We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
Once again you don't have a f***ing clue about what you are talking about.
The criteria for a border poll is set out in detail and the DUP get no real say.
The DUP could get a say in who the UK government is though if we get a 2017 style result again next time, possible on current polls.
They will not support a UK government not committed to back the Union even if the GFA criteria for a border poll are met
Once again read the criteria that triggers a border poll before talking complete rubbish.
The criteria for triggering a border poll is irrelevant to who the DUP would back if they are Kingmakers again in terms of choosing which party becomes the UK government as they were in 2017
Didn't see Boris's speech yesterday but if it was half as bad as those on here are saying then his timing was poor. Why didn't he get Rishi to write it for him?
.
Rishi's contribution was shuffling the pages before the speech went into the red box....
and making sure HS2 reached his constituency......
Um, HS2 never gets to his constituency - and the locals won't like the impact of rebuilding the station to cope with the extra lines now required.
As I mentioned on Sunday the ECML improvements identify a 20 minute speed increase from Darlington / Northallerton to London.
Back in 2017 Network rail identified that when the track is increased to 140 mph, the total time saved will be 5 minutes (that's why spending £xbn doing so was instantly rejected then)
Although to be fair, increasing linespeed to 140MPH isn't the best way of getting time savings. That's by reducing conflicts - the reason they've spent so much money building the blooming marvellous Werrington flyunder. From memory, the time savings by one such project (the Hitchin flyover further south of the ECML) were considerable, and far greater than just increasing the linespeed.
But the best way of reducing conflicts would be... a new high-speed route ...
Agreed, but the real anger in the north is far more over the cancellation of the new transPennine line than that of the section of HS2 from the Midlands to Leeds.
Has it really been 'cancelled'? Some on here seem to think the new TransPennine line was a cast-iron, planned route. As far as I'm aware that's wrong: it was only ever a series of options for routes. The options created advantages for everyone, even if there was zero chance of them all being fulfilled because some of the options were contradictory.
A problem with NPR is the disparate nature of the towns and cities; it is impossible to create one route that will serve Manchester/Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, York, Bradford and all the other places that want to be connected - especially with a high speed route. Yet that is what the different options promised.
Part of this whole mess is that HS2 wasn't planned as part of a national network. Which was fair enough, until it was decided to plumb it into NPR / new routes. When that happened, the northern phases were always going to see alterations to get best benefits from both.
I'm dismayed by the cancellation of most of HS2's eastern leg, but am unsurprised that NPR has failed to deliver what it promised to every city. It never was - as I said on here for yonks.
Yes. It has been cancelled. On something like 50 occasions the Tories pledged to build NPR in full. Would you like the link to the PM in Manchester saying literally that?
As the only surviving elements of anything that can be called NPR is a high speed line from Manchester to Marsden and a crayon sketch of a line from Warrington to the airport, the promise is not being delivered. It has been cancelled.
Sorry about the delay in replying; was out.
You seem to be under an illusion that high-speed 'NPR' was a set thing; a project that had a well-defined route that had been settled and agreed. It wasn't. AFAIAA it was a series of squiggles on a map; three or four potential routes designed to serve different communities, often mutually incompatibly. Your 'crayon sketch' comment is very true of the situation before last week as well.
The waveforms of those potential routes were always going to collapse down into one, leaving some towns and cities pi**ed off. The high-speed aspect of NPR is, and always was, different to the route upgrades that will serve the other towns and cities.
This does not excuse the disgraceful cancellation of much of the eastern phase 2 route.
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
Boris likes the idea of “getting things done”. But he’s not managed to deliver anything in the manifesto, and levelling up has been butchered by Treasury.
It’s possible he’s just really fucking bored of the actual job.
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
They were really, really bad, and probably responsible for a couple of percentage points off Livingstone’s tally.
Incidentally the revived Routemaster shows one of Boris’s strengths.
A dispassionate bureaucrat would have told you that it was impossible to revive the Routemaster, and that no other city on Earth had any call for that apparently irrational form factor.
Boris went and found a manufacturer and got them made. They work well, in my opinion, and jolly up the cityscape (even if you can’t, contra promise, jump on the back mid-transit, like you could the old ones).
I never understood the logic of bendy buses, they take up more road space in a city that already has too many cars.
As part of an anti-sexual harassment campaign, TfL have unveiled posters warning people against STARING inappropriately.
I saw on on the commute this morning.
Ridiculous.
Disagree with you there, GW. It's talking about men who go to town with the leering at women on public transport. Not the routine 'eying-up' but the full-on intimidating sexual stare. That's harassment, really, and it does happen. It's not so rare. This is to make those who make a habit of it think twice. My reaction to the poster was if anything surprise that I hadn't seen it mentioned before.
But as I said that is unenforceable. It is akin to the old Not the Nine O'clock news 'Savage' sketch. Arresting people for 'looking at me in a funny way'. I agree it is a problem and I agree it would be great to dissuade it but practically you are putting laws in place that are, at best, never going to be enforceable (if you need hard evidence) and at worst a charter for anyone who wants to complain about perfectly innocent people (if all you need is the word of the supposed victim).
With enforcement, a piece of 'sexual harassing' behaviour can be a crime or something short of that threshold, depending on the circumstances, and I don't think this poster changes that. To me it comes over as saying to the men who do the really creepy stuff, "Don't, you might be getting yourself in trouble" and to the women on the receiving end, "You don't have to tolerate it. Tell us." Seems reasonable to me. I see more upside than downside.
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
I agree. He is often compared to Trump; a mini Trump. I don't think this is accurate. Trump is clearly very stupid and believes all sorts of nutty things, which makes him particularly dangerous. Boris isn't and doesn't. Boris is sane. I think Boris wanted the job, not because he wanted to achieve anything in particular, but because he just wanted the job. It is on his bucket list. But the job comes with a to do list and he drew the short straw on that front with the pandemic, although one item on the list, Brexit, he knew he would have to do.
Once again you don't have a f***ing clue about what you are talking about.
The criteria for a border poll is set out in detail and the DUP get no real say.
The DUP could get a say in who the UK government is though if we get a 2017 style result again next time, possible on current polls.
They will not support a UK government not committed to back the Union even if the GFA criteria for a border poll are met
Once again read the criteria that triggers a border poll before talking complete rubbish.
The criteria for triggering a border poll is irrelevant to who the DUP would back if they are Kingmakers again in terms of choosing which party becomes the UK government as they were in 2017
You also miss the fact the DUP aren't likely to be kingmakers again.
The WHO has warned that the European region could hit over 2 million covid deaths by March 22
That is horrific
It's unavoidable as Covid continues to spread up to the point we get herd immunity.
As Germany said yesterday, everyone is going to get Covid, the only difference is whether you recover or die from it. Vaccination seems to increase your chance of recovery rather than death by 30 to 80 times (depending on age).
I don't think the figures are quite that good. The latest weeks report on the ONS data is 24th Sept (death certificate data). Comparing Age Specific Death rates per 100 000 in the >21 day double vaxxed group vs unvaxxed:
Over 80's 10 vs 40.6 70-79 2.8 vs 12.2 60-69 1.1 vs 8.5 Under 60 0.2 vs 0.4
This looks to me to be a 4 to 8 fold reduction in mortality depending on age. Other weeks are in keeping.
There isn't data yet on the ONS site for treble vaxxed, and the above is quite a useful drop, but this is still quite a nasty disease to catch.
As part of an anti-sexual harassment campaign, TfL have unveiled posters warning people against STARING inappropriately.
I saw on on the commute this morning.
Ridiculous.
Disagree with you there, GW. It's talking about men who go to town with the leering at women on public transport. Not the routine 'eying-up' but the full-on intimidating sexual stare. That's harassment, really, and it does happen. It's not so rare. This is to make those who make a habit of it think twice. My reaction to the poster was if anything surprise that I hadn't seen it mentioned before.
I once got in mild trouble with that - a girl on the Tube had a T-shirt with a slogan on it, not in especially large letters. I'm short-sighted so I absent-mindedly looked a bit closer to read it, and got an accusing glare. I immediately realised why I was being glared at, but saying "Sorry, I was only trying to read your slogan" seemed, while true, to make it even worse, so I hastily looked away. I now consciously avoid peering at T-shirt slogans...
A bit like those bumper stickers which say "If you can read this, you're too close".
- Oh dear. Sounds like a Sid James line in Carry On Commuting.
Once again you don't have a f***ing clue about what you are talking about.
The criteria for a border poll is set out in detail and the DUP get no real say.
The DUP could get a say in who the UK government is though if we get a 2017 style result again next time, possible on current polls.
They will not support a UK government not committed to back the Union even if the GFA criteria for a border poll are met
Once again read the criteria that triggers a border poll before talking complete rubbish.
The criteria for triggering a border poll is irrelevant to who the DUP would back if they are Kingmakers again in terms of choosing which party becomes the UK government as they were in 2017
But that's the exact opposite of what you just posted which was
Shadow NI Secretary says a Labour government would remain neutral in any future border poll in NI.
Bang goes Starmer's chances of DUP support in a hung parliament then
And it's not a UK matter being blunt especially because at the point a border poll is triggered the result is likely to be a forgone conclusion.
What I do find surprising is that you seem very happy to subsidise Northern Ireland but not other parts of the England.
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
They were really, really bad, and probably responsible for a couple of percentage points off Livingstone’s tally.
Incidentally the revived Routemaster shows one of Boris’s strengths.
A dispassionate bureaucrat would have told you that it was impossible to revive the Routemaster, and that no other city on Earth had any call for that apparently irrational form factor.
Boris went and found a manufacturer and got them made. They work well, in my opinion, and jolly up the cityscape (even if you can’t, contra promise, jump on the back mid-transit, like you could the old ones).
I never understood the logic of bendy buses, they take up more road space in a city that already has too many cars.
I hate cars. If I ever get any powers again I'd ban the lot.
If the Pfizer vaccine is less durable, it might explain why countries with apparently similar levels of vaccination to the UK - but with Pfizer the predominant jab - are now experiencing higher levels of hospitalisation and deaths. The seemingly better T-cell response that comes from the AstraZeneca vaccine may mean it gives longer protection, despite an apparently inferior initial antibody response.
Maybe, but which specific countries do you have in mind? The only countries I can find with higher current death rates than the UK also have lower levels of vaccination, except Belgium.
Didn't see Boris's speech yesterday but if it was half as bad as those on here are saying then his timing was poor. Why didn't he get Rishi to write it for him?
The government is giving a sense of drift at the moment and this is being seized upon by a hostile media who will never forgive Brexit. Yesterday morning's coverage of the changes to Social Care on the Today program were so ridiculously partisan as to be almost incoherent but the Minister sent out to battle made few good or obvious points.
If we take a couple of steps back you find that vaccine boosters are going really well with over 25% of the population over 12 already covered including all of the most vulnerable groups; we find that this country is avoiding both lockdowns and most NPIs whilst much of Europe struggles with yet another wave; we find that next month the economy is very likely to return to its pre-Covid size; we find, for all the rather unnecessary grief and opprobrium that it brought on itself for what is likely to be loose change in the overall scheme of things, we have the largest commitment to rail outside London ever; we have full employment; we have rising wages; we have a government with a comfortable majority able to deliver on its program.
And yet...the hysteria and resentment takes its toll. Boris needs to be showing some form of grip not acting the clown with an important audience still smarting from the infamous F*** business. He needs to be a bit more careful.
It was spectacular! It's been reported back from the actual conference hall that the reception was bafflement and anger. Business faces and has faced down serious problems and needs serious engagement. Even if you set aside the stupidity of asking northern business leaders if they have been to Peppa Pig World in Hampshire, its not even relevant today to business. Its American...
With regards to "ridiculously partisan as to be almost incoherent" can I offer a mirror? Your last paragraph isn't strictly impartial or even true. There is no "largest commitment to rail outside London ever" as most of the IRP was not costed or approved. Go read the document and underline all the times that the "commitment" is subject to a business case and then treasury approval.
As for the care bill itself, the anger is from people who can add. Up north English red wall voters will lose pretty much their entire assets with this proposal. Down south people will keep substantial amounts of their assets.
This inherent unfairness is just maths and comparing one to the other. It isn't partisan, and so many of the people complaining loudest are Tory MPs...
The proposals on SC mean that people up north who are unlucky to need long term social care will get to keep just over £20K for an inheritance with the tax payer picking up the rest of the bill. Those down south or better off will pay exactly the same amount to their own care (£86k) and may well have more than £20k left. So everyone is treated equally. No one pays more than £86k.
Dilnot acknowledged it was a substantial improvement on what we have now and that the system will be substantially better funded. His argument is that money paid by the taxpayer, not the recipient, should be set against the £86k on the basis that this will allow those of more moderate means to leave more. I do not accept that bolstering inheritances is a proper use of money taken from those currently earning. Indeed, I have reservations as to whether the government has already gone too far down that road, especially for those better off.
So the argument of the BBC amounts to 3 propositions: (1) putting a cap on what everyone pays is somehow unfair. (2) increasing inheritances is somehow more important than funding health care, social care and other public services. (3) current wage earners should fund this largesse.
Its just absurd.
The effect of the policy is to preserve the inheritances of the wealthy, and destroy those of much lesser means. The direct opposite of levelling up.
The only question is how do you make it a simple enough story that Labour can use it up North.
Down South the Lib Dems can target Nimbyism and pointless projects (given that HS2 now only fixes 1/3 of the lines it was supposed to fix) attacking HS2 for being an white elephant will be an easy win across the home counties.
Still would leave them short without Scotland.
What do you make of Anas Sarwar?
At 16/1 to be First Minister, he has clearly not impressed the punting community.
How is Mr Ross doing, when he's not refereeing that is?
Douglas Ross is currently 18/1 to be First Minister, so rated slightly worse than Anas Sarwar.
Personally, I thought Ross was doing quite well, up until his expenses cock-up last week. Stinker of an unforced error.
Even after the error, Ross is still miles better than the surprisingly poor Sarwar.
Thanks. Those odds surprise me a bit too, but they do make sense when one thinks about whom a voter might vote for other than the SNP.
The path to a Con FM is even more fraught than FUDHY’s “if” and “could be” Quebec onanism.
It does not need to be a Con FM, even a Unionist Labour FM like Sarwar would kill nationalism stone dead in Scotland
You really do not have a clue about Scots independence
Ever since I was in Primary School in Berwick in the 1950s the siren voices of independence were in full voice
Even losing a referendum will not kill the desire stone dead in some
There will always be a hard core of a a third of Scots who are diehard nationalists, however a No win in an indyref2 or a Unionist FM again would mean the average Scot had firmly moved on from the idea and accepted the Union is staying. Probably with devomax too
To get a No win in an Indyref2, first you need an Indyref2.
Shhh. He loves his little fantasy world. Don’t point out harsh truths.
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
Very simple. Being PM is hard work. The incumbent has no experience.
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
Boris likes the idea of “getting things done”. But he’s not managed to deliver anything in the manifesto, and levelling up has been butchered by Treasury.
It’s possible he’s just really fucking bored of the actual job.
How long will Sunak survive if Johnson turns vindictive? He doesn’t strike me as the kind of personality that will tolerate his programme being butchered by the Treasury.
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
I don't think it is Long Covid, more Long Scrutiny - people are simply noticing characteristics that have always been there, but have previously passed unnoticed. He has two fundamental issues, both of which make him unsuitable as a leader. He is lazy (both physically and intellectually) and he is egotistical. It is a dangerous combo that results in chaotic and disjointed actions and decisions. He genuinely thinks his instinct is likely to be right. Anything more than the back of fag packet approach to understanding the detail is really quite unnecessary. When things go wrong they are other people's fault and they will be made to pay.
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
Boris likes the idea of “getting things done”. But he’s not managed to deliver anything in the manifesto, and levelling up has been butchered by Treasury.
It’s possible he’s just really fucking bored of the actual job.
How long will Sunak survive if Johnson turns vindictive? He doesn’t strike me as the kind of personality that will tolerate his programme being butchered by the Treasury.
It's too late - Boris has already had a reshuffle and can't now sanely do one until early 2023 - by which point he will have gone.
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
They were really, really bad, and probably responsible for a couple of percentage points off Livingstone’s tally.
Incidentally the revived Routemaster shows one of Boris’s strengths.
A dispassionate bureaucrat would have told you that it was impossible to revive the Routemaster, and that no other city on Earth had any call for that apparently irrational form factor.
Boris went and found a manufacturer and got them made. They work well, in my opinion, and jolly up the cityscape (even if you can’t, contra promise, jump on the back mid-transit, like you could the old ones).
But the promise was open platform, and yet the platforms are never open, and the conductors of the early days are gone. Without either, it’s just an incredibly expensive bus that has the sole advantage of a design that hints, but doesn’t deliver, the freedom of the old jump-on jump-off routemasters, with the downside of being the most unpleasant place to be on those rare days when London suffers warm summer weather.
As part of an anti-sexual harassment campaign, TfL have unveiled posters warning people against STARING inappropriately.
I saw on on the commute this morning.
Ridiculous.
Disagree with you there, GW. It's talking about men who go to town with the leering at women on public transport. Not the routine 'eying-up' but the full-on intimidating sexual stare. That's harassment, really, and it does happen. It's not so rare. This is to make those who make a habit of it think twice. My reaction to the poster was if anything surprise that I hadn't seen it mentioned before.
I once got in mild trouble with that - a girl on the Tube had a T-shirt with a slogan on it, not in especially large letters. I'm short-sighted so I absent-mindedly looked a bit closer to read it, and got an accusing glare. I immediately realised why I was being glared at, but saying "Sorry, I was only trying to read your slogan" seemed, while true, to make it even worse, so I hastily looked away. I now consciously avoid peering at T-shirt slogans...
A bit like those bumper stickers which say "If you can read this, you're too close".
- Oh dear. Sounds like a Sid James line in Carry On Commuting.
“If you can read this slogan please give me money for enhancements”
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
I don't think it is Long Covid, more Long Scrutiny - people are simply noticing characteristics that have always been there, but have previously passed unnoticed. He has two fundamental issues, both of which make him unsuitable as a leader. He is lazy (both physically and intellectually) and he is egotistical. It is a dangerous combo that results in chaotic and disjointed actions and decisions. He genuinely thinks his instinct is likely to be right. Anything more than the back of fag packet approach to understanding the detail is really quite unnecessary. When things go wrong they are other people's fault and they will be made to pay.
Characteristics of a sociopath, according to WebMD
- Lack of empathy for others - Impulsive behavior - Attempting to control others with threats or aggression - Using intelligence, charm, or charisma to manipulate others - Not learning from mistakes or punishment - Lying for personal gain - Showing a tendency to physical violence and fights - Generally superficial relationships - Sometimes, stealing or committing other crimes - Threatening suicide to manipulate without intention to act - Sometimes, abusing drugs or alcohol - Trouble with responsibilities such as a job, paying bills, etc.
As part of an anti-sexual harassment campaign, TfL have unveiled posters warning people against STARING inappropriately.
I saw on on the commute this morning.
Ridiculous.
Disagree with you there, GW. It's talking about men who go to town with the leering at women on public transport. Not the routine 'eying-up' but the full-on intimidating sexual stare. That's harassment, really, and it does happen. It's not so rare. This is to make those who make a habit of it think twice. My reaction to the poster was if anything surprise that I hadn't seen it mentioned before.
I once got in mild trouble with that - a girl on the Tube had a T-shirt with a slogan on it, not in especially large letters. I'm short-sighted so I absent-mindedly looked a bit closer to read it, and got an accusing glare. I immediately realised why I was being glared at, but saying "Sorry, I was only trying to read your slogan" seemed, while true, to make it even worse, so I hastily looked away. I now consciously avoid peering at T-shirt slogans...
A bit like those bumper stickers which say "If you can read this, you're too close".
I can help you in revealing that it simply read “stop looking at my tits”
I think I am correct in that and am disobeying the law that says any post pointing out a grammatical failure will itself contain a grammatical failure.
The word "criteria" like the word "tables" is plural.
How’s that news? I first started learning about politics in the 1970s, and Labour were neutral on the Irish unification question even back then.
Indeed, didn’t there used to be (and maybe still is) some link between Labour and the SDLP?
Having said that, HYUFD’s right to point out a certain incompatibility between Labour and the DUP. Overcomeable, though.
Leaving the constitutional issue to one side, the DUP are instinctively far closer to the centre-left than the centre-right. Their instincts are “big government”.
Johnson tells Cabinet that some people will have to sell home to pay for care - Guardian blog
Johnson caught telling the truth.
How novel.
It’s The flat cap those up north may not actually like.
But to be really fair to Boris and the Conservatives though, unless I misunderstand it’s not their idea how to solve it?
There is something I don’t understand about the social care cap please. Why is it an unprogressive flat amount regardless of your wealth and not a percentage amount? This isn’t a dig at current government, because dilnott report seems against percentage and insist on May and Boris capping way of doing it, Kings Fund is against using percentage, and the argument used against using the progressive percentage measure is that it’s far too complicated. But really?
Edit: the making the promise they couldn’t keep was their own idea though?
Once again you don't have a f***ing clue about what you are talking about.
The criteria for a border poll is set out in detail and the DUP get no real say.
The DUP could get a say in who the UK government is though if we get a 2017 style result again next time, possible on current polls.
They will not support a UK government not committed to back the Union even if the GFA criteria for a border poll are met
Once again read the criteria that triggers a border poll before talking complete rubbish.
The criteria for triggering a border poll is irrelevant to who the DUP would back if they are Kingmakers again in terms of choosing which party becomes the UK government as they were in 2017
But that's the exact opposite of what you just posted which was
Shadow NI Secretary says a Labour government would remain neutral in any future border poll in NI.
Bang goes Starmer's chances of DUP support in a hung parliament then
And it's not a UK matter being blunt especially because at the point a border poll is triggered the result is likely to be a forgone conclusion.
What I do find surprising is that you seem very happy to subsidise Northern Ireland but not other parts of the England.
No referendum result is ever a foregone conclusion, as recent events have proved.
My point that the DUP would never back a party not committed to backing the Union stands.
The DUP will therefore likely again go with the Tories not Labour if they are kingmakers in a hung parliament
How’s that news? I first started learning about politics in the 1970s, and Labour were neutral on the Irish unification question even back then.
Indeed, didn’t there used to be (and maybe still is) some link between Labour and the SDLP?
Having said that, HYUFD’s right to point out a certain incompatibility between Labour and the DUP. Overcomeable, though.
Leaving the constitutional issue to one side, the DUP are instinctively far closer to the centre-left than the centre-right. Their instincts are “big government”.
Boris is hardly a laissez-faire, small government Thatcherite either
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
I don't think it is Long Covid, more Long Scrutiny - people are simply noticing characteristics that have always been there, but have previously passed unnoticed. He has two fundamental issues, both of which make him unsuitable as a leader. He is lazy (both physically and intellectually) and he is egotistical. It is a dangerous combo that results in chaotic and disjointed actions and decisions. He genuinely thinks his instinct is likely to be right. Anything more than the back of fag packet approach to understanding the detail is really quite unnecessary. When things go wrong they are other people's fault and they will be made to pay.
Accurate, I think. And I'd just add the enormous arrogance. Other people need to prep, make serious points, tick the boxes, but not I. I'm first and foremost an entertainer. It's a bit like David Brent if he'd gone to Eton.
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
Boris likes the idea of “getting things done”. But he’s not managed to deliver anything in the manifesto, and levelling up has been butchered by Treasury.
It’s possible he’s just really fucking bored of the actual job.
Elections are like conception and governing is like parenting.
Boris liked being a fornicator. Being a dad has not been high up his agenda.
Once again you don't have a f***ing clue about what you are talking about.
The criteria for a border poll is set out in detail and the DUP get no real say.
The DUP could get a say in who the UK government is though if we get a 2017 style result again next time, possible on current polls.
They will not support a UK government not committed to back the Union even if the GFA criteria for a border poll are met
Once again read the criteria that triggers a border poll before talking complete rubbish.
The criteria for triggering a border poll is irrelevant to who the DUP would back if they are Kingmakers again in terms of choosing which party becomes the UK government as they were in 2017
You also miss the fact the DUP aren't likely to be kingmakers again.
On most current polls we are likely heading for a hung parliament where either the SNP and LDs or DUP will be kingmakers depending on which poll you read.
So actually there is a significant chance they will be again
Once again you don't have a f***ing clue about what you are talking about.
The criteria for a border poll is set out in detail and the DUP get no real say.
The DUP could get a say in who the UK government is though if we get a 2017 style result again next time, possible on current polls.
They will not support a UK government not committed to back the Union even if the GFA criteria for a border poll are met
Once again read the criteria that triggers a border poll before talking complete rubbish.
The criteria for triggering a border poll is irrelevant to who the DUP would back if they are Kingmakers again in terms of choosing which party becomes the UK government as they were in 2017
But that's the exact opposite of what you just posted which was
Shadow NI Secretary says a Labour government would remain neutral in any future border poll in NI.
Bang goes Starmer's chances of DUP support in a hung parliament then
And it's not a UK matter being blunt especially because at the point a border poll is triggered the result is likely to be a forgone conclusion.
What I do find surprising is that you seem very happy to subsidise Northern Ireland but not other parts of the England.
No referendum result is ever a foregone conclusion, as recent events have proved.
My point that the DUP would never back a party not committed to backing the Union stands.
The DUP will therefore likely again go with the Tories not Labour if they are kingmakers in a hung parliament
Nope, the DUP will go for whoever writes the biggest cheque.
However, unless things change the DUP aren't going to be in a position to do so and if the Tories are in the position to need the DUP - Labour will have the first right to try and create a Government, in the same way the Tories had the right back in 2010.
I think I am correct in that and am disobeying the law that says any post pointing out a grammatical failure will itself contain a grammatical failure.
The word "criteria" like the word "tables" is plural.
I'd have put a comma after 'Christ', but that might just be me.
Otherwise it appears that you're adressing your comment to the Jesus F*****g Christ people (all Christians, maybe?)
My daughter’s school is recommending a daily LFT for the students until the end of term.
There does seem to be a new, slightly raised, anxiety abroad.
And to what end? We seem to be stuck between people who think we can suppress the virus and those who think we should now get on with living with it. My belief is that parts of Europe are showing that suppressing is not viable in the longer term. If a child is unwell, test them and if positive, keep them off school. But testing every day? Not worth it.
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
I agree. He is often compared to Trump; a mini Trump. I don't think this is accurate. Trump is clearly very stupid and believes all sorts of nutty things, which makes him particularly dangerous. Boris isn't and doesn't. Boris is sane. I think Boris wanted the job, not because he wanted to achieve anything in particular, but because he just wanted the job. It is on his bucket list. But the job comes with a to do list and he drew the short straw on that front with the pandemic, although one item on the list, Brexit, he knew he would have to do.
Short straw with the pandemic but also a long one. It's covered up an awful lot.
Undoubtedly it has been pointed out already, but Johnson wasn't really harmed by the 'fu*k business' thing, or his clown act in general. I think it is just a problem when added to all the other stuff, the sleaze problems etc, people might decide that they don't want the clown any more.
My daughter’s school is recommending a daily LFT for the students until the end of term.
There does seem to be a new, slightly raised, anxiety abroad.
And to what end? We seem to be stuck between people who think we can suppress the virus and those who think we should now get on with living with it. My belief is that parts of Europe are showing that suppressing is not viable in the longer term. If a child is unwell, test them and if positive, keep them off school. But testing every day? Not worth it.
Incoming in the next year or two: cohort or case-control studies on the dangers of shoving (effectively) a cotton bud up your nose every day.
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
They were really, really bad, and probably responsible for a couple of percentage points off Livingstone’s tally.
Incidentally the revived Routemaster shows one of Boris’s strengths.
A dispassionate bureaucrat would have told you that it was impossible to revive the Routemaster, and that no other city on Earth had any call for that apparently irrational form factor.
Boris went and found a manufacturer and got them made. They work well, in my opinion, and jolly up the cityscape (even if you can’t, contra promise, jump on the back mid-transit, like you could the old ones).
But the promise was open platform, and yet the platforms are never open, and the conductors of the early days are gone. Without either, it’s just an incredibly expensive bus that has the sole advantage of a design that hints, but doesn’t deliver, the freedom of the old jump-on jump-off routemasters, with the downside of being the most unpleasant place to be on those rare days when London suffers warm summer weather.
The reason the New Route Master buses cost more is that they were designed as "deep" hybrids - with a big battery. In fact, they were designed so that conversion to full electric was relatively simple - at the time they were introduced batteries were still too expensive for that.
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
Very simple. Being PM is hard work. The incumbent has no experience.
This +1
Read his life story. He’s a lazy sod who has used his innate ability plus his talent in evading any sanction to breeze through life without really having to apply himself to anything, and feeling he is able to bluff or brazen his way out of any difficult spot that might transpire.
Becoming FS was his first real test, which by any objective standard he failed, but for reasons well rehearsed many Tories chose to ignore the lessons.
His second real test is as PM and he is clearly starting to sink beneath the waves.
Once again you don't have a f***ing clue about what you are talking about.
The criteria for a border poll is set out in detail and the DUP get no real say.
The DUP could get a say in who the UK government is though if we get a 2017 style result again next time, possible on current polls.
They will not support a UK government not committed to back the Union even if the GFA criteria for a border poll are met
Once again read the criteria that triggers a border poll before talking complete rubbish.
The criteria for triggering a border poll is irrelevant to who the DUP would back if they are Kingmakers again in terms of choosing which party becomes the UK government as they were in 2017
But that's the exact opposite of what you just posted which was
Shadow NI Secretary says a Labour government would remain neutral in any future border poll in NI.
Bang goes Starmer's chances of DUP support in a hung parliament then
And it's not a UK matter being blunt especially because at the point a border poll is triggered the result is likely to be a forgone conclusion.
What I do find surprising is that you seem very happy to subsidise Northern Ireland but not other parts of the England.
No referendum result is ever a foregone conclusion, as recent events have proved.
My point that the DUP would never back a party not committed to backing the Union stands.
The DUP will therefore likely again go with the Tories not Labour if they are kingmakers in a hung parliament
Nope, the DUP will go for whoever writes the biggest cheque.
However, unless things change the DUP aren't going to be in a position to do so and if the Tories are in the position to need the DUP - Labour will have the first right to try and create a Government, in the same way the Tories had the right back in 2010.
If the Tories are in a position to need the DUP with the DUP Kingmakers then the Tories will certainly be comfortably largest party again as they were in 2010 even if short of a majority and would have first right to form a government again
We have truly entered the twilight zone with Bozza now. Just a bizarre episode, he presents as decidedly unwell.
He presents as someone drunk trying to pretend to be sober.
He really, really doesn't
God knows I drink enough, and am drunk enough, and have pretended to be sober enough. I doubt you've been really drunk a dozen times in your life? You know nothing of this
If Boris was just a desperate secret boozer, like Charles Kennedy, it would be bloody obvious. He isn't. His problems actually go deeper than that, and they are more interesting. He has some deep neediness, related to his mum and dad, allied with a schoolboy shtick of "I'm just a bumbling amateur, hahaha" which got him into Eton, Oxford and the Buller, but this has now fossilised into a persona, all of which is sunk in a genuinely gifted and powerful intelligence, which means he lives at total cross purposes
I’m intrigued by the concept that Boris Johnson is “gifted” and has a “powerful intelligence”.
“Gifted” is normally a quality attributed to a child or young adult. There is something tragic about saying it of a man close to 60.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen for him having a “powerful intelligence” is him narrowly losing the Greeks vs Romans debate to Professor Mary Beard. It was a surprisingly close call and not the Prof walkover you’d expect. (A truly intelligent debater would have whopped Beard, as it is blatantly obvious that the Greeks were more impressive.)
Pericles and his ilk succumbed to the Plague of Athens. Johnson and his despicable ilk will be remembered as the Plague of England.
FWIW as someone who's had a bit of contact with him, I think he's genuinely bright, but doesn't usually bother to apply it, since he's found that winging it is enough to win in every walk of life, so long as you're also affable and amusing. That has yet to be disproved, but I agree he's testing it to destruction. I do wonder if he's altogether well at the moment - he's arguably going beyond winging it to something more extreme.
Looks like Long Covid to me. He’s not quite right.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
I don't think it is Long Covid, more Long Scrutiny - people are simply noticing characteristics that have always been there, but have previously passed unnoticed. He has two fundamental issues, both of which make him unsuitable as a leader. He is lazy (both physically and intellectually) and he is egotistical. It is a dangerous combo that results in chaotic and disjointed actions and decisions. He genuinely thinks his instinct is likely to be right. Anything more than the back of fag packet approach to understanding the detail is really quite unnecessary. When things go wrong they are other people's fault and they will be made to pay.
Characteristics of a sociopath, according to WebMD
- Lack of empathy for others - Impulsive behavior - Attempting to control others with threats or aggression - Using intelligence, charm, or charisma to manipulate others - Not learning from mistakes or punishment - Lying for personal gain - Showing a tendency to physical violence and fights - Generally superficial relationships - Sometimes, stealing or committing other crimes - Threatening suicide to manipulate without intention to act - Sometimes, abusing drugs or alcohol - Trouble with responsibilities such as a job, paying bills, etc.
I think I am correct in that and am disobeying the law that says any post pointing out a grammatical failure will itself contain a grammatical failure.
The word "criteria" like the word "tables" is plural.
I'd have put a comma after 'Christ', but that might just be me.
Otherwise it appears that you're adressing your comment to the Jesus F*****g Christ people (all Christians, maybe?)
I do have my stream of consciousness his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes moments.
How’s that news? I first started learning about politics in the 1970s, and Labour were neutral on the Irish unification question even back then.
Indeed, didn’t there used to be (and maybe still is) some link between Labour and the SDLP?
Having said that, HYUFD’s right to point out a certain incompatibility between Labour and the DUP. Overcomeable, though.
Leaving the constitutional issue to one side, the DUP are instinctively far closer to the centre-left than the centre-right. Their instincts are “big government”.
Boris is hardly a laissez-faire, small government Thatcherite either
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
Bendy buses work in cities that were designed for traffic, which essentially means the US (just a shame they don’t really do public transport) or the occasional European city that was extensively redesigned in more recent centuries with wide arteries and boulevards. In old London Town, not so much.
Once again you don't have a f***ing clue about what you are talking about.
The criteria for a border poll is set out in detail and the DUP get no real say.
The DUP could get a say in who the UK government is though if we get a 2017 style result again next time, possible on current polls.
They will not support a UK government not committed to back the Union even if the GFA criteria for a border poll are met
Once again read the criteria that triggers a border poll before talking complete rubbish.
The criteria for triggering a border poll is irrelevant to who the DUP would back if they are Kingmakers again in terms of choosing which party becomes the UK government as they were in 2017
But that's the exact opposite of what you just posted which was
Shadow NI Secretary says a Labour government would remain neutral in any future border poll in NI.
Bang goes Starmer's chances of DUP support in a hung parliament then
And it's not a UK matter being blunt especially because at the point a border poll is triggered the result is likely to be a forgone conclusion.
What I do find surprising is that you seem very happy to subsidise Northern Ireland but not other parts of the England.
No referendum result is ever a foregone conclusion, as recent events have proved.
My point that the DUP would never back a party not committed to backing the Union stands.
The DUP will therefore likely again go with the Tories not Labour if they are kingmakers in a hung parliament
Nope, the DUP will go for whoever writes the biggest cheque.
However, unless things change the DUP aren't going to be in a position to do so and if the Tories are in the position to need the DUP - Labour will have the first right to try and create a Government, in the same way the Tories had the right back in 2010.
If the Tories are in a position to need the DUP with the DUP Kingmakers then the Tories will certainly be comfortably largest party again as they were in 2010 even if short of a majority and would have first right to form a government again
You overlook the parlous loss of credibility that would be a consequence of the current big-majority Tories having fallen into such a tragic spot.
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
They were really, really bad, and probably responsible for a couple of percentage points off Livingstone’s tally.
Incidentally the revived Routemaster shows one of Boris’s strengths.
A dispassionate bureaucrat would have told you that it was impossible to revive the Routemaster, and that no other city on Earth had any call for that apparently irrational form factor.
Boris went and found a manufacturer and got them made. They work well, in my opinion, and jolly up the cityscape (even if you can’t, contra promise, jump on the back mid-transit, like you could the old ones).
I never understood the logic of bendy buses, they take up more road space in a city that already has too many cars.
We used to have them here in the West of Scotland, but with the local culture of fare dodging, they didn't allow the doors in the rear half of the bus to open.
Once again you don't have a f***ing clue about what you are talking about.
The criteria for a border poll is set out in detail and the DUP get no real say.
The DUP could get a say in who the UK government is though if we get a 2017 style result again next time, possible on current polls.
They will not support a UK government not committed to back the Union even if the GFA criteria for a border poll are met
Once again read the criteria that triggers a border poll before talking complete rubbish.
The criteria for triggering a border poll is irrelevant to who the DUP would back if they are Kingmakers again in terms of choosing which party becomes the UK government as they were in 2017
But that's the exact opposite of what you just posted which was
Shadow NI Secretary says a Labour government would remain neutral in any future border poll in NI.
Bang goes Starmer's chances of DUP support in a hung parliament then
And it's not a UK matter being blunt especially because at the point a border poll is triggered the result is likely to be a forgone conclusion.
What I do find surprising is that you seem very happy to subsidise Northern Ireland but not other parts of the England.
No referendum result is ever a foregone conclusion, as recent events have proved.
My point that the DUP would never back a party not committed to backing the Union stands.
The DUP will therefore likely again go with the Tories not Labour if they are kingmakers in a hung parliament
Nope, the DUP will go for whoever writes the biggest cheque.
However, unless things change the DUP aren't going to be in a position to do so and if the Tories are in the position to need the DUP - Labour will have the first right to try and create a Government, in the same way the Tories had the right back in 2010.
If the Tories are in a position to need the DUP with the DUP Kingmakers then the Tories will certainly be comfortably largest party again as they were in 2010 even if short of a majority and would have first right to form a government again
You overlook the parlous loss of credibility that would be a consequence of the current big-majority Tories having fallen into such a tragic spot.
To form a government you need numbers, a moral loss does not mean you lose power if you still have the numbers.
Given the choice between a Tory and DUP government or the only viable alternative of a Labour and SNP and LD and DUP and PC and SDLP and Green and Alliance government, it is not difficult to see which would be the more stable
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
Bendy buses work in cities that were designed for traffic, which essentially means the US (just a shame they don’t really do public transport) or the occasional European city that was extensively redesigned in more recent centuries with wide arteries and boulevards. In old London Town, not so much.
I think it was in Istanbul where they were introduced and abandoned within a week due to the middle bit getting continually grounded...
Once again you don't have a f***ing clue about what you are talking about.
The criteria for a border poll is set out in detail and the DUP get no real say.
The DUP could get a say in who the UK government is though if we get a 2017 style result again next time, possible on current polls.
They will not support a UK government not committed to back the Union even if the GFA criteria for a border poll are met
Once again read the criteria that triggers a border poll before talking complete rubbish.
The criteria for triggering a border poll is irrelevant to who the DUP would back if they are Kingmakers again in terms of choosing which party becomes the UK government as they were in 2017
But that's the exact opposite of what you just posted which was
Shadow NI Secretary says a Labour government would remain neutral in any future border poll in NI.
Bang goes Starmer's chances of DUP support in a hung parliament then
And it's not a UK matter being blunt especially because at the point a border poll is triggered the result is likely to be a forgone conclusion.
What I do find surprising is that you seem very happy to subsidise Northern Ireland but not other parts of the England.
No referendum result is ever a foregone conclusion, as recent events have proved.
My point that the DUP would never back a party not committed to backing the Union stands.
The DUP will therefore likely again go with the Tories not Labour if they are kingmakers in a hung parliament
Nope, the DUP will go for whoever writes the biggest cheque.
However, unless things change the DUP aren't going to be in a position to do so and if the Tories are in the position to need the DUP - Labour will have the first right to try and create a Government, in the same way the Tories had the right back in 2010.
If the Tories are in a position to need the DUP with the DUP Kingmakers then the Tories will certainly be comfortably largest party again as they were in 2010 even if short of a majority and would have first right to form a government again
You overlook the parlous loss of credibility that would be a consequence of the current big-majority Tories having fallen into such a tragic spot.
To form a government you need numbers, a moral loss does not mean you lose power if you still have the numbers.
Given the choice between a Tory and DUP government or the only viable alternative of a Labour and SNP and LD and DUP and PC and SDLP and Green and Alliance government, it is not difficult to see which would be the more stable
"Stable" government doesn't necessarily mean good government. We have been conned by those with a vested interest that single (or in this suggestion dual party) party government is inherently more stable and better when it is very arguable that it is not
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
They were really, really bad, and probably responsible for a couple of percentage points off Livingstone’s tally.
Incidentally the revived Routemaster shows one of Boris’s strengths.
A dispassionate bureaucrat would have told you that it was impossible to revive the Routemaster, and that no other city on Earth had any call for that apparently irrational form factor.
Boris went and found a manufacturer and got them made. They work well, in my opinion, and jolly up the cityscape (even if you can’t, contra promise, jump on the back mid-transit, like you could the old ones).
I never understood the logic of bendy buses, they take up more road space in a city that already has too many cars.
The logic was that you have more doors, so people can exit/board more quickly at bus stops. All other things being equal, this would make for faster journey times and fewer problems with queues of buses at bus stops. Worth a trial, which should have revealed all the ways in which the other things were not equal.
I think I am correct in that and am disobeying the law that says any post pointing out a grammatical failure will itself contain a grammatical failure.
The word "criteria" like the word "tables" is plural.
I'd have put a comma after 'Christ', but that might just be me.
Otherwise it appears that you're adressing your comment to the Jesus F*****g Christ people (all Christians, maybe?)
I do have my stream of consciousness his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes moments.
I think I am correct in that and am disobeying the law that says any post pointing out a grammatical failure will itself contain a grammatical failure.
The word "criteria" like the word "tables" is plural.
I'd have put a comma after 'Christ', but that might just be me.
Otherwise it appears that you're adressing your comment to the Jesus F*****g Christ people (all Christians, maybe?)
I do have my stream of consciousness his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes moments.
My daughter’s school is recommending a daily LFT for the students until the end of term.
There does seem to be a new, slightly raised, anxiety abroad.
And to what end? We seem to be stuck between people who think we can suppress the virus and those who think we should now get on with living with it. My belief is that parts of Europe are showing that suppressing is not viable in the longer term. If a child is unwell, test them and if positive, keep them off school. But testing every day? Not worth it.
I am having this daily in my workplace team. A clear split in attitude that is very hard to reconcile. I find it very hard not to question people who use phraseology like 'avoid complacency' and 'it's not over', and the dreaded 'stay safe'. Such is the language of suppression, which serves only to delay as far as I can see (and, even then, it's minimal unless you favour closing schools and sequestering hospitals).
'GET YOUR JABS' seems to me to be the only rational message. Maybe I am wrong but that to me seems the logical outlook in the post-vaccine stage.
My daughter’s school is recommending a daily LFT for the students until the end of term.
There does seem to be a new, slightly raised, anxiety abroad.
And to what end? We seem to be stuck between people who think we can suppress the virus and those who think we should now get on with living with it. My belief is that parts of Europe are showing that suppressing is not viable in the longer term. If a child is unwell, test them and if positive, keep them off school. But testing every day? Not worth it.
I am having this daily in my workplace team. A clear split in attitude that is very hard to reconcile. I find it very hard not to question people who use phraseology like 'avoid complacency' and 'it's not over', and the dreaded 'stay safe'. Such is the language of suppression, which serves only to delay as far as I can see (and, even then, it's minimal unless you favour closing schools and sequestering hospitals).
'GET YOUR JABS' seems to me to be the only rational message. Maybe I am wrong but that to me seems the logical outlook in the post-vaccine stage.
Yes, immunisation should be first, second and third (dose) priority.
Though I would also add that people should stay at home if they have any respiratory infection.
My daughter’s school is recommending a daily LFT for the students until the end of term.
There does seem to be a new, slightly raised, anxiety abroad.
And to what end? We seem to be stuck between people who think we can suppress the virus and those who think we should now get on with living with it. My belief is that parts of Europe are showing that suppressing is not viable in the longer term. If a child is unwell, test them and if positive, keep them off school. But testing every day? Not worth it.
I am having this daily in my workplace team. A clear split in attitude that is very hard to reconcile. I find it very hard not to question people who use phraseology like 'avoid complacency' and 'it's not over', and the dreaded 'stay safe'. Such is the language of suppression, which serves only to delay as far as I can see (and, even then, it's minimal unless you favour closing schools and sequestering hospitals).
'GET YOUR JABS' seems to me to be the only rational message. Maybe I am wrong but that to me seems the logical outlook in the post-vaccine stage.
Yes, immunisation should be first, second and third (dose) priority.
Though I would also add that people should stay at home if they have any respiratory infection.
Oh absolutely – but that was always my view pre-covid. The ludicrous spectacle of office workers dragging themselves in when spluttering with ugly colds has to end.
I'm looking for a selection of international-perspective news TV stations in English.
Any good suggestions?
France24, Russia Today, Al Jazeera all have English language stations. BBC World is probably the most popular international news channel. The American cable news stations have all gone completely bonkers - does The Hill have a TV station, they’re perhaps the most normal.
My daughter’s school is recommending a daily LFT for the students until the end of term.
There does seem to be a new, slightly raised, anxiety abroad.
And to what end? We seem to be stuck between people who think we can suppress the virus and those who think we should now get on with living with it. My belief is that parts of Europe are showing that suppressing is not viable in the longer term. If a child is unwell, test them and if positive, keep them off school. But testing every day? Not worth it.
I am having this daily in my workplace team. A clear split in attitude that is very hard to reconcile. I find it very hard not to question people who use phraseology like 'avoid complacency' and 'it's not over', and the dreaded 'stay safe'. Such is the language of suppression, which serves only to delay as far as I can see (and, even then, it's minimal unless you favour closing schools and sequestering hospitals).
'GET YOUR JABS' seems to me to be the only rational message. Maybe I am wrong but that to me seems the logical outlook in the post-vaccine stage.
My team has mixed views too. As you know, we have different outlooks on this, and we avoid being derisive about it. I think the same should apply to our workplace teams. There is a genuine difference of opinion in the public, and we should each respect the others.
Now I've had two vaccinations and a booster, I feel reasonably safe myself - I'm going to see Dune with a couple of friends in a bit. But most of us know people who have recently had very bad bouts, including vaccinated people (though in my circle not yet those who've also had the booster), and I can why people who want to avoid that at almost all costs.
And what are the costs? It depends so much on the workplace. In my office we've postponed reopening till the spring, since we find we can work 95% as well from home, and many positively prefer it. In other offices, it will have a big impact onm work.
Given the choice between a Tory and DUP government or the only viable alternative of a Labour and SNP and LD and DUP and PC and SDLP and Green and Alliance government, it is not difficult to see which would be the more stable
I doubt if it will in practice require all of those, certainly not actually inside government. Also, would you describe the present single-party government as "stable"?
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
They were really, really bad, and probably responsible for a couple of percentage points off Livingstone’s tally.
Incidentally the revived Routemaster shows one of Boris’s strengths.
A dispassionate bureaucrat would have told you that it was impossible to revive the Routemaster, and that no other city on Earth had any call for that apparently irrational form factor.
Boris went and found a manufacturer and got them made. They work well, in my opinion, and jolly up the cityscape (even if you can’t, contra promise, jump on the back mid-transit, like you could the old ones).
I never understood the logic of bendy buses, they take up more road space in a city that already has too many cars.
The logic was that you have more doors, so people can exit/board more quickly at bus stops. All other things being equal, this would make for faster journey times and fewer problems with queues of buses at bus stops. Worth a trial, which should have revealed all the ways in which the other things were not equal.
Various people pointed out that articulated buses are incompatible with the London road plan. They were overruled by those whose project it was.
Mr. Malmesbury, you can't let reality get in the way of a plan!
Next you'll be saying socialism is a bad idea.
Whenever people say that "X has never really been tried and should be implemented" where X is a political system, I respond that we should really try these things in alphabetical order.
Since, according to my personal definition, Absolute Monarchy has never been tried.....
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
They were really, really bad, and probably responsible for a couple of percentage points off Livingstone’s tally.
Incidentally the revived Routemaster shows one of Boris’s strengths.
A dispassionate bureaucrat would have told you that it was impossible to revive the Routemaster, and that no other city on Earth had any call for that apparently irrational form factor.
Boris went and found a manufacturer and got them made. They work well, in my opinion, and jolly up the cityscape (even if you can’t, contra promise, jump on the back mid-transit, like you could the old ones).
I never understood the logic of bendy buses, they take up more road space in a city that already has too many cars.
The logic was that you have more doors, so people can exit/board more quickly at bus stops. All other things being equal, this would make for faster journey times and fewer problems with queues of buses at bus stops. Worth a trial, which should have revealed all the ways in which the other things were not equal.
Various people pointed out that articulated buses are incompatible with the London road plan. They were overruled by those whose project it was.
In 2019 Lothian buses started using some new extra long double decker buses with nearly 50% extra capacity. I saw them testing one out in the local area seeing if they could make it round all the corners - they had a guy with an iPad taking notes and photos as it did so.
You don't need to have an argument about this in theory, just try them out and see if they will fit.
Strange that the previous thread was cut short with only 29 comments.
What is extraordinary is that the polling question asked was just about the most extreme that could have been devised. i.e. An implied COMPLETE lockdown on the unvaccinated for an INDEFINITE period. Yet 45% still supported that, compared to 32% against.
The question could easily have been posed in less extreme terms, something along the lines of "Should those who choose to remain unvaccinated be prevented from mixing in crowded public places over the winter period?" Based on the earlier poll, I would expect responses to be about 60% in favour to about 25% against. There is a great deal of anger over those who by their foolish actions are causing a continuing huge wave of unnecessary deaths and bringing the wider health service to its knees.
It’s a terrible and very theoretical question.
Loads of people agree with the principle that we should make life difficult for the unvaccinated, but pretty much every scheme actually proposed involves the vaccinated and small businesses having to jump through hoops and incur costs, usually with the added kicker of a massive government surveillance database.
On topic - Livingstone wasn't discredited when Johnson beat him. A bit tired, perhaps, but he was still the Big Beast of London politics.
There was a great deal of shock and consternation on Left that Johnson was leading him in the polls - and some throughly anguished columns in the Guardian.
This view and the the latter one about the abject failure of Johnsons time as Mayor comes as a result of Brexit. At the time when he left, polls (YouGuv 52% good job, vs 29% bad job), suggested that he could have won a third term, if he had gone for one.
It amuses me that after Boris had announced his candidacy for Mayor of London the betting markets opened with Livingstone as the heavy odds-on favourite . . . and there were thread headers describing Livingstone as "value" even at odds-on.
And now the line to take is that Livingstone was discredited? Well he wasn't until he was beaten in 2008 . . . he was the heavy odds-on favourite and "value" at that in 2007 when the Mayoral campaigning began.
What is it about Boris that his opponents subsequently become discredited? Maybe because he's beaten them, that could be a factor?
Livingstone was discredited at the time; I gave a Tory my second preference, that's how discredited he was
If he was so discredited at the time how come he was "value" at 1.5?
How come you could back Boris at ~3 for most of the campaign?
Betting odds are a reliable guide as to what's going to happen in an election?
It's a theory, I suppose.
Livingstone was widely seen as over the hill and beginning to go loopy, and the anti-semitic stuff was beginning to surface. I'm not misremembering the only time in my life I've given any sort of preference in the ballot box to a Tory, and that wouldn't have happened had Livingstone been credible for re-election; Ken had been my second preference on both of his previous runs.
So you voted directly and personally for Boris Johnson, assuming your first was for the LibDem?
I (think) I voted for Boris twice.
Ken was looking quite crooked by the end of his second term, and Boris felt part of the modernising, Primrose Hill breed of Tory.
I can’t remember Boris’s first campaign, but the campaign against him was quite pathetic, effectively just saying he was too racist for London.
Boris’s first term seemed quite good. He got rid of Ken’s deranged bendy buses, and brought back the Routemaster.
Even the garden bridge is not a bad idea unto itself, it’s just that Boris didn’t look into the detail before spending tens of millions of pounds on it.
Oh god the bendy buses. They were so awful.
They were really, really bad, and probably responsible for a couple of percentage points off Livingstone’s tally.
Incidentally the revived Routemaster shows one of Boris’s strengths.
A dispassionate bureaucrat would have told you that it was impossible to revive the Routemaster, and that no other city on Earth had any call for that apparently irrational form factor.
Boris went and found a manufacturer and got them made. They work well, in my opinion, and jolly up the cityscape (even if you can’t, contra promise, jump on the back mid-transit, like you could the old ones).
I never understood the logic of bendy buses, they take up more road space in a city that already has too many cars.
The logic was that you have more doors, so people can exit/board more quickly at bus stops. All other things being equal, this would make for faster journey times and fewer problems with queues of buses at bus stops. Worth a trial, which should have revealed all the ways in which the other things were not equal.
Various people pointed out that articulated buses are incompatible with the London road plan. They were overruled by those whose project it was.
In 2019 Lothian buses started using some new extra long double decker buses with nearly 50% extra capacity. I saw them testing one out in the local area seeing if they could make it round all the corners - they had a guy with an iPad taking notes and photos as it did so.
You don't need to have an argument about this in theory, just try them out and see if they will fit.
It was literally a case of
- The bus building company stated that the minimum radius turns the base were compatible with were X. - A number of the turns the buses would be required to make were X-{something}
Comments
Good name recognition is probably the key requirement to unseat the incumbent.
But could also be stress, sleep problems, depression, alcohol or some other explanation.
You seem to be under an illusion that high-speed 'NPR' was a set thing; a project that had a well-defined route that had been settled and agreed. It wasn't. AFAIAA it was a series of squiggles on a map; three or four potential routes designed to serve different communities, often mutually incompatibly. Your 'crayon sketch' comment is very true of the situation before last week as well.
The waveforms of those potential routes were always going to collapse down into one, leaving some towns and cities pi**ed off. The high-speed aspect of NPR is, and always was, different to the route upgrades that will serve the other towns and cities.
This does not excuse the disgraceful cancellation of much of the eastern phase 2 route.
But he’s not managed to deliver anything in the manifesto, and levelling up has been butchered by Treasury.
It’s possible he’s just really fucking bored of the actual job.
Over 80's 10 vs 40.6
70-79 2.8 vs 12.2
60-69 1.1 vs 8.5
Under 60 0.2 vs 0.4
This looks to me to be a 4 to 8 fold reduction in mortality depending on age. Other weeks are in keeping.
There isn't data yet on the ONS site for treble vaxxed, and the above is quite a useful drop, but this is still quite a nasty disease to catch.
Shadow NI Secretary says a Labour government would remain neutral in any future border poll in NI.
Bang goes Starmer's chances of DUP support in a hung parliament then
And it's not a UK matter being blunt especially because at the point a border poll is triggered the result is likely to be a forgone conclusion.
What I do find surprising is that you seem very happy to subsidise Northern Ireland but not other parts of the England.
Ken Livingstone, 1999
Having said that, HYUFD’s right to point out a certain incompatibility between Labour and the DUP. Overcomeable, though.
And as for LFTs I order a set every day. There will come a day when we have to pay for them.
And I don't take them and haven't taken one since I actually got the bug.
Being PM is hard work. The incumbent has no experience.
Criteria is plural. The criteria *are*....
- Lack of empathy for others
- Impulsive behavior
- Attempting to control others with threats or aggression
- Using intelligence, charm, or charisma to manipulate others
- Not learning from mistakes or punishment
- Lying for personal gain
- Showing a tendency to physical violence and fights
- Generally superficial relationships
- Sometimes, stealing or committing other crimes
- Threatening suicide to manipulate without intention to act
- Sometimes, abusing drugs or alcohol
- Trouble with responsibilities such as a job, paying bills, etc.
The word "criteria" like the word "tables" is plural.
.....
Then they said "criteria is" and by that time there was no one left with any sense of grammar
Did NI not open up as early and emphatically as England? What makes Belfast different to London?
Genuine questions. Because if there isn’t a big difference then WFH could be returning to mainland Britain as well
But to be really fair to Boris and the Conservatives though, unless I misunderstand it’s not their idea how to solve it?
There is something I don’t understand about the social care cap please. Why is it an unprogressive flat amount regardless of your wealth and not a percentage amount? This isn’t a dig at current government, because dilnott report seems against percentage and insist on May and Boris capping way of doing it, Kings Fund is against using percentage, and the argument used against using the progressive percentage measure is that it’s far too complicated. But really?
Edit: the making the promise they couldn’t keep was their own idea though?
My point that the DUP would never back a party not committed to backing the Union stands.
The DUP will therefore likely again go with the Tories not Labour if they are kingmakers in a hung parliament
So actually there is a significant chance they will be again
However, unless things change the DUP aren't going to be in a position to do so and if the Tories are in the position to need the DUP - Labour will have the first right to try and create a Government, in the same way the Tories had the right back in 2010.
Otherwise it appears that you're adressing your comment to the Jesus F*****g Christ people (all Christians, maybe?)
Built in the UK as well.
Read his life story. He’s a lazy sod who has used his innate ability plus his talent in evading any sanction to breeze through life without really having to apply himself to anything, and feeling he is able to bluff or brazen his way out of any difficult spot that might transpire.
Becoming FS was his first real test, which by any objective standard he failed, but for reasons well rehearsed many Tories chose to ignore the lessons.
His second real test is as PM and he is clearly starting to sink beneath the waves.
Given the choice between a Tory and DUP government or the only viable alternative of a Labour and SNP and LD and DUP and PC and SDLP and Green and Alliance government, it is not difficult to see which would be the more stable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBpq7MctZcc
Note guitar solo at about 4 mins in; one of the greatest of all time IMHO.
'GET YOUR JABS' seems to me to be the only rational message. Maybe I am wrong but that to me seems the logical outlook in the post-vaccine stage.
Though I would also add that people should stay at home if they have any respiratory infection.
BBC World is probably the most popular international news channel.
The American cable news stations have all gone completely bonkers - does The Hill have a TV station, they’re perhaps the most normal.
Now I've had two vaccinations and a booster, I feel reasonably safe myself - I'm going to see Dune with a couple of friends in a bit. But most of us know people who have recently had very bad bouts, including vaccinated people (though in my circle not yet those who've also had the booster), and I can why people who want to avoid that at almost all costs.
And what are the costs? It depends so much on the workplace. In my office we've postponed reopening till the spring, since we find we can work 95% as well from home, and many positively prefer it. In other offices, it will have a big impact onm work.
Next you'll be saying socialism is a bad idea.
Since, according to my personal definition, Absolute Monarchy has never been tried.....
You don't need to have an argument about this in theory, just try them out and see if they will fit.
Loads of people agree with the principle that we should make life difficult for the unvaccinated, but pretty much every scheme actually proposed involves the vaccinated and small businesses having to jump through hoops and incur costs, usually with the added kicker of a massive government surveillance database.
- The bus building company stated that the minimum radius turns the base were compatible with were X.
- A number of the turns the buses would be required to make were X-{something}