Best Of

Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.

Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/angela-rayner-no-working-class-hero-ptr88wp8b

Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.

Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.

Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.

Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.

Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.

That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.

But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.

There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.

Like I said.

She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.

And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.

Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace

Such is politics

Johnson got Covid right for everyone else but not for himself. Having had it, you'd have thought he'd have been more careful.

He got the PPE fast lane right for the friends and family of Ministers, and Dido Harding was deservedly rewarded for her contribution.

And you might want to look at the 'companies' that Labour MPs were calling about them not using. Some of which were (ahem) interesting.

We needed PPE. We could either get PPE quickly or efficiently. There was zero chance of quickly *and* efficiently.

One reason for the panic was the oft-lauded Jeremy Hunt had failed to stockpile PPE as recommended.

IIRC the 'stockpile' that was recommended was a tiny fraction of the actual need. It would have helped a little, but the same problems would have persisted.

(Is there data for this somewhere?)

TBF the figure that got through to the final draft of the report. For all we know, it might have been watered down from the prima facie sums to stop shocking the horses even more.

Edit: but another way of doing it would be to consider how long the shelf life is vs consumption rate, and at least hold enough to be consumed within the shelf life. I seem to recall that even that sort of cycling was not implemented in normal times - can't recall why.

The problem with stockpiling PPE is that “modern practises” is to use biodegradable plastics in disposable gowns etc.

The French tried using slightly time expired stuff - it literally fell apart.

So you have fairly short life spans - which means that rotating a stockpile for a COVID like event is impractical. You won’t be normally using enough from the stockpile to stop most of it rotting.

So you have 3 choices

1) small stockpile
2) large stockpile and bin vast quantities every day.
3) move to reusable materials.

In addition, many of these “biodegradable” plastics leave a residue of microscopic plastic in the environment which is a big issue.

The answer, it seems to me, is (3). The objection are

1) We don’t do that
2) it’s uncomfortable
3) cleaning is an issue

1) is farcical.

2) is answered by the huge improvements in recent years - I’ve use welding stuff (some welding gives off extremely toxic fumes) that is a *pleasure* to wear in hot weather. It includes belt mounted forced air which goes through a filter - you have personal air conditioning. The visors have built in anti fogging, and the dams/seals can be 3D printed to fit various face structures. Some units include microphone/speaker systems to aid communication - no muffled voices.

3) is answered by jumps in materials technology - stuff that can resist powerful cleaning chemicals - just drop it in a garbage bin full of stuff, let it soak for a few minutes, then wash it off with a pressure washer (or similar)

It’s worth wondering what will happen if we hit a real airborne disease. The existing patchwork of masks, visors and plastic gowns is full of gaps….

Cross infections massively reduced as a result of the shift to single use hospital products, your suggestion is a massive backwards step

We are not talking about devices such a syringes that are hard to clean. Immersion in a vat of chemicals will destroy everything - even prions, with the right chemicals. It should be noted that many items in hospitals are not one use - consider surgeons tools. Which go inside the patient.

The alternative is not to enough PPE, for the next worldwide infection.

When I started in research in chemistry we tended to use glass syringes but now the fashion is single use plastic. Green pressure is pushing back on this. Surely glass syringes can be used in hospital, but it's likely harder than simply opening a sterile plastic one.

The innocent joys of O-level chemistry. Mouth pipettes, asbestos squares, and no eye protection.

My teacher brought his in collection of radioactive materials and got us testing them with a Geiger counter.

There were 890 people arrested at a demonstration against the ban on the group Palestine Action in London on Saturday, the Metropolitan Police say.

The majority of the arrests were for supporting a proscribed group under the Terrorism Act, while police said 17 were also arrested for assaults on police officers "after the protest turned violent".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rvly00440o

I think there is some talk of the accused refusing the bail conditions and therefore clogging up remand with thousands of pensioners.

The excuse Government ministers are now giving for the arrests that there is something that they are unable to disclose to us something that makes supporting Palestine Action a genuinely awful terrorist activity. Now, there might be something some members of the core group have planned to do, like killing a soldier or burning a synagogue, but how the hell are these protestors supposed to know that?

There are going to be loads of pensioners coming up in front of a judge who - for the first time - finally find out the nature of the group they are supporting as the CPS/Crown Office makes a case behind closed doors. Surely there is something for the defence there? Or worse - ministers have simply made this up and there is no real underlying reason for it, and they are just trying to scare people into not protesting with these vague allusions.

I don't actually get what they are protesting about. It's not Palestine/Gaza per se, because you can protest about that just fine, every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Is it free speech? I bet none of them cared a fig for Connolly. Is it government overstepping the mark?
I can understand if people don't trust the government. The Southport case had huge issues with that. I also sense that even if it does come out that P A were planning a 'genuine' act a lot of this mob wouldn't care, just as many reformers are in love with Connolly.

Recent news reports:

"Labour is dead" says Zara Sultana
"Tories are dead" says Nadine Dorries

That's a lot of dead, if true.
Along with many of the British virtues: moderation, unflappability, and a contempt for conmen, blowhards and toad-eaters.

Christine Keeler applies, perhaps.

Do you mean Mandy Rice-Davies?

Fun fact, Christine Keeler shared a peter with Wes Streeting's granny. (Translation: they were in HMP Holloway together.)

I'm sure Christine Keeler said something that fits, too.

"My, my Yevgeny that's a monster".

Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.

Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/angela-rayner-no-working-class-hero-ptr88wp8b

Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.

Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.

Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.

Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.

Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.

That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.

But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.

There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.

Like I said.

She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.

And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.

Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace

Such is politics

COVID?

Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?

I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.

I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.

Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.

I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?

I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.

Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.

I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction

I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.

What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.

The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.

The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.

I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.

I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.

Luckyguy evidently believes that preserving some sort of subservient relationship to the Trump administration is more important than Europe's future security.

I think that's deeply misguided.

Utter rubbish. I do not favour a subservient relationship to any US administration - though I am clued up enough to know that's what we have at present, and that changing the relationship to one that's more equal is a difficult and very long term project.

All I say, which I might have hoped would be an obvious point, is that we should act and speak in defiance of the USA over matters that are absolutely pivotal to the UK's security or other national interests. Who ends up with bigger bits of Ukraine isn't that, however much some choose to see it that way.

The blunt truth is that we have intertwined our national defence so closely with the US that we have to maintain a relationship with them no matter how much it sticks in the craw. As the junior partner, that relationship will be as subservient as the US administration wishes it to be.

We depend utterly on US co-operation for the functioning of our nuclear deterrent in the near future, our international intelligence gathering depends on them (we finally have a tiny constellation of surveillance satellites of our own at least) & much of our conventional forces depend on support from the US in some form or another: e.g. We have precisely one refuelling aircraft, so depend on US support for missions that require its presence elsewhere, or when it’s undergoing maintenance.

Preserving our relationship with the US is a matter of national security & we will therefore bend the knee & do whatever is required of us unless & until we can maintain a credible deterrent without US support. It sucks, but it is what it is. Anyone who doesn’t recognise this reality is being foolish imo.

100% agree but the UK ought to be making proactive steps toward intelligence and defence independence. Even sotto voce.

Hopefully that’s happening.

It seems likely that the procurement of F35As was partially driven by the need to have a backup delivery method for a nuclear deterrent. The PR announcement is quite explicit about it: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-purchase-f-35as-and-join-nato-nuclear-mission-as-government-steps-up-national-security-and-delivers-defence-dividend (Whether we actually have our own nuclear tipped missiles that we could put in said aircraft is another question of course...)

Similarly, someone with MoD noticed that it had become affordable to launch our own surveillance satellites a few years ago & made it happen.

So progress is being made behind the scenes by the looks of things.

There were 890 people arrested at a demonstration against the ban on the group Palestine Action in London on Saturday, the Metropolitan Police say.

The majority of the arrests were for supporting a proscribed group under the Terrorism Act, while police said 17 were also arrested for assaults on police officers "after the protest turned violent".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rvly00440o

I think there is some talk of the accused refusing the bail conditions and therefore clogging up remand with thousands of pensioners.

The excuse Government ministers are now giving for the arrests that there is something that they are unable to disclose to us something that makes supporting Palestine Action a genuinely awful terrorist activity. Now, there might be something some members of the core group have planned to do, like killing a soldier or burning a synagogue, but how the hell are these protestors supposed to know that?

There are going to be loads of pensioners coming up in front of a judge who - for the first time - finally find out the nature of the group they are supporting as the CPS/Crown Office makes a case behind closed doors. Surely there is something for the defence there? Or worse - ministers have simply made this up and there is no real underlying reason for it, and they are just trying to scare people into not protesting with these vague allusions.

Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.

Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/angela-rayner-no-working-class-hero-ptr88wp8b

Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.

Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.

Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.

Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.

Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.

That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.

But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.

There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.

Like I said.

She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.

And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.

Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace

Such is politics

Johnson got Covid right for everyone else but not for himself. Having had it, you'd have thought he'd have been more careful.

He got the PPE fast lane right for the friends and family of Ministers, and Dido Harding was deservedly rewarded for her contribution.

And you might want to look at the 'companies' that Labour MPs were calling about them not using. Some of which were (ahem) interesting.

We needed PPE. We could either get PPE quickly or efficiently. There was zero chance of quickly *and* efficiently.

One reason for the panic was the oft-lauded Jeremy Hunt had failed to stockpile PPE as recommended.

IIRC the 'stockpile' that was recommended was a tiny fraction of the actual need. It would have helped a little, but the same problems would have persisted.

(Is there data for this somewhere?)

TBF the figure that got through to the final draft of the report. For all we know, it might have been watered down from the prima facie sums to stop shocking the horses even more.

Edit: but another way of doing it would be to consider how long the shelf life is vs consumption rate, and at least hold enough to be consumed within the shelf life. I seem to recall that even that sort of cycling was not implemented in normal times - can't recall why.

The problem with stockpiling PPE is that “modern practises” is to use biodegradable plastics in disposable gowns etc.

The French tried using slightly time expired stuff - it literally fell apart.

So you have fairly short life spans - which means that rotating a stockpile for a COVID like event is impractical. You won’t be normally using enough from the stockpile to stop most of it rotting.

So you have 3 choices

1) small stockpile
2) large stockpile and bin vast quantities every day.
3) move to reusable materials.

In addition, many of these “biodegradable” plastics leave a residue of microscopic plastic in the environment which is a big issue.

The answer, it seems to me, is (3). The objection are

1) We don’t do that
2) it’s uncomfortable
3) cleaning is an issue

1) is farcical.

2) is answered by the huge improvements in recent years - I’ve use welding stuff (some welding gives off extremely toxic fumes) that is a *pleasure* to wear in hot weather. It includes belt mounted forced air which goes through a filter - you have personal air conditioning. The visors have built in anti fogging, and the dams/seals can be 3D printed to fit various face structures. Some units include microphone/speaker systems to aid communication - no muffled voices.

3) is answered by jumps in materials technology - stuff that can resist powerful cleaning chemicals - just drop it in a garbage bin full of stuff, let it soak for a few minutes, then wash it off with a pressure washer (or similar)

It’s worth wondering what will happen if we hit a real airborne disease. The existing patchwork of masks, visors and plastic gowns is full of gaps….