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Boris Johnson has made a surprise visit to North Shropshire in an apparent sign of Tory jitters about a Lib Dem challenge in what is usually a staunchly Conservative seat in a byelection on 16 December.

Johnson, who was wearing a mask, chatted to customers and watched as the Tory candidate in North Shropshire, Neil Shastri-Hurst, a doctor turned barrister, gave people booster jabs. However, the prime minister got the candidate’s name wrong.

Tory strategists are believed to be worried about a possible shock in North Shropshire, where the byelection was called after the resignation of Owen Paterson, who was found to have repeatedly breached rules about lobbying.

A Conservative email sent to supporters after the Bexley result urged donations to be ploughed into North Shropshire, warning that the Liberal Democrats had a real chance of victory.

Surely if he’s turned up there personally it’s because they think it’s in the bag and he wants some of the victory halo to shine on him.

TIMES: ⁦@RishiSunak plan to slash taxes #TomorrowsPapersToday

https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1466887366497513476?s=20

Somebody making a pitch for the top job? Vrroom vrrroom.

F**k off on cutting Income Tax. Reverse the NI cut first.

Cutting Income Tax while having NI higher just further reduces the taxes that are paid on unearned incomes, while further penalising those on earned incomes.

It is obvious that this would be the way it would happen, despite the very good reasons why it shouldn't. The politicians look to the opinion polls, the focus groups and precedent. Raising National Insurance and cutting Income Tax is a winning combination. Has been for decades.

I have no idea how to fix this.

If it doesn't get fixed eventually people are going to go for someone like Corbyn.

Break the system and start again.

That sounds like a great outcome, provided we can find someone who is like Corbyn, except for the antisemitism, the stale dogmatism, the lack of interest in persuasion and the absence of leadership abilities. And probably a bunch of other negative traits.

At what stage do you conclude that there's more wrong than right, and that things are getting worse rather than better, so you might as well shake things up rather than hope that the country changes direction spontaneously?

Corbyn was a 70's Socialist. Not at all suitable for the 2020's. In addition to the drawbacks you list.
There will come a time when a radical implementing real change does emerge again.
But it will be a radicalism of the future, not of the past, or of the present.

Our current PM is exactly that. A radical implementing real change.

He is? Do enlighten me.

Brexit.

.

TIMES: ⁦@RishiSunak plan to slash taxes #TomorrowsPapersToday

https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1466887366497513476?s=20

Somebody making a pitch for the top job? Vrroom vrrroom.

F**k off on cutting Income Tax. Reverse the NI cut first.

Cutting Income Tax while having NI higher just further reduces the taxes that are paid on unearned incomes, while further penalising those on earned incomes.

It is obvious that this would be the way it would happen, despite the very good reasons why it shouldn't. The politicians look to the opinion polls, the focus groups and precedent. Raising National Insurance and cutting Income Tax is a winning combination. Has been for decades.

I have no idea how to fix this.

If it doesn't get fixed eventually people are going to go for someone like Corbyn.

Break the system and start again.

That sounds like a great outcome, provided we can find someone who is like Corbyn, except for the antisemitism, the stale dogmatism, the lack of interest in persuasion and the absence of leadership abilities. And probably a bunch of other negative traits.

At what stage do you conclude that there's more wrong than right, and that things are getting worse rather than better, so you might as well shake things up rather than hope that the country changes direction spontaneously?

Corbyn was a 70's Socialist. Not at all suitable for the 2020's. In addition to the drawbacks you list.
There will come a time when a radical implementing real change does emerge again.
But it will be a radicalism of the future, not of the past, or of the present.

Yes. It was the most disappointing aspect of his leadership (apart from the antisemitism, the factional infighting and ...) that he appeared to have zero interest in thinking of new answers, seeing anything new as being a repudiation of dearly-held principles.

But it meant that his socialism was a dead thing, a triumph of form over content, rote-learned slogans.

Corbyn's leadership was initially the most exciting development in British politics in my lifetime, but ended up as the biggest waste of an opportunity. I suppose he did play a part in humiliating Theresa May, so at least there's that.

Am very much a believer in the long run cyclical nature of UK politics. Seems to go off a 35-40 year spell.
Where the ancien regime seems fixed and immutably settled, then suddenly the dam breaks.
Reforms of Disraeli/Gladstone 1860's early 70's.
Liberal government 1905 onwards.
Attlee.
Thatcher.
Each sets the parameters of debate for a couple of generations. Governments of all stripes manage within them.
And then suddenly, they are swept away. To the general surprise and shock of commentators. Who invariably didn't see it coming, because they were schooled in the old ways.

That may be true, but instead of a Labour leader setting the parameters of debate for a couple of generations, it looks like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson have done so. It could be another 35 years until there's a chance to change direction again.

OK.
I reckon Brexit is the last desperate knockings of a Thatcherite consensus which has run its course.
Rather than anything radical it's a futile attempt to put the band back together.
No one has answered the inherent contradictions of the GFC.
A new generation will. And it won't be Socialism or Singapore on Thames.

The thing that a lot of people miss is that Brexit is a lot more radical than even its proponents assume. It's not a return a pre-EEC state. It's a completely untried mode of being for the UK. It's been done with very little run up or planning, and there are a lot of questions that won't be answered until the reality is bedded in.

If that's not radical, I don't know what it.

I would agree with you But it is this very unplanned nature which I feel won't settle anything for a couple of generations in the way I described upthread.
We are already seeing it become less and less popular as the reality dawns. I just don't foresee it being the consensus till 2060. And if it is, it won't be the one any of its proponents anticipated.

TIMES: ⁦@RishiSunak plan to slash taxes #TomorrowsPapersToday

https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1466887366497513476?s=20

Somebody making a pitch for the top job? Vrroom vrrroom.

F**k off on cutting Income Tax. Reverse the NI cut first.

Cutting Income Tax while having NI higher just further reduces the taxes that are paid on unearned incomes, while further penalising those on earned incomes.

It is obvious that this would be the way it would happen, despite the very good reasons why it shouldn't. The politicians look to the opinion polls, the focus groups and precedent. Raising National Insurance and cutting Income Tax is a winning combination. Has been for decades.

I have no idea how to fix this.

If it doesn't get fixed eventually people are going to go for someone like Corbyn.

Break the system and start again.

That sounds like a great outcome, provided we can find someone who is like Corbyn, except for the antisemitism, the stale dogmatism, the lack of interest in persuasion and the absence of leadership abilities. And probably a bunch of other negative traits.

At what stage do you conclude that there's more wrong than right, and that things are getting worse rather than better, so you might as well shake things up rather than hope that the country changes direction spontaneously?

Corbyn was a 70's Socialist. Not at all suitable for the 2020's. In addition to the drawbacks you list.
There will come a time when a radical implementing real change does emerge again.
But it will be a radicalism of the future, not of the past, or of the present.

Our current PM is exactly that. A radical implementing real change.

He is? Do enlighten me.

Brexit.

.

TIMES: ⁦@RishiSunak plan to slash taxes #TomorrowsPapersToday

https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1466887366497513476?s=20

Somebody making a pitch for the top job? Vrroom vrrroom.

F**k off on cutting Income Tax. Reverse the NI cut first.

Cutting Income Tax while having NI higher just further reduces the taxes that are paid on unearned incomes, while further penalising those on earned incomes.

It is obvious that this would be the way it would happen, despite the very good reasons why it shouldn't. The politicians look to the opinion polls, the focus groups and precedent. Raising National Insurance and cutting Income Tax is a winning combination. Has been for decades.

I have no idea how to fix this.

If it doesn't get fixed eventually people are going to go for someone like Corbyn.

Break the system and start again.

That sounds like a great outcome, provided we can find someone who is like Corbyn, except for the antisemitism, the stale dogmatism, the lack of interest in persuasion and the absence of leadership abilities. And probably a bunch of other negative traits.

At what stage do you conclude that there's more wrong than right, and that things are getting worse rather than better, so you might as well shake things up rather than hope that the country changes direction spontaneously?

Corbyn was a 70's Socialist. Not at all suitable for the 2020's. In addition to the drawbacks you list.
There will come a time when a radical implementing real change does emerge again.
But it will be a radicalism of the future, not of the past, or of the present.

Yes. It was the most disappointing aspect of his leadership (apart from the antisemitism, the factional infighting and ...) that he appeared to have zero interest in thinking of new answers, seeing anything new as being a repudiation of dearly-held principles.

But it meant that his socialism was a dead thing, a triumph of form over content, rote-learned slogans.

Corbyn's leadership was initially the most exciting development in British politics in my lifetime, but ended up as the biggest waste of an opportunity. I suppose he did play a part in humiliating Theresa May, so at least there's that.

Am very much a believer in the long run cyclical nature of UK politics. Seems to go off a 35-40 year spell.
Where the ancien regime seems fixed and immutably settled, then suddenly the dam breaks.
Reforms of Disraeli/Gladstone 1860's early 70's.
Liberal government 1905 onwards.
Attlee.
Thatcher.
Each sets the parameters of debate for a couple of generations. Governments of all stripes manage within them.
And then suddenly, they are swept away. To the general surprise and shock of commentators. Who invariably didn't see it coming, because they were schooled in the old ways.

That may be true, but instead of a Labour leader setting the parameters of debate for a couple of generations, it looks like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson have done so. It could be another 35 years until there's a chance to change direction again.

OK.
I reckon Brexit is the last desperate knockings of a Thatcherite consensus which has run its course.
Rather than anything radical it's a futile attempt to put the band back together.
No one has answered the inherent contradictions of the GFC.
A new generation will. And it won't be Socialism or Singapore on Thames.

Putting #OldBexleyAndSidcup in context: compared to all other by-election defences by a governing party since 1997.

The 10 point swing against the Conservatives (in yellow) is below the average of 16 points since 1997, and is a touch smaller than most other recent defences.



https://twitter.com/jamesjohnson252/status/1466666810963644421?s=20

That is interesting. I think Labour can take little comfort from this, and leaves them still with a bit of work to do to form their rainbow alliance.

A key question is whether they pretend to go all out to win, which they can't, and therefore evade the Scottish question until afterwards or face up to having a policy in advance. It is a central question the media and the Tories will not stop asking, and the barrage of questions will start in the second half of next year. ("We may be only a year from an early election, what will Labour do about the SNP.... etc")

Actually, that chart is profoundly uninteresting. For starters, it's missing a whole bunch of by-elections. Anything with a swing towards the government has been excluded it seems. You can't cherry pick your data, then do an average, and expect to learn anything profound.

Well I got the Green and LD figures spot on at 4% and 3% respectively, and the fact the Greens would be ahead of the LDs.

But other than that, mine wasn't a very good prediction. Seriously overestimated the traction both Labour and Refuk would get and underestimated the Tory share.

Refuk are truly a dead duck joke of a party. Couldn't get a much more sympathetic seat, with their 'leader' running, in a by-election where the voters can give the government a risk free kicking and this is the paltry amount they get? They're not going to even feature remotely at a General Election.

Got to say that it's a good night for the Tories, Boris is currently keeping all the Leave voters onside.

Broadly agree. But SKS's strategy can be misleading. Obviously his approach - attack the Tories, try to avoid unforced errors, give no hostages by having policies - cannot win (326+ seats) an election; but much less is required to decapitate the Tories. Labour can't win an extra 125 seats, but Lab, LD, SNP and Green can fairly easily win the 55 or so required make a Tory government impossible.

Lots of people are missing the fact that this is the SKS strategy. He is absolutely on track to have a 40%+ chance of success.

ATM his biggest problem - "vote Labour, get SNP running the country" - is one he can ignore while consolidating his position. As long as he can pretend his objective is 326 seats he does not have to address it.

If the LDs do well in NS then without winning either seat the non-Tory alliance will have had a good month.

Agree this is his strategy, but he’ll have to address the SNP somehow. I suggested a month or so ago that he publicly target a “magnificent 7” set of seats of Scotland as to demonstrate that Scotland is central to his playbook and that he is not soft on the SNP.

I'm not sure that will help him in an election campaign - if a hung parliament looks at all possible, the "in Sturgeon's pocket" posters will come out again.

At the cost of damaging the Union even more. "Unionists [sic] refuse to let legitimately elected MPs for Scottish constituencies take part fully in Westminster."

I don't see how that follows.

Tory propaganda portraying it as illegitimate for SNP to be involved in a coalition government or c&s. Will not go down well in Scotland.

If England had its own parliament like Scotland then the SNP giving Labour confidence and supply in a hung parliament would be less of an issue in England.

As it is, Starmer would demand the SNP make him PM and vote on English domestic legislation to give him a working majority in return for him giving the SNP devomax and indyref2

IF England had its own parliament then the Tories would still revel in Jock—bashing.

SNPs abstain on England-only legislation. That ain’t going to change. If Starmer wants to change English legislation then he needs to win in England. No shortcuts.

The SNP voted on England-only Sunday Trading law changes.

.

Interesting to speculate what a highly transmissible, highly reinfective Omicron might do to the world. It will surely sweep through every continent in months if not weeks

It will mightily impact unvaxxed countries but it won’t be great for vaxxed, unless they have brilliant booster campaigns and they can somehow protect the unjabbed entirely

Anyone who thinks they are immune due to prior infection must now rethink

Will lockdowns even work against this variant?

One thing to remember (learn?) is that reinfections tend to be milder, and this will likely be the case here too.

It’s too early to say for sure, but the steep rise in hospitalisations in Gauteng suggests otherwise. It is thought many of them are reinfections


We just don’t know for certain. Every day tells us more. In 2-3 weeks we will get the first Omicron deaths. Perhaps it will be more transmissible and reinfective but less lethal? 🙏

The point is that any difference in severity (unless it's hugely more severe, which I think we can already see it's not) is a one-off difference in terms of its influence on hospitalisations and deaths. (Though it's obviously something that we very much want to know as individuals in order to assess our personal risk.)

The overall difference in transmissibility is something whose effect on the numbers of infections will compound every generation - that is, roughly every 5 days.

The difference in transmissibility is going to be the crucial factor in influencing the impact on the health service, and that is what we already have a much better handle on. Even for the UK, unless there's an alternative explanation, the S-gene dropout data are indicating a big advantage in transmissibility over Delta.

We need to have a way of coping with a variant that is much more transmissible than Delta overall (taking both intrinsic transmissibility and immune escape into account). And also taking account of the fact that it's already here, apparently in significant numbers.

We have a way of coping. Get vaccinated, get boosters and cope as well as we can.

Not everyone will survive but that's a fact of life, stop being hysterical about it.

I'm stating facts and what follows logically from them. Apparently you think we need to do no more than vaccinate. If so, I don't believe you have thought out the consequences.

What consequences?

Most people will live, some people will die, the world will keep on spinning. The NHS will be "under crisis" but it is every winter.

Life must go on.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/omicron-variant-puttings-huge-numbers-of-kids-under-5-years-old-in-hospital-in-south-africa

bad news

It's not mild if it's putting kids into hospital...

I just wonder if this 'genius move' of letting millions of kids in the UK be exposed to Delta is going to bite us on the ass down the line when it comes to Omicron, with reliance on so called immunity via exposure not holding up with this variant.

No. Even if there is significant reinfection, prior infection will tend to moderate severity. Besides, I think significant reinfection is overstating things. There has been very little reinfection with delta, so even if omicron is two or three times more able to do so, it’s still not huge.
I’m not convinced by the belief that everyone in SA has had Covid argument. We’ve had this tried many times and the antibody evidence doesn’t stack up.
It’s pretty certain now that we will see omicron gaining traction here. What effect that has on severe illness, hospitalisation and death is really anyone’s guess right now. My guess is not too much, but I am likely going to be wrong.

There are two versions of “covid is here forever”.

Version 1 is that it ceases being a major public health concern after this winter and floats around like influenza or pneumonia, competing for the same victims, while being annoying or barely noticeable for everyone else.

Version 2 is that we’re locked in a continual race between viral evolution and science, and that 2021 is more or less as good as things get until we get another major scientific breakthrough. There are no doubt many already falling into an almost existential depression at the possibility this might be true.

The Pfizer retroviral (Paxlovid) reduces hospitalisation from Covid by 90%. Once that is being produced in mega quantities, that will make a massive difference.

(Am I the only person who's a little... surprised... that Pfizer has managed to produce the first vaccine to market and the first really successful treatment.)

I don’t understand why you are surprised. Pfizer is a great company with a pedigree of success. Why wouldn’t they be first?

.

TIMES: ⁦@RishiSunak plan to slash taxes #TomorrowsPapersToday

https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1466887366497513476?s=20

Somebody making a pitch for the top job? Vrroom vrrroom.

F**k off on cutting Income Tax. Reverse the NI cut first.

Cutting Income Tax while having NI higher just further reduces the taxes that are paid on unearned incomes, while further penalising those on earned incomes.

It is obvious that this would be the way it would happen, despite the very good reasons why it shouldn't. The politicians look to the opinion polls, the focus groups and precedent. Raising National Insurance and cutting Income Tax is a winning combination. Has been for decades.

I have no idea how to fix this.

If it doesn't get fixed eventually people are going to go for someone like Corbyn.

Break the system and start again.

That sounds like a great outcome, provided we can find someone who is like Corbyn, except for the antisemitism, the stale dogmatism, the lack of interest in persuasion and the absence of leadership abilities. And probably a bunch of other negative traits.

At what stage do you conclude that there's more wrong than right, and that things are getting worse rather than better, so you might as well shake things up rather than hope that the country changes direction spontaneously?

Corbyn was a 70's Socialist. Not at all suitable for the 2020's. In addition to the drawbacks you list.
There will come a time when a radical implementing real change does emerge again.
But it will be a radicalism of the future, not of the past, or of the present.

Yes. It was the most disappointing aspect of his leadership (apart from the antisemitism, the factional infighting and ...) that he appeared to have zero interest in thinking of new answers, seeing anything new as being a repudiation of dearly-held principles.

But it meant that his socialism was a dead thing, a triumph of form over content, rote-learned slogans.

Corbyn's leadership was initially the most exciting development in British politics in my lifetime, but ended up as the biggest waste of an opportunity. I suppose he did play a part in humiliating Theresa May, so at least there's that.

Am very much a believer in the long run cyclical nature of UK politics. Seems to go off a 35-40 year spell.
Where the ancien regime seems fixed and immutably settled, then suddenly the dam breaks.
Reforms of Disraeli/Gladstone 1860's early 70's.
Liberal government 1905 onwards.
Attlee.
Thatcher.
Each sets the parameters of debate for a couple of generations. Governments of all stripes manage within them.
And then suddenly, they are swept away. To the general surprise and shock of commentators. Who invariably didn't see it coming, because they were schooled in the old ways.