Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
This is an interesting article and shows what an enormous challenge is facing Starmer if Brexit continues to resonate with voters in the North and Midlands.
"But elections experts John Curtice, Stephen Fisher and Patrick English say that by attracting Leave-supporting former Labour voters who might otherwise have backed the Conservatives, Farage may have significantly cut the scale of Labour’s defeat."
An example given is Hartlepool. Labour held it in 2019 with a big vote going to the Brexit Party, but the Tories romped home in the subsequent by-election. I find it very difficult to believe that Labour will win back Hartlepool next time, or any other of the seats they lost in the NE. If anything, they will be fighting to hang on to some of the seats in Teesside and Co Durham that they held in 2019.
This seems about right, but is already well known. This whole argument is part of what is a very big picture: currently the Tories have no potential allies whatsoever (even the awful DUP, IMHO), while Labour cannot win alone.
So the next election is between a party that cannot win alone against a party that must win alone, while the window for an unstable result is pretty wide.
These factors will be the most important bit of background for what will be a unique election in 23/24. Tory tactics already look fairly clear; Labour's less so.
A thought just struck me.
ISTR that Patterson is very close to the DUP. Could the Tories be building credit in advance with a potential intermediary?
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
Here's a question, how many times have you posted about the Azeem Rafiq story?
I suspect the negative reaction to Yorkshire's ambivalence as to how Azeem Rafiq was treated confirms to Leon his daft thesis/top trolling.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
Here's a question, how many times have you posted about the Azeem Rafiq story?
People who attack "woke" are generally the same people who downplay or ignore the experiences of discrimination that are the main motivation for BLM and other "woke" movements. Personally speaking, if we are taking sides, I line up with those like Rafiq who are fighting against this discrimination. I won't allow my children to face the same problems my wife has had to deal with throughout her life as a person of colour. Downplaying or ignoring this discrimination and attacking those who are fighting it unfortunately seems to be a winning electoral strategy in many places. That doesn't make it right and I sure as hell know which side I am on.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
What you write there about Trump is complete nonsense. The real danger is who is setting the Biden agenda now.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
But Leon is right that anti-wokeism does drive a lot of votes. This is a huge problem for the mainstream left - and, given the actions of the GOP in the US and the Tories here, for anyone who actually cares about living in a properly functioning democracy. Whether we like it or not, for a a large section of the electorate ensuring that statues of people who made a lot of money from slavery are not removed from public view is a lot more important than ensuring the executive does not put itself beyond the scope of the law.
She was talking complete rubbish in a lot of her questions but came across far more interesting than Mogadon Man.
I'd score it 2-1 to Boris.
After Ed, Angela and Reeves have all done better in their replies/questions than dreary Sir Keir ever does normally. Surely MPs in Labour are going to have to do a leadership challenge soon rather than let him bore them on to another defeat?
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
Don't you think there is disproportionately more US moral panic directed at wokery than the frequently much crazier shenanigans of the American Christian right? Creationism, QAnon, Birtherism, you name it. Things that have direct consequences for politics. They seem to be shrugged off as a few crazies whilst the goings on of the crazies on the far left are expected to poison the entire Democrat party.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
Don't you think there is disproportionately more US moral panic directed at wokery than the frequently much crazier shenanigans of the American Christian right? Creationism, QAnon, Birtherism, you name it. Things that have direct consequences for politics. They seem to be shrugged off as a few crazies whilst the goings on of the crazies on the far left are expected to poison the entire Democrat party.
Exactly. If democracy is maintained, everything can always be swung back. But with the Republicans there is a real danger that it will be dismantled.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
Here's a question, how many times have you posted about the Azeem Rafiq story?
Lol. Because I don’t comment on some entirely different, infinitely smaller story, that proves what?
Woke madness could win Trump a 2nd term. It will certainly alter US politics as voters fight back, Virginia proves this. That will be one of the biggest political narratives of the decade, globally
Azeem Rafiq? Clear racism. Yorkshire cricket have shamed themselves
This is an interesting article and shows what an enormous challenge is facing Starmer if Brexit continues to resonate with voters in the North and Midlands.
"But elections experts John Curtice, Stephen Fisher and Patrick English say that by attracting Leave-supporting former Labour voters who might otherwise have backed the Conservatives, Farage may have significantly cut the scale of Labour’s defeat."
An example given is Hartlepool. Labour held it in 2019 with a big vote going to the Brexit Party, but the Tories romped home in the subsequent by-election. I find it very difficult to believe that Labour will win back Hartlepool next time, or any other of the seats they lost in the NE. If anything, they will be fighting to hang on to some of the seats in Teesside and Co Durham that they held in 2019.
This seems about right, but is already well known. This whole argument is part of what is a very big picture: currently the Tories have no potential allies whatsoever (even the awful DUP, IMHO), while Labour cannot win alone.
So the next election is between a party that cannot win alone against a party that must win alone, while the window for an unstable result is pretty wide.
These factors will be the most important bit of background for what will be a unique election in 23/24. Tory tactics already look fairly clear; Labour's less so.
A thought just struck me.
ISTR that Patterson is very close to the DUP. Could the Tories be building credit in advance with a potential intermediary?
A former colleague was US state department attache to NI during the Obama years, and knew Paterson then and more recently. She says he was a charming chap but the most extreme example of the Dunning Kruger effect she had ever encountered.
She was talking complete rubbish in a lot of her questions but came across far more interesting than Mogadon Man.
I'd score it 2-1 to Boris.
After Ed, Angela and Reeves have all done better in their replies/questions than dreary Sir Keir ever does normally. Surely MPs in Labour are going to have to do a leadership challenge soon rather than let him bore them on to another defeat?
‘ LOL, Boris says Rayner has "a gigawatt more energy" than Starmer. Actually turning the fact she duffed him up into an advantage for him.’
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
Here's a question, how many times have you posted about the Azeem Rafiq story?
Lol. Because I don’t comment on some entirely different, infinitely smaller story, that proves what?
Woke madness could win Trump a 2nd term. It will certainly alter US politics as voters fight back, Virginia proves this. That will be one of the biggest political narratives of the decade, globally
Azeem Rafiq? Clear racism. Yorkshire cricket have shamed themselves
Because you're so predictable.
What's the bigger outrage? Wokeism or Trump/GOP stealing elections?
I know which one you've droned on the most about, at least it isn't as tedious as your posts on UFOs.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
What you write there about Trump is complete nonsense. The real danger is who is setting the Biden agenda now.
She was talking complete rubbish in a lot of her questions but came across far more interesting than Mogadon Man.
I'd score it 2-1 to Boris.
After Ed, Angela and Reeves have all done better in their replies/questions than dreary Sir Keir ever does normally. Surely MPs in Labour are going to have to do a leadership challenge soon rather than let him bore them on to another defeat?
‘ LOL, Boris says Rayner has "a gigawatt more energy" than Starmer. Actually turning the fact she duffed him up into an advantage for him.’
She was talking complete rubbish in a lot of her questions but came across far more interesting than Mogadon Man.
I'd score it 2-1 to Boris.
After Ed, Angela and Reeves have all done better in their replies/questions than dreary Sir Keir ever does normally. Surely MPs in Labour are going to have to do a leadership challenge soon rather than let him bore them on to another defeat?
The dig by Boris about her having a gigawatt more energy than her boss was well placed but I think that she had the better of it.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
What you write there about Trump is complete nonsense. The real danger is who is setting the Biden agenda now.
She was talking complete rubbish in a lot of her questions but came across far more interesting than Mogadon Man.
I'd score it 2-1 to Boris.
After Ed, Angela and Reeves have all done better in their replies/questions than dreary Sir Keir ever does normally. Surely MPs in Labour are going to have to do a leadership challenge soon rather than let him bore them on to another defeat?
The dig by Boris about her having a gigawatt more energy than her boss was well placed but I think that she had the better of it.
I was going to score it as a 1-1 draw but that dig was the last minute winner for me.
I'd also like to add, amidst all of the doom and gloom, the constant signal boosting of case numbers by the media and the lockdown forever scientists the UK public just shrugged it off. The October economic indicators are well up on September, particularly in services and specifically hospitality based services.
We could, at some point in the next 2-3 weeks, have recovered all of the lost COVID GDP. What's even better is that the predicted slowdown for Q4 hasn't materialised in any of the real time indices so we may end up overshooting the current growth projections and recover a lot more of the "lost growth potential" than is currently pencilled in. Right now we're about 5% below what would otherwise have occurred without COVID, government projections say we will make up 3% of that which then turns into our new baseline. The current level of economic activity and growth in activity is much larger than even the city consensus, there is now a plausible scenario where we recover all of the 5% and then add a bit more before returning to trend growth of ~1.8%.
I'm genuinely at a loss to explain it because as noted earlier, there are millions of people who are simply not participating in society. Potentially it could be the savings rate going up by a huge amount, but that's usually something which takes many years to feed through into the wider economy. It could also be the huge rise in disposable income for the middle class office worker who now has cut their commuting costs by 60-100%. I'm not sure how, but we could conceivably come out of the other side of this pandemic with an economy in better long term shape than when we entered. Some of that makes sense too, businesses have trimmed a lot of fat, output per worker is well up too and on average people who work are happier now than they were pre-pandemic because of flexible working hours.
Hats off to @stodge who did say at the end of last year that there would be a lot then unrealised net gains from this, I doubted him and tbh, I was wrong to do so!
The hospitality and retail industries were kept afloat last year in their quietest periods by government money and lots of it, in most cases they are better off financially than pre virus. A short term rocket boost, long term the winter shut downs last year will turn out to be a disaster. Aggravated probably by green folly.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
If I had the time (which I do) and the inclination (which I sort of do) and the tech nous (which I definitely don't) I could copy into here a stream of examples every single day of braindead bigoted shit from people on the other side - your side - of this fractious divide.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Still some room for democracy to be fortified today.
Wrong about Trump because the working Republican voter loves his policy and so Trump's popularity among the base is huge. No other Republican politician at present comes close to that.
Trump has two issues he needs to fix with his F350 driving deplorable base that he will have to fix: vaccines (they fucking hate them) and the Jan 6 fuckpieces currently languishing in Federal-Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Prison.
He could just lie and say he was always antivax, that would work. He'll also have to intimate that pardons or clemency are going to be forthcoming for the Capitol Sturmabteilung.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
And closing the polling stations in Black and minority areas? Is that ok? Let alone the absurd gerrymandering, the creation of ever more hurdles in terms of voter identification etc. These people are not democrats with a small "d". They are dishonest hypocrites. And they threaten the very existence of US democracy.
Why the hell did Boris get himself into this mess over Owen Paterson? Yes, Paterson is regarded as a god by elements the euro-sceptic swivel-eyed brigade, but these people are a fading force - Leaveism is becoming more unfashionable by the day. Boris showed his ruthless streak when he purged the parliamentary party of the Remoaner wets. Why is he squandering political capital protecting this clown?
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
Don't you think there is disproportionately more US moral panic directed at wokery than the frequently much crazier shenanigans of the American Christian right? Creationism, QAnon, Birtherism, you name it. Things that have direct consequences for politics. They seem to be shrugged off as a few crazies whilst the goings on of the crazies on the far left are expected to poison the entire Democrat party.
Exactly. If democracy is maintained, everything can always be swung back. But with the Republicans there is a real danger that it will be dismantled.
Which brings the question of what replaces it? Sham democracy or full on dictatorship? Trump is so vain he may feel the need to be formally appointed for life.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
Don't you think there is disproportionately more US moral panic directed at wokery than the frequently much crazier shenanigans of the American Christian right? Creationism, QAnon, Birtherism, you name it. Things that have direct consequences for politics. They seem to be shrugged off as a few crazies whilst the goings on of the crazies on the far left are expected to poison the entire Democrat party.
Fair points. I think the disparity is because Woke (I’m still waiting for an alternative word) is an elite project exported from academe and handed down from top politicians, and is now infesting all levels of business, education, law, the arts, media, even science. It is an imposed ideology, and a revolutionary one
QAnon and the rest are perennial pitchfork insurrections, they are not new, nor are they as menacing to many, even if the theories have got crazier
January 6 WAS new. And very scary - to me. But I remind PB-ers that the Trumpites at the Capitol were only trying to do at speed what Remoaners tried to do for 2 years. Get a legal national vote overturned. Cancel democracy
Why the hell did Boris get himself into this mess over Owen Paterson? Yes, Paterson is regarded as a god by elements the euro-sceptic swivel-eyed brigade, but these people are a fading force - Leaveism is becoming more unfashionable by the day. Boris showed his ruthless streak when he purged the parliamentary party of the Remoaner wets. Why is he squandering political capital protecting this clown?
It is simply a reminder to all of his political power and patronage.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
She was talking complete rubbish in a lot of her questions but came across far more interesting than Mogadon Man.
I'd score it 2-1 to Boris.
After Ed, Angela and Reeves have all done better in their replies/questions than dreary Sir Keir ever does normally. Surely MPs in Labour are going to have to do a leadership challenge soon rather than let him bore them on to another defeat?
‘ LOL, Boris says Rayner has "a gigawatt more energy" than Starmer. Actually turning the fact she duffed him up into an advantage for him.’
Scientists/engineers/techies around the country splutter into their coffee and shout "power! that's a measure of power, not energy"
Obviously, it doesn't change their view of Johnson and normal people don't notice, so it changes nothing (or, being a neat line, enhances Johnson's position...)
Just for a bit of balance to the occasional wind energy triumphalism around here, this week's first taste of winter high pressure (low wind, low temperature) means we're relying on well over 20GW of gas to keep the lights on. Given this is a weather pattern that happens frequently every winter for extended periods, there is more or less no over-capacity wind based solution until we get a storage technology capable of scaling to ~ 3000-5000GWh rather than the current world record of 1.6GWh
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
If I had the time (which I do) and the inclination (which I sort of do) and the tech nous (which I definitely don't) I could copy into here a stream of examples every single day of braindead bigoted shit from people on the other side - your side - of this fractious divide.
Get back to me when you can find gangs of menacing and angry Tory students driving academics out of a British university with abuse and death threats
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
If I had the time (which I do) and the inclination (which I sort of do) and the tech nous (which I definitely don't) I could copy into here a stream of examples every single day of braindead bigoted shit from people on the other side - your side - of this fractious divide.
Get back to me when you can find gangs of menacing and angry Tory students driving academics out of a British university with abuse and death threats
Yeah, but that's only because Tory students are as common as rocking horse poop
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
He doesn't need to blackmail the Reps - if he stands he will get the nomination at a canter.
That will be obvious come next year when he (and his supporters) determine who are the Republican candidates in most places.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
Don't you think there is disproportionately more US moral panic directed at wokery than the frequently much crazier shenanigans of the American Christian right? Creationism, QAnon, Birtherism, you name it. Things that have direct consequences for politics. They seem to be shrugged off as a few crazies whilst the goings on of the crazies on the far left are expected to poison the entire Democrat party.
Exactly. If democracy is maintained, everything can always be swung back. But with the Republicans there is a real danger that it will be dismantled.
Which brings the question of what replaces it? Sham democracy or full on dictatorship? Trump is so vain he may feel the need to be formally appointed for life.
I imagine sham democracy, similar to Russia in the early 2000s. Sooner or later that will evolve into full dictatorship, but likely under Trump’s replacement.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
If I had the time (which I do) and the inclination (which I sort of do) and the tech nous (which I definitely don't) I could copy into here a stream of examples every single day of braindead bigoted shit from people on the other side - your side - of this fractious divide.
I dare say you could @kinabalu but that wouldn't make this right or acceptable.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
What a strange comment. All the evidence suggests he will be strolling the nomination with unprecedented levels of support. The only threat to him comes from someone with more right-on QAnon views. If it weren't for his obesity and an incumbent he ought to be odds on to be next President.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
Trump to Republicans is the equivalent of Jesus to Christianity, he has no need to blackmail them, they will beg him to run and pay him billions to do so.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
And closing the polling stations in Black and minority areas? Is that ok? Let alone the absurd gerrymandering, the creation of ever more hurdles in terms of voter identification etc. These people are not democrats with a small "d". They are dishonest hypocrites. And they threaten the very existence of US democracy.
I could go plenty the other way but the biggest danger to democracy is mass postal voting. I have seen it with my own eyes here. The liitle old lady never says no to the local 6 foot 4 heavy who comes to collect her postal vote. The issue is 1 million times worse in the US but it is coming here too, if we let it.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
If I had the time (which I do) and the inclination (which I sort of do) and the tech nous (which I definitely don't) I could copy into here a stream of examples every single day of braindead bigoted shit from people on the other side - your side - of this fractious divide.
Get back to me when you can find gangs of menacing and angry Tory students driving academics out of a British university with abuse and death threats
Yeah, but that's only because Tory students are as common as rocking horse poop
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
Don't you think there is disproportionately more US moral panic directed at wokery than the frequently much crazier shenanigans of the American Christian right? Creationism, QAnon, Birtherism, you name it. Things that have direct consequences for politics. They seem to be shrugged off as a few crazies whilst the goings on of the crazies on the far left are expected to poison the entire Democrat party.
Fair points. I think the disparity is because Woke (I’m still waiting for an alternative word) is an elite project exported from academe and handed down from top politicians, and is now infesting all levels of business, education, law, the arts, media, even science. It is an imposed ideology, and a revolutionary one
QAnon and the rest are perennial pitchfork insurrections, they are not new, nor are they as menacing to many, even if the theories have got crazier
January 6 WAS new. And very scary - to me. But I remind PB-ers that the Trumpites at the Capitol were only trying to do at speed what Remoaners tried to do for 2 years. Get a legal national vote overturned. Cancel democracy
Sadly, but correctly, with the silliness of your last paragraph you forfeit any claim to be taken seriously.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
And closing the polling stations in Black and minority areas? Is that ok? Let alone the absurd gerrymandering, the creation of ever more hurdles in terms of voter identification etc. These people are not democrats with a small "d". They are dishonest hypocrites. And they threaten the very existence of US democracy.
I could go plenty the other way but the biggest danger to democracy is mass postal voting. I have seen it with my own eyes here. The liitle old lady never says no to the local 6 foot 4 heavy who comes to collect her postal vote. The issue is 1 million times worse in the US but it is coming here too, if we let it.
For me it is when they count all the votes, not just stopping the count when my candidate is in the lead, after they cleverly managed to get their votes counted first. If we can't reward such ingenuity, then democracy is doomed.
Why the hell did Boris get himself into this mess over Owen Paterson? Yes, Paterson is regarded as a god by elements the euro-sceptic swivel-eyed brigade, but these people are a fading force - Leaveism is becoming more unfashionable by the day. Boris showed his ruthless streak when he purged the parliamentary party of the Remoaner wets. Why is he squandering political capital protecting this clown?
It is simply a reminder to all of his political power and patronage.
And "You can't tell me, the Great Boris Johnson, what to do" has been his guiding star forever.
All politicians are prone to it (remember Plebgate?)... heck all people are prone to it... but most of us don't embrace it as our core creed.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
And closing the polling stations in Black and minority areas? Is that ok? Let alone the absurd gerrymandering, the creation of ever more hurdles in terms of voter identification etc. These people are not democrats with a small "d". They are dishonest hypocrites. And they threaten the very existence of US democracy.
I could go plenty the other way but the biggest danger to democracy is mass postal voting. I have seen it with my own eyes here. The liitle old lady never says no to the local 6 foot 4 heavy who comes to collect her postal vote. The issue is 1 million times worse in the US but it is coming here too, if we let it.
Why the hell did Boris get himself into this mess over Owen Paterson? Yes, Paterson is regarded as a god by elements the euro-sceptic swivel-eyed brigade, but these people are a fading force - Leaveism is becoming more unfashionable by the day. Boris showed his ruthless streak when he purged the parliamentary party of the Remoaner wets. Why is he squandering political capital protecting this clown?
For the same reason Caligula thought his horse better than his senators
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
Don't you think there is disproportionately more US moral panic directed at wokery than the frequently much crazier shenanigans of the American Christian right? Creationism, QAnon, Birtherism, you name it. Things that have direct consequences for politics. They seem to be shrugged off as a few crazies whilst the goings on of the crazies on the far left are expected to poison the entire Democrat party.
Fair points. I think the disparity is because Woke (I’m still waiting for an alternative word) is an elite project exported from academe and handed down from top politicians, and is now infesting all levels of business, education, law, the arts, media, even science. It is an imposed ideology, and a revolutionary one
QAnon and the rest are perennial pitchfork insurrections, they are not new, nor are they as menacing to many, even if the theories have got crazier
January 6 WAS new. And very scary - to me. But I remind PB-ers that the Trumpites at the Capitol were only trying to do at speed what Remoaners tried to do for 2 years. Get a legal national vote overturned. Cancel democracy
Sadly, but correctly, with the silliness of your last paragraph you forfeit any claim to be taken seriously.
Indeed.
Remoaners tried to get the national vote overturned for three years, not two.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Still some room for democracy to be fortified today.
Wrong about Trump because the working Republican voter loves his policy and so Trump's popularity among the base is huge. No other Republican politician at present comes close to that.
Trump has two issues he needs to fix with his F350 driving deplorable base that he will have to fix: vaccines (they fucking hate them) and the Jan 6 fuckpieces currently languishing in Federal-Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Prison.
He could just lie and say he was always antivax, that would work. He'll also have to intimate that pardons or clemency are going to be forthcoming for the Capitol Sturmabteilung.
On vaccines he is pro choice, so the mandate, control loving left give him an easy out. Also there is a lot more to come on Jan 6th. The left would be best backing off that as well but they won't.
Just for a bit of balance to the occasional wind energy triumphalism around here, this week's first taste of winter high pressure (low wind, low temperature) means we're relying on well over 20GW of gas to keep the lights on. Given this is a weather pattern that happens frequently every winter for extended periods, there is more or less no over-capacity wind based solution until we get a storage technology capable of scaling to ~ 3000-5000GWh rather than the current world record of 1.6GWh
I do agree. This year has been much, much poorer for wind than last and indicates the level of storage (as well as capacity) required if this is to become our main energy source would be immense, beyond our technological competence at the present time.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
If I had the time (which I do) and the inclination (which I sort of do) and the tech nous (which I definitely don't) I could copy into here a stream of examples every single day of braindead bigoted shit from people on the other side - your side - of this fractious divide.
Get back to me when you can find gangs of menacing and angry Tory students driving academics out of a British university with abuse and death threats
Yeah, but that's only because Tory students are as common as rocking horse poop
It's almost a certainty that no Tory students or faculty gave a flying fuck about a gay man working anywhere. One only needs to attend a Tory conference to find this out.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Anyone who hs ever canvassed a street, and met actual voters in person, knows full well that the majority of people have little time for wokeness. They certainly won't vote for it and, if wilfully confronted with it, can certainly be provoked into voting for the alternative.
In the US, the horror is that this might provide a route back for Trump and I have an awful feeling that we may end up watching the proverbial slow-motion car-crash that would be his re-election. Just imagine. Can the Republicans make a grotesque narcissist like that disappear if he doesn't want to? Really?
It reminds me of the London mob who were "against Popery though didn't know if it was a man or a horse"
Critical Race Theory in schools was apparently an issue (despite it not being taught in schools or proposed to be!), and this voter encapsulated the issue.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
Don't you think there is disproportionately more US moral panic directed at wokery than the frequently much crazier shenanigans of the American Christian right? Creationism, QAnon, Birtherism, you name it. Things that have direct consequences for politics. They seem to be shrugged off as a few crazies whilst the goings on of the crazies on the far left are expected to poison the entire Democrat party.
Fair points. I think the disparity is because Woke (I’m still waiting for an alternative word) is an elite project exported from academe and handed down from top politicians, and is now infesting all levels of business, education, law, the arts, media, even science. It is an imposed ideology, and a revolutionary one
QAnon and the rest are perennial pitchfork insurrections, they are not new, nor are they as menacing to many, even if the theories have got crazier
January 6 WAS new. And very scary - to me. But I remind PB-ers that the Trumpites at the Capitol were only trying to do at speed what Remoaners tried to do for 2 years. Get a legal national vote overturned. Cancel democracy
The fact that you can compare 6 Jan to Remainers says everything about your biased view.
Also if you mean by Remoaners Rejoiners why not say so. Just cos this is your definition of the word it isn't everybody's, so it just confuses your message and just looks like an insult. I only know what you mean because of a previous exchange with you.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
Don't you think there is disproportionately more US moral panic directed at wokery than the frequently much crazier shenanigans of the American Christian right? Creationism, QAnon, Birtherism, you name it. Things that have direct consequences for politics. They seem to be shrugged off as a few crazies whilst the goings on of the crazies on the far left are expected to poison the entire Democrat party.
Fair points. I think the disparity is because Woke (I’m still waiting for an alternative word) is an elite project exported from academe and handed down from top politicians, and is now infesting all levels of business, education, law, the arts, media, even science. It is an imposed ideology, and a revolutionary one
QAnon and the rest are perennial pitchfork insurrections, they are not new, nor are they as menacing to many, even if the theories have got crazier
January 6 WAS new. And very scary - to me. But I remind PB-ers that the Trumpites at the Capitol were only trying to do at speed what Remoaners tried to do for 2 years. Get a legal national vote overturned. Cancel democracy
The fact that you can compare 6 Jan to Remainers says everything about your biased view.
Also if you mean by Remoaners Rejoiners why not say so. Just cos this is your definition of the word it isn't everybody's, so it just confuses your message and just looks like an insult. I only know what you mean because of a previous exchange with you.
The similarity is that both were trying to use a mechanism other than the ballot box to overturn a democratic vote. If you can't see that then more fool you and it confirms my existing view of your true allegiance not being to this country and its people.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
And closing the polling stations in Black and minority areas? Is that ok? Let alone the absurd gerrymandering, the creation of ever more hurdles in terms of voter identification etc. These people are not democrats with a small "d". They are dishonest hypocrites. And they threaten the very existence of US democracy.
I could go plenty the other way but the biggest danger to democracy is mass postal voting. I have seen it with my own eyes here. The liitle old lady never says no to the local 6 foot 4 heavy who comes to collect her postal vote. The issue is 1 million times worse in the US but it is coming here too, if we let it.
Do you have examples of this actually happening?
Yes I have been asked to it myself by the local party I was campaigning for.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
He doesn't need to blackmail the Reps - if he stands he will get the nomination at a canter.
That will be obvious come next year when he (and his supporters) determine who are the Republican candidates in most places.
I don't think it is a slam dunk actually. At the moment, interestingly, he is drifting for the nomination but tightening for the presidency.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
If I had the time (which I do) and the inclination (which I sort of do) and the tech nous (which I definitely don't) I could copy into here a stream of examples every single day of braindead bigoted shit from people on the other side - your side - of this fractious divide.
Get back to me when you can find gangs of menacing and angry Tory students driving academics out of a British university with abuse and death threats
Yeah, but that's only because Tory students are as common as rocking horse poop
Actually on reflection I think I know why "wokeism" seems to sway voters more than right wing nut jobbery. It's because the former points the finger at "us" (you, me, everyone) and tells us we are sinners. The latter - usually - points the finger at "them" - other people not like us, shady elites, people who want to undermine your lifestyle.
The left wing equivalents of blaming "them" are banker bashing, Israel bashing and US tech giant bashing. Elements of all 3 of those, especially the middle one, can be deeply problematic but don;t have the same salience because they don't seem to be blaming the voter.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
And closing the polling stations in Black and minority areas? Is that ok? Let alone the absurd gerrymandering, the creation of ever more hurdles in terms of voter identification etc. These people are not democrats with a small "d". They are dishonest hypocrites. And they threaten the very existence of US democracy.
I could go plenty the other way but the biggest danger to democracy is mass postal voting. I have seen it with my own eyes here. The liitle old lady never says no to the local 6 foot 4 heavy who comes to collect her postal vote. The issue is 1 million times worse in the US but it is coming here too, if we let it.
Do you have examples of this actually happening?
Do you lack the imagination to perceive a thing as potentially dangerous until the thing of which there is a danger has actually occurred?
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
And closing the polling stations in Black and minority areas? Is that ok? Let alone the absurd gerrymandering, the creation of ever more hurdles in terms of voter identification etc. These people are not democrats with a small "d". They are dishonest hypocrites. And they threaten the very existence of US democracy.
I could go plenty the other way but the biggest danger to democracy is mass postal voting. I have seen it with my own eyes here. The liitle old lady never says no to the local 6 foot 4 heavy who comes to collect her postal vote. The issue is 1 million times worse in the US but it is coming here too, if we let it.
For me it is when they count all the votes, not just stopping the count when my candidate is in the lead, after they cleverly managed to get their votes counted first. If we can't reward such ingenuity, then democracy is doomed.
Or you stop the count when the opponent is ahead, then organise a truck load of your own votes to be delivered in the dead of night. Then next day restart and voila you are soon winning. Jeremy should have tried this in 2019.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
In my experience it varies enormously. One Tube train will have 5% maskers, the next 95%
I’ve got a theory that explains it. Almost everyone CARRIES a mask just in case. But many prefer not to wear it
So if they step in a carriage and it’s largely maskless , they happily stay maskless. It then becomes quite a social statement to put a mask ON. Why? Are you infected?
However if they step in a carriage and it’s, say, 60% masked, then their mask goes on, due to peer pressure, and then almost everyone is masked
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
What a strange comment. All the evidence suggests he will be strolling the nomination with unprecedented levels of support. The only threat to him comes from someone with more right-on QAnon views. If it weren't for his obesity and an incumbent he ought to be odds on to be next President.
I disagree that it's his for the taking. It's a massive prize, the GOP nomination, and there'll be other sharks in the water. Plus, he is not the right pick if the party truly want to win the WH back. I expect WH24 to feature neither Trump nor Biden.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
Yet I was on the train home to Brockley from London Bridge yesterday at rush hour and I would say it was about 50-60% masked at least. So much so that some geezers presumably from beyond the white van curtain were moaning loudly about all the people in their masks.
I tend to wear a mask on the train and tube as a reassurance to fellow passengers and to avoid getting nervous looks, rather than through any epidemiological risk assessment on my part.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
In my experience it varies enormously. One Tube train will have 5% maskers, the next 95%
I’ve got a theory that explains it. Almost everyone CARRIES a mask just in case. But many prefer not to wear it
So if they step in a carriage and it’s largely maskless , they happily stay maskless. It then becomes quite a social statement to put a mask ON. Why? Are you infected?
However if they step in a carriage and it’s, say, 60% masked, then their mask goes on, due to peer pressure, and then almost everyone is masked
That explains the random fluctuations
100%. It's conforming with the crowd. I do it myself.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
And closing the polling stations in Black and minority areas? Is that ok? Let alone the absurd gerrymandering, the creation of ever more hurdles in terms of voter identification etc. These people are not democrats with a small "d". They are dishonest hypocrites. And they threaten the very existence of US democracy.
Not only wrong, but also pointless. There's no evidence that a high turnout hurts Republicans. Florida even swung in their favour once they enfranchised felons (who presumably saw Trump as a kindred spirit).
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
And closing the polling stations in Black and minority areas? Is that ok? Let alone the absurd gerrymandering, the creation of ever more hurdles in terms of voter identification etc. These people are not democrats with a small "d". They are dishonest hypocrites. And they threaten the very existence of US democracy.
I could go plenty the other way but the biggest danger to democracy is mass postal voting. I have seen it with my own eyes here. The liitle old lady never says no to the local 6 foot 4 heavy who comes to collect her postal vote. The issue is 1 million times worse in the US but it is coming here too, if we let it.
The breaches in the Tower Hamlets case were egregious, and it still took a heck of a lot of effort from some determined campaigners to bring them to light. The police failed the electorate miserably - see here:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47535867
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
What a strange comment. All the evidence suggests he will be strolling the nomination with unprecedented levels of support. The only threat to him comes from someone with more right-on QAnon views. If it weren't for his obesity and an incumbent he ought to be odds on to be next President.
I disagree that it's his for the taking. It's a massive prize, the GOP nomination, and there'll be other sharks in the water. Plus, he is not the right pick if the party truly want to win the WH back. I expect WH24 to feature neither Trump nor Biden.
I hope you’re right and you make a good point. Virginia is a puzzle for the Republicans. Youngkin shunned Trump personally, never mentioned him. But flirted with his followers
It was massively successful. It shows what an anti-Woke but non-Trump candidate could do in 2024. Win very easily. But how to prise Trump’s tiny fingers off the nonimatiom?
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
Yet I was on the train home to Brockley from London Bridge yesterday at rush hour and I would say it was about 50-60% masked at least. So much so that some geezers presumably from beyond the white van curtain were moaning loudly about all the people in their masks.
I tend to wear a mask on the train and tube as a reassurance to fellow passengers and to avoid getting nervous looks, rather than through any epidemiological risk assessment on my part.
Again 50-60% sounds fair, the graphic points to a masking rate of 80% or higher, that definitely isn't the case. Even in the current casedemic that the media have irresponsibly tried to push people are pretty steadfast and the numbers wearing a mask are declining.
A couple of weekends ago we had this ridiculous situation of going to a late night bar in Camden packed full of people not wearing masks and then those same people piling onto a tube train at half past midnight and suddenly we were supposed to wear masks. The same is true for offices and other workplaces, we spend all day unmasked with people indoors where clearly COVID clearly doesn't have an entry card to get past the lobby but then we're expected to mask up for the tube and trains despite everyone spending their days indoors and unmasked?
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
I think people would adjust their expectations if case numbers stay stable.
But I'm sceptical an endemic equilibrium would be at this level... ONS thinks 1 in 50 have it or over 1m have COVID right now. Unless reinfections become much more common, how can we stay at this level?
We have found 9m cases in the UK... so surely at least 20m-30m have actually had COVID by now. And over 90% have antibodies.
One of those Twitter scientists / statisticians did a rough calculation based on immunity waning at a particular - not particularly rapid - rate, assuming one booster per year and current levels of vaccine efficacy, and concluded that in endemic state each of us should expect to catch it roughly once every 6 years. In a population of 65-70 million people that would mean around 11 million getting it each year / 365 = 30,000 new cases per day. No all of those would be tested and diagnosed of course, but it just shows how
So that's the thing: if you look at the dashboard and it's saying 30,000 new cases (and say 600 hospitalisations and 100+ deaths every day) it means you're only likely to catch the thing once every 6 years - and unlikely to be hospitalised with it in your lifetime.
Prevalence levels of endemic rhinoviruses and common cold COVs mean if we tested for them we'd have positives of several hundred k every day in the winter months, possibly more than a million in peak season.
It's hard to put case numbers in context given the sheer scale of the UK population.
I see your point, but I think you're a bit off with the numbers. If the endemic state is 30k new cases/day and we assume cases last 20 days on average, then that's 600k people at once in the UK. Which is basically where we were in July according to ONS (when I think it's fair to say most people were a bit more relaxed about COVID) and so would mean much lower hospitalization and death numbers than what you mentioned.
The current level of 1.3m people would imply everyone getting COVID every 3 years or so which doesn't seem right, and I certainly hope is not what would happen.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
In my experience it varies enormously. One Tube train will have 5% maskers, the next 95%
I’ve got a theory that explains it. Almost everyone CARRIES a mask just in case. But many prefer not to wear it
So if they step in a carriage and it’s largely maskless , they happily stay maskless. It then becomes quite a social statement to put a mask ON. Why? Are you infected?
However if they step in a carriage and it’s, say, 60% masked, then their mask goes on, due to peer pressure, and then almost everyone is masked
That explains the random fluctuations
100%. It's conforming with the crowd. I do it myself.
Yes, me too. You’ve got to be highly rebellious and confidently pugnacious to stay the only unmasked person in a train that is otherwise entirely masked. The social pressure is intense and 99% of humans will yield, to avoid the stress
On the train to Glasgow and back yesterday pretty much everyone was wearing a mask. I gave myself a brief break when drinking a coffee but otherwise complied. That is still the law up here, of course, but it was being complied with. In the streets of Glasgow masks were pretty rare.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of this case, this does smack of hubris. If there was a competent Labour leader (no, not Corbyn), the government would take a real beating from this.
" ... wokeism" seems to sway voters more than right wing nut jobbery. It's because the former points the finger at "us" (you, me, everyone) and tells us we are sinners. The latter - usually - points the finger at "them" - other people not like us, shady elites, people who want to undermine your lifestyle."
Something the 'wokers' can't get their heads round.
Trump has no scientific credibilty, but that's baked in. However, the wokers actively dismiss science if it conflicts with their pet theories. A sociologist arguing science isn't a good look.
I read Carole Hooven's book on testosterone recently. Nothing dramatic and it contained accurate science, yet somehow it's controversial.
I could hardly credit the examples she gives of Wokery at its finest. I doubted anyone could be so barmy, even allowing for them being American.
Even worse, the morons are generally the loudest.
A couple of proverbs ...
Empty vessels make most noise - more true than ever. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me - history
Actually on reflection I think I know why "wokeism" seems to sway voters more than right wing nut jobbery. It's because the former points the finger at "us" (you, me, everyone) and tells us we are sinners. The latter - usually - points the finger at "them" - other people not like us, shady elites, people who want to undermine your lifestyle.
The left wing equivalents of blaming "them" are banker bashing, Israel bashing and US tech giant bashing. Elements of all 3 of those, especially the middle one, can be deeply problematic but don;t have the same salience because they don't seem to be blaming the voter.
I actually agree with this and it's also why wokeism is so offputting. It's as if they want to blame me personally for something that happened hundreds of years ago, as if it's my fault that slavery existed and I should feel bad about it.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
In my experience it varies enormously. One Tube train will have 5% maskers, the next 95%
I’ve got a theory that explains it. Almost everyone CARRIES a mask just in case. But many prefer not to wear it
So if they step in a carriage and it’s largely maskless , they happily stay maskless. It then becomes quite a social statement to put a mask ON. Why? Are you infected?
However if they step in a carriage and it’s, say, 60% masked, then their mask goes on, due to peer pressure, and then almost everyone is masked
That explains the random fluctuations
Random fluctuations would also explain the random fluctuations. Perhaps you also think that every time you roll a die, it comes up with 3.5?
More seriously, I have also seen pretty wide variety in the ratio of mask wearers on tube trains, but I've never seen anyone either put a mask on once on the platform/train, or take one off - whether in response to implicit societal pressure or otherwise. It looks to me like either you arrive at the station with one on (or put it on as you arrive) or you don't.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
I think people would adjust their expectations if case numbers stay stable.
But I'm sceptical an endemic equilibrium would be at this level... ONS thinks 1 in 50 have it or over 1m have COVID right now. Unless reinfections become much more common, how can we stay at this level?
We have found 9m cases in the UK... so surely at least 20m-30m have actually had COVID by now. And over 90% have antibodies.
One of those Twitter scientists / statisticians did a rough calculation based on immunity waning at a particular - not particularly rapid - rate, assuming one booster per year and current levels of vaccine efficacy, and concluded that in endemic state each of us should expect to catch it roughly once every 6 years. In a population of 65-70 million people that would mean around 11 million getting it each year / 365 = 30,000 new cases per day. No all of those would be tested and diagnosed of course, but it just shows how
So that's the thing: if you look at the dashboard and it's saying 30,000 new cases (and say 600 hospitalisations and 100+ deaths every day) it means you're only likely to catch the thing once every 6 years - and unlikely to be hospitalised with it in your lifetime.
Prevalence levels of endemic rhinoviruses and common cold COVs mean if we tested for them we'd have positives of several hundred k every day in the winter months, possibly more than a million in peak season.
It's hard to put case numbers in context given the sheer scale of the UK population.
I see your point, but I think you're a bit off with the numbers. If the endemic state is 30k new cases/day and we assume cases last 20 days on average, then that's 600k people at once in the UK. Which is basically where we were in July according to ONS (when I think it's fair to say most people were a bit more relaxed about COVID) and so would mean much lower hospitalization and death numbers than what you mentioned.
The current level of 1.3m people would imply everyone getting COVID every 3 years or so which doesn't seem right, and I certainly hope is not what would happen.
Given that reinfection of the vaccinated plus previously infected is rare*, those numbers seem relatively conservative.
Boris showed his ruthless streak when he purged the parliamentary party of the Remoaner wets. Why is he squandering political capital protecting this clown?
Because he can
BoZo is World King, and Parliament is his plaything
Are there any strong bets for the French election?
Bertrand, as the likely Les Republicains candidate of the centre right, if he managed to get through to the runoff could beat Macron, that would likely depend on Le Pen and Zemmour splitting the populist right vote.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
In my experience it varies enormously. One Tube train will have 5% maskers, the next 95%
I’ve got a theory that explains it. Almost everyone CARRIES a mask just in case. But many prefer not to wear it
So if they step in a carriage and it’s largely maskless , they happily stay maskless. It then becomes quite a social statement to put a mask ON. Why? Are you infected?
However if they step in a carriage and it’s, say, 60% masked, then their mask goes on, due to peer pressure, and then almost everyone is masked
That explains the random fluctuations
That sounds very plausible.
We should test it.
Ten PBers - lead by @Sunil_Prasannan - should ride tube trains all day. They should experiment by putting masks on (or not) at the beginning of every tube line, thus seeding the journey as either with (or without) masks. They can then measure the effect.
This can then be written up, and published in Nature magazine.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
Trump to Republicans is the equivalent of Jesus to Christianity, he has no need to blackmail them, they will beg him to run and pay him billions to do so.
Why will they want him to run when they know their best chance of winning is with someone else? I don't see it myself. He's 2.5 for the nomination so the betting has it more likely than not that he isn't the GOP candidate. The betting also has it at 27 that he wins the WH for a brand new MAGA party - which is the threat I'm referring to. The dream scenario is he does that and splits the vote and the Dems - with a great not Joe candidate - win easily. An unlikely dream scenario of course but dream scenarios are always unlikely. It's all very fascinating. If we can't make money off all of this we need shooting.
Surely the big story of the day is Virginia, not Owen Patterson
Proximately it strongly suggests swinging Republican gains in 2022, rendering Biden a lame duck who will do very little, making it easier for the GOP to retake the White House in 2024
Ultimately, it is much bigger than that. It is the first time a shrewd right winger has cleverly weaponised Wokeness as a stick to thwack the Left, and boy, it works. Voters loathe this race and gender bullshit
I see almost no reason why the Republicans can’t repeat this across America, and the Counter-Reformation could spread to Canada, Oz, and the UK.
I say ‘almost’ because Trump, of course. He is the one confounding factor. Republicans need him to disappear, even as they maintain their grip on his base. If they can do that, they could dominate elections for a decade, because the American Left is not getting any less insane, any time soon
Virginia also neatly answers that persistent question. “What is Wokeness?”. Wokeness is what lost the Virginia election for the Left
Except that "wokeness" as is happening in America like many such culture wars just doesn't apply in the UK.
Last year some responded to the Black Lives Matter movement by saying "OK fair enough to protest American police violence but we don't have that issue in this country" which is right. We equally don't have this "wokeness" of which you are completely dogmatically obsessed about either. It swings both ways.
We have enough issues of our own to worry about, without transplanting American culture wars into the UK.
lol. I’m ‘dogmatically obsessed’ with Wokeness. Ok. Whatever.
You and others keep telling me it’s trivial, not an issue, just new ways of being polite. Yada yaddddda. Well here it is winning a dramatic and important election, and crippling a U.S. president. Wokeness is not trivial, it is huge
On your other point I tend to agree. The UK is not so deeply sunk in the Culture War as America, but we are certainly heading in the same direction. See our endless pointless ranting arguments about statue-toppling and trans rights. We do not have the poisoned racial debate of America, thank God, but in other ways we are even worse than them (the trans-TERF war is nastier in Britain)
Ironically the best way for Britain to avoid America’s fate is for us to keep electing moderate Tories, who will stand firm against the wilder lunacies
"Moderate" Tory MPs are about to end independent oversight of their colleagues' behaviour, are set to back plans to make it harder to vote in elections, support making public protest illegal and believe the government should be beyond judicial scrutiny. But at least we get to protect statues of people who made fortunes from slavery. Phew!
This is what I find crazy. Yes, "wokeism" is illiberal and there are a handful of unfair firings from academia. But such a mentality is clearly nowhere near taking control of the main left wing party. Meanwhile the Republicans incited an attack on the US seat of government, actively fought efforts to deal with a pandemic that has killed half a million Americans, are electing conspiracy theorists to control elections. Yet it's the left that are the main problem? It is bonkers.
Well put. And when only 41% of Republican voters believe that the votes are actually counted correctly when it is their party who is responsible for most voter suppression and undermining the system you have a society that is just fragmenting before our eyes. It is a warning to us all.
Voter Suppression, or stopping cheating. I agree with Farage totally on the dangers of mass postal voting. If you want it to be your vote should be between you and the ballot box. When I was younger I would have had little choice but vote Labour with the postal vote. I never have.
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
And closing the polling stations in Black and minority areas? Is that ok? Let alone the absurd gerrymandering, the creation of ever more hurdles in terms of voter identification etc. These people are not democrats with a small "d". They are dishonest hypocrites. And they threaten the very existence of US democracy.
Not only wrong, but also pointless. There's no evidence that a high turnout hurts Republicans. Florida even swung in their favour once they enfranchised felons (who presumably saw Trump as a kindred spirit).
Differential turnout does seem to have done for McAuliffe yesterday. The object is not to reduce overall turnout but the turnout of, presumably, hostile minorities.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
I dread the idea of a 2nd Trump presidency. He’s a dangerous maniac who could cancel American democracy
Luckily, American voters sense this. They really don’t want to vote for him. My fear is that the Democrats will lurch ever further to the Left, double down on Wokery, and then in despair US voters will see Trump as the lesser of two evils
Don't you think there is disproportionately more US moral panic directed at wokery than the frequently much crazier shenanigans of the American Christian right? Creationism, QAnon, Birtherism, you name it. Things that have direct consequences for politics. They seem to be shrugged off as a few crazies whilst the goings on of the crazies on the far left are expected to poison the entire Democrat party.
Fair points. I think the disparity is because Woke (I’m still waiting for an alternative word) is an elite project exported from academe and handed down from top politicians, and is now infesting all levels of business, education, law, the arts, media, even science. It is an imposed ideology, and a revolutionary one
QAnon and the rest are perennial pitchfork insurrections, they are not new, nor are they as menacing to many, even if the theories have got crazier
January 6 WAS new. And very scary - to me. But I remind PB-ers that the Trumpites at the Capitol were only trying to do at speed what Remoaners tried to do for 2 years. Get a legal national vote overturned. Cancel democracy
The fact that you can compare 6 Jan to Remainers says everything about your biased view.
Also if you mean by Remoaners Rejoiners why not say so. Just cos this is your definition of the word it isn't everybody's, so it just confuses your message and just looks like an insult. I only know what you mean because of a previous exchange with you.
The similarity is that both were trying to use a mechanism other than the ballot box to overturn a democratic vote. If you can't see that then more fool you and it confirms my existing view of your true allegiance not being to this country and its people.
Max again you are reading stuff into stuff I didn't post. I commented on making the comparison between 6 Jan and the actions of Remainers. No sane person can claim they are comparable regardless of the rights and wrongs as several have pointed out. You did the same the other day reading stuff into what I didn't post. You even commented on my views on the NI agreement which I have not even mentioned. Again I ask are you mixing me up with someone else?
Re my true allegiance not being to this country again I don't know where you get that from (you may of seen earlier I criticized Spain in a dispute with the UK). As a default I support England and GB. That is primarily at sporting events. However I judge people on what they do and say regardless of nationality. I find it odd anyone would do differently because of their nationality.
Virginia’s #EdEquityVA work is informed by literature, best practice, and research. Below are the resources the Office of Equity and Community Engagement references in the development of our work, as well as texts we recommend:
Walking the Equity Talk: A Guide for Culturally Courageous Leadership in School Communities by John Roert Browne II Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children by Gloria Ladson-Billings Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice (third edition) by Geneva Gay Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire Using Equity Audits to Create Equitable and Excellent Schools by Linda E. Skrla Cultural Proficiency: A manual for School Leaders by Randall B. Lindsey, Kikanza Nuri-Robins, Raymond D. Terrell, and Delores B. Lindsey Race, Equity, and Education: Sixty Years from Brown by Pedro Noguera, Jill Pierce, Roey Ahram Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools by Glen Singleton Foundations of Critical Race Theory in Education by Edward Taylor and David Gillborn and Gloria Ladson-Billings Making It: What Today’s Kids Need for Tomorrow’s World Four Hundred Souls – A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 Cultural Proficiency – A Manual for School Leaders, 4th Edition Breakthrough Leadership – Six Principles Guiding Schools Where Inequity Is Not an Option
" ... wokeism" seems to sway voters more than right wing nut jobbery. It's because the former points the finger at "us" (you, me, everyone) and tells us we are sinners. The latter - usually - points the finger at "them" - other people not like us, shady elites, people who want to undermine your lifestyle."
Something the 'wokers' can't get their heads round.
Trump has no scientific credibilty, but that's baked in. However, the wokers actively dismiss science if it conflicts with their pet theories. A sociologist arguing science isn't a good look.
I read Carole Hooven's book on testosterone recently. Nothing dramatic and it contained accurate science, yet somehow it's controversial.
I could hardly credit the examples she gives of Wokery at its finest. I doubted anyone could be so barmy, even allowing for them being American.
Even worse, the morons are generally the loudest.
A couple of proverbs ...
Empty vessels make most noise - more true than ever. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me - history
The problem is hardly even that. It's that opponents of a thing amplify its worst examples.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
In my experience it varies enormously. One Tube train will have 5% maskers, the next 95%
I’ve got a theory that explains it. Almost everyone CARRIES a mask just in case. But many prefer not to wear it
So if they step in a carriage and it’s largely maskless , they happily stay maskless. It then becomes quite a social statement to put a mask ON. Why? Are you infected?
However if they step in a carriage and it’s, say, 60% masked, then their mask goes on, due to peer pressure, and then almost everyone is masked
That explains the random fluctuations
Exactly, I am double vaccinated now and to be honest my wearing a mask will make little difference to my chances of catching Covid or spreading it. If I get it the jabs will at least reduce the risk of my getting seriously ill from it.
My putting on a mask mainly depends on the numbers in the tube carriage, if it is near packed I do, otherwise I don't bother, certainly once the train is out of inner London, unless everyone else in the carriage is too to avoid a scene
I'd also like to add, amidst all of the doom and gloom, the constant signal boosting of case numbers by the media and the lockdown forever scientists the UK public just shrugged it off. The October economic indicators are well up on September, particularly in services and specifically hospitality based services.
We could, at some point in the next 2-3 weeks, have recovered all of the lost COVID GDP. What's even better is that the predicted slowdown for Q4 hasn't materialised in any of the real time indices so we may end up overshooting the current growth projections and recover a lot more of the "lost growth potential" than is currently pencilled in. Right now we're about 5% below what would otherwise have occurred without COVID, government projections say we will make up 3% of that which then turns into our new baseline. The current level of economic activity and growth in activity is much larger than even the city consensus, there is now a plausible scenario where we recover all of the 5% and then add a bit more before returning to trend growth of ~1.8%.
I'm genuinely at a loss to explain it because as noted earlier, there are millions of people who are simply not participating in society. Potentially it could be the savings rate going up by a huge amount, but that's usually something which takes many years to feed through into the wider economy. It could also be the huge rise in disposable income for the middle class office worker who now has cut their commuting costs by 60-100%. I'm not sure how, but we could conceivably come out of the other side of this pandemic with an economy in better long term shape than when we entered. Some of that makes sense too, businesses have trimmed a lot of fat, output per worker is well up too and on average people who work are happier now than they were pre-pandemic because of flexible working hours.
Hats off to @stodge who did say at the end of last year that there would be a lot then unrealised net gains from this, I doubted him and tbh, I was wrong to do so!
Here in the US (and I suspect most of the rest of the world), we're struggling to quite make it back to baseline because of capacity constraints. I wouldn't be surprised if the same was true in the UK.
It is also worth noting that some UK industries - like travel and tourism - are still running well below prepandemic levels.
So, I'm not quite as optimistic as you. I suspect that we'll need to wait until the second or maybe even the third quarter of 2022 before we're back to prepandemic levels, and until 2023 to get back to trend.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of this case, this does smack of hubris. If there was a competent Labour leader (no, not Corbyn), the government would take a real beating from this.
Might yet do so.
One of the patterns in Johnson's behaviour is to bounce controversial stuff through the Commons before anyone can organise an opposition to it. The obvious example was the NI increase; the Brexit deal followed the same timeline, and now this- it wasn't really on the radar this time yesterday.
As a raw power play, it works. But the underlying issues (paying more money to the government, relating to Europe, now the rights and wrongs of MP behaviour) don't go away.
The best way to kill this story is to send Paterson on a fact-finding mission to the Bahamas for 30 days. By having a process review (that may well end up in the same place), the story of sleazy Tory MPs continues.
A power grab that doesn't deal with the presenting issue? How very Johnsonian.
I have heard of precisely zero people IRL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.I hew heard of precisely zero people ITL agitating for another lockdown. Yes, I know, dovish London etc etc etc – I realise that other areas are different. But is there anywhere in the UK where people are clinging to their homes, praying that the government soon forces everyone to stay inside? Really? I just can't believe that.
Agree, I don't think people are agitating for a lockdown. And we shouldn't need one, unless we get some new and nasty variant.
But, I do know people (older/more vulnerable on average) who are reducing social contact and avoiding events where they feel unsafe. That is likely to continue whilst cases are high I would guess.
The trouble is case numbers now may not be that much higher than the endemic equilibrium. In which case the fear continues, in theory indefinitely.
Where are these fearful people of whom you write? They are certainly not here, in London, where people are behaving as normal, and getting on with their lives.
Obviously you won't see the fearful people, because they will be at home.
You would hear of them though! And work with them (remotely). Yet I can think of precisely zero. I do have one colleague who is more hawkish on masks etc, but even she goes out and fraternises, so it's not clear to me where Team Fear are hiding, or if they exist at all.
Underground and London buses running at 70-80% of pre-pandemic capacity on the weekend.
The commuter stuff may be a shift to working from home which arguably is as much convenience for workers as fear of COVID.
But presumably people going out on public transport less at weekend is a sign of people being concerned about covid.
Er... the vastly reduced volume of international tourists would probably account for most/all of that 20% weekend drop?!
Could be I guess, but I'd be surprised if it's just tourists. There are lots of other indicators that some people are still worried and changing their behaviour:
Those numbers don't pass the sniff test either, my wife and I took the train to Guildford from Waterloo on Sunday and then back again on Monday, I couldn't see a single person wearing a mask, the way there was very busy too because of all the cancellations. Waterloo station was packed on that Sunday and again, the number of people wearing masks was maybe 1 in 10. I think a study using CCTV footage for train stations and trains should be used to judge this, not a survey where people will obviously lie about how virtuous they are being.
In my experience it varies enormously. One Tube train will have 5% maskers, the next 95%
I’ve got a theory that explains it. Almost everyone CARRIES a mask just in case. But many prefer not to wear it
So if they step in a carriage and it’s largely maskless , they happily stay maskless. It then becomes quite a social statement to put a mask ON. Why? Are you infected?
However if they step in a carriage and it’s, say, 60% masked, then their mask goes on, due to peer pressure, and then almost everyone is masked
That explains the random fluctuations
Exactly, I am double vaccinated now and to be honest my wearing a mask will make little difference to my chances of catching Covid or spreading it. If I get it the jabs will at least reduce the risk of my getting seriously ill from it.
My putting on a mask mainly depends on the numbers in the tube carriage, if it is near packed I do, otherwise I don't bother unless everyone else in the carriage is too to avoid a scene
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
Trump to Republicans is the equivalent of Jesus to Christianity, he has no need to blackmail them, they will beg him to run and pay him billions to do so.
Why will they want him to run when they know their best chance of winning is with someone else? I don't see it myself. He's 2.5 for the nomination so the betting has it more likely than not that he isn't the GOP candidate. The betting also has it at 27 that he wins the WH for a brand new MAGA party - which is the threat I'm referring to. The dream scenario is he does that and splits the vote and the Dems - with a great not Joe candidate - win easily. An unlikely dream scenario of course but dream scenarios are always unlikely. It's all very fascinating. If we can't make money off all of this we need shooting.
Most GOP voters will still vote for Trump, so he will likely be nominee again if he runs and the Democratic nominee in 2024 will still be re elected. Trump will not start a new party while polls show he can still win the GOP nomination again.
Most likely therefore the GOP will take the House next year but the Democrats will keep the White House therefore.
The interesting thing is if the GOP take the House and Senate next year, if they do then Trump could try and force the GOP in Congress to object to the EC results even if he loses the EC. He could not do that in 2020 as the Democrats held the House and most GOP Senators upheld the EC votes.
Looking at the opinion polls, the New Jersey result is more of a surprise than the Virginia one. Nearly all of them had the Democrats ahead by quite large margin in NJ.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
Trump to Republicans is the equivalent of Jesus to Christianity, he has no need to blackmail them, they will beg him to run and pay him billions to do so.
Why will they want him to run when they know their best chance of winning is with someone else? I don't see it myself. He's 2.5 for the nomination so the betting has it more likely than not that he isn't the GOP candidate. The betting also has it at 27 that he wins the WH for a brand new MAGA party - which is the threat I'm referring to. The dream scenario is he does that and splits the vote and the Dems - with a great not Joe candidate - win easily. An unlikely dream scenario of course but dream scenarios are always unlikely. It's all very fascinating. If we can't make money off all of this we need shooting.
I think the lesson from the VA (and possibly NJ) races is that the Republicans now have a strategy for harnessing Trump's ability to fire up the base whilst not pushing a counter-reaction, namely select a candidate who doesn't tie himself into Trump and keeps a distance, yet doesn't bad-mouth him which is what gets Trump's ire. Youngkin was smart. When McAuliffe tried to present him as a Trump acolyte, he resisted the temptation to put as much distance away from Trump as possible.
PS I still think the Texas State race last night where the GOP took a very Hispanic Blue seat in San Antonio probably has longer-term implications
I'd also like to add, amidst all of the doom and gloom, the constant signal boosting of case numbers by the media and the lockdown forever scientists the UK public just shrugged it off. The October economic indicators are well up on September, particularly in services and specifically hospitality based services.
We could, at some point in the next 2-3 weeks, have recovered all of the lost COVID GDP. What's even better is that the predicted slowdown for Q4 hasn't materialised in any of the real time indices so we may end up overshooting the current growth projections and recover a lot more of the "lost growth potential" than is currently pencilled in. Right now we're about 5% below what would otherwise have occurred without COVID, government projections say we will make up 3% of that which then turns into our new baseline. The current level of economic activity and growth in activity is much larger than even the city consensus, there is now a plausible scenario where we recover all of the 5% and then add a bit more before returning to trend growth of ~1.8%.
I'm genuinely at a loss to explain it because as noted earlier, there are millions of people who are simply not participating in society. Potentially it could be the savings rate going up by a huge amount, but that's usually something which takes many years to feed through into the wider economy. It could also be the huge rise in disposable income for the middle class office worker who now has cut their commuting costs by 60-100%. I'm not sure how, but we could conceivably come out of the other side of this pandemic with an economy in better long term shape than when we entered. Some of that makes sense too, businesses have trimmed a lot of fat, output per worker is well up too and on average people who work are happier now than they were pre-pandemic because of flexible working hours.
Hats off to @stodge who did say at the end of last year that there would be a lot then unrealised net gains from this, I doubted him and tbh, I was wrong to do so!
Here in the US (and I suspect most of the rest of the world), we're struggling to quite make it back to baseline because of capacity constraints. I wouldn't be surprised if the same was true in the UK.
It is also worth noting that some UK industries - like travel and tourism - are still running well below prepandemic levels.
So, I'm not quite as optimistic as you. I suspect that we'll need to wait until the second or maybe even the third quarter of 2022 before we're back to prepandemic levels, and until 2023 to get back to trend.
Interestingly, the Markit PMIs are out today. They show (and this probably shouldn't be a surprise) that Services growth continued to rebound very strongly in the UK in October, but that Manufacturing growth is slowing due to supply chain issues.
Anyone who thinks Woke ‘isn’t an issue’ in the UK should watch this. From this morning
‘How awful this was to listen to. Students are possessed with Salem-style levels of hysteria. Where are the ones who say "hang on, guys, this is just wrong?" What a cowardly country. Shameful.’
There are nutters on both extremes of woke and anti woke, so sure it is an issue. Just a very minor one in the big scheme of things compared to the economy, environment, healthcare, international co-operation, housing, policing etc.
It’s not minor.
But I give up. PB is determined to ignore it. Fair enough
But watch this space. Woke might get Trump re-elected. Think on that
I have tipped him up consistently since Jan 2021 and will win a fair amount if he does, although very much hope he loses.
Yes, I remember you taking issue with one of my NY predictions - the one that said Donald Trump will quickly fade way as a political player. I certainly got that wrong.
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
Trump to Republicans is the equivalent of Jesus to Christianity, he has no need to blackmail them, they will beg him to run and pay him billions to do so.
Why will they want him to run when they know their best chance of winning is with someone else? I don't see it myself. He's 2.5 for the nomination so the betting has it more likely than not that he isn't the GOP candidate. The betting also has it at 27 that he wins the WH for a brand new MAGA party - which is the threat I'm referring to. The dream scenario is he does that and splits the vote and the Dems - with a great not Joe candidate - win easily. An unlikely dream scenario of course but dream scenarios are always unlikely. It's all very fascinating. If we can't make money off all of this we need shooting.
"they know their best chance of winning is with someone else" - they bet tens of millions of pounds, often six figure life savings on Trump having won the 2020 election even after he lost it, they still believe he won today. You think they really believe anyone else has a better chance? Even if they did Trump would simply brand any such person a RINO traitor and they will be done.
Comments
Postal vote should be absentee and for the properly disabled only.
ISTR that Patterson is very close to the DUP. Could the Tories be building credit in advance with a potential intermediary?
Downplaying or ignoring this discrimination and attacking those who are fighting it unfortunately seems to be a winning electoral strategy in many places. That doesn't make it right and I sure as hell know which side I am on.
https://torontolife.com/city/this-man-is-the-jeff-bezos-of-the-international-drug-trade/
I'd score it 2-1 to Boris.
After Ed, Angela and Reeves have all done better in their replies/questions than dreary Sir Keir ever does normally. Surely MPs in Labour are going to have to do a leadership challenge soon rather than let him bore them on to another defeat?
Woke madness could win Trump a 2nd term. It will certainly alter US politics as voters fight back, Virginia proves this. That will be one of the biggest political narratives of the decade, globally
Azeem Rafiq? Clear racism. Yorkshire cricket have shamed themselves
https://twitter.com/oflynnsocial/status/1455871493083209736?s=21
What's the bigger outrage? Wokeism or Trump/GOP stealing elections?
I know which one you've droned on the most about, at least it isn't as tedious as your posts on UFOs.
ARF!
He could just lie and say he was always antivax, that would work. He'll also have to intimate that pardons or clemency are going to be forthcoming for the Capitol Sturmabteilung.
QAnon and the rest are perennial pitchfork insurrections, they are not new, nor are they as menacing to many, even if the theories have got crazier
January 6 WAS new. And very scary - to me. But I remind PB-ers that the Trumpites at the Capitol were only trying to do at speed what Remoaners tried to do for 2 years. Get a legal national vote overturned. Cancel democracy
Could he blackmail the Reps to get the nomination, I wonder? "It's me or I run as independent MAGA" type thing?
Obviously, it doesn't change their view of Johnson and normal people don't notice, so it changes nothing (or, being a neat line, enhances Johnson's position...)
Edit: Actually, not students, but allegedly forced out by funders who can (among other less neutral terms) be described as socially conservative
https://attitude.co.uk/article/academic-claims-he-was-forced-out-of-oxford-centre-for-islamic-studies-because-of-his-sexuality-1/23845/
That will be obvious come next year when he (and his supporters) determine who are the Republican candidates in most places.
All the evidence suggests he will be strolling the nomination with unprecedented levels of support.
The only threat to him comes from someone with more right-on QAnon views.
If it weren't for his obesity and an incumbent he ought to be odds on to be next President.
Ok
All politicians are prone to it (remember Plebgate?)... heck all people are prone to it... but most of us don't embrace it as our core creed.
Remoaners tried to get the national vote overturned for three years, not two.
Schoolboy error by Leon.
Critical Race Theory in schools was apparently an issue (despite it not being taught in schools or proposed to be!), and this voter encapsulated the issue.
https://twitter.com/TheGoodLiars/status/1455243036795998212?t=CjjsyyBnBJXTUcx7aPC-Vw&s=19
Also if you mean by Remoaners Rejoiners why not say so. Just cos this is your definition of the word it isn't everybody's, so it just confuses your message and just looks like an insult. I only know what you mean because of a previous exchange with you.
The left wing equivalents of blaming "them" are banker bashing, Israel bashing and US tech giant bashing. Elements of all 3 of those, especially the middle one, can be deeply problematic but don;t have the same salience because they don't seem to be blaming the voter.
I’ve got a theory that explains it. Almost everyone CARRIES a mask just in case. But many prefer not to wear it
So if they step in a carriage and it’s largely maskless , they happily stay maskless. It then becomes quite a social statement to put a mask ON. Why? Are you infected?
However if they step in a carriage and it’s, say, 60% masked, then their mask goes on, due to peer pressure, and then almost everyone is masked
That explains the random fluctuations
I tend to wear a mask on the train and tube as a reassurance to fellow passengers and to avoid getting nervous looks, rather than through any epidemiological risk assessment on my part.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32428648
The breaches in the Tower Hamlets case were egregious, and it still took a heck of a lot of effort from some determined campaigners to bring them to light. The police failed the electorate miserably - see here:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47535867
It was massively successful. It shows what an anti-Woke but non-Trump candidate could do in 2024. Win very easily. But how to prise Trump’s tiny fingers off the nonimatiom?
A couple of weekends ago we had this ridiculous situation of going to a late night bar in Camden packed full of people not wearing masks and then those same people piling onto a tube train at half past midnight and suddenly we were supposed to wear masks. The same is true for offices and other workplaces, we spend all day unmasked with people indoors where clearly COVID clearly doesn't have an entry card to get past the lobby but then we're expected to mask up for the tube and trains despite everyone spending their days indoors and unmasked?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/16july2021
The current level of 1.3m people would imply everyone getting COVID every 3 years or so which doesn't seem right, and I certainly hope is not what would happen.
" ... wokeism" seems to sway voters more than right wing nut jobbery. It's because the former points the finger at "us" (you, me, everyone) and tells us we are sinners. The latter - usually - points the finger at "them" - other people not like us, shady elites, people who want to undermine your lifestyle."
Something the 'wokers' can't get their heads round.
Trump has no scientific credibilty, but that's baked in. However, the wokers actively dismiss science if it conflicts with their pet theories. A sociologist arguing science isn't a good look.
I read Carole Hooven's book on testosterone recently. Nothing dramatic and it contained accurate science, yet somehow it's controversial.
I could hardly credit the examples she gives of Wokery at its finest. I doubted anyone could be so barmy, even allowing for them being American.
Even worse, the morons are generally the loudest.
A couple of proverbs ...
Empty vessels make most noise - more true than ever.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me - history
More seriously, I have also seen pretty wide variety in the ratio of mask wearers on tube trains, but I've never seen anyone either put a mask on once on the platform/train, or take one off - whether in response to implicit societal pressure or otherwise. It looks to me like either you arrive at the station with one on (or put it on as you arrive) or you don't.
BoZo is World King, and Parliament is his plaything
Otherwise Macron will likely be re elected
We should test it.
Ten PBers - lead by @Sunil_Prasannan - should ride tube trains all day. They should experiment by putting masks on (or not) at the beginning of every tube line, thus seeding the journey as either with (or without) masks. They can then measure the effect.
This can then be written up, and published in Nature magazine.
Re my true allegiance not being to this country again I don't know where you get that from (you may of seen earlier I criticized Spain in a dispute with the UK). As a default I support England and GB. That is primarily at sporting events. However I judge people on what they do and say regardless of nationality. I find it odd anyone would do differently because of their nationality.
Virginia’s #EdEquityVA work is informed by literature, best practice, and research. Below are the resources the Office of Equity and Community Engagement references in the development of our work, as well as texts we recommend:
Walking the Equity Talk: A Guide for Culturally Courageous Leadership in School Communities by John Roert Browne II
Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond
The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children by Gloria Ladson-Billings
Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice (third edition) by Geneva Gay
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
Using Equity Audits to Create Equitable and Excellent Schools by Linda E. Skrla
Cultural Proficiency: A manual for School Leaders by Randall B. Lindsey, Kikanza Nuri-Robins, Raymond D. Terrell, and Delores B. Lindsey
Race, Equity, and Education: Sixty Years from Brown by Pedro Noguera, Jill Pierce, Roey Ahram
Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools by Glen Singleton
Foundations of Critical Race Theory in Education by Edward Taylor and David Gillborn and Gloria Ladson-Billings
Making It: What Today’s Kids Need for Tomorrow’s World
Four Hundred Souls – A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
Cultural Proficiency – A Manual for School Leaders, 4th Edition
Breakthrough Leadership – Six Principles Guiding Schools Where Inequity Is Not an Option
No doubt this is where we start arguing the difference betweeen Critical Race Thory being taught in schools and "EdEquityVA... establishing equity targets, measuring equity outcomes, providing tailored assistance to schools and school leaders, and implementing systemic policy and regulatory changes" under the influence of the above texts.
My putting on a mask mainly depends on the numbers in the tube carriage, if it is near packed I do, otherwise I don't bother, certainly once the train is out of inner London, unless everyone else in the carriage is too to avoid a scene
It is also worth noting that some UK industries - like travel and tourism - are still running well below prepandemic levels.
So, I'm not quite as optimistic as you. I suspect that we'll need to wait until the second or maybe even the third quarter of 2022 before we're back to prepandemic levels, and until 2023 to get back to trend.
One of the patterns in Johnson's behaviour is to bounce controversial stuff through the Commons before anyone can organise an opposition to it. The obvious example was the NI increase; the Brexit deal followed the same timeline, and now this- it wasn't really on the radar this time yesterday.
As a raw power play, it works. But the underlying issues (paying more money to the government, relating to Europe, now the rights and wrongs of MP behaviour) don't go away.
The best way to kill this story is to send Paterson on a fact-finding mission to the Bahamas for 30 days. By having a process review (that may well end up in the same place), the story of sleazy Tory MPs continues.
A power grab that doesn't deal with the presenting issue? How very Johnsonian.
"The problem is hardly even that. It's that opponents of a thing amplify its worst examples."
Of course they do, but it shouldn't be a cause of pride for the proponents.
Most likely therefore the GOP will take the House next year but the Democrats will keep the White House therefore.
The interesting thing is if the GOP take the House and Senate next year, if they do then Trump could try and force the GOP in Congress to object to the EC results even if he loses the EC. He could not do that in 2020 as the Democrats held the House and most GOP Senators upheld the EC votes.
PS I still think the Texas State race last night where the GOP took a very Hispanic Blue seat in San Antonio probably has longer-term implications