In the great State of Washington, Governor Jay Inslee has appointed a new Secretary of State to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of elected SoS Kim Wyman, who is taking a position with the Biden Administration responsible for election security.
Gov. Inslee, a Democrat, has appointed state Senator Steve Hobbs, also a Democrat, to replace Sec. Wyman, a Republican, until a special election in November 2022 to fill the remainder of Wyman's current term in office. First elected to a senator in 2006, Hobbs is from Snohomish County north of Seattle, is of mixed race (his mother is Japanese) and will be first person of color to serve as Secretary of State. He's also a long-serving member of the WA National Guard with some background in computer technology and security.
What Hobbs lacks is experience managing and overseeing elections. This is a break from the tradition established since 2000 under the last two (Republican) secretaries of state, Wyman and her predecessor Sam Reed. It is, however, a bit of a return to the days of popular and highly visible Secretary of State Ralph Munro (another Republican) who was a state capital GOP politico who morphed into a reformist and (mostly) non-partisan advocate for expanded voter registration and election participation.
Word on the street is that the Gov chose Sen. Hobbs in order to get him out of the state senate. Both to further Inslee's long-standing (and -stated) commitment to a state carbon tax. AND at the behest of organized labor which also does NOT like the famously- (and sometimes agressively-) moderate Hobbs.
Personally would much rather have seen Inslee appoint a proven, experienced election administrator as Secretary of State. Both to get the best person AND the person best positioned to run & retain this important position in 2022, and also again in 2024. Thus my own choice would have been a serving, elected county auditor or elections director, of whom WA has several excellent, well-qualified examples, from BOTH parties - thank God!
Anyway, in separate discussion - the uptick in cases is conspicuously absent in older people - all of whom are continuing to see cases fall, and fall faster and faster the older they get.
Which means: BOOSTER EFFECT
Which should mean hospitalisations should further decouple from cases.
Which data are you using?
I can get the detailed data (for England) to the 6th
which is still showing falls - apart from the 20-24 group and 25-19 pretty much levelled off...
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
Setting aside what people said 2 years ago, listen to what people are saying now. Tory MPs. They matter, we don't. They're increasingly angry at the endless own goals.
I have no problem with people being Tories or supporting the party or preferring them to Labour. But there is also right and wrong, and the kind of things that a fraction of in Labour would have you and others up and shouting just gets batted away because its Boris. And I don;t think the argument holds any more.
B&S? The image showed MPs not in Portcullis House. Can't see how he has got any grounds for a successful appeal, and if he does find one we know what happens in recall elections - a bigger majority for the winner.
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
If they were at their Constituency MP offices it doesn't matter though does it? Only a concern if they were in the HofC? I don't know - Labour would prob win the re run anyway wouldn't they?
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
He was the right choice for them at that time, as events proved. Doesn't mean those who were anti-Boris were wrong in their reasons for that, as him being an electoral liability was not always the charge.
Hard to imagine Galloway's charge leading to an overturn I'd have thought, as a non lawyer - it seems quite a technical, small thing, even if wrong and fineworthy.
All shops, bars, restaurants in Holland closing at 8pm
Non essential shops closing at 6pm
No more crowds in sports arenas
Work from home
Social distancing again
The Dutch government will "revisit" this on December 6th. No guarantee that those measures won't be extended
That's a proper lockdown. And it might go on for many weeks....
Jeez
From previous experience, it takes about a month for a lockdown to start cutting into the number. Hence the failure of 2 week "circuit breakers".
Indeed. And, from previous experience, once governments do a lockdown, they tend to extend them, as it's the easiest thing, rather than open up and take the risk. Hence nearly ALL of them get extended
Also, December 6th is a mad time to reopen, unless you're VERY confident, because it is the peak of Christmas party season, and everyone will rush out to drink eggnog in crowded Jenever bars in Jordaans
There must be a high probability the Dutch Govt will extend these measures over Christmas, just to be safe. Reopen in mid January
If I was a Dutchman, I'd be quite depressed tonight
I think it rather all depends on hospitalisations (not cases). If hospitalisations remain at pretty low levels, then I would think they'll reopen with strict Vaxports and mask mandates. It is worth remembering that while Dutch cases have increased 30-fold from the June/July lows, the numbers in hospital have less than doubled.
Now, we can all say "lag yada yada yada", but cases have been rising for quite some time in the Netherlands. And just as with the UK, the case numbers have risen a lot faster than hospitalisations. There are just 1,400 people (in total) in hospital with Covid in the Netherlands. And the number increased by just 33 yesterday. That's down 90% from the peaks.
If they put just Covid hospitalisation number in the media, surely that is misleading? The key is the total in specific treatment, including flu and the other respiratory illnesses - because it’s the totality, not just Covid figure, making the services creak, ambulances not coming quickly enough, unloading quickly enough, needy getting right treatment the government and scientists will be looking at when they make their lockdown decisions?
To be blunt, the BBC news gave out a “in hospital with Covid figure” earlier, that in this situation is utterly meaningless and pointless them saying it?
I think you will also find that -
- The number of staff and ICU spaces taken up by COVID is much higher than other illnesses. - The need for anti-COVID precautions in hospitals has massively reduced capacity.
So its a multiple whammy thing -
- COVID patients needing lots of resources - Reduction in capacity because of COVID - Backlog of planned operations etc - Backlog of people now being diagnosed and/or being rushed to emergency because of undiagnosed conditions. - Staff burnt out from COVID.
Your post is great, looking ahead to a multiple whammy occarunce, a Covid preoccupation whilst the triplejabbed oldies die of flu in multidues of thousands and the system breaks. And it’s brilliant you gave a shout out to burnt out staff, dedicated health workers who will keep on going until it makes them ill and they drop. 😿.
Don’t we have some National reserve or military we shouldn’t be embarrassed to call on?
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
Setting aside what people said 2 years ago, listen to what people are saying now. Tory MPs. They matter, we don't. They're increasingly angry at the endless own goals.
I have no problem with people being Tories or supporting the party or preferring them to Labour. But there is also right and wrong, and the kind of things that a fraction of in Labour would have you and others up and shouting just gets batted away because its Boris. And I don;t think the argument holds any more.
B&S? The image showed MPs not in Portcullis House. Can't see how he has got any grounds for a successful appeal, and if he does find one we know what happens in recall elections - a bigger majority for the winner.
Again I largely agree but on B & S if Galloway wins his case labour will just add to the narrative
— I see an inexorable dynamic. Crises continue to accumulate and deepen. On the other hand the capacity to act collectively is if anything more limited today. And there is something else. If you look at France and Germany, it seems clear to me the political gulf between them can only grow. France is swerving right. You saw that with Macron. But it will continue after him. While Germany will move left. Will keep moving left. So for all the beautiful rhetoric, you have the European core almost fated to break apart…
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
He was the right choice for them at that time, as events proved. Doesn't mean those who were anti-Boris were wrong in their reasons for that, as him being an electoral liability was not always the charge.
Hard to imagine Galloway's charge leading to an overturn I'd have thought, as a non lawyer - it seems quite a technical, small thing, even if wrong and fineworthy.
And the main critique of BoJo wasn't that he wouldn't be a winner- pretty much everyone agreed that he would win, and win bigly. It was that a BoJo victory would be followed by a cluster shambles, because he would govern... pretty much the way he has governed.
The hard bit is what happens next. Suppose Rishi took over tonight. What would he have to do to clean up the dunghill? How could he do it without ending up covered up in dung himself?
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
If they were at their Constituency MP offices it doesn't matter though does it? Only a concern if they were in the HofC? I don't know - Labour would prob win the re run anyway wouldn't they?
I would expect so but again as I said to @RochdalePioneers it would add to the narrative and this time with labour
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
Setting aside what people said 2 years ago, listen to what people are saying now. Tory MPs. They matter, we don't. They're increasingly angry at the endless own goals.
I have no problem with people being Tories or supporting the party or preferring them to Labour. But there is also right and wrong, and the kind of things that a fraction of in Labour would have you and others up and shouting just gets batted away because its Boris. And I don;t think the argument holds any more.
B&S? The image showed MPs not in Portcullis House. Can't see how he has got any grounds for a successful appeal, and if he does find one we know what happens in recall elections - a bigger majority for the winner.
Again I largely agree but on B & S if Galloway wins his case labour will just add to the narrative
As entertaining as it would be to see Galloway strutting his funky stuff on the news, it isn't going to happen.
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
Both true. Boris was the only choice and a liability. Both in making him leader and in the 2019 election Boris was the only person who could credibly close out the Brexit thing and bring stage one of Brexit to a close. Without him it was not clear that it would happen at all.
But he is a liability. Everything said about him both good and sub optimal has truth in it. Particularly, when he crashes and burns it will be big and he won't last. The mistakes of the last few weeks are awesome in their incompetence. And a moral abomination.
But if you think back, T May ran a campaign in 2017 that Great Snoring WI could have told her would be a disaster and would have run better, and ran her bit of Brexit appallingly. Cameron allowed the Remain campaign to be run along lines which were, after T May in 2017, the second worst in modern times. And then resigned when he was needed to sort it out.
If Boris left now (there are worse ideas) he would leave a genuine Brexit legacy. More than can be said for T May or Cameron.
Boris being Boris will, I think, try for the long term as PM. Recovery is by no means impossible. I still put a Tory majority next time at nearly 50%; and maybe 30-40% chance that Boris will lead then.
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
He was the right choice for them at that time, as events proved. Doesn't mean those who were anti-Boris were wrong in their reasons for that, as him being an electoral liability was not always the charge.
Hard to imagine Galloway's charge leading to an overturn I'd have thought, as a non lawyer - it seems quite a technical, small thing, even if wrong and fineworthy.
And the main critique of BoJo wasn't that he would be a winner- pretty much everyone agreed that he would win, and win bigly. It was that a BoJo victory would be followed by a cluster shambles, because he would govern... pretty much the way he has governed.
The hard bit is what happens next. Suppose Rishi took over tonight. What would he have to do to clean up the dunghill? How could he do it without ending up covered up in dung himself?
It is unlikely to be as quick but Rishi has personality and his recent observations on this shambles were measured
All shops, bars, restaurants in Holland closing at 8pm
Non essential shops closing at 6pm
No more crowds in sports arenas
Work from home
Social distancing again
The Dutch government will "revisit" this on December 6th. No guarantee that those measures won't be extended
That's a proper lockdown. And it might go on for many weeks....
Jeez
From previous experience, it takes about a month for a lockdown to start cutting into the number. Hence the failure of 2 week "circuit breakers".
Indeed. And, from previous experience, once governments do a lockdown, they tend to extend them, as it's the easiest thing, rather than open up and take the risk. Hence nearly ALL of them get extended
Also, December 6th is a mad time to reopen, unless you're VERY confident, because it is the peak of Christmas party season, and everyone will rush out to drink eggnog in crowded Jenever bars in Jordaans
There must be a high probability the Dutch Govt will extend these measures over Christmas, just to be safe. Reopen in mid January
If I was a Dutchman, I'd be quite depressed tonight
I think it rather all depends on hospitalisations (not cases). If hospitalisations remain at pretty low levels, then I would think they'll reopen with strict Vaxports and mask mandates. It is worth remembering that while Dutch cases have increased 30-fold from the June/July lows, the numbers in hospital have less than doubled.
Now, we can all say "lag yada yada yada", but cases have been rising for quite some time in the Netherlands. And just as with the UK, the case numbers have risen a lot faster than hospitalisations. There are just 1,400 people (in total) in hospital with Covid in the Netherlands. And the number increased by just 33 yesterday. That's down 90% from the peaks.
If they put just Covid hospitalisation number in the media, surely that is misleading? The key is the total in specific treatment, including flu and the other respiratory illnesses - because it’s the totality, not just Covid figure, making the services creak, ambulances not coming quickly enough, unloading quickly enough, needy getting right treatment the government and scientists will be looking at when they make their lockdown decisions?
To be blunt, the BBC news gave out a “in hospital with Covid figure” earlier, that in this situation is utterly meaningless and pointless them saying it?
I think you will also find that -
- The number of staff and ICU spaces taken up by COVID is much higher than other illnesses. - The need for anti-COVID precautions in hospitals has massively reduced capacity.
So its a multiple whammy thing -
- COVID patients needing lots of resources - Reduction in capacity because of COVID - Backlog of planned operations etc - Backlog of people now being diagnosed and/or being rushed to emergency because of undiagnosed conditions. - Staff burnt out from COVID.
Your post is great, looking ahead to a multiple whammy occarunce, a Covid preoccupation whilst the triplejabbed oldies die of flu in multidues of thousands and the system breaks. And it’s brilliant you gave a shout out to burnt out staff, dedicated health workers who will keep on going until it makes them ill and they drop. 😿.
Don’t we have some National reserve or military we shouldn’t be embarrassed to call on?
No we don't have a reserve.
The UK military has next to no permanent medical capability. Peace dividend from the Cold War, long ago.
Anyway, in separate discussion - the uptick in cases is conspicuously absent in older people - all of whom are continuing to see cases fall, and fall faster and faster the older they get.
Which means: BOOSTER EFFECT
Which should mean hospitalisations should further decouple from cases.
Which data are you using?
I can get the detailed data (for England) to the 6th
which is still showing falls - apart from the 20-24 group and 25-19 pretty much levelled off...
What an interesting article this is, in contrast to the rhetoric about "securing our borders".
"Everyone is saying to me that since Brexit it is easier to find safety in the UK".
It appears that not only has Brexit been acting as an increasing pull factor since 2016, but that the Dublin agreement to resettle both migrants and refugees in European safe countries was already no longer being fully implemented, two or three years before the official exit.
It was a hoot listening to Ed Stourton on WATO trying to shut down a former border official who launched into a tirade about how the EU had never implemented Dublin in any case
— I see an inexorable dynamic. Crises continue to accumulate and deepen. On the other hand the capacity to act collectively is if anything more limited today. And there is something else. If you look at France and Germany, it seems clear to me the political gulf between them can only grow. France is swerving right. You saw that with Macron. But it will continue after him. While Germany will move left. Will keep moving left. So for all the beautiful rhetoric, you have the European core almost fated to break apart…
Events of 843 and the Treaty of Verdun continue to weave their mystical magic. Maybe the restoration of the Frankish monarchy and the return of the Holy Roman Empire will be the only answer.
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
If they were at their Constituency MP offices it doesn't matter though does it? Only a concern if they were in the HofC? I don't know - Labour would prob win the re run anyway wouldn't they?
I think if they weren't HoC labour would have said so by now.
Anyway, in separate discussion - the uptick in cases is conspicuously absent in older people - all of whom are continuing to see cases fall, and fall faster and faster the older they get.
Which means: BOOSTER EFFECT
Which should mean hospitalisations should further decouple from cases.
Which data are you using?
I can get the detailed data (for England) to the 6th
which is still showing falls - apart from the 20-24 group and 25-19 pretty much levelled off...
All shops, bars, restaurants in Holland closing at 8pm
Non essential shops closing at 6pm
No more crowds in sports arenas
Work from home
Social distancing again
The Dutch government will "revisit" this on December 6th. No guarantee that those measures won't be extended
That's a proper lockdown. And it might go on for many weeks....
Jeez
From previous experience, it takes about a month for a lockdown to start cutting into the number. Hence the failure of 2 week "circuit breakers".
Indeed. And, from previous experience, once governments do a lockdown, they tend to extend them, as it's the easiest thing, rather than open up and take the risk. Hence nearly ALL of them get extended
Also, December 6th is a mad time to reopen, unless you're VERY confident, because it is the peak of Christmas party season, and everyone will rush out to drink eggnog in crowded Jenever bars in Jordaans
There must be a high probability the Dutch Govt will extend these measures over Christmas, just to be safe. Reopen in mid January
If I was a Dutchman, I'd be quite depressed tonight
I think it rather all depends on hospitalisations (not cases). If hospitalisations remain at pretty low levels, then I would think they'll reopen with strict Vaxports and mask mandates. It is worth remembering that while Dutch cases have increased 30-fold from the June/July lows, the numbers in hospital have less than doubled.
Now, we can all say "lag yada yada yada", but cases have been rising for quite some time in the Netherlands. And just as with the UK, the case numbers have risen a lot faster than hospitalisations. There are just 1,400 people (in total) in hospital with Covid in the Netherlands. And the number increased by just 33 yesterday. That's down 90% from the peaks.
I’m not arguing the data. As we agreed before, they are probably already over-reacting. But what’s to stop them over-reacting again?
It’s very hard to reopen once you’ve locked down. It’s psychologically much easier to err on the side of caution. Otherwise ‘all these extra Christmas deaths are on you, Mr or Ms Dutch PM’
You do tend to be optimistic. Generally an attractive trait
I think the world has changed. I think the pressures on governments to remain open are much higher now. Right now, the Dutch government sees the skyrocketing cases and they are extremely fearful that hospitalisations are just a few weeks behind. If the rise in caseloads is not matched by rocketing "in hospital" numbers, then they'll (if they have any sense) start to loosen up.
Looking at the previous thread, where on Earth are people getting the number of 6 kids dead with covid in six months? There were 7 dead in England and Wales last week alone. This may be okay, but we should use the accurate numbers rather than someone saying they vaguely remembered a figure from somewhere or other and having everyone use it as the solid data from which to make the call.
It's six with no underlying health issues iirc.
If it’s about the bollocks from the Telegraph, that’s also only up until last February - way, way before most of the infections in school-aged kids.
And defines people like Paula Radcliffe and David Beckham as having “underlying health conditions.”
Yeah. When people hear "existing health condition" and Covid they think "bad heart", "lung cancer" they don't think "arthritis" or "eczema"
— I see an inexorable dynamic. Crises continue to accumulate and deepen. On the other hand the capacity to act collectively is if anything more limited today. And there is something else. If you look at France and Germany, it seems clear to me the political gulf between them can only grow. France is swerving right. You saw that with Macron. But it will continue after him. While Germany will move left. Will keep moving left. So for all the beautiful rhetoric, you have the European core almost fated to break apart…
Events of 843 and the Treaty of Verdun continue to weave their mystical magic. Maybe the restoration of the Frankish monarchy and the return of the Holy Roman Empire will be the only answer.
I always thought that the EU should be more like the HRE. In terms of how much freedom member states are allowed. And those Hapburg cities like Wien, Budapest, Kraków, Lviv, are just great places to be
What an interesting article this is, in contrast to the rhetoric about "securing our borders".
"Everyone is saying to me that since Brexit it is easier to find safety in the UK".
It appears that not only has Brexit been acting as an increasing pull factor since 2016, but that the Dublin agreement to resettle both migrants and refugees in European safe countries was already no longer being fully implemented, two or three years before the official exit.
It was a hoot listening to Ed Stourton on WATO trying to shut down a former border official who launched into a tirade about how the EU had never implemented Dublin in any case
The crucial thing in this article is what it says about the perception. People now seem to think they'l never get sent back, because Britain is disconnected from the mainland, which would help to explain the big increase in arrivals. There's no other obvious recent explanation, that I can think of. This has not been covered or even touched in the popular press, ofcourse.
What an interesting article this is, in contrast to the rhetoric about "securing our borders".
"Everyone is saying to me that since Brexit it is easier to find safety in the UK".
It appears that not only has Brexit been acting as an increasing pull factor since 2016, but that the Dublin agreement to resettle both migrants and refugees in European safe countries was already no longer being fully implemented, two or three years before the official exit.
It was a hoot listening to Ed Stourton on WATO trying to shut down a former border official who launched into a tirade about how the EU had never implemented Dublin in any case
The crucial thing in this article is what it says about the perception. People now seem to think they'l never get sent back, because Britain is disconnected from the mainland, which would help to explain the big increase in arrivals. There's no other obvious recent explanation, that I can think of. This has not been covered by the popular press, ofcourse.
From the quotes it looks like it's more something being spread around in Northern France, plus there could be some leading questioning from the journalists: "Everyone here is saying to me that because of Brexit..."
It's to do with the inexplicable dithering over the vaccination of school-age children, over a period of months, which has catapulted us from leading the field to perhaps the worst vaccination rate in Western Europe (depending where one places Austria geographically).
The JCVI were very clear that they couldn't be very clear about why they couldn't report on whether or not boosters and child vaccination were a good idea.
Surely that is clear enough?
Indeed - the only thing that seemed clear was that they didn't think it was even worth considering the effect of transmission to other sections of the population.
Perhaps one day we'll be able to understand why the JCVI didn't understand the basics about how vaccination works.
Because they wanted the kids to get it as soon as possible when the adults were largely protected by vaccines and in summer/autumn when the health service was (relatively) better placed to cope.
The question was whether to vaccinate children as early as possible, or whether to faff around for months doing nothing. Faffing around doing nothing is scarcely a way of achieving anything "as soon as possible". If they really wanted the kids to be infected as soon as possible, maybe they should have saturated the schools with an aerosolised virus solution. Or shouldn't I put ideas into people's heads?
Totally off topic, I watched No Time To Die on Tuesday evening. I must admit, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It was better than Skyfall, and was second only behind Casino Royale among the Craig Bonds.
That being said... it had one segment too many. 160 minutes is too long for a Bond movie. A lot of little cuts (did we really need Hugh Dennis as a scientist?), the opening scene in Italy was far too long, and maybe even a removal of the whole background of Mr White and Safin, could have gotten the movie down to a more manageable length.
I was also not the biggest fan of the finale: Safin was a great villain, who could have been a little better as an opponent at the end.
Still: a really enjoyable, well made, well plotted Bond movie. And I loved the way it ended with the OHMSS We Have All The Time In The World...
What an interesting article this is, in contrast to the rhetoric about "securing our borders".
"Everyone is saying to me that since Brexit it is easier to find safety in the UK".
It appears that not only has Brexit been acting as an increasing pull factor since 2016, but that the Dublin agreement to resettle both migrants and refugees in European safe countries was already no longer being fully implemented, two or three years before the official exit.
It was a hoot listening to Ed Stourton on WATO trying to shut down a former border official who launched into a tirade about how the EU had never implemented Dublin in any case
The crucial thing in this article is what it says about the perception. People now seem to think they'l never get sent back, because Britain is disconnected from the mainland, which would help to explain the big increase in arrivals. There's no other obvious recent explanation, that I can think of. This has not been covered by the popular press, ofcourse.
From the quotes it looks like it's more something being spread around in Northern France, plus there could be some leading questioning from the journalists: "Everyone here is saying to me that because of Brexit..."
I don't get that sense from the article, because everyone seems to be mentioning Brexit as part of their personal story, rather than as an afterthought, or something added after a question from a journalist. It's obviously something that traffickers are telling people, maybe much further afield than northern france, also, and would make a lot of sense in explaining the recent surge of arrivals. People are so desperate to believe in a saviour option, as demonstrated by the miserable scenes in Belarus.
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
He was the right choice for them at that time, as events proved. Doesn't mean those who were anti-Boris were wrong in their reasons for that, as him being an electoral liability was not always the charge.
Hard to imagine Galloway's charge leading to an overturn I'd have thought, as a non lawyer - it seems quite a technical, small thing, even if wrong and fineworthy.
And the main critique of BoJo wasn't that he wouldn't be a winner- pretty much everyone agreed that he would win, and win bigly. It was that a BoJo victory would be followed by a cluster shambles, because he would govern... pretty much the way he has governed.
The hard bit is what happens next. Suppose Rishi took over tonight. What would he have to do to clean up the dunghill? How could he do it without ending up covered up in dung himself?
You are absolutely right, Rishi replacing Boris is the game changer that can gsrantee the election win.
But you are also right, it can garuntee it or ungarantee it based on getting timing wrong. If he took over tonight, far too soon, unless of course the election is next spring.
The ace up the sleeve that changes the whole game. How does the song go, know when to show them, when to hold them, when to run or walk away 😼
Totally off topic, I watched No Time To Die on Tuesday evening. I must admit, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It was better than Skyfall, and was second only behind Casino Royale among the Craig Bonds.
That being said... it had one segment too many. 160 minutes is too long for a Bond movie. A lot of little cuts (did we really need Hugh Dennis as a scientist?), the opening scene in Italy was far too long, and maybe even a removal of the whole background of Mr White and Safin, could have gotten the movie down to a more manageable length.
I was also not the biggest fan of the finale: Safin was a great villain, who could have been a little better as an opponent at the end.
Still: a really enjoyable, well made, well plotted Bond movie. And I loved the way it ended with the OHMSS We Have All The Time In The World...
All shops, bars, restaurants in Holland closing at 8pm
Non essential shops closing at 6pm
No more crowds in sports arenas
Work from home
Social distancing again
The Dutch government will "revisit" this on December 6th. No guarantee that those measures won't be extended
That's a proper lockdown. And it might go on for many weeks....
Jeez
From previous experience, it takes about a month for a lockdown to start cutting into the number. Hence the failure of 2 week "circuit breakers".
Indeed. And, from previous experience, once governments do a lockdown, they tend to extend them, as it's the easiest thing, rather than open up and take the risk. Hence nearly ALL of them get extended
Also, December 6th is a mad time to reopen, unless you're VERY confident, because it is the peak of Christmas party season, and everyone will rush out to drink eggnog in crowded Jenever bars in Jordaans
There must be a high probability the Dutch Govt will extend these measures over Christmas, just to be safe. Reopen in mid January
If I was a Dutchman, I'd be quite depressed tonight
If the rest of Europe locks down and we don't, i'll forgive Boris bloody anything. Can't do another.
Well quite. Which is why we should be enforcing fucking vaxports, like every other nation on earth
Yes yes, civil liberties, but lockdowns are FAR worse. We could beat this virus with vaccines and vaxports, and no lockdowns. We are taking an unnecessary risk with the mental health of the nation to indulge 5 million stupid selfish c*nts who won't get jabbed
You mean we should be learning lessons and adopting what the Netherlands have been doing, so we don't end up like the Netherlands? 🤔
The other nations that have gone down the route of vaxports in the summer and autumn are now finding that [surprise, surprise] Delta will still find a way to spread despite vaxports in the winter so they're simply not good enough and lockdowns become necessary.
With Delta you can't realistically "supress" Covid short of lockdowns. You either accept it and live with it, knowing it will spread, as the UK has done over the summer and autumn or you kick the can and then reach panic stations in the winter as the Netherlands have done.
Not only are vaxports a violation of liberties, but they don't frigging work anyway. Only tolerating cases spreading until they don't spread as much anymore works.
Looking at the previous thread, where on Earth are people getting the number of 6 kids dead with covid in six months? There were 7 dead in England and Wales last week alone. This may be okay, but we should use the accurate numbers rather than someone saying they vaguely remembered a figure from somewhere or other and having everyone use it as the solid data from which to make the call.
It's six with no underlying health issues iirc.
If it’s about the bollocks from the Telegraph, that’s also only up until last February - way, way before most of the infections in school-aged kids.
And defines people like Paula Radcliffe and David Beckham as having “underlying health conditions.”
Yeah. When people hear "existing health condition" and Covid they think "bad heart", "lung cancer" they don't think "arthritis" or "eczema"
Eczema/psoriasis and similar conditions are caused by mild autoimmune problems, so they affect how the body reacts to viruses.
Looking at the previous thread, where on Earth are people getting the number of 6 kids dead with covid in six months? There were 7 dead in England and Wales last week alone. This may be okay, but we should use the accurate numbers rather than someone saying they vaguely remembered a figure from somewhere or other and having everyone use it as the solid data from which to make the call.
It's six with no underlying health issues iirc.
If it’s about the bollocks from the Telegraph, that’s also only up until last February - way, way before most of the infections in school-aged kids.
And defines people like Paula Radcliffe and David Beckham as having “underlying health conditions.”
Yeah. When people hear "existing health condition" and Covid they think "bad heart", "lung cancer" they don't think "arthritis" or "eczema"
Eczema/psoriasis and similar conditions are caused by mild autoimmune problems, so they affect how the body reacts to viruses.
Eczema can also be an early sign of liver disease/damage (TBF as can be psoriasis)
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
People felt it now they are allowed to go abroad. Next year will be more so with (touch wood) all the covid travel stuff gone
— I see an inexorable dynamic. Crises continue to accumulate and deepen. On the other hand the capacity to act collectively is if anything more limited today. And there is something else. If you look at France and Germany, it seems clear to me the political gulf between them can only grow. France is swerving right. You saw that with Macron. But it will continue after him. While Germany will move left. Will keep moving left. So for all the beautiful rhetoric, you have the European core almost fated to break apart…
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
People felt it now they are allowed to go abroad. Next year will be more so with (touch wood) all the covid travel stuff gone
Or the numbers will go the other way again as the UK gets through winter without lockdown and regrettably Europe does not.
The rest of Europe really have been let down by their leadership. To be in lockdown twelve months after vaccines became available is a disgraceful failure.
Anyway, in separate discussion - the uptick in cases is conspicuously absent in older people - all of whom are continuing to see cases fall, and fall faster and faster the older they get.
Which means: BOOSTER EFFECT
Which should mean hospitalisations should further decouple from cases.
Hospitalisations do not[edit] decouple from cases. They simply become a less strong function of cases. Or stronger, as the case may be.
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
People felt it now they are allowed to go abroad. Next year will be more so with (touch wood) all the covid travel stuff gone
Or the numbers will go the other way again as the UK gets through winter without lockdown and regrettably Europe does not.
The rest of Europe really have been let down by their leadership. To be in lockdown twelve months after vaccines became available is a disgraceful failure.
Your flags make no sense mister Thompson. St George’s flag flown to show you good people ship, not pirate ship. You can’t be good people and pirate people at the same time.
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
People felt it now they are allowed to go abroad. Next year will be more so with (touch wood) all the covid travel stuff gone
Or the numbers will go the other way again as the UK gets through winter without lockdown and regrettably Europe does not.
The rest of Europe really have been let down by their leadership. To be in lockdown twelve months after vaccines became available is a disgraceful failure.
Your flags make no sense mister Thompson. St George’s flag flown to show you good people ship, not pirate ship. You can’t be good people and pirate people at the same time.
Sorry for bein presumptuous, you do identify as he? This site don’t do markings
I wonder if we will now see a domino effect across the EU, as Holland falls first. Several countries are in a worse state
Latvia went into lockdown a while ago.
It did?!
Thanks
It is surprisingly hard to get basic facts on this stuff. Worldwide lockdowns. The Resilience Indices are all too opaque
There needs to be -perhaps there is - a map or a website where you can just click and it just says "X country has these restrictions: masks, curfew, vaxports to this extent, and now the 4th lockdown blahblah"
— I see an inexorable dynamic. Crises continue to accumulate and deepen. On the other hand the capacity to act collectively is if anything more limited today. And there is something else. If you look at France and Germany, it seems clear to me the political gulf between them can only grow. France is swerving right. You saw that with Macron. But it will continue after him. While Germany will move left. Will keep moving left. So for all the beautiful rhetoric, you have the European core almost fated to break apart…
In face of a French-led push to revive nuclear power in Europe, a group of five EU countries led by Germany have banded together to urge the European Commission to keep nuclear out of the EU’s green finance taxonomy.
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
People felt it now they are allowed to go abroad. Next year will be more so with (touch wood) all the covid travel stuff gone
Or the numbers will go the other way again as the UK gets through winter without lockdown and regrettably Europe does not.
The rest of Europe really have been let down by their leadership. To be in lockdown twelve months after vaccines became available is a disgraceful failure.
Your flags make no sense mister Thompson. St George’s flag flown to show you good people ship, not pirate ship. You can’t be good people and pirate people at the same time.
Sorry for bein presumptuous, you do identify as he? This site don’t do markings
I wonder if we will now see a domino effect across the EU, as Holland falls first. Several countries are in a worse state
Latvia went into lockdown a while ago.
It did?!
Thanks
It is surprisingly hard to get basic facts on this stuff. Worldwide lockdowns. The Resilience Indices are all too opaque
There needs to be -perhaps there is - a map or a website where you can just click and it just says "X country has these restrictions: masks, curfew, vaxports to this extent, and now the 4th lockdown blahblah"
The FCO travel advice site is the quickest way to link to the situation in any country, but you have to look one at a time.
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
Both true. Boris was the only choice and a liability. Both in making him leader and in the 2019 election Boris was the only person who could credibly close out the Brexit thing and bring stage one of Brexit to a close. Without him it was not clear that it would happen at all.
But he is a liability. Everything said about him both good and sub optimal has truth in it. Particularly, when he crashes and burns it will be big and he won't last. The mistakes of the last few weeks are awesome in their incompetence. And a moral abomination.
But if you think back, T May ran a campaign in 2017 that Great Snoring WI could have told her would be a disaster and would have run better, and ran her bit of Brexit appallingly. Cameron allowed the Remain campaign to be run along lines which were, after T May in 2017, the second worst in modern times. And then resigned when he was needed to sort it out.
If Boris left now (there are worse ideas) he would leave a genuine Brexit legacy. More than can be said for T May or Cameron.
Boris being Boris will, I think, try for the long term as PM. Recovery is by no means impossible. I still put a Tory majority next time at nearly 50%; and maybe 30-40% chance that Boris will lead then.
A fair and insightful post
I'd have a Tory maj at 70% - just because Starmer, SNP, boundaries
I am deeply disenchanted with this socialist-lite Tory govt, and their fucking stupid mistakes. Patergate is just the latest. But then I think of Prime Minister Kir Royale Starmer and I get oddly depressed. He is depressing
Boris still makes me laugh, very occasionally. This should be irrelevant - but it isn't
However I do see the logic of Boris retiring early. Once Covid is done? Next year? He will have delivered Brexit AND saved us from Lockdown 4 (we hope) - not a bad legacy. Puts him in the front tier of modern prime ministers for impact, if not longevity. More of a short lived Blair then a pathetic Brown
Go out on high (we are free of Covid!), earn £20m on the memoirs.
Against that: Carrie. Who must love being the PM's wife. Being the wife of an ex-PM in his 60s?- not so much
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
People felt it now they are allowed to go abroad. Next year will be more so with (touch wood) all the covid travel stuff gone
Or the numbers will go the other way again as the UK gets through winter without lockdown and regrettably Europe does not.
The rest of Europe really have been let down by their leadership. To be in lockdown twelve months after vaccines became available is a disgraceful failure.
Your flags make no sense mister Thompson. St George’s flag flown to show you good people ship, not pirate ship. You can’t be good people and pirate people at the same time.
Sorry for bein presumptuous, you do identify as he? This site don’t do markings
I wonder if we will now see a domino effect across the EU, as Holland falls first. Several countries are in a worse state
Latvia went into lockdown a while ago.
It did?!
Thanks
It is surprisingly hard to get basic facts on this stuff. Worldwide lockdowns. The Resilience Indices are all too opaque
There needs to be -perhaps there is - a map or a website where you can just click and it just says "X country has these restrictions: masks, curfew, vaxports to this extent, and now the 4th lockdown blahblah"
There is an EU site but it is generally a bit slow. The FCO site is best.
I was thinking about the Baltics for my October trip so was tapped into the news.
In the end decided on Andalucia. Warmth, craft beer, sherry, flamenco, Islamic architecture. Awesome.
Looking at the previous thread, where on Earth are people getting the number of 6 kids dead with covid in six months? There were 7 dead in England and Wales last week alone. This may be okay, but we should use the accurate numbers rather than someone saying they vaguely remembered a figure from somewhere or other and having everyone use it as the solid data from which to make the call.
There seems to be 98 under 20 deaths in England in total:
Given that only about 10% of total covid deaths have happened in the last six months then the number kids dying from it in that period might well be in single figures.
You have a visceral dislike of Boris but on this he is correct
France has a duty of care to these migrants as much as we have, and certainly the two countries should be conducting joint patrols to prevent loss of life at sea
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
People felt it now they are allowed to go abroad. Next year will be more so with (touch wood) all the covid travel stuff gone
Or the numbers will go the other way again as the UK gets through winter without lockdown and regrettably Europe does not.
The rest of Europe really have been let down by their leadership. To be in lockdown twelve months after vaccines became available is a disgraceful failure.
Your flags make no sense mister Thompson. St George’s flag flown to show you good people ship, not pirate ship. You can’t be good people and pirate people at the same time.
Sorry for bein presumptuous, you do identify as he? This site don’t do markings
The French are being nasty, racist, murderous shits. They just want the ugly migrants gone, and if that means sending them over the Channel, including children who might die - and people are dying - then that's fine with you. Because it somehow embarrasses "Brexit Britain"?
You have a visceral dislike of Boris but on this he is correct
France has a duty of care to these migrants as much as we have, and certainly the two countries should be conducting joint patrols to prevent loss of life at sea
No. Boris just doing words as usual, no action. Truth is he knows he signs seven out of ten up to work here, he just wastes time before doing that. He should send Patel down on beaches to tell them where to start work on Monday, it will save our tax payers money
France has a duty of care to these migrants as much as we have, and certainly the two countries should be conducting joint patrols to prevent loss of life at sea
While this may be true, BoZo can't "order" France to do anything.
The French are being nasty, racist, murderous shits. They just want the ugly migrants gone, and if that means sending them over the Channel, including children who might die - and people are dying - then that's fine with you. Because it somehow embarrasses "Brexit Britain"?
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
Both true. Boris was the only choice and a liability. Both in making him leader and in the 2019 election Boris was the only person who could credibly close out the Brexit thing and bring stage one of Brexit to a close. Without him it was not clear that it would happen at all.
But he is a liability. Everything said about him both good and sub optimal has truth in it. Particularly, when he crashes and burns it will be big and he won't last. The mistakes of the last few weeks are awesome in their incompetence. And a moral abomination.
But if you think back, T May ran a campaign in 2017 that Great Snoring WI could have told her would be a disaster and would have run better, and ran her bit of Brexit appallingly. Cameron allowed the Remain campaign to be run along lines which were, after T May in 2017, the second worst in modern times. And then resigned when he was needed to sort it out.
If Boris left now (there are worse ideas) he would leave a genuine Brexit legacy. More than can be said for T May or Cameron.
Boris being Boris will, I think, try for the long term as PM. Recovery is by no means impossible. I still put a Tory majority next time at nearly 50%; and maybe 30-40% chance that Boris will lead then.
Don't forget Cameron's legacy of cleaning up politics:
David Cameron today claimed that "secret corporate lobbying" was undermining public confidence in the political system.
In a speech at the University of East London, which he also used to attack Gordon Brown personally over his handling of the MPs' expenses controversy, the Conservative leader said he would force ex-ministers to wait two years before they are allowed to take a job lobbying government.
Cameron said lobbying was an issue that "has tainted our politics for too long".
He went on: "We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism.
"So we must be the party that sorts all this out. Today it is a £2bn industry that has a huge presence in parliament. The Hansard Society has estimated that some MPs are approached over 100 times a week by lobbyists.
"I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics. It arouses people's worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works."
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
Both true. Boris was the only choice and a liability. Both in making him leader and in the 2019 election Boris was the only person who could credibly close out the Brexit thing and bring stage one of Brexit to a close. Without him it was not clear that it would happen at all.
But he is a liability. Everything said about him both good and sub optimal has truth in it. Particularly, when he crashes and burns it will be big and he won't last. The mistakes of the last few weeks are awesome in their incompetence. And a moral abomination.
But if you think back, T May ran a campaign in 2017 that Great Snoring WI could have told her would be a disaster and would have run better, and ran her bit of Brexit appallingly. Cameron allowed the Remain campaign to be run along lines which were, after T May in 2017, the second worst in modern times. And then resigned when he was needed to sort it out.
If Boris left now (there are worse ideas) he would leave a genuine Brexit legacy. More than can be said for T May or Cameron.
Boris being Boris will, I think, try for the long term as PM. Recovery is by no means impossible. I still put a Tory majority next time at nearly 50%; and maybe 30-40% chance that Boris will lead then.
A fair and insightful post
I'd have a Tory maj at 70% - just because Starmer, SNP, boundaries
I am deeply disenchanted with this socialist-lite Tory govt, and their fucking stupid mistakes. Patergate is just the latest. But then I think of Prime Minister Kir Royale Starmer and I get oddly depressed. He is depressing
Boris still makes me laugh, very occasionally. This should be irrelevant - but it isn't
However I do see the logic of Boris retiring early. Once Covid is done? Next year? He will have delivered Brexit AND saved us from Lockdown 4 (we hope) - not a bad legacy. Puts him in the front tier of modern prime ministers for impact, if not longevity. More of a short lived Blair then a pathetic Brown
Go out on high (we are free of Covid!), earn £20m on the memoirs.
Against that: Carrie. Who must love being the PM's wife. Being the wife of an ex-PM in his 60s?- not so much
Thanks. putting the chance of a Tory majority (326+) at 70% seems high to me - and to the bookies. Losing net about 41 seats to Lab/LD/SNP does not look like a small chance to me.
As for socialism, it seems to me we are in new territory, sadly, in recent years. The banking crisis, Covid, NHS, social care, terrorism, climate alarmism, ageing population, social media, wokeism, lack of social cohesion all seem to me to combine to make a small state, low tax, laissez faire, non-interventionist, anti legislating, personal responsibility society absolutely out of reach in the western world.
Combine this with the extraordinary love the British have for banning things, compulsion, and standing in a queue with identity papers, I think alternative degrees of socialism are going to be the only options among mainstream parties.
Have a look at the more extreme right, and you see something even worse. And as for the unspeakable extreme left....
Looking at the previous thread, where on Earth are people getting the number of 6 kids dead with covid in six months? There were 7 dead in England and Wales last week alone. This may be okay, but we should use the accurate numbers rather than someone saying they vaguely remembered a figure from somewhere or other and having everyone use it as the solid data from which to make the call.
There seems to be 98 under 20 deaths in England in total:
Given that only about 10% of total covid deaths have happened in the last six months then the number kids dying from it in that period might well be in single figures.
Of those seven in the most recent week, one was a baby (under 1 year old), one was pre-school age (1-4 years old), two were in the 10-14 age category, and three were teens in the 15-19 group.
That’s in the most recent ONS week (commencing 22nd October).
The Telegraph deliberately published misleading bollocks. For the six months up to February. I mean, I was pissed off when the NHS England CEO used an August to August comparison to mislead on the hospitalisation figures, but at least that was since Delta started.
The vast majority of covid cases in children in England have happened since the date they chose. And then they excluded anyone with the slightest medical condition. I mean, my dyslexic daughter would be out on those grounds (dyslexia is a pre-existing condition). As mentioned, David Beckham at his height wouldn’t make the grade as “healthy.” Neither would Paula Radcliffe.
Not to mention all those thousands of kids hospitalised. Half of whom even did make the “absolutely no hint of anything” category.
(Edit: and given the graph shows 71 deaths under 20 in England and Wales - all since February - it should be fairly clear that most of those 98 have happened since the Telegraph’s selected dates)
The French are being nasty, racist, murderous shits. They just want the ugly migrants gone, and if that means sending them over the Channel, including children who might die - and people are dying - then that's fine with you. Because it somehow embarrasses "Brexit Britain"?
You have a visceral dislike of Boris but on this he is correct
France has a duty of care to these migrants as much as we have, and certainly the two countries should be conducting joint patrols to prevent loss of life at sea
No. Boris just doing words as usual, no action. Truth is he knows he signs seven out of ten up to work here, he just wastes time before doing that. He should send Patel down on beaches to tell them where to start work on Monday, it will save our tax payers money
What is your evidence for your claim 70% are signed up to work here
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
People felt it now they are allowed to go abroad. Next year will be more so with (touch wood) all the covid travel stuff gone
Or the numbers will go the other way again as the UK gets through winter without lockdown and regrettably Europe does not.
The rest of Europe really have been let down by their leadership. To be in lockdown twelve months after vaccines became available is a disgraceful failure.
Your flags make no sense mister Thompson. St George’s flag flown to show you good people ship, not pirate ship. You can’t be good people and pirate people at the same time.
Sorry for bein presumptuous, you do identify as he? This site don’t do markings
The French are being nasty, racist, murderous shits. They just want the ugly migrants gone, and if that means sending them over the Channel, including children who might die - and people are dying - then that's fine with you. Because it somehow embarrasses "Brexit Britain"?
You have a visceral dislike of Boris but on this he is correct
France has a duty of care to these migrants as much as we have, and certainly the two countries should be conducting joint patrols to prevent loss of life at sea
No. Boris just doing words as usual, no action. Truth is he knows he signs seven out of ten up to work here, he just wastes time before doing that. He should send Patel down on beaches to tell them where to start work on Monday, it will save our tax payers money
What is your evidence for your claim 70% are signed up to work here
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
People felt it now they are allowed to go abroad. Next year will be more so with (touch wood) all the covid travel stuff gone
Or the numbers will go the other way again as the UK gets through winter without lockdown and regrettably Europe does not.
The rest of Europe really have been let down by their leadership. To be in lockdown twelve months after vaccines became available is a disgraceful failure.
Your flags make no sense mister Thompson. St George’s flag flown to show you good people ship, not pirate ship. You can’t be good people and pirate people at the same time.
Sorry for bein presumptuous, you do identify as he? This site don’t do markings
They are dying because of Brexit. I am not the one that voted for it.
Oh fuck off
I'm tempted to reply in similar vein, but you are the loser who still supports this failure, so you can lose your temper but frankly you already know you lost so swallow it.
Remember those trees in that garden in Newark which were about to be chopped down? And the whole urban garden tarmacked for a pointless tiny carpark?
It looks like the nice guys WON. The trees are probably saved. The garden will be preserved. I feel, weirdly, slightly tearful
Well done those people
"Well the fence is still there but the Newark Library trees are very nearly saved. Last minute offer by the landowner which @NSDCouncil will vote on next week. What an incredible 48hrs! "
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 37 (-2); wrong 50 (+2). Fwork 10-11.11. (Ch since 3-4.11). Highest lead for 'wrong' over 'right' since November last year (before conclusion of trade deal) . https://bit.ly/3ncQ7Rz
People felt it now they are allowed to go abroad. Next year will be more so with (touch wood) all the covid travel stuff gone
Or the numbers will go the other way again as the UK gets through winter without lockdown and regrettably Europe does not.
The rest of Europe really have been let down by their leadership. To be in lockdown twelve months after vaccines became available is a disgraceful failure.
Your flags make no sense mister Thompson. St George’s flag flown to show you good people ship, not pirate ship. You can’t be good people and pirate people at the same time.
Sorry for bein presumptuous, you do identify as he? This site don’t do markings
Is Thompson a bot? Is that why they/it choose to be called Thompson? I already sense nobody takes them/he seriously
I wasn't going to say anything, but you yourself come across as a badly written piece of software from someone whose first language is not English, running on an Intel 286 machine in the suburbs of Moscow.
If HMG are still expecting/planning for the French to deal humanely with the migrant crossings then they're delusional.
The only humane solution has been obvious for a long time now. We need to ensure anyone crossing on rafts is immediately deported to a third party nation for processing and not to stay in the UK. Only then will these deadly crossing and the associated drownings stop.
Tough times for Boris and the Tories. The question is, are they just mid term blues or something more permanent? I am sure all those who were desperate to see Thatcher and Cameron fail would have claimed their mid term dips were permanent during the 83, 87 and 15 electoral cycles, but they weren't. That doesn't mean this isn't the beginning of the end for Boris though - Is "holding your nerve" the same as "marrying the hand"?
It doesn't have to be tough times for the Tories. This is all Boris. Remove him, replace him with someone credible and reputable like Sunak and the win is back on again.
It seems clear that there is more momentum behind the sleaze story than we have had for a while. We know sleaze can destroy a government. And we know we have more sleaze to come out. The party can kill it all off with a change of leader and a sweeping brush...
No, when Boris took over he was the obvious choice, yet almost everyone on here said he was a liability, so PB is very skewed to the anti Boris narrative. There are always ebbs and flows to government popularity, just when you are watching one of the down times, it looks impossible for it to change. 6 months ago Sir Keir looked doomed, a skin of the teeth By Election victory gave him a bit of confidence and now he is on the up.
What happened to Galloway's charge of Labour cheating in B&S?
Both true. Boris was the only choice and a liability. Both in making him leader and in the 2019 election Boris was the only person who could credibly close out the Brexit thing and bring stage one of Brexit to a close. Without him it was not clear that it would happen at all.
But he is a liability. Everything said about him both good and sub optimal has truth in it. Particularly, when he crashes and burns it will be big and he won't last. The mistakes of the last few weeks are awesome in their incompetence. And a moral abomination.
But if you think back, T May ran a campaign in 2017 that Great Snoring WI could have told her would be a disaster and would have run better, and ran her bit of Brexit appallingly. Cameron allowed the Remain campaign to be run along lines which were, after T May in 2017, the second worst in modern times. And then resigned when he was needed to sort it out.
If Boris left now (there are worse ideas) he would leave a genuine Brexit legacy. More than can be said for T May or Cameron.
Boris being Boris will, I think, try for the long term as PM. Recovery is by no means impossible. I still put a Tory majority next time at nearly 50%; and maybe 30-40% chance that Boris will lead then.
A fair and insightful post
I'd have a Tory maj at 70% - just because Starmer, SNP, boundaries
I am deeply disenchanted with this socialist-lite Tory govt, and their fucking stupid mistakes. Patergate is just the latest. But then I think of Prime Minister Kir Royale Starmer and I get oddly depressed. He is depressing
Boris still makes me laugh, very occasionally. This should be irrelevant - but it isn't
However I do see the logic of Boris retiring early. Once Covid is done? Next year? He will have delivered Brexit AND saved us from Lockdown 4 (we hope) - not a bad legacy. Puts him in the front tier of modern prime ministers for impact, if not longevity. More of a short lived Blair then a pathetic Brown
Go out on high (we are free of Covid!), earn £20m on the memoirs.
Against that: Carrie. Who must love being the PM's wife. Being the wife of an ex-PM in his 60s?- not so much
Thanks. putting the chance of a Tory majority (326+) at 70% seems high to me - and to the bookies. Losing net about 41 seats to Lab/LD/SNP does not look like a small chance to me.
As for socialism, it seems to me we are in new territory, sadly, in recent years. The banking crisis, Covid, NHS, social care, terrorism, climate alarmism, ageing population, social media, wokeism, lack of social cohesion all seem to me to combine to make a small state, low tax, laissez faire, non-interventionist, anti legislating, personal responsibility society absolutely out of reach in the western world.
Combine this with the extraordinary love the British have for banning things, compulsion, and standing in a queue with identity papers, I think alternative degrees of socialism are going to be the only options among mainstream parties.
Have a look at the more extreme right, and you see something even worse. And as for the unspeakable extreme left....
Yes, neo-liberalism as it has developed since the Reagan/Thatcher years is on the retreat (indeed probably dead or dying). All of the challenges of coming years, from epidemiological through economic through geopolitical point toward a return to the era of big government.
They are dying because of Brexit. I am not the one that voted for it.
Oh fuck off
I'm tempted to reply in similar vein, but you are the loser who still supports this failure, so you can lose your temper but frankly you already know you lost so swallow it.
This is nothing to do with Boris, and the Tories, this is blaming French culpability for migrant deaths - and, whoah, are they culpable - on "Brexit Britain" because you are so unhinged by Brexit.
The French are being nasty, racist, murderous shits. They just want the ugly migrants gone, and if that means sending them over the Channel, including children who might die - and people are dying - then that's fine with you. Because it somehow embarrasses "Brexit Britain"?
Ugh
To be honest, Macron = Lukashenka
That's excessive. The French aren't weaponizing the migrants. They just want them to go away.
Ultimately the solution to these problems lies in the hands of the UK Government. It has a secure majority in Parliament, so can simply do exactly as the Australians have done and legislate it away. Pass an Act declaring anyone who uses the irregular routes across the Channel as ineligible to remain, include a clause that makes it superior to the Human Rights Act, and fly them all offshore - whether that's to a holding facility in a friendly third country, perhaps a Commonwealth state in sub-Saharan Africa, that's being handsomely paid for providing the service, or to one of our rocks in the South Atlantic.
Make it apparent that coming across the moat in a dinghy means certain deportation to a place even further from Britain than where you started out from, and people will eventually take the hint and desist from wasting their money and risking their lives trying. I'm not at all sure why the Government doesn't do this. Is it simply hopelessly and irretrievably incompetent, or is it also that it somehow thinks there is political capital to be made in perpetuating an endless stand off with the French? Ministers must be deeply, deeply stupid if they think that the latter is actually helpful.
I bet a bloke down the pub 9.3k he'd lead by mid Nov!
You were saying a few weeks ago that Boris's opponents were always generally predicting a day of judgment/comeuppance for him, but it never actually arrived.
Lab 40 (+5) Con 34 (-4) Lib Dem 10 (=) SNP 5 (=) Green 5 (+1)
Changes with 5-7 Nov
On HY’s night off, too. Perhaps just as well.
We are 11 years into a Tory government, there are bound to be a few putting Labour ahead.
Kinnock and Ed Miliband led in plenty of polls midterm, often by a large margin.
The end result though of most current polls, including this one, is the same, a hung parliament and Labour would need SNP confidence and supply for a majority and to get legislation through. Even if the Tories are ahead on seats, or Labour is ahead on seats as with this poll
Comments
In the great State of Washington, Governor Jay Inslee has appointed a new Secretary of State to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of elected SoS Kim Wyman, who is taking a position with the Biden Administration responsible for election security.
Gov. Inslee, a Democrat, has appointed state Senator Steve Hobbs, also a Democrat, to replace Sec. Wyman, a Republican, until a special election in November 2022 to fill the remainder of Wyman's current term in office. First elected to a senator in 2006, Hobbs is from Snohomish County north of Seattle, is of mixed race (his mother is Japanese) and will be first person of color to serve as Secretary of State. He's also a long-serving member of the WA National Guard with some background in computer technology and security.
What Hobbs lacks is experience managing and overseeing elections. This is a break from the tradition established since 2000 under the last two (Republican) secretaries of state, Wyman and her predecessor Sam Reed. It is, however, a bit of a return to the days of popular and highly visible Secretary of State Ralph Munro (another Republican) who was a state capital GOP politico who morphed into a reformist and (mostly) non-partisan advocate for expanded voter registration and election participation.
Word on the street is that the Gov chose Sen. Hobbs in order to get him out of the state senate. Both to further Inslee's long-standing (and -stated) commitment to a state carbon tax. AND at the behest of organized labor which also does NOT like the famously- (and sometimes agressively-) moderate Hobbs.
Personally would much rather have seen Inslee appoint a proven, experienced election administrator as Secretary of State. Both to get the best person AND the person best positioned to run & retain this important position in 2022, and also again in 2024. Thus my own choice would have been a serving, elected county auditor or elections director, of whom WA has several excellent, well-qualified examples, from BOTH parties - thank God!
I can get the detailed data (for England) to the 6th
which is still showing falls - apart from the 20-24 group and 25-19 pretty much levelled off...
I have no problem with people being Tories or supporting the party or preferring them to Labour. But there is also right and wrong, and the kind of things that a fraction of in Labour would have you and others up and shouting just gets batted away because its Boris. And I don;t think the argument holds any more.
B&S? The image showed MPs not in Portcullis House. Can't see how he has got any grounds for a successful appeal, and if he does find one we know what happens in recall elections - a bigger majority for the winner.
Hard to imagine Galloway's charge leading to an overturn I'd have thought, as a non lawyer - it seems quite a technical, small thing, even if wrong and fineworthy.
Don’t we have some National reserve or military we shouldn’t be embarrassed to call on?
https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/a-conversation-on-the-future-of-europe
— I see an inexorable dynamic. Crises continue to accumulate and deepen. On the other hand the capacity to act collectively is if anything more limited today. And there is something else. If you look at France and Germany, it seems clear to me the political gulf between them can only grow. France is swerving right. You saw that with Macron. But it will continue after him. While Germany will move left. Will keep moving left. So for all the beautiful rhetoric, you have the European core almost fated to break apart…
The hard bit is what happens next. Suppose Rishi took over tonight. What would he have to do to clean up the dunghill? How could he do it without ending up covered up in dung himself?
But he is a liability. Everything said about him both good and sub optimal has truth in it. Particularly, when he crashes and burns it will be big and he won't last. The mistakes of the last few weeks are awesome in their incompetence. And a moral abomination.
But if you think back, T May ran a campaign in 2017 that Great Snoring WI could have told her would be a disaster and would have run better, and ran her bit of Brexit appallingly. Cameron allowed the Remain campaign to be run along lines which were, after T May in 2017, the second worst in modern times. And then resigned when he was needed to sort it out.
If Boris left now (there are worse ideas) he would leave a genuine Brexit legacy. More than can be said for T May or Cameron.
Boris being Boris will, I think, try for the long term as PM. Recovery is by no means impossible. I still put a Tory majority next time at nearly 50%; and maybe 30-40% chance that Boris will lead then.
Rishi has been my choice for months
The UK military has next to no permanent medical capability. Peace dividend from the Cold War, long ago.
Need more data from today, but the trend lines in the elderly are pretty solid.
If they do avoid a surge, then I suspect that we'll see Vaxports across the EU.
That being said... it had one segment too many. 160 minutes is too long for a Bond movie. A lot of little cuts (did we really need Hugh Dennis as a scientist?), the opening scene in Italy was far too long, and maybe even a removal of the whole background of Mr White and Safin, could have gotten the movie down to a more manageable length.
I was also not the biggest fan of the finale: Safin was a great villain, who could have been a little better as an opponent at the end.
Still: a really enjoyable, well made, well plotted Bond movie. And I loved the way it ended with the OHMSS We Have All The Time In The World...
But you are also right, it can garuntee it or ungarantee it based on getting timing wrong. If he took over tonight, far too soon, unless of course the election is next spring.
The ace up the sleeve that changes the whole game. How does the song go, know when to show them, when to hold them, when to run or walk away 😼
The other nations that have gone down the route of vaxports in the summer and autumn are now finding that [surprise, surprise] Delta will still find a way to spread despite vaxports in the winter so they're simply not good enough and lockdowns become necessary.
With Delta you can't realistically "supress" Covid short of lockdowns. You either accept it and live with it, knowing it will spread, as the UK has done over the summer and autumn or you kick the can and then reach panic stations in the winter as the Netherlands have done.
Not only are vaxports a violation of liberties, but they don't frigging work anyway. Only tolerating cases spreading until they don't spread as much anymore works.
BJ-ism is sweeping the continent.
The rest of Europe really have been let down by their leadership. To be in lockdown twelve months after vaccines became available is a disgraceful failure.
Thanks
It is surprisingly hard to get basic facts on this stuff. Worldwide lockdowns. The Resilience Indices are all too opaque
There needs to be -perhaps there is - a map or a website where you can just click and it just says "X country has these restrictions: masks, curfew, vaxports to this extent, and now the 4th lockdown blahblah"
In face of a French-led push to revive nuclear power in Europe, a group of five EU countries led by Germany have banded together to urge the European Commission to keep nuclear out of the EU’s green finance taxonomy.
I'd have a Tory maj at 70% - just because Starmer, SNP, boundaries
I am deeply disenchanted with this socialist-lite Tory govt, and their fucking stupid mistakes. Patergate is just the latest. But then I think of Prime Minister Kir Royale Starmer and I get oddly depressed. He is depressing
Boris still makes me laugh, very occasionally. This should be irrelevant - but it isn't
However I do see the logic of Boris retiring early. Once Covid is done? Next year? He will have delivered Brexit AND saved us from Lockdown 4 (we hope) - not a bad legacy. Puts him in the front tier of modern prime ministers for impact, if not longevity. More of a short lived Blair then a pathetic Brown
Go out on high (we are free of Covid!), earn £20m on the memoirs.
Against that: Carrie. Who must love being the PM's wife. Being the wife of an ex-PM in his 60s?- not so much
I was thinking about the Baltics for my October trip so was tapped into the news.
In the end decided on Andalucia. Warmth, craft beer, sherry, flamenco, Islamic architecture. Awesome.
Boris Johnson orders Macron to beef up borders & stop migrants pouring in https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16720647/boris-johnson-macron-borders-migrants/
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths?areaType=nation&areaName=England
with over half in the 15-19 age group.
Given that only about 10% of total covid deaths have happened in the last six months then the number kids dying from it in that period might well be in single figures.
France has a duty of care to these migrants as much as we have, and certainly the two countries should be conducting joint patrols to prevent loss of life at sea
Short answer maybe. Long answer
https://science-fiction-is-real.tumblr.com/post/143952927842/a-biologists-opinion-on-how-trolls-do-the-thing/amp
Is Thompson a bot? Is that why they/it choose to be called Thompson? I already sense nobody takes them/he seriously
Ugh
David Cameron today claimed that "secret corporate lobbying" was undermining public confidence in the political system.
In a speech at the University of East London, which he also used to attack Gordon Brown personally over his handling of the MPs' expenses controversy, the Conservative leader said he would force ex-ministers to wait two years before they are allowed to take a job lobbying government.
Cameron said lobbying was an issue that "has tainted our politics for too long".
He went on: "We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism.
"So we must be the party that sorts all this out. Today it is a £2bn industry that has a huge presence in parliament. The Hansard Society has estimated that some MPs are approached over 100 times a week by lobbyists.
"I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics. It arouses people's worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/feb/08/david-cameron-secret-corporate-lobbying
Oddly enough if Boris wanted to humiliate Cameron some more he could actually do something about political lobbying.
Perhaps he should put Cyclefree in charge of a reform politics commission.
As for socialism, it seems to me we are in new territory, sadly, in recent years. The banking crisis, Covid, NHS, social care, terrorism, climate alarmism, ageing population, social media, wokeism, lack of social cohesion all seem to me to combine to make a small state, low tax, laissez faire, non-interventionist, anti legislating, personal responsibility society absolutely out of reach in the western world.
Combine this with the extraordinary love the British have for banning things, compulsion, and standing in a queue with identity papers, I think alternative degrees of socialism are going to be the only options among mainstream parties.
Have a look at the more extreme right, and you see something even worse. And as for the unspeakable extreme left....
They are dying because they want to come to our country and France is not only encouraging them, but actually putting their lives in danger
You disgust me in your utter loss of balance when everything is brexit in your hatred of it
That’s in the most recent ONS week (commencing 22nd October).
The Telegraph deliberately published misleading bollocks. For the six months up to February. I mean, I was pissed off when the NHS England CEO used an August to August comparison to mislead on the hospitalisation figures, but at least that was since Delta started.
The vast majority of covid cases in children in England have happened since the date they chose. And then they excluded anyone with the slightest medical condition. I mean, my dyslexic daughter would be out on those grounds (dyslexia is a pre-existing condition). As mentioned, David Beckham at his height wouldn’t make the grade as “healthy.” Neither would Paula Radcliffe.
Not to mention all those thousands of kids hospitalised. Half of whom even did make the “absolutely no hint of anything” category.
(Edit: and given the graph shows 71 deaths under 20 in England and Wales - all since February - it should be fairly clear that most of those 98 have happened since the Telegraph’s selected dates)
With Latvia now banning the anti-vaxxers in its parliament from voting.
I'm rather curious myself as to how many MPs haven't been vaccinated.
That will be Macron's response to BoZo's "order"...
It looks like the nice guys WON. The trees are probably saved. The garden will be preserved. I feel, weirdly, slightly tearful
Well done those people
"Well the fence is still there but the Newark Library trees are very nearly saved.
Last minute offer by the landowner which
@NSDCouncil
will vote on next week. What an incredible 48hrs! "
https://twitter.com/AdamCormack_/status/1459241468804149250?s=20
John Stevens
@johnestevens
· 5m
Police cars revolving lightEXC: Labour takes SIX POINT lead in @SavantaComRes poll for @DailyMailUK
Lab 40 (+5)
Con 34 (-4)
Lib Dem 10 (=)
SNP 5 (=)
Green 5 (+1)
Changes with 5-7 Nov
The only humane solution has been obvious for a long time now. We need to ensure anyone crossing on rafts is immediately deported to a third party nation for processing and not to stay in the UK. Only then will these deadly crossing and the associated drownings stop.
It is odious, laughable and insane
Boris has 'Ratnered' the brand
Of course, we await further polls. But wow
Ultimately the solution to these problems lies in the hands of the UK Government. It has a secure majority in Parliament, so can simply do exactly as the Australians have done and legislate it away. Pass an Act declaring anyone who uses the irregular routes across the Channel as ineligible to remain, include a clause that makes it superior to the Human Rights Act, and fly them all offshore - whether that's to a holding facility in a friendly third country, perhaps a Commonwealth state in sub-Saharan Africa, that's being handsomely paid for providing the service, or to one of our rocks in the South Atlantic.
Make it apparent that coming across the moat in a dinghy means certain deportation to a place even further from Britain than where you started out from, and people will eventually take the hint and desist from wasting their money and risking their lives trying. I'm not at all sure why the Government doesn't do this. Is it simply hopelessly and irretrievably incompetent, or is it also that it somehow thinks there is political capital to be made in perpetuating an endless stand off with the French? Ministers must be deeply, deeply stupid if they think that the latter is actually helpful.
So here it is.
Kinnock and Ed Miliband led in plenty of polls midterm, often by a large margin.
The end result though of most current polls, including this one, is the same, a hung parliament and Labour would need SNP confidence and supply for a majority and to get legislation through. Even if the Tories are ahead on seats, or Labour is ahead on seats as with this poll