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Let’s party Number 10 style – politicalbetting.com
Let’s party Number 10 style – politicalbetting.com
The panto season appears to have started early this year. Appropriately enough it relates to a Xmas party which happened at 10, Downing Street around this time last year. Oh, yes it did! Oh, no it didn’t! say others – mostly unmemorable junior Ministers. And even if it did no rules were broken. A big fuss about nothing, yet others will say. Hmmm ….. those who were fined for breaking the Covid rules might disagree. The hospitality venues who lost business last year might also have some thoughts on the matter. Now, in an exciting new twist, the Met Chief and Justice Minister (Dick and Dom) have decided to join in the fun. Asked why the police are not investigating a possible breach of the Covid regulations, Cressida Dick has said that the police do not investigate “retrospective breaches” of the law. Well, that’s the end of the criminal justice system then. And, indeed, of the need for any police forces. What on earth does she think a crime is if not a “retrospective breach“. Perhaps poor Cressida – overwhelmed by all the scandals which have occurred on her watch (the latest being the Met’s policing failures at the Euros 2020 Wembley match) – has given up on any attempt at improving her force’s behaviour and has decided that removing its very purpose for existence is the only way to go. That way the police can never fail. Hooray! All those unemployed policemen can become HGV drivers. So there is that. Prince Charles will be relieved: no need for any unpleasant conversations about Royals trading their status and ability to confer honours for cash. Andrew too will be wondering whether this exciting new concept of not investigating “retrospective breaches” could be exported pronto across the Atlantic.
Comments
Edit - Oh yes.
Like delta.
Allison Pearson
@AllisonPearson
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33m
In the over 70s, 44% of those in ICU are unvaccinated compared to 55% who had two doses.
In younger age groups, the no of unvaxxed in ICU is higher.
By far the biggest factor for ICU COVID admission is not vaccination status but obesity.
Neil Henderson
@hendopolis
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7m
THE SUN: Throw away the key #TomorrowsPapersToday
https://www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/f87422d2-5f54-ec11-9139-00505601089b
For comparison, fig 25 on page 31 shows that higher BMIs are a factor but not (excuse the pun) a massive one.
FIA give Verstappen a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision
Still leaves him p2.
A fair penalty would have been a 20 place grid penalty for the next race.
The cartoon doesn't claim there was a direct link.
Come on, you can do better than that: "Boris never sang those words, wearing a Santa outfit, whilst swigging from a bottle of Bozzinger."
EDIT: No, seems Sky called that wrong, they've just corrected themselves.
This is theatre not sport. It is the Kent Walton ITV World of Sport wrestling on wheels.
What a bad joke. What kind of penalty is that. Surely a grid penalty for the next race would be fairer, what's the point for a time penalty in a completed race?
What could possibly go wrong.
Neil Henderson
@hendopolis
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15m
STAR: Wanted:
@DominicRaab‘s missing brain #TomorrowsPapersToday
(To be fair, that's probably a better result than them staying on late to work on Tory policy.)
But, then, UK isn't a closed system and imports and exports might be considered. This was early in the Kent wave, in London, so although Alpha was ultimately a weaker lineage than Delta (though I'm not sure whether Delta is a successor lineage), if any Alpha was spread, there would probably be a higher death toll.
Government do seem to have needed to isolate a lot. Would be interesting if any attendees did test positive in the following days and whether there was a superspreader event.
This is very rough and supposition, but for any hard facts you glean as a journalist, it would be possible to work out the likely average results by what happened since.
Mitch Benn hates to say he told you so Flag of United KingdomFlag of European Union
@MitchBenn
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12h
Given that apparently the Met police “don’t pursue crimes retrospectively”, next time a copper pulls you over and says you were speeding just say “Yeah, but I’m not any more, am I?”
I am confused about Braverman and Raab. They appear to have both been competent and respected lawyers in their past lives. It is hard to understand how, after a few years in politics, they can fall to the point where they can be used in such a humiliating way. Both come across as complete clowns. The contrast with Geoffrey Cox and Robert Buckland is very noticeable.
But anything cooked up by Braverman needs inspection at arm's length with a peg on the nose.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Plus. Previous governments of all stripes have had stuff struck down.
Their reaction has been we say X, the Courts say Y. Let's have a long think about why exactly that may be, and possibly work out a route to Z.
Not we have a majority of 80 so X it is!!!
England is entering the twilight zone.
Gloomy.
'In an hour-and-a-half-long speech to an estimated crowd of 10,000, Mr Zemmour promised to “reconquer” France and set out his vision of “zero immigration” as he launched salvos against the Left and mainstream media.
"If I win this election, it won't be another rotation of power but a reconquest of the greatest country in the world,” he said to cheers from the crowd. “Join us.”
He said he was calling his party "Reconquest", a name that evokes the historic period known as the Reconquista, when Christian forces drove Muslim rulers from the Iberian peninsula.
“From the first week of my mandate, zero immigration will become a clear objective of our policy,” Mr Zemmour - who has been described as the French Donald Trump - told flag-waving supporters at an exhibition hall.
During his speech, about a dozen activists from the French campaign group SOS Racisme rose to their feet shouting “No to racism,” prompting attendees to throw punches and chairs, images showed. '
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/12/05/eric-zemmour-supporters-gather-paris-campaign-launch/
Shame you’re wrong.
ETA another thing voodoo polls often get right is asking just a single question rather than keep the poor respondent answering for half an hour, at the end of which only the partisan and barking mad are left.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
The volume of Chinese migrant workers and businesses from Manchuria up north of the river is immense, far outweighing the tiny Russian and indigenous local populations. The Russians are, understandably, very jittery about the situation. It is colonisation in all but name.
(Trivia: the finale of the latest Bond movie, where Bond ****, was rather improbably supposed to be located in the disputed southern Kurile islands. If there’s one part of the world Mickey Mouse RN warships won’t be f’ing about it’s the Kurile islands.)
- “But there is always politics lurking behind the scenes – it can be good politics or bad but there is always politics – and you probably won’t know what was going on for 20 years.”
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-covid-vaccine-could-beat-25618953
Labour politics = good
Tory politics = bad
SNP politics = bad
Pennington’s one of those highly intelligent chaps that’s as daft as a brush. Like Raab.
But, like that other rotted SLab talent Gordon Brown, Pennington’s stopped watch does occasionally tell the right time.
Braverman are. Raab was not taken on as a lawyer by Linklaters at the end of his articles. Braverman was an average barrister who was somewhat economical with the actualite of her CV as a barrister and whose attempt at arguing the criminal law in the case of the Harper case (the policeman killed by being dragged behind a car) was dismissed as utterly hopeless and misguided by the court in terms of politely withering contempt.
Buckland is no great shakes. He hardly set the Welsh circuit on his fire with his oratory.
Cox for all his faults actually knows that a lawyer must give his honest legal advice and not just what his client wants to hear. He, more than anyone, ironically enough, is responsible for Johnson being PM. It was his legal advice on May's deal which scuppered her final chance to get it through and set the stage for Johnson to grab the crown. He would not trim his legal advice to suit her political needs. Er.... no....... have you ever heard about the common law? It's been the law of these islands for hundreds of years.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
I'm not sure whether they'll be able to adjust to this, or whether their system of always fighting the last war prevents them from fighting the last war but one.
I am no expert on Scots law, but my understanding is that common law plays a far more minor role than it does in English law, where it is the very foundation of the entire legal system.
Now that it's party season, what should the government do if the courts hand down a judgement making cocaine testing de facto mandatory at no.10 and on the parliamentary estate ?
I see the newspapers' bizarre and very curious ignoring of the story continues.
F1: well, my predictions were utterly wrong. Alas.
A few quick notes (not doing a post-race thingummyjig):
Verstappen's initial 'letting Hamilton pass' approach was just stupid. The conniving DRS position is fair enough as others have done it, but the way it was done was daft. At the same time, Hamilton had time and space to pass (confusion more understandable due to slow radio and numerous VSCs).
However, he did appear to get double-penalised (time penalty and investigation post-race, as well as having to let Hamilton pass having tried that once, albeit clumsily).
The 5s time penalty was only 5s less than Hamilton got for punting Verstappen into a 50G race-finishing crash in Silverstone...
However, if you were a script writer, having them level on points for the final race is the way to go. But Hamilton's simply had the faster car for the last few races, by a clear margin.
Sir Lindsay is demanding a drugs crackdown - including sniffer dogs prowling the corridors - amid growing evidence of cannabis and cocaine being used openly. Allegations include a claim that a former MP put his drug dealer on the parliamentary payroll, claiming he was a member of staff, as a way of paying him for drugs. And, according to a report in The Sunday Times, the same former MP is rumoured to have dealt drugs himself and at least one parliamentary aide has been sacked for taking cocaine."
https://news.sky.com/story/commons-speaker-sir-lindsay-hoyle-to-call-in-police-over-claims-of-drug-abuse-in-the-houses-of-parliament-12487771
People are actually dealing cocaine in the Commons, while the government threatens to remove the liberty of MDMA and LSD users to travel, from a position of great traditional moral authority. One should never doubt that our rulers mean what they say.
One shouldn't laugh.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were referenced within some typical Sunday newspapers “in depth” piece, as some sort of drab, subdued affair where staff were glumly sitting around in the office after official working hours trying to drum up whatever festive spirit they could manage. As for “the rules”, I distinctly remember loads of comment (as so common through the pandemic) of how inconsistent/and or loopholes they were with. One particular example being how absurd it was that you could sit around with a few bottles of alcohol in the office, but woe betide anybody who tried to organise exactly the same thing in a private house.
That is dangerous.
It looks more like panic in advance of something to me.
It doesn’t of course help when the Government (and to be fair this isn’t perhaps a totally novel perception) seems to believe that the role of the Govt law officers is to determine what is legal, rather than advise on what is legal. Under the latter of course it is important that the Government employ the finest and most independent minds, with the highest levels of personal integrity and commitment to the legal process it can find. On the basis that such is the best way to avoid the Government being embarrassed by being found by the courts in breach. Under the former they just need to find any stooge with the necessary qualification (although maybe in future the qualification may not even be required!)
Crackdown..... there's an appropriate word in the circumstances .... after crackdown has been tried in the 'War on Drugs' and doesn't seem to work. What would work is legalising one or two 'softer drugs', unless of course cocaine use, prevalent, certainly at one time, AIUI, among the nobility and gentry, is now so widespread that it's the drug of choice.
And if it is, then the war has been well and truly lost, and we'll have to think of a completely new strategy.
And this seems to be a new idea, or at least one not used before in modern times.
Wee could of course stop people with a conviction for drug offences coming here, as the US does.
Fundamentally changes the relationship between the individual and the state. I am not sure we want that here.
Week 45: 144
Week 46: 308
Week 47: 826
Week 48: 1260
https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/
They are not rising as fast as infections, but that is still a huge rate of increase. For all I know Omicron may be somewhat milder than Delta, but if it's as infectious as it looks that will far outweigh any moderate lessening of severe.
They just don't have any idea about what to do with it other than enrich themselves.
The one woke/left wing idea that I like is prison abolition. Most of the people in prison should not be in prison. Subjecting people to severe psychological harm through locking them in a box for 23 hours a day is serving a base need for vengeance and will not really improve anything for anyone. It is a waste of money and punishment (deprivation of liberty) could take other forms, for instance through surveillance.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?