may have cost more than 20,000 lives as infection rates were high at this point. By May, restrictions were beginning to be eased, but may well have been too soon. Early data on transmission, infection rate and risk factors was limited and contributed to poor decisions, leading to inaccurate accusations of promoting a herd immunity strategy.

The promised 'world-beating' test-and-trace network was implemented unevenly and at a low rate. The idea was to shut down new outbreaks with comprehensive tracking by a centralised team of tracers. Unlike some other nations (e.g. South Korea and Taiwan) the UK did not have an established test-and-trace system in place ready to be activated. In the summer the UK system had teething problems in reaching contacts and low testing capacity. And low summer infection levels created a false sense of security.

Despite initial evidence that age was a factor in predicting deaths, there was a lack of protection for care home residents. By the first lockdown, the virus was rampant in care homes. Around 30% of fist wave deaths were in care homes, 40% if care home resident deaths in hospital are included.

Attempting to boost the economy, the Eat Out to Help Out scheme may be partly to blame for an increase in cases. However, testing in the summer shows there were still around 500 diagnosed cases daily, with random testing suggesting the actual level to be twice that. Positive tests rose to c.1,000 a day in late August, to c.15,000 a day in October, and in Jan. 2021 still remained above 10,000 a day on average. 

Ministers refused to order a two-week 'circuit breaker' lockdown in September, against SAGE advice. (Short lockdowns can get infection rates down, but rebound once they are lifted.) Schools and universities re-opened, providing new opportunities for virus spread.  Lockdown was introduced in November when the virus had already mutated and was spreading faster in south-east England. 

Having already announced a 5 day relaxation of lockdown for Christmas 2020, increasing numbers of cases and deaths led to a late decision to cut this to one day. 

Deep rooted problems in British society

The UK is among the ten most densely populated big nations - those with more than 20 million people. UK cities are more inter-connected than in many other places,so the virus was able to spread quite quickly. In contrast, Italy's first wave was largely confined to the north of the country.

There are affluent and deprived areas in the UK. Levels of ill health and life expectancy are worst in the poorest areas, and the pandemic seems to have made this worse. Many densely populated areas are  ethnically diverse. Official data shows mortality rates twice as high in deprived areas.

Poor state of public health - the NHS has been under-funded for many years.

The UK has an aging population. Adjusting for the size of the population, deaths have risen but not as much as some headline figures suggest. Some older people in poor health may have died of other causes during the pandemic even if they had not caught the virus.

The UK has one of the highest levels of obesity in the world. Obesity increases the risk of hospitalisation and death, with one study finding the risk of death to be almost double for those who are severely obese. [The UK ranks 6th, after the US, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia and Portugal.]

The UK has relatively high rates of other conditions (e.g. diabetes, kidney disease and respiratory problems) that also increase the risk.

UK strengths proved to be weaknesses for viral spread

The UK is a vibrant global hub for international air travel. Genetic analysis shows the virus was brought into the UK on at least 1,300 separate occasions, mainly from France, Spain and Italy by the end of March 2020. Other island nations (e.g. New Zealand, Australia and Taiwan) were able to prevent the virus getting a foothold and keep deaths to a minimum by introducing strict border restrictions and lockdowns before the virus spread too far, but they did not have the same level of virus infected travellers. UK quarantine rules for all arrivals were only in force from June 2020, and even these were relaxed for travellers from certain countries until Jan. 2021.

How have other countries fared?

Countries such as Australia have been more successful with milder first and second waves. The US never brought its death rate down in the summer as the UK did, and its death toll is catching up. Countries that had very few deaths in the first wave (e.g. Germany and Poland) are now seeing spikes and overall death rates far above usual levels.

Source: various, including BBC News report.