I did wonder earlier in the thread (or was it the last one?) if it was more than coincidence that everything stared to go wrong when the man who had built up a degree of knowledge and experience of the vaccination drives was moved on too quickly.
I understand the first vaccination drive had the involvement of military planning as well (am I right on that). Have they been too complacent and not bothered with getting expert planning in place this time?
An update on Emma Raducanu watch. Bromley Council took 40 minutes on Monday to decide not to make her a freeman (freewoman?) of Bromley Borough, seemingly on the basis that it was proposed by the Labour group and the Tories therefore refused to support it.
I still can’t fathom why the government didn’t put in place funding and up the numbers for places on nursing and other medical degrees in time for September. The nhs is fucked
Unless they did of course.
Medicine training places have increased a lot in recent years. It’s not entirely simple though as a lot of medical and indeed nursing training is on placement, and you need placements. And thus is made harder by Covid. We will have more doctors coming out of the factory in a few years time.
Will we have enough though?
In my view this needs to be a military style mobilisation if we’re not going to depend on foreign staff. Including nurses, healthcare assistants, radiographers, mental health practitioners, etc.
I still can’t fathom why the government didn’t put in place funding and up the numbers for places on nursing and other medical degrees in time for September. The nhs is fucked
Unless they did of course.
Medicine training places have increased a lot in recent years. It’s not entirely simple though as a lot of medical and indeed nursing training is on placement, and you need placements. And thus is made harder by Covid. We will have more doctors coming out of the factory in a few years time.
Will we have enough though?
In my view this needs to be a military style mobilisation if we’re not going to depend on foreign staff. Including nurses, healthcare assistants, radiographers, mental health practitioners, etc.
We probably won’t have enough, but there is no issue in having visa entry for required professionals. In pharmacy we’ve had a torrid time since massively increasing the domestic output of pharmacists. We used to train a lot of overseas students who would then work in the U.K. with more home graduates there became less need for overseas students, and the numbers crashed. We are still short of pharmacists in the SW.
I still can’t fathom why the government didn’t put in place funding and up the numbers for places on nursing and other medical degrees in time for September. The nhs is fucked
Unless they did of course.
Medicine training places have increased a lot in recent years. It’s not entirely simple though as a lot of medical and indeed nursing training is on placement, and you need placements. And thus is made harder by Covid. We will have more doctors coming out of the factory in a few years time.
Will we have enough though?
In my view this needs to be a military style mobilisation if we’re not going to depend on foreign staff. Including nurses, healthcare assistants, radiographers, mental health practitioners, etc.
We probably won’t have enough, but there is no issue in having visa entry for required professionals. In pharmacy we’ve had a torrid time since massively increasing the domestic output of pharmacists. We used to train a lot of overseas students who would then work in the U.K. with more home graduates there became less need for overseas students, and the numbers crashed. We are still short of pharmacists in the SW.
Wouldn’t it be better to upskill our own population? I thought that was one of the key points of Brexit.
My girlfriend would absolutely retrain in the medical sphere if funding was available. She works in the NHS now but in an administrative role and doesn’t have a degree.
I still can’t fathom why the government didn’t put in place funding and up the numbers for places on nursing and other medical degrees in time for September. The nhs is fucked
I still can’t fathom why the government didn’t put in place funding and up the numbers for places on nursing and other medical degrees in time for September. The nhs is fucked
Unless they did of course.
Medicine training places have increased a lot in recent years. It’s not entirely simple though as a lot of medical and indeed nursing training is on placement, and you need placements. And thus is made harder by Covid. We will have more doctors coming out of the factory in a few years time.
Will we have enough though?
In my view this needs to be a military style mobilisation if we’re not going to depend on foreign staff. Including nurses, healthcare assistants, radiographers, mental health practitioners, etc.
We probably won’t have enough, but there is no issue in having visa entry for required professionals. In pharmacy we’ve had a torrid time since massively increasing the domestic output of pharmacists. We used to train a lot of overseas students who would then work in the U.K. with more home graduates there became less need for overseas students, and the numbers crashed. We are still short of pharmacists in the SW.
Wouldn’t it be better to upskill our own population? I thought that was one of the key points of Brexit.
My girlfriend would absolutely retrain in the medical sphere if funding was available. She works in the NHS now but in an administrative role and doesn’t have a degree.
I tend to agree with you. One issue that medicine has had is that the profession actively kept training places down. The cynic in me thinks that that helped to keep salaries high. Pharmacy loccum rates crashed when there was a surplus of pharmacists.
I still can’t fathom why the government didn’t put in place funding and up the numbers for places on nursing and other medical degrees in time for September. The nhs is fucked
Unless they did of course.
Medicine training places have increased a lot in recent years. It’s not entirely simple though as a lot of medical and indeed nursing training is on placement, and you need placements. And thus is made harder by Covid. We will have more doctors coming out of the factory in a few years time.
Will we have enough though?
In my view this needs to be a military style mobilisation if we’re not going to depend on foreign staff. Including nurses, healthcare assistants, radiographers, mental health practitioners, etc.
We probably won’t have enough, but there is no issue in having visa entry for required professionals. In pharmacy we’ve had a torrid time since massively increasing the domestic output of pharmacists. We used to train a lot of overseas students who would then work in the U.K. with more home graduates there became less need for overseas students, and the numbers crashed. We are still short of pharmacists in the SW.
Wouldn’t it be better to upskill our own population? I thought that was one of the key points of Brexit.
My girlfriend would absolutely retrain in the medical sphere if funding was available. She works in the NHS now but in an administrative role and doesn’t have a degree.
I tend to agree with you. One issue that medicine has had is that the profession actively kept training places down. The cynic in me thinks that that helped to keep salaries high. Pharmacy loccum rates crashed when there was a surplus of pharmacists.
Its the same in law really. Although recent changes in the qualification process might change that.
I still can’t fathom why the government didn’t put in place funding and up the numbers for places on nursing and other medical degrees in time for September. The nhs is fucked
Unless they did of course.
Medicine training places have increased a lot in recent years. It’s not entirely simple though as a lot of medical and indeed nursing training is on placement, and you need placements. And thus is made harder by Covid. We will have more doctors coming out of the factory in a few years time.
Will we have enough though?
In my view this needs to be a military style mobilisation if we’re not going to depend on foreign staff. Including nurses, healthcare assistants, radiographers, mental health practitioners, etc.
We probably won’t have enough, but there is no issue in having visa entry for required professionals. In pharmacy we’ve had a torrid time since massively increasing the domestic output of pharmacists. We used to train a lot of overseas students who would then work in the U.K. with more home graduates there became less need for overseas students, and the numbers crashed. We are still short of pharmacists in the SW.
Wouldn’t it be better to upskill our own population? I thought that was one of the key points of Brexit.
My girlfriend would absolutely retrain in the medical sphere if funding was available. She works in the NHS now but in an administrative role and doesn’t have a degree.
Btw way, I don’t know what she wants to do, but there are an increasing number of apprenticeship schemes where you work in the healthcare environment, get paid and work towards the degree over say 5 years. Worth looking at. Pharmacy hasn’t done this yet, but I think it is coming.
Which bunch of clowns do you prefer is the main question. As I post this I'm listening to Javid. Not inspiring.
I guess he's not so bad, but he is worse than Hancock.
Labour would of course be far, far worse.
LD's, Greens - they just don't have the people. The only good LD MP is Weira Hobhouse.
Wera Hobhouse is a nutjob who thinks 5G might have some connection to Covid.
The only good LibDem MP is Alistair Carmichael, if only because he winds @malcolmg up rotten.
I never give th ebuffoon a second thought, how anyone would vote for a proven lying toerag is beyond me though. He has feet of clay and no principles but hey that is Lib Dems for you.
I still can’t fathom why the government didn’t put in place funding and up the numbers for places on nursing and other medical degrees in time for September. The nhs is fucked
Unless they did of course.
They did, but rather indirectly, by inflating A Level grades, so a bigger intake than usual.
I still can’t fathom why the government didn’t put in place funding and up the numbers for places on nursing and other medical degrees in time for September. The nhs is fucked
Unless they did of course.
Medicine training places have increased a lot in recent years. It’s not entirely simple though as a lot of medical and indeed nursing training is on placement, and you need placements. And thus is made harder by Covid. We will have more doctors coming out of the factory in a few years time.
Will we have enough though?
In my view this needs to be a military style mobilisation if we’re not going to depend on foreign staff. Including nurses, healthcare assistants, radiographers, mental health practitioners, etc.
We probably won’t have enough, but there is no issue in having visa entry for required professionals. In pharmacy we’ve had a torrid time since massively increasing the domestic output of pharmacists. We used to train a lot of overseas students who would then work in the U.K. with more home graduates there became less need for overseas students, and the numbers crashed. We are still short of pharmacists in the SW.
Wouldn’t it be better to upskill our own population? I thought that was one of the key points of Brexit.
My girlfriend would absolutely retrain in the medical sphere if funding was available. She works in the NHS now but in an administrative role and doesn’t have a degree.
If she doesn't have the right A levels, several universities run access to medicine/nursing foundation courses. Think too of paramedical professions such as physiotherapy, etc.
The coterie of amateur epidemiologists, virologists and immunologists who inhabit this site re-assured me last evening there was nothing to worry about as even after six months the efficacy afforded by two AstraZeneca vaccinations is still going to be adequate.
As my six months isn't up until the end of next month, I won't worry too much at this stage.
I am told by Mrs Stodge Japan is doing very well in case of case numbers and deaths - are they further ahead of us in terms of vaccinations or is their mask wearing culture helping to reduce transmission?
Interesting to read Sajid Javid's comments - there's a strong element of throwing it back to the public in terms of getting booster vaccinations and mask wearing. Anecdotally, I hear of more mask wearing again on public transport so clearly a frisson of anxiety is out there. OTOH, the politics of curtailing Christmas in any way, shape or form probably isn't something Johnson wants to think about.
FFS. What sort of psychodrama is it where we have re-runs of "Boris fights to save Christmas" every year. Its even worse than "Love Actually".
Quite so. Am I the only person in the country who finds all this talk of Christmas, starting in September, incredibly boring? It seems rather sad to spend months worrying about, or planning for, the big day, and Boris and the tabloids just fuel this. I don't have a problem with Christmas, but I don't really give it a thought until about 10 days before the big event (apart from ordering cases of wine for the grown-up kids, which takes about 10 minutes).
Knox, Melville and Cromwell had the right idea about Christmas, I start to reflect about this time every year. Such idolatry, worship of the golden calf or rather pound.,
Where's the "What will daily cases peak at" thread we had a while back ?
As mich as I bag on Andrew "there's chance of a second wave in London" Lilco he's probably right that we are close to cases saturating kids and as a result case numbers stabalising.
If kids are saturated, that takes out a major community transmission vector.
I know I'm always optimistic, but the combination of that and booster shots should be enough to bring R down below 1 pretty quickly I'd have thought.
I read earlier this evening that the new variant is concentrated in parts of the S West. And then you see the extraordinarily high R rates in your table all clustered in the M5 corridor from Bristol upwards, far above those in the rest of the country. Clearly that's the focal point of the new variant for now, and those rates mean that it's going to spread out very rapidly to the rest of the country. The new variant is far more virulent than it is being given credit for.
Government inaction today is absolutely breathtaking. Exhortations dont work. These are pleas to idiots who don't give a damn that their failure to do the right thing is going to plunge everyone back into the abyss. For goodness sake, do something effective to get the vaccination programme going again, fast.
The rates in the south are not clear, due to the incorrect tests over the last 5 weeks. I think that a lot of people are getting retested and inflating the numbers, as those positives should have been picked up in the previous few weeks. We will see. It’s possible that the new variant is here too, but I think we need more data, and let the testing issue work it’s way through.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
There is nothing wrong with getting some more BAME figures who are qualified into top leadership roles in the public and private sector, Boris is leading by example with half the great offices of state in Cabinet held by non white politicians
Interesting exchange at the end of this evening's press conference. Javid and the medics had repeatedly emphasised that government guidance was to continue wearing masks in busy, enclosed spaces - public transport and the like. He was asked why, in the HoC, those on the opposition benches were masked up, but those on the government benches weren't. To my surprise, he didn't shrug it off, but admitted that it was a fair point and that it didn't look good - he didn't quite say it was an example of 'do as I say, not as I do', but not far off.
Worth watching. It'll be interesting to see if an edict goes out to Tory MPs to mask up in the HoC in future.
The Commons chamber is a fairly big and airy space. Not sure it counts as an enclosed space.
The ceiling's high but MPs are a long way from a window. Packed close together, it's asking for trouble. No problem when it's an adjournment debate about fish fingers with three MPs present, but PMQs...
Where's the "What will daily cases peak at" thread we had a while back ?
As mich as I bag on Andrew "there's chance of a second wave in London" Lilco he's probably right that we are close to cases saturating kids and as a result case numbers stabalising.
If kids are saturated, that takes out a major community transmission vector.
I know I'm always optimistic, but the combination of that and booster shots should be enough to bring R down below 1 pretty quickly I'd have thought.
Yes. That Cambridge study had Rt = 1.0 already (and kids already 76% infected as mentioned earlier).
These SW retest cases are skewing the numbers.
Still thinking Friday for the highest daily total.
I read earlier this evening that the new variant is concentrated in parts of the S West. And then you see the extraordinarily high R rates in your table all clustered in the M5 corridor from Bristol upwards, far above those in the rest of the country. Clearly that's the focal point of the new variant for now, and those rates mean that it's going to spread out very rapidly to the rest of the country. The new variant is far more virulent than it is being given credit for.
Government inaction today is absolutely breathtaking. Exhortations dont work. These are pleas to idiots who don't give a damn that their failure to do the right thing is going to plunge everyone back into the abyss. For goodness sake, do something effective to get the vaccination programme going again, fast.
He will stay or at most go Independent but stay within the Democratic caucus, at the moment he is the most powerful person in the USA after Biden, ie the swing vote in the Senate and the man needed for Biden to get anything through Congress.
Interesting exchange at the end of this evening's press conference. Javid and the medics had repeatedly emphasised that government guidance was to continue wearing masks in busy, enclosed spaces - public transport and the like. He was asked why, in the HoC, those on the opposition benches were masked up, but those on the government benches weren't. To my surprise, he didn't shrug it off, but admitted that it was a fair point and that it didn't look good - he didn't quite say it was an example of 'do as I say, not as I do', but not far off.
Worth watching. It'll be interesting to see if an edict goes out to Tory MPs to mask up in the HoC in future.
The Commons chamber is a fairly big and airy space. Not sure it counts as an enclosed space.
The ceiling's high but MPs are a long way from a window. Packed close together, it's asking for trouble. No problem when it's an adjournment debate about fish fingers with three MPs present, but PMQs...
Whenever I've taken school groups there, the thing that has shocked the kids is how small the chamber is.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour is a pretty weak candidate, IMHO.
Macron is very lucky with his enemies.
He is. Semmour will get people voting for Macron even if they don't rate him at all, just as Trump got people voting for Biden who weren't really fans.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour is a pretty weak candidate, IMHO.
Macron is very lucky with his enemies.
He is. Semmour will get people voting for Macron even if they don't rate him at all, just as Trump got people voting for Biden who weren't really fans.
Zemmour is a far slicker option than Trump and far more articulate as well as getting his rallies packed out like Trump does.
If I was French I would probably vote for Macron over Le Pen but Bertrand over Macron, however I might well consider voting for Zemmour over Macron too
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
Seeing as how not being Le Pen was an electorally successful strategy, other people are now trying it, and she's down to third.
Both the motivation and key topics seem to be also running in Youngkin’s favour. It also doesn’t help McAuliffe that Biden’s approval are tanking further.
I think it is Sunak that proves this Government still has at its heart, the same lot as the previous Tory Governments. He would not be able to run on a new Government programme if he were to become PM.
I think we're over the peak for the Tories now and I am increasingly confident of a Hung Parliament.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour is a pretty weak candidate, IMHO.
Macron is very lucky with his enemies.
He is. Semmour will get people voting for Macron even if they don't rate him at all, just as Trump got people voting for Biden who weren't really fans.
Trump got more people voting Biden because he was the incumbent and utterly appalling so taken seriously.
Trump didn't get more people voting Clinton because he wasn't taken seriously.
Both the motivation and key topics seem to be also running in Youngkin’s favour. It also doesn’t help McAuliffe that Biden’s approval are tanking further.
Young could well win, the Virginia governorship has been won by the opposite party of the incoming President elected the previous year in every off year election for the last 25 years
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Well this is horrifying: A man with cancer died in a Kentucky jail bc staff refused to give him his prescriptions or his chemo, & they declined to treat him as he vomited blood.
Prisoners are people too. That shouldn’t be controversial. He hadn’t even been convicted of a crime.
Wife tried to sue the Dept of Corrections commissioner. Federal court said he couldn’t have known and is protected by qualified immunity. Hard to say who exactly is most at fault here, but it appears there will be no accountability for this needless death.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour is a pretty weak candidate, IMHO.
Macron is very lucky with his enemies.
He is. Semmour will get people voting for Macron even if they don't rate him at all, just as Trump got people voting for Biden who weren't really fans.
Trump got more people voting Biden because he was the incumbent and utterly appalling so taken seriously.
Trump didn't get more people voting Clinton because he wasn't taken seriously.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
Given that Macron exceeded the polls albeit on a low turnout in the run off in 2017, I would predict Macron beating Zemmour by 60-40 in the run off on a slightly lower turnout than last time as most likely. I agree it would be narrower with Le Pen although I still think Macron would get 55%+ in that scenario.
It's a thoughtful piece, and his point about the threshold before one informs on a friend or relative is one that's valid not only for Somalis. Many people know someone with a few dodgy views, and maybe someone who they suspect breaks the law on occasion - drugs, perhaps. Most of us would ring the police if an acquaintance declared an intention to kill someone. But in between, there is a wide grey zone. I think one would usually need to be pretty sure of an intent to commit a major crime to report a friend.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour is a pretty weak candidate, IMHO.
Macron is very lucky with his enemies.
He is. Semmour will get people voting for Macron even if they don't rate him at all, just as Trump got people voting for Biden who weren't really fans.
Yes, a similar phenomenon happened with Chirac and Le Pen IIRC. French socialists found themselves compelled to vote for the Gaullist conservative.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
He's staked out a pretty Eurosceptic position on sovereignty.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
Given that Macron exceeded the polls albeit on a low turnout in the run off in 2017, I would predict Macron beating Zemmour by 60-40 in the run off on a slightly lower turnout than last time as most likely. I agree it would be narrower with Le Pen although I still think Macron would get 55%+ in that scenario.
Depends on the round 1 Bertrand voters, Fillon voters in 2017 in the end went for Macron over Le Pen, if conservatives this time are fed up of Macron they may decide to make a protest vote. I also think in the end they would be more willing to do that with Zemmour than Le Pen given the fascist history of Le Pen's party and the fact Zemmour looks and sounds like a well heeled intellectual and gets a lot of affluent voters at his rallies
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour is a pretty weak candidate, IMHO.
Macron is very lucky with his enemies.
He is. Semmour will get people voting for Macron even if they don't rate him at all, just as Trump got people voting for Biden who weren't really fans.
Yes, a similar phenomenon happened with Chirac and Le Pen IIRC. French socialists found themselves compelled to vote for the Gaullist conservative.
It's a thoughtful piece, and his point about the threshold before one informs on a friend or relative is one that's valid not only for Somalis. Many people know someone with a few dodgy views, and maybe someone who they suspect breaks the law on occasion - drugs, perhaps. Most of us would ring the police if an acquaintance declared an intention to kill someone. But in between, there is a wide grey zone. I think one would usually need to be pretty sure of an intent to commit a major crime to report a friend.
This is something that I struggle professionally with regards to 'personnel reliability programmes' in high containment labs. The fact of the matter is that there is no one single metric of behaviour that is a solid indicator of a problem employee - quite the reverse in fact. Many top researchers display a lot of the asocial behaviours that law enforcement tells us should be indicators.
And what is worse is that the research shows that even measuring against a wide array of indicators gives very poor sensitivity and appalling specificity. A high percentage of false negatives and huge numbers of false positives. A very bad combination.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour is a pretty weak candidate, IMHO.
Macron is very lucky with his enemies.
He is. Semmour will get people voting for Macron even if they don't rate him at all, just as Trump got people voting for Biden who weren't really fans.
Yes, a similar phenomenon happened with Chirac and Le Pen IIRC. French socialists found themselves compelled to vote for the Gaullist conservative.
Yes but in 2002 people were shocked and horrified Le Pen had made it into the run-off. So Chirac got 82% of the vote.
In 2017 Macron still won comfortably but only 66% of the vote. Le Pen Jr got double the vote share her father got.
I worry that France will get bored of holding a peg on their nose and eventually the candidate is going to slip through, as happened with Trump 2016.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
Zeal of the convert it seems.
Frost must have been convincing in the negotiations.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
There are at least four serious French Presidential candidates who are more Eurosceptic than Le Pen:
- Barnier (who seems to have had a Damascene conversion being involved with Brexit) - Zemmour - Melanchon - Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
The only difference between Le Pen and a mainstream Europhile is that she describes her vision for the EU as a Christian club designed to keep out the Muslim hordes. (She might not actually use the word 'hordes'.)
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
Zeal of the convert it seems.
Frost must have been convincing in the negotiations.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour is a pretty weak candidate, IMHO.
Macron is very lucky with his enemies.
He is. Semmour will get people voting for Macron even if they don't rate him at all, just as Trump got people voting for Biden who weren't really fans.
Yes, a similar phenomenon happened with Chirac and Le Pen IIRC. French socialists found themselves compelled to vote for the Gaullist conservative.
Yes but in 2002 people were shocked and horrified Le Pen had made it into the run-off. So Chirac got 82% of the vote.
In 2017 Macron still won comfortably but only 66% of the vote. Le Pen Jr got double the vote share her father got.
I worry that France will get bored of holding a peg on their nose and eventually the candidate is going to slip through, as happened with Trump 2016.
Le Pen senior was a very different character to his daughter. Indeed, she expelled him from the Party.
She's a big government conservative, not some crazy loon on the fringes of French politics. But - of course - by staking out that position, she's been outflanked on the right by Zemmour and others.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
There are at least four serious French Presidential candidates who are more Eurosceptic than Le Pen:
- Barnier (who seems to have had a Damascene conversion being involved with Brexit) - Zemmour - Melanchon - Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
The only difference between Le Pen and a mainstream Europhile is that she describes her vision for the EU as a Christian club designed to keep out the Muslim hordes. (She might not actually use the word 'hordes'.)
A Eurosceptic French President Barnier could just break Twitter.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
Zeal of the convert it seems.
Frost must have been convincing in the negotiations.
For those, like me, who missed Barnier on legal sovereignty, here it is:
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
There are at least four serious French Presidential candidates who are more Eurosceptic than Le Pen:
- Barnier (who seems to have had a Damascene conversion being involved with Brexit) - Zemmour - Melanchon - Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
The only difference between Le Pen and a mainstream Europhile is that she describes her vision for the EU as a Christian club designed to keep out the Muslim hordes. (She might not actually use the word 'hordes'.)
A Eurosceptic French President Barnier could just break Twitter.
So we should all hope he wins.
I think Barnier would be a pretty good President, and I think he'd work to increase the sovereignty of EU members at the expense of the centre, and that might work well for all concerned.
I don't think Le Pen would be great. Not because she's a fascist (she's not), but because her economic policy would be all about subsidising failing French businesses.
Melanchon would be worse, of course. And NDA is flailing around failing to get traction right now.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
Zeal of the convert it seems.
Frost must have been convincing in the negotiations.
Barnier never struck me as particularly pro european, more that it was his job and he did it well
1.5 million who have been invited for their booster have not turned up
How many of that 1.5m have received the invitation but have not yet up for the jab... because the appointment is always going to be a week or two after the invite?
I do not know but that was the figure announced at the press conference
As they will have had both vaccines it seems reasonable to assume the letters were addressed correctly so either they are being ignored or people do not think the booster matters
Oh my sweet summer child...
Is it not ?
No, it's not.
Why
Never assume. It makes an ass out of u and me.
Something could have gone wrong with the distribution of the letters. Something could be wrong with the database. Something could be wrong with the addresses on file.
Did we establish whether, at least in some places, people are being given flu and booster jabs on same visit?
Here in Scotland that is supposed to be the norm. But at least in my wife's case it led to a truly Kafkaesque run-around. After days of phoning and getting nowhere, eventually we were given a telephone number by a neighbour which got the matter sorted in a jiffy. But it was nowhere on the official literature or web sites.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
There are at least four serious French Presidential candidates who are more Eurosceptic than Le Pen:
- Barnier (who seems to have had a Damascene conversion being involved with Brexit) - Zemmour - Melanchon - Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
The only difference between Le Pen and a mainstream Europhile is that she describes her vision for the EU as a Christian club designed to keep out the Muslim hordes. (She might not actually use the word 'hordes'.)
A Eurosceptic French President Barnier could just break Twitter.
So we should all hope he wins.
I think Barnier would be a pretty good President, and I think he'd work to increase the sovereignty of EU members at the expense of the centre, and that might work well for all concerned.
I don't think Le Pen would be great. Not because she's a fascist (she's not), but because her economic policy would be all about subsidising failing French businesses.
Melanchon would be worse, of course. And NDA is flailing around failing to get traction right now.
Note you omit Zemmour there who has a far better chance of being French president than Barnier or Melenchon at the moment and about as good a chance as Le Pen if not slightly more
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
Classic MrEd.
So I will press you: do you predict a Le Pen victory?
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
There are at least four serious French Presidential candidates who are more Eurosceptic than Le Pen:
- Barnier (who seems to have had a Damascene conversion being involved with Brexit) - Zemmour - Melanchon - Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
The only difference between Le Pen and a mainstream Europhile is that she describes her vision for the EU as a Christian club designed to keep out the Muslim hordes. (She might not actually use the word 'hordes'.)
A Eurosceptic French President Barnier could just break Twitter.
So we should all hope he wins.
I think Barnier would be a pretty good President, and I think he'd work to increase the sovereignty of EU members at the expense of the centre, and that might work well for all concerned.
I don't think Le Pen would be great. Not because she's a fascist (she's not), but because her economic policy would be all about subsidising failing French businesses.
Melanchon would be worse, of course. And NDA is flailing around failing to get traction right now.
Note you omit Zemmour there who has a far better chance of being French president than Barnier or Melenchon at the moment and about as good a chance as Le Pen if not slightly more
I regret to inform you all that I am 47 likes short of 6k for my tweet.
Wasn't even funny!
Empirically 5955 people disagree with you.
Not necessarily, @kinabalu has used the PB like feature previously to put people like me on notice. He's weaponised it against the anti-wokes.
I would be a bit worried if I started getting too many likes. It would indicate that I wrong about 'wokeness' and its takeover of the liberal elite, that I am so concerned about.
Booster vaccine eligibility changed. No need to wait for the NHS invite. A week after 6 months all groups 1-9 are automatically enrolled and provisioned.
That's a good outcome. Hopefully it changes overnight and all of those people who have missed the NHS invite or haven't got one will be able to book themselves in ASAP.
If Hancock was in charge we wouldn't have got this move IMO, he would have stuck rigidly to existing system.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
Zeal of the convert it seems.
Frost must have been convincing in the negotiations.
Barnier never struck me as particularly pro european, more that it was his job and he did it well
Yep I agree entirely. I said at the time of the negotiations that I felt he had played with a straight bat, had been tough but fair (and of course pretty much ran rings around the UK negotiators) and that I wished he had been on our side.
The two impressions I got from him at the time were frustration that the UK team simply did not understand and were not serious about the magnitude of what they were negotiating but also that he knew that the only workable outcome was one where both sides felt they had won something of value.
On that basis I ascribe all the failings in the process to Johnson and his team who were outmatched from start to finish.
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
There are at least four serious French Presidential candidates who are more Eurosceptic than Le Pen:
- Barnier (who seems to have had a Damascene conversion being involved with Brexit) - Zemmour - Melanchon - Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
The only difference between Le Pen and a mainstream Europhile is that she describes her vision for the EU as a Christian club designed to keep out the Muslim hordes. (She might not actually use the word 'hordes'.)
A Eurosceptic French President Barnier could just break Twitter.
So we should all hope he wins.
I think Barnier would be a pretty good President, and I think he'd work to increase the sovereignty of EU members at the expense of the centre, and that might work well for all concerned.
I don't think Le Pen would be great. Not because she's a fascist (she's not), but because her economic policy would be all about subsidising failing French businesses.
Melanchon would be worse, of course. And NDA is flailing around failing to get traction right now.
Note you omit Zemmour there who has a far better chance of being French president than Barnier or Melenchon at the moment and about as good a chance as Le Pen if not slightly more
If this has been mentioned already, apologies, but a number of polls from France are showing a Zemmour candidacy outpolling Marine Le Pen in the first round of voting.
This would be extraordinary if it happened - I've not seen any polling on a Macron-Zemmour runoff in round two. It seems to make little difference who the centre-right put up as a candidate - every option is behind Zemmour be it Pecresse, Barnier or Bertrand. The last named does the best at 14% in one poll, two points behind Le Pen and three points behind Zemmour.
Macron seems a bit short (no pun intended )
In what way?
I've neither seen a single poll where any other candidate gets near him on the second round nor a poll where he isn't leading the first round.
He beats Le Pen on every run off poll and I suspect he would beat Zemmour by a larger margin. The only hope for those opposed to Macron is for Bertrand perhaps to get past the warring Zemmour and Le Pen candidacies and snatch second - it's feasible.
Zemmour gets 43% in the latest runoff poll against Macron, Le Pen gets 46%, compared to the just 33% Le Pen got in the 2017 runoff against Macron.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
I think it is very wrong to write off the chances of Le Pen (if she gets through).
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
I agree.
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Barnier is a eurosceptic?
Zeal of the convert it seems.
Frost must have been convincing in the negotiations.
Barnier never struck me as particularly pro european, more that it was his job and he did it well
Yep I agree entirely. I said at the time of the negotiations that I felt he had played with a straight bat, had been tough but fair (and of course pretty much ran rings around the UK negotiators) and that I wished he had been on our side.
The two impressions I got from him at the time were frustration that the UK team simply did not understand and were not serious about the magnitude of what they were negotiating but also that he knew that the only workable outcome was one where both sides felt they had won something of value.
On that basis I ascribe all the failings in the process to Johnson and his team who were outmatched from start to finish.
He ran rings around Olly Robbins. It has since become clear that Frost absolutely thrashed him though. We got everything we wanted out of the EU deal and all they got was border pedantry.
Booster vaccine eligibility changed. No need to wait for the NHS invite. A week after 6 months all groups 1-9 are automatically enrolled and provisioned.
That's a good outcome. Hopefully it changes overnight and all of those people who have missed the NHS invite or haven't got one will be able to book themselves in ASAP.
If Hancock was in charge we wouldn't have got this move IMO, he would have stuck rigidly to existing system.
Good, very good indeed, but why the extra week? why not allow people to book on the 6 month anniversary, or better still book a week before?
Not wanting to sound to pedantic there, its a good move and should be celebrating.
Comments
I understand the first vaccination drive had the involvement of military planning as well (am I right on that). Have they been too complacent and not bothered with getting expert planning in place this time?
Thanks
In my view this needs to be a military style mobilisation if we’re not going to depend on foreign staff. Including nurses, healthcare assistants, radiographers, mental health practitioners, etc.
My girlfriend would absolutely retrain in the medical sphere if funding was available. She works in the NHS now but in an administrative role and doesn’t have a degree.
I predicted this months ago.
Not that it helps much in the short term.
I was one of the last three in the pub, and as a matter of concern, my age is greater than that of the two others combined.
Moreover, one of the others is my boss. (But they were buying.)
Klopp and Guardiola have raised the bar where 97 points doesn't win you the league.
That defence needs sorting though.
More Corbyn/Abbottesque policies.
I'd be so offended if I got my job thanks to my skin colour.
Black police officers to be fast-tracked into senior roles
Home Secretary pledges to beat ‘stubbornly slow’ recruitment of ethnic minority officers with new drive to boost promotion to higher ranks
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/20/black-police-officers-fast-tracked-senior-roles/
I know I'm always optimistic, but the combination of that and booster shots should be enough to bring R down below 1 pretty quickly I'd have thought.
So Macron might survive this time but if there is the same swing again to the populist right candidate in 2027 they could actually win the French Presidency
https://harris-interactive.fr/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2021/10/Rapport-Harris-Vague-17-Intentions-de-vote-Presidentielle-2022-Challenges.pdf
These SW retest cases are skewing the numbers.
Still thinking Friday for the highest daily total.
The French are in a state of despair. Macron was elected last time not only because he wasn’t Le Pen but because voters thought he would be a break from the past. He wasn’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised in a run-off if the French didn’t decide let’s give it a spin and see how Le Pen goes.
If I was French I would probably vote for Macron over Le Pen but Bertrand over Macron, however I might well consider voting for Zemmour over Macron too
Even Nosferatu is more popular than she is.
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_VA_102021/
Both the motivation and key topics seem to be also running in Youngkin’s favour. It also doesn’t help McAuliffe that Biden’s approval are tanking further.
I think we're over the peak for the Tories now and I am increasingly confident of a Hung Parliament.
Trump didn't get more people voting Clinton because he wasn't taken seriously.
Will anyone be taking Zemmour seriously?
But it's important to realise as well how much Le Pen has moved the FN: for example Barnier (from LR) and Zemmour are both openly Eurosceptic, while Le Pen now sounds more like a LibDem on the subject of Europe. (Her previous pledge for a referendum on the membership of the Euro has been dumped.)
It's hard to see much in the Le Pen policy book that looks very different to Cameron (except perhaps more aggressive government spending), and that's why she has gained from traditional LR voters, and lost them to her Right.
Prisoners are people too. That shouldn’t be controversial. He hadn’t even been convicted of a crime.
https://twitter.com/billybinion/status/1450903611660242952
Wife tried to sue the Dept of Corrections commissioner. Federal court said he couldn’t have known and is protected by qualified immunity. Hard to say who exactly is most at fault here, but it appears there will be no accountability for this needless death.
https://twitter.com/billybinion/status/1450905902417162242
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1450909473925734406?s=20
And what is worse is that the research shows that even measuring against a wide array of indicators gives very poor sensitivity and appalling specificity. A high percentage of false negatives and huge numbers of false positives. A very bad combination.
In 2017 Macron still won comfortably but only 66% of the vote. Le Pen Jr got double the vote share her father got.
I worry that France will get bored of holding a peg on their nose and eventually the candidate is going to slip through, as happened with Trump 2016.
Frost must have been convincing in the negotiations.
- Barnier (who seems to have had a Damascene conversion being involved with Brexit)
- Zemmour
- Melanchon
- Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
The only difference between Le Pen and a mainstream Europhile is that she describes her vision for the EU as a Christian club designed to keep out the Muslim hordes. (She might not actually use the word 'hordes'.)
She's a big government conservative, not some crazy loon on the fringes of French politics. But - of course - by staking out that position, she's been outflanked on the right by Zemmour and others.
So we should all hope he wins.
Now. Aldi time.
https://www.politico.eu/article/michel-barnier-brexit-france-candidate-eu-campaign-trail/
I don't think Le Pen would be great. Not because she's a fascist (she's not), but because her economic policy would be all about subsidising failing French businesses.
Melanchon would be worse, of course. And NDA is flailing around failing to get traction right now.
So I will press you: do you predict a Le Pen victory?
That's a good outcome. Hopefully it changes overnight and all of those people who have missed the NHS invite or haven't got one will be able to book themselves in ASAP.
If Hancock was in charge we wouldn't have got this move IMO, he would have stuck rigidly to existing system.
The two impressions I got from him at the time were frustration that the UK team simply did not understand and were not serious about the magnitude of what they were negotiating but also that he knew that the only workable outcome was one where both sides felt they had won something of value.
On that basis I ascribe all the failings in the process to Johnson and his team who were outmatched from start to finish.
Not wanting to sound to pedantic there, its a good move and should be celebrating.