The PM "must remove himself from office immediately" if allegations a Christmas party was held in Downing Street during lockdown are true, the SNP's Westminster leader has said.
48% of Scottish voters, according to YouGov/The Times 18-22 Nov.
And before you point out that that’s not a majority, remember that 80% of Scottish voters intend to vote for the non-Tory parties, according to the same survey.
So what, we elect a UK government as Scots confirmed in the once in a generation 2014 referendum
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
That’s what I was talking with Foxy about a couple of days ago.
They are going to have to educate and recruit like madmen to just stand still. Shame all those EU nurses aren’t allowed to apply…
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
There is no such thing as a temporary Prime Minister. So which Tory MP will be appointed PM while a vote for Tory party leader is held or will the party think blow it and just ask Rishi to take the job?
Rishi is a shoo in.
Personally, I’d go for Liz Truss, but I just can’t see the Tories going for her in their current swivel-eyed iteration.
Why do you think Sunak is more swivel-eyed than Truss? I thought you would say the opposite to be honest.
Agree. Liz has a few embarrassing videos. I can't think of anything negative out there on Rishi and he is very presentable in the media. Only thing I can think of is he is a bit short, but that is scraping the barrel (obviously not Rishi scraping the barrel as he won't be able to reach).
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
That’s what I was talking with Foxy about a couple of days ago.
They are going to have to educate and recruit like madmen to just stand still. Shame all those EU nurses aren’t allowed to apply…
I suspect many EU countries are in the same situation.
Old Holborn pointed out that he's the 3rd person in Bulgaria to have had a booster jab.
The PM "must remove himself from office immediately" if allegations a Christmas party was held in Downing Street during lockdown are true, the SNP's Westminster leader has said.
48% of Scottish voters, according to YouGov/The Times 18-22 Nov.
And before you point out that that’s not a majority, remember that 80% of Scottish voters intend to vote for the non-Tory parties, according to the same survey.
So what, we elect a UK government as Scots confirmed in the once in a generation 2014 referendum
"Once in a generation". It's nice to know that Tories still have one occasional article of faith, irrational as it is, that they held 7 years ago.
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
That’s what I was talking with Foxy about a couple of days ago.
They are going to have to educate and recruit like madmen to just stand still. Shame all those EU nurses aren’t allowed to apply…
Here we go again.
As pointed out, the report is from Texas.
Yes but Brexit.
McDonalds in Oregon are hiring 14 year olds due to the 'labor shortage'. Pretty sure that's Brexit too.
There is no such thing as a temporary Prime Minister. So which Tory MP will be appointed PM while a vote for Tory party leader is held or will the party think blow it and just ask Rishi to take the job?
Rishi is a shoo in.
Personally, I’d go for Liz Truss, but I just can’t see the Tories going for her in their current swivel-eyed iteration.
Given you would never vote Tory anyway why should Tories care who you personally prefer?
I can't really see a good way out of this for the Tories.
What a mess.
Boris gets pushed out.
And the Tories probably face a decade or more in opposition.
Removing proven election winners rarely works. After forcing Thatcher out the Tories lost 3 out of 4 of the next general elections, after Blair went Labour has lost 4 General elections in a row.
There is a reason non Tories want Boris out as he is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and also the leader with most appeal to the RedWall. Remove him and Starmer's job becomes easier
No. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see what a massive liability Boris now is. Leaving him in office is the surest way to sink your corrupt party. I and others want him out knowing that his Tory successor is likely to win the election.
I want him out because of right and wrong. Because of standards. Because of national embarrassment. You and the remaining Peppa apologists will literally defend anything. We understand - politics means that you have to defend the indefensible sometimes. But it doesn't mean that you are right.
Seriously, your histrionics of the last few days have been embarrassing.
No. You want him out as you fear Boris as a proven election winner who built the biggest Tory coalition since Thatcher. Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories, there is no alternative leader with Boris' charisma and appeal to the RedWall swing seats
You know not everyone is like you, HYUFD. We don't all go on what is ultimately just a bottom-half-of-the-internet message board to conceal our true views and ramp for our chosen team.
It happens to be my view that it has reached a point where Sunak would give the Tories a better chance at the next General Election than Johnson, who is a joke too many people no longer find funny. Others may disagree with that, and I see the argument in some ways as he has a great deal of charisma and did make a breakthrough in the north of England in 2019.
But those of us who share my view are generally (I think) not lying about our position as some kind of pathetic attempt to make the political weather on a minority interest website. It's just our view.
Although I’d love to be able to back you up, I’m afraid that FUDHY is right on this occasion (“Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories”). I just can’t see Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid doing as well as Johnson in the Midlands and North. All the other touted names would be calamities everywhere.
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Would Hunt have won the Redwall in 2019? Probably not. So we would be back to 2017 almost certainly and hung parliament with him or any other Tory leader.
The only way to keep a Tory majority is the Redwall and the only Tory proven to have won there is Boris
But that was before Boris and co removed all the spending that won him those seats in the first place.
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
We have media stories. But do we have Conservativertebrae?
Enitrely off topic, but a subject we often cover: why is traffic congestion so bad in the UK? An article in the Telegraph which sets out my views quite well: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/08/life-slow-lane-london-became-worlds-congested-city/ "Two factors that make it dreamy or nightmarish to drive into and around cities, though, are counterintuitive, in that they have nothing to do with transport at all. The data, though, show that how densely cities are populated and how thriving their centres are makes a huge difference to drivers.
If cities are densely populated, it is easy to provide a coherent public transport network to lower car numbers. Paris, with almost 54,000 people per square mile and busy Metro stops every 200 yards, is the classic example. Sheffield, with 4,000 people per square mile, has a tramline that is considerably less popular.
Moreover Paris has a thriving centre, so it is easy to funnel people in the single direction they are all going. Whereas Sheffield, like many British cities outside London, has been hollowed out; jobs are spread all over the place, so workers find it far easier to drive to their offices.
This combination of city densities and thriving centres transforms public transport planning and so has a huge impact on drivers. For example, Leeds and Marseille have a similar population but, according to a recent Centre for Cities report, because Marseille is denser, 87 per cent of people can reach its centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with just 38 per cent in Leeds. Indeed, in Europe 67 per cent of people can commute to city centres in 30 minutes, compared with just 40 per cent in Britain. Our scattered cities make public transport trickier and send more of us flocking to our cars. And that time wasted is money wasted. Rome and Manchester are the same size but the Italian capital, despite its notoriously chaotic road traffic, is 55 per cent more productive, “partly because a much larger share of its workforce can travel into the city centre by public transport”."
(Mods - Hope it's ok to provide a direct quote that size!)
I can't really see a good way out of this for the Tories.
What a mess.
Boris gets pushed out.
And the Tories probably face a decade or more in opposition.
Removing proven election winners rarely works. After forcing Thatcher out the Tories lost 3 out of 4 of the next general elections, after Blair went Labour has lost 4 General elections in a row.
There is a reason non Tories want Boris out as he is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and also the leader with most appeal to the RedWall. Remove him and Starmer's job becomes easier
No. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see what a massive liability Boris now is. Leaving him in office is the surest way to sink your corrupt party. I and others want him out knowing that his Tory successor is likely to win the election.
I want him out because of right and wrong. Because of standards. Because of national embarrassment. You and the remaining Peppa apologists will literally defend anything. We understand - politics means that you have to defend the indefensible sometimes. But it doesn't mean that you are right.
Seriously, your histrionics of the last few days have been embarrassing.
No. You want him out as you fear Boris as a proven election winner who built the biggest Tory coalition since Thatcher. Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories, there is no alternative leader with Boris' charisma and appeal to the RedWall swing seats
You know not everyone is like you, HYUFD. We don't all go on what is ultimately just a bottom-half-of-the-internet message board to conceal our true views and ramp for our chosen team.
It happens to be my view that it has reached a point where Sunak would give the Tories a better chance at the next General Election than Johnson, who is a joke too many people no longer find funny. Others may disagree with that, and I see the argument in some ways as he has a great deal of charisma and did make a breakthrough in the north of England in 2019.
But those of us who share my view are generally (I think) not lying about our position as some kind of pathetic attempt to make the political weather on a minority interest website. It's just our view.
Although I’d love to be able to back you up, I’m afraid that FUDHY is right on this occasion (“Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories”). I just can’t see Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid doing as well as Johnson in the Midlands and North. All the other touted names would be calamities everywhere.
Sunak would - because he can go back to 2020/21 and remind people - all that furlough money you lived on - I did that.
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
That’s what I was talking with Foxy about a couple of days ago.
They are going to have to educate and recruit like madmen to just stand still. Shame all those EU nurses aren’t allowed to apply…
I suspect many EU countries are in the same situation.
Old Holborn pointed out that he's the 3rd person in Bulgaria to have had a booster jab.
This sounds like a moment to introduce border controls with Bulgaria.
Can we report him for something that will get him long term hospitality?
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
That’s what I was talking with Foxy about a couple of days ago.
They are going to have to educate and recruit like madmen to just stand still. Shame all those EU nurses aren’t allowed to apply…
We really shouldn't be skimming off nurses from other countries to fulfil our own requirements, should we? Who are they supposed to get their nurses from, if we hoover them up?
I have to say that Nicola didn't distinguish herself when she was Health Minister at Holyrood with regards to nurse education.
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
That’s what I was talking with Foxy about a couple of days ago.
They are going to have to educate and recruit like madmen to just stand still. Shame all those EU nurses aren’t allowed to apply…
Here we go again.
As pointed out, the report is from Texas.
Yes but Brexit.
McDonalds in Oregon are hiring 14 year olds due to the 'labor shortage'. Pretty sure that's Brexit too.
I'm sure I can think of a reason why it is, but you might have to give me a bit of time to think about it.
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
That’s what I was talking with Foxy about a couple of days ago.
They are going to have to educate and recruit like madmen to just stand still. Shame all those EU nurses aren’t allowed to apply…
The PM "must remove himself from office immediately" if allegations a Christmas party was held in Downing Street during lockdown are true, the SNP's Westminster leader has said.
48% of Scottish voters, according to YouGov/The Times 18-22 Nov.
And before you point out that that’s not a majority, remember that 80% of Scottish voters intend to vote for the non-Tory parties, according to the same survey.
There is a certain dissonance in HYUFD stressing that voters in Scottish constituencies voted for UK MPs, and them promptly ignoring a MP because he is from a Scottish constituency.
I must admit that I can no longer believe anyone can support what they are seeing in Downing Street. This is a real test for the Tory party. There was a time when there were plenty of decent people in the party who would have stood up to be counted. It is fair to say that over the Paterson affair some of those people again imposed themselves. But this is now a critical test, how long will ordinary Tory MPs put up with this endless drip feed of dishonesty and sleaze. Maybe they will finally realise that their jobs may actually be at risk.
I'd imagine that they'll stagger on to Xmas and New Year, and then test the weather after that. Wagons will circle.
All the same, this will surely stick, and you get the impression that a clear break may be needed. But time will tell.
The North Shropshire Tory candidate must feel like hibernating for the next ten days.
I see the odds on an LD win are now 11/8. I'm not playing myself but if I were I think I would take that, and congratulate those who got on early at very much bigger odds.
A somewhat belated Good Morning from OKC. Sadly, arthritic problems last night didn't let me get to sleep until 4 England wickets had fallen..... normally I'd have have had 7 hours and woken to see the end of play, or this case, the rain.
I note for the comment that it would have impossible for the PM NOT to know a party was going on, even if he wasn't there, or around, so why on earth didn't he just say 'sorry' or 'forgive me'. And I've said hard things to the party-goers. It would have rebounded to his credit. Instead of which .......
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Would Hunt have won the Redwall in 2019? Probably not. So we would be back to 2017 almost certainly and hung parliament with him or any other Tory leader.
The only way to keep a Tory majority is the Redwall and the only Tory proven to have won there is Boris
And, to be fair to those sticking by BoJo, that's the problem the Conservatives have got.
Nobody else can hold the current Conservative coalition together. Partly that's because of Bozza's real (if superficial) appeal to people, and partly because it's built on a lie, and nobody else can lie like Boris. People like the idea of having their cake and eating it, it's a vote winner, but it can't be done. And only Johnson can convincingly say it can.
Replace Boris by anyone else and a chunk of the coalition falls off. But keep him and stuff like this will keep happening and layers of the party will just corrode away.
The best answer would have been to forsee this and try a different path, but it's too late for that. The 2019-21 Conservative party is like Warsaw Pact athletes back in the day. Doped to the eyeballs with something that gave them a triumph in one competition but left them with ruined health for decades afterwards.
I must admit that I can no longer believe anyone can support what they are seeing in Downing Street. This is a real test for the Tory party. There was a time when there were plenty of decent people in the party who would have stood up to be counted. It is fair to say that over the Paterson affair some of those people again imposed themselves. But this is now a critical test, how long will ordinary Tory MPs put up with this endless drip feed of dishonesty and sleaze. Maybe they will finally realise that their jobs may actually be at risk.
I'd imagine that they'll stagger on to Xmas and New Year, and then test the weather after that. Wagons will circle.
All the same, this will surely stick, and you get the impression that a clear break may be needed. But time will tell.
The North Shropshire Tory candidate must feel like hibernating for the next ten days.
I see the odds on an LD win are now 11/8. I'm not playing myself but if I were I think I would take that, and congratulate those who got on early at very much bigger odds.
Really?
I’m not playing either, but my hunch would be to oppose the LDs at those odds.
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Your last paragraph sums up why an independent enquiry won't work. We know what happened. He hosted a party. At Downing Street. For his staff and allegedly a few hacks. They then laughed about how illegal it was. Then covered it up. Then the PM and his cabinet ministers openly lied about if for the last week.
What is there to investigate? And whilst that goes on what would be the line - "we need to wait for the report before we comment"? He's as guilty as a puppy sat next to a pile of poo.
The PM "must remove himself from office immediately" if allegations a Christmas party was held in Downing Street during lockdown are true, the SNP's Westminster leader has said.
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Would Hunt have won the Redwall in 2019? Probably not. So we would be back to 2017 almost certainly and hung parliament with him or any other Tory leader.
The only way to keep a Tory majority is the Redwall and the only Tory proven to have won there is Boris
And, to be fair to those sticking by BoJo, that's the problem the Conservatives have got.
Nobody else can hold the current Conservative coalition together. Partly that's because of Bozza's real (if superficial) appeal to people, and partly because it's built on a lie, and nobody else can lie like Boris. People like the idea of having their cake and eating it, it's a vote winner, but it can't be done. And only Johnson can convincingly say it can.
Replace Boris by anyone else and a chunk of the coalition falls off. But keep him and stuff like this will keep happening and layers of the party will just corrode away.
The best answer would have been to forsee this and try a different path, but it's too late for that. The 2019-21 Conservative party is like Warsaw Pact athletes back in the day. Doped to the eyeballs with something that gave them a triumph in one competition but left them with ruined health for decades afterwards.
Not sure but I sense that replacing Johnson with Sunak would be a net positive.
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Would Hunt have won the Redwall in 2019? Probably not. So we would be back to 2017 almost certainly and hung parliament with him or any other Tory leader.
The only way to keep a Tory majority is the Redwall and the only Tory proven to have won there is Boris
Even you aren't this stupid.
"Good old Boris, he'll get Brexit done" of 2019 is not the same political attraction as "lying corrupt clown Boris will keep trousering our money".
If you think Boris 2021 is the mega political pull that will secure the red wall then you truly are clueless.
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
We have media stories. But do we have Conservativertebrae?
That reminds me of one of my favourite political quotes:
- “You could feel a chill along Westminster's Labour back benches, looking for a spine to run up.”
Said of the atmosphere in the Commons after Winnie Ewing’s seminal Hamilton by-election victory.
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Would Hunt have won the Redwall in 2019? Probably not. So we would be back to 2017 almost certainly and hung parliament with him or any other Tory leader.
The only way to keep a Tory majority is the Redwall and the only Tory proven to have won there is Boris
And, to be fair to those sticking by BoJo, that's the problem the Conservatives have got.
Nobody else can hold the current Conservative coalition together. Partly that's because of Bozza's real (if superficial) appeal to people, and partly because it's built on a lie, and nobody else can lie like Boris. People like the idea of having their cake and eating it, it's a vote winner, but it can't be done. And only Johnson can convincingly say it can.
Replace Boris by anyone else and a chunk of the coalition falls off. But keep him and stuff like this will keep happening and layers of the party will just corrode away.
The best answer would have been to forsee this and try a different path, but it's too late for that. The 2019-21 Conservative party is like Warsaw Pact athletes back in the day. Doped to the eyeballs with something that gave them a triumph in one competition but left them with ruined health for decades afterwards.
Boris remaining in power means that he slowly destroys all the various chunks of the party he has cobbled together from their foundations upwards (see Chesham for a prime example).
Other leaders will simply slice a chunk of the party away which is a problem but nowhere near as damaging as Boris will be over the medium to long term.
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Would Hunt have won the Redwall in 2019? Probably not. So we would be back to 2017 almost certainly and hung parliament with him or any other Tory leader.
The only way to keep a Tory majority is the Redwall and the only Tory proven to have won there is Boris
And, to be fair to those sticking by BoJo, that's the problem the Conservatives have got.
Nobody else can hold the current Conservative coalition together. Partly that's because of Bozza's real (if superficial) appeal to people, and partly because it's built on a lie, and nobody else can lie like Boris. People like the idea of having their cake and eating it, it's a vote winner, but it can't be done. And only Johnson can convincingly say it can.
Replace Boris by anyone else and a chunk of the coalition falls off. But keep him and stuff like this will keep happening and layers of the party will just corrode away.
The best answer would have been to forsee this and try a different path, but it's too late for that. The 2019-21 Conservative party is like Warsaw Pact athletes back in the day. Doped to the eyeballs with something that gave them a triumph in one competition but left them with ruined health for decades afterwards.
Not sure but I sense that replacing Johnson with Sunak would be a net positive.
The problem for Sunak if Boris falls due to the party is that it will tarnish him too, unless there is a principled resignation from him in the next 24 hrs.
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
That’s what I was talking with Foxy about a couple of days ago.
They are going to have to educate and recruit like madmen to just stand still. Shame all those EU nurses aren’t allowed to apply…
Here we go again.
As pointed out, the report is from Texas.
Looking at the most recent RCN report* from November, it seems as though there is no mass exodus in the UK, indeed in the last twelve months, quite the opposite - though given the age profile of the profession, the report speculated that this might be owing to nurses delaying retirement to help get through the Covid crisis.
Even so, there are record numbers of nursing vacancies, so nursing capacity is potentially highly vulnerable to a large number of older nurses deciding to retire once Covid is done.
*10 Unsustainable Pressures on the Health and Care System in England
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Your last paragraph sums up why an independent enquiry won't work. We know what happened. He hosted a party. At Downing Street. For his staff and allegedly a few hacks. They then laughed about how illegal it was. Then covered it up. Then the PM and his cabinet ministers openly lied about if for the last week.
What is there to investigate? And whilst that goes on what would be the line - "we need to wait for the report before we comment"? He's as guilty as a puppy sat next to a pile of poo.
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's email tnis morning:
"Downing Street continues to deny that there was a party: a denial with all of the believability, but none of the charm, of a chocolate-covered toddler insisting they didn’t eat everything in the box."
But [i comment] there are things more important than the Tory Party's future -
"More important than any political fallout is that government ministers can’t now go an air to encourage booster uptake and to communicate important public health messages for fear of being asked about the video; that if another lockdown becomes necessary to buy time for more booster shots, the government may feel unable to risk the political damage of having to explain why it’s lockdown for you and me, and cheese and wine for the Downing Street team; that as we head into an uncertain few weeks, the government may well be fighting Omicron with both hands tied behind its back."
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Would Hunt have won the Redwall in 2019? Probably not. So we would be back to 2017 almost certainly and hung parliament with him or any other Tory leader.
The only way to keep a Tory majority is the Redwall and the only Tory proven to have won there is Boris
Even you aren't this stupid.
"Good old Boris, he'll get Brexit done" of 2019 is not the same political attraction as "lying corrupt clown Boris will keep trousering our money".
If you think Boris 2021 is the mega political pull that will secure the red wall then you truly are clueless.
HYUFD increasingly sounds like a Corbynite citing 2017 over 2019.
Enitrely off topic, but a subject we often cover: why is traffic congestion so bad in the UK? An article in the Telegraph which sets out my views quite well: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/08/life-slow-lane-london-became-worlds-congested-city/ "Two factors that make it dreamy or nightmarish to drive into and around cities, though, are counterintuitive, in that they have nothing to do with transport at all. The data, though, show that how densely cities are populated and how thriving their centres are makes a huge difference to drivers.
If cities are densely populated, it is easy to provide a coherent public transport network to lower car numbers. Paris, with almost 54,000 people per square mile and busy Metro stops every 200 yards, is the classic example. Sheffield, with 4,000 people per square mile, has a tramline that is considerably less popular.
Moreover Paris has a thriving centre, so it is easy to funnel people in the single direction they are all going. Whereas Sheffield, like many British cities outside London, has been hollowed out; jobs are spread all over the place, so workers find it far easier to drive to their offices.
This combination of city densities and thriving centres transforms public transport planning and so has a huge impact on drivers. For example, Leeds and Marseille have a similar population but, according to a recent Centre for Cities report, because Marseille is denser, 87 per cent of people can reach its centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with just 38 per cent in Leeds. Indeed, in Europe 67 per cent of people can commute to city centres in 30 minutes, compared with just 40 per cent in Britain. Our scattered cities make public transport trickier and send more of us flocking to our cars. And that time wasted is money wasted. Rome and Manchester are the same size but the Italian capital, despite its notoriously chaotic road traffic, is 55 per cent more productive, “partly because a much larger share of its workforce can travel into the city centre by public transport”."
(Mods - Hope it's ok to provide a direct quote that size!)
Denser cities equals smaller homes and less green space.
If its a choice between having a house in the suburbs and a car or a flat in the inner city and using a bus which do you think most British people will chose ?
How many people care if their city is more 'productive' if it requires them to accept a lower quality of life ?
I can't really see a good way out of this for the Tories.
What a mess.
Boris gets pushed out.
And the Tories probably face a decade or more in opposition.
Removing proven election winners rarely works. After forcing Thatcher out the Tories lost 3 out of 4 of the next general elections, after Blair went Labour has lost 4 General elections in a row.
There is a reason non Tories want Boris out as he is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and also the leader with most appeal to the RedWall. Remove him and Starmer's job becomes easier
No. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see what a massive liability Boris now is. Leaving him in office is the surest way to sink your corrupt party. I and others want him out knowing that his Tory successor is likely to win the election.
I want him out because of right and wrong. Because of standards. Because of national embarrassment. You and the remaining Peppa apologists will literally defend anything. We understand - politics means that you have to defend the indefensible sometimes. But it doesn't mean that you are right.
Seriously, your histrionics of the last few days have been embarrassing.
No. You want him out as you fear Boris as a proven election winner who built the biggest Tory coalition since Thatcher. Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories, there is no alternative leader with Boris' charisma and appeal to the RedWall swing seats
You know not everyone is like you, HYUFD. We don't all go on what is ultimately just a bottom-half-of-the-internet message board to conceal our true views and ramp for our chosen team.
It happens to be my view that it has reached a point where Sunak would give the Tories a better chance at the next General Election than Johnson, who is a joke too many people no longer find funny. Others may disagree with that, and I see the argument in some ways as he has a great deal of charisma and did make a breakthrough in the north of England in 2019.
But those of us who share my view are generally (I think) not lying about our position as some kind of pathetic attempt to make the political weather on a minority interest website. It's just our view.
Although I’d love to be able to back you up, I’m afraid that FUDHY is right on this occasion (“Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories”). I just can’t see Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid doing as well as Johnson in the Midlands and North. All the other touted names would be calamities everywhere.
Which, if Johnson continues to f*ck up in the way he has been so far, may become something of a problem for the Tories, no?
So it's up to the public, isn't it, whether Johnson keeps getting away with this shit. If polls say he's become a liability he'll be out, if not he's staying and leading into the election. Which got me thinking about the numbers. Of those that voted for him 2 years ago and gave him his big majority, what % need to now be saying "Not next time, no way" for him to be in trouble with the party? 20%? More?
Here's a danger for the tories: the red wall voted for good old Boris, not for the tories. If he gets pushed out, they won't just be less keen, or neutral, about his successor. They'll think ooh, some entitled little toff from Winchester thinks he knows better than good old salt of the earth Boris and is overriding therwilloftherpeople about who should be PM? Backlash rather than neutrality.
Yes, I think that's right and it's why he'll be surviving.
A lot is going to depend on whether the Johnsonian boosterism persona continues to resonate with those northern voters.
It went down a treat at the last election, but Johnson’s natural incompetence and lack of seriousness may eventually toxify his own brand - it was said (by Max Hastings IIRC, & I paraphrase) that everyone likes Johnson initially, but the more you get to know him, the less you end up liking him. Well, the country is going through exactly that process now - the question for the Tories is going to be, exactly /how/ well will the electorate get to know him by the time the next election rolls around?
There is no such thing as a temporary Prime Minister. So which Tory MP will be appointed PM while a vote for Tory party leader is held or will the party think blow it and just ask Rishi to take the job?
Rishi is a shoo in.
Personally, I’d go for Liz Truss, but I just can’t see the Tories going for her in their current swivel-eyed iteration.
Given you would never vote Tory anyway why should Tories care who you personally prefer?
Doesn't seem to stop you regularly weighing in on the Labour leadership.
There is no such thing as a temporary Prime Minister. So which Tory MP will be appointed PM while a vote for Tory party leader is held or will the party think blow it and just ask Rishi to take the job?
I think there is for betting purposes. CBA to look despite having money on it but I think caretaker PMs are excluded
Betfair
This market will be settled based on the first official announcement of the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
As I said there is no such thing as a temporary or caretaker PM - and I now suspect if Boris goes he won't be sitting in No 10 for 3 months while a successor is selected via a vote.
Hi Eek.
Do you still believe Betfair announcements on how they will settle a market? Personally I haven't had a bet with them since the US Presidential Election market fiasco.
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Would Hunt have won the Redwall in 2019? Probably not. So we would be back to 2017 almost certainly and hung parliament with him or any other Tory leader.
The only way to keep a Tory majority is the Redwall and the only Tory proven to have won there is Boris
And, to be fair to those sticking by BoJo, that's the problem the Conservatives have got.
Nobody else can hold the current Conservative coalition together. Partly that's because of Bozza's real (if superficial) appeal to people, and partly because it's built on a lie, and nobody else can lie like Boris. People like the idea of having their cake and eating it, it's a vote winner, but it can't be done. And only Johnson can convincingly say it can.
Replace Boris by anyone else and a chunk of the coalition falls off. But keep him and stuff like this will keep happening and layers of the party will just corrode away.
The best answer would have been to forsee this and try a different path, but it's too late for that. The 2019-21 Conservative party is like Warsaw Pact athletes back in the day. Doped to the eyeballs with something that gave them a triumph in one competition but left them with ruined health for decades afterwards.
The PM "must remove himself from office immediately" if allegations a Christmas party was held in Downing Street during lockdown are true, the SNP's Westminster leader has said.
48% of Scottish voters, according to YouGov/The Times 18-22 Nov.
And before you point out that that’s not a majority, remember that 80% of Scottish voters intend to vote for the non-Tory parties, according to the same survey.
So what, we elect a UK government as Scots confirmed in the once in a generation 2014 referendum
Scots voted for the Cameron/Miliband/Clegg last-minute bogus deal promising DevoMax. They did not vote for dictatorship.
Scots expect their democratic choices to be respected. Blackford accurately represents the views of Scotland’s democratic institutions, which have continued support in public opinion.
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
Presumably counsellors don’t usually write out conversations with their clients, on Twitter?
I can't really see a good way out of this for the Tories.
What a mess.
Boris gets pushed out.
And the Tories probably face a decade or more in opposition.
Removing proven election winners rarely works. After forcing Thatcher out the Tories lost 3 out of 4 of the next general elections, after Blair went Labour has lost 4 General elections in a row.
There is a reason non Tories want Boris out as he is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and also the leader with most appeal to the RedWall. Remove him and Starmer's job becomes easier
No. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see what a massive liability Boris now is. Leaving him in office is the surest way to sink your corrupt party. I and others want him out knowing that his Tory successor is likely to win the election.
I want him out because of right and wrong. Because of standards. Because of national embarrassment. You and the remaining Peppa apologists will literally defend anything. We understand - politics means that you have to defend the indefensible sometimes. But it doesn't mean that you are right.
Seriously, your histrionics of the last few days have been embarrassing.
No. You want him out as you fear Boris as a proven election winner who built the biggest Tory coalition since Thatcher. Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories, there is no alternative leader with Boris' charisma and appeal to the RedWall swing seats
You know not everyone is like you, HYUFD. We don't all go on what is ultimately just a bottom-half-of-the-internet message board to conceal our true views and ramp for our chosen team.
It happens to be my view that it has reached a point where Sunak would give the Tories a better chance at the next General Election than Johnson, who is a joke too many people no longer find funny. Others may disagree with that, and I see the argument in some ways as he has a great deal of charisma and did make a breakthrough in the north of England in 2019.
But those of us who share my view are generally (I think) not lying about our position as some kind of pathetic attempt to make the political weather on a minority interest website. It's just our view.
Although I’d love to be able to back you up, I’m afraid that FUDHY is right on this occasion (“Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories”). I just can’t see Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid doing as well as Johnson in the Midlands and North. All the other touted names would be calamities everywhere.
That depends on the future trajectory of Johnson's numbers.
The alternatives might well be worse than historic Boris, but still a distinct improvement on future Boris. At some point I am guessing that panic will set in; not for a while, though.
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
We have media stories. But do we have Conservativertebrae?
That reminds me of one of my favourite political quotes:
- “You could feel a chill along Westminster's Labour back benches, looking for a spine to run up.”
Said of the atmosphere in the Commons after Winnie Ewing’s seminal Hamilton by-election victory.
Matilda told such dreadful lies It made one gasp and stretch one's eyes
"This was an operational decision. Neither the PM nor Mrs Johnson were involved. This letter was nothing to do with Ms Harrison’s role as the PM’s PPS, she was acting in her capacity as a constituency MP.”
This is surely what is going to do for him. It's a taking the piss, not even trying lie
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Your last paragraph sums up why an independent enquiry won't work. We know what happened. He hosted a party. At Downing Street. For his staff and allegedly a few hacks. They then laughed about how illegal it was. Then covered it up. Then the PM and his cabinet ministers openly lied about if for the last week.
What is there to investigate? And whilst that goes on what would be the line - "we need to wait for the report before we comment"? He's as guilty as a puppy sat next to a pile of poo.
Stephen Bush of the Staggers's email tnis morning:
"Downing Street continues to deny that there was a party: a denial with all of the believability, but none of the charm, of a chocolate-covered toddler insisting they didn’t eat everything in the box."
But [i comment] there are things more important than the Tory Party's future -
"More important than any political fallout is that government ministers can’t now go an air to encourage booster uptake and to communicate important public health messages for fear of being asked about the video; that if another lockdown becomes necessary to buy time for more booster shots, the government may feel unable to risk the political damage of having to explain why it’s lockdown for you and me, and cheese and wine for the Downing Street team; that as we head into an uncertain few weeks, the government may well be fighting Omicron with both hands tied behind its back."
I am expecting that people's compliance with any rules regarding Covid will fall apart. "Why should I bother, they don't, they think its a big joke". Even if Omicron isn't as bad a variant as Delta in efficacy when you catch it, the figures at least leave open the scenario that it is a lot more transmissible. Which by the power of adding means a lot more people in hospital and dying. So we need to be able to follow guidance and this screws it and therefore us.
The PM "must remove himself from office immediately" if allegations a Christmas party was held in Downing Street during lockdown are true, the SNP's Westminster leader has said.
...This combination of city densities and thriving centres transforms public transport planning and so has a huge impact on drivers. For example, Leeds and Marseille have a similar population but, according to a recent Centre for Cities report, because Marseille is denser, 87 per cent of people can reach its centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with just 38 per cent in Leeds. Indeed, in Europe 67 per cent of people can commute to city centres in 30 minutes, compared with just 40 per cent in Britain. Our scattered cities make public transport trickier and send more of us flocking to our cars. And that time wasted is money wasted. Rome and Manchester are the same size but the Italian capital, despite its notoriously chaotic road traffic, is 55 per cent more productive, “partly because a much larger share of its workforce can travel into the city centre by public transport”."
(snipped)
In this, as so many things, we seem to be a half way house between Europe and the US.
There is no such thing as a temporary Prime Minister. So which Tory MP will be appointed PM while a vote for Tory party leader is held or will the party think blow it and just ask Rishi to take the job?
Rishi is a shoo in.
Personally, I’d go for Liz Truss, but I just can’t see the Tories going for her in their current swivel-eyed iteration.
Why do you think Sunak is more swivel-eyed than Truss? I thought you would say the opposite to be honest.
I don’t.
I just think that the swivel-eyes will just about tolerate Sunak, while Truss would be a step too far.
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Your last paragraph sums up why an independent enquiry won't work. We know what happened. He hosted a party. At Downing Street. For his staff and allegedly a few hacks. They then laughed about how illegal it was. Then covered it up. Then the PM and his cabinet ministers openly lied about if for the last week.
What is there to investigate? And whilst that goes on what would be the line - "we need to wait for the report before we comment"? He's as guilty as a puppy sat next to a pile of poo.
It was pretty clear what happened to David Kelly, too...
There is no such thing as a temporary Prime Minister. So which Tory MP will be appointed PM while a vote for Tory party leader is held or will the party think blow it and just ask Rishi to take the job?
Rishi is a shoo in.
Personally, I’d go for Liz Truss, but I just can’t see the Tories going for her in their current swivel-eyed iteration.
Truss is doing noticeably better with the ConHome panel- perhaps because she hasn't had to do anything unpopular like increase taxes.
Sunak's problem is that his current window of opportunity is closing quite quickly.
Agreed. With the shit about to his the fan, this is his only chance to make the final lunge up the greasy pole.
The party - and I would not be in the least bit surprised to find that a number of Cabinet Ministers were present for rather longer than Boris, if indeed he attended it at all - is an amuse bouche to the much more worrying legislation and other proposals coming from this government.
- The very wide-ranging powers effectively stopping any form of protest - The curbs on judicial review - The refusal of a Minister yesterday to confirm that the government would remain within the ECHR (something they have always previously done) - The powers to take away British passports on a whim from British citizens
This is a dangerous government. Starmer should not just focus on the PM, easy and fun as it is to do. He needs to nail the Cabinet - who have been complicit in supporting Boris, in destroying the only worthwhile policy this government has (Levelling Up) and who are supporting the above dangerously authoritarian policies.
Sunak, Patel, Javid, Truss: they all need to be tied to Boris because the reality is that he is PM because these and all the other Tory MPs crying their crocodile tears now supported him.
...This combination of city densities and thriving centres transforms public transport planning and so has a huge impact on drivers. For example, Leeds and Marseille have a similar population but, according to a recent Centre for Cities report, because Marseille is denser, 87 per cent of people can reach its centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with just 38 per cent in Leeds. Indeed, in Europe 67 per cent of people can commute to city centres in 30 minutes, compared with just 40 per cent in Britain. Our scattered cities make public transport trickier and send more of us flocking to our cars. And that time wasted is money wasted. Rome and Manchester are the same size but the Italian capital, despite its notoriously chaotic road traffic, is 55 per cent more productive, “partly because a much larger share of its workforce can travel into the city centre by public transport”."
(snipped)
In this, as so many things, we seem to be a half way house between Europe and the US.
Which on reflection, is somewhere I suppose I'm quite comfortable to be. Europe: too European; America: to American.
I must admit that I can no longer believe anyone can support what they are seeing in Downing Street. This is a real test for the Tory party. There was a time when there were plenty of decent people in the party who would have stood up to be counted. It is fair to say that over the Paterson affair some of those people again imposed themselves. But this is now a critical test, how long will ordinary Tory MPs put up with this endless drip feed of dishonesty and sleaze. Maybe they will finally realise that their jobs may actually be at risk.
I'd imagine that they'll stagger on to Xmas and New Year, and then test the weather after that. Wagons will circle.
All the same, this will surely stick, and you get the impression that a clear break may be needed. But time will tell.
The North Shropshire Tory candidate must feel like hibernating for the next ten days.
I see the odds on an LD win are now 11/8. I'm not playing myself but if I were I think I would take that, and congratulate those who got on early at very much bigger odds.
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
Presumably counsellors don’t usually write out conversations with their clients, on Twitter?
There is nothing there about the manager - it's an anecdote about the staff.
And it's the sort of thing I nowadays watch out for - as it sends me down a path that is 9 times out of 10 worth investigating.
The party - and I would not be in the least bit surprised to find that a number of Cabinet Ministers were present for rather longer than Boris, if indeed he attended it at all - is an amuse bouche to the much more worrying legislation and other proposals coming from this government.
- The very wide-ranging powers effectively stopping any form of protest - The curbs on judicial review - The refusal of a Minister yesterday to confirm that the government would remain within the ECHR (something they have always previously done) - The powers to take away British passports on a whim from British citizens
This is a dangerous government. Starmer should not just focus on the PM, easy and fun as it is to do. He needs to nail the Cabinet - who have been complicit in supporting Boris, in destroying the only worthwhile policy this government has (Levelling Up) and who are supporting the above dangerously authoritarian policies.
Sunak, Patel, Javid, Truss: they all need to be tied to Boris because the reality is that he is PM because these and all the other Tory MPs crying their crocodile tears now supported him.
I think this is right - but it's necessary to destroy Boris' proven ability to explain away the unacceptable with the cheerful grin. That enables the worrying and dangerous stuff.
Enitrely off topic, but a subject we often cover: why is traffic congestion so bad in the UK? An article in the Telegraph which sets out my views quite well: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/08/life-slow-lane-london-became-worlds-congested-city/ "Two factors that make it dreamy or nightmarish to drive into and around cities, though, are counterintuitive, in that they have nothing to do with transport at all. The data, though, show that how densely cities are populated and how thriving their centres are makes a huge difference to drivers.
If cities are densely populated, it is easy to provide a coherent public transport network to lower car numbers. Paris, with almost 54,000 people per square mile and busy Metro stops every 200 yards, is the classic example. Sheffield, with 4,000 people per square mile, has a tramline that is considerably less popular.
Moreover Paris has a thriving centre, so it is easy to funnel people in the single direction they are all going. Whereas Sheffield, like many British cities outside London, has been hollowed out; jobs are spread all over the place, so workers find it far easier to drive to their offices.
This combination of city densities and thriving centres transforms public transport planning and so has a huge impact on drivers. For example, Leeds and Marseille have a similar population but, according to a recent Centre for Cities report, because Marseille is denser, 87 per cent of people can reach its centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with just 38 per cent in Leeds. Indeed, in Europe 67 per cent of people can commute to city centres in 30 minutes, compared with just 40 per cent in Britain. Our scattered cities make public transport trickier and send more of us flocking to our cars. And that time wasted is money wasted. Rome and Manchester are the same size but the Italian capital, despite its notoriously chaotic road traffic, is 55 per cent more productive, “partly because a much larger share of its workforce can travel into the city centre by public transport”."
(Mods - Hope it's ok to provide a direct quote that size!)
I'm inclined to view that as yet another silly hit piece in the Telegraph. But TBF it is a bit more than that.
Their "world's most congested" list from the research company does not seem to include anything in Asia except Oz/Nz and Turkey. No China, no India, no Mumbai.
Rome/Manchester. Does Manchester not have a smaller centre, and they have only been doing serious stuff wrt public transprot for a few years. Also Rome gets the capital city stuff - Embassys, Govt etc.
In the UK, we need work on creating a better public transport system, but it is a 30-50 year project and requires backstabber Boris not to cancel projects such as HS2 NE.
If you look at eg Nottingham, you'll see that Trams + Cycleways + Light Rail have kept congestion under control for a couple of decades. IIRC traffic has not increased much at all.
I can't really see a good way out of this for the Tories.
What a mess.
Boris gets pushed out.
And the Tories probably face a decade or more in opposition.
Removing proven election winners rarely works. After forcing Thatcher out the Tories lost 3 out of 4 of the next general elections, after Blair went Labour has lost 4 General elections in a row.
There is a reason non Tories want Boris out as he is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and also the leader with most appeal to the RedWall. Remove him and Starmer's job becomes easier
No. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see what a massive liability Boris now is. Leaving him in office is the surest way to sink your corrupt party. I and others want him out knowing that his Tory successor is likely to win the election.
I want him out because of right and wrong. Because of standards. Because of national embarrassment. You and the remaining Peppa apologists will literally defend anything. We understand - politics means that you have to defend the indefensible sometimes. But it doesn't mean that you are right.
Seriously, your histrionics of the last few days have been embarrassing.
No. You want him out as you fear Boris as a proven election winner who built the biggest Tory coalition since Thatcher. Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories, there is no alternative leader with Boris' charisma and appeal to the RedWall swing seats
You know not everyone is like you, HYUFD. We don't all go on what is ultimately just a bottom-half-of-the-internet message board to conceal our true views and ramp for our chosen team.
It happens to be my view that it has reached a point where Sunak would give the Tories a better chance at the next General Election than Johnson, who is a joke too many people no longer find funny. Others may disagree with that, and I see the argument in some ways as he has a great deal of charisma and did make a breakthrough in the north of England in 2019.
But those of us who share my view are generally (I think) not lying about our position as some kind of pathetic attempt to make the political weather on a minority interest website. It's just our view.
Although I’d love to be able to back you up, I’m afraid that FUDHY is right on this occasion (“Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories”). I just can’t see Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid doing as well as Johnson in the Midlands and North. All the other touted names would be calamities everywhere.
Sunak would - because he can go back to 2020/21 and remind people - all that furlough money you lived on - I did that.
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
...This combination of city densities and thriving centres transforms public transport planning and so has a huge impact on drivers. For example, Leeds and Marseille have a similar population but, according to a recent Centre for Cities report, because Marseille is denser, 87 per cent of people can reach its centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with just 38 per cent in Leeds. Indeed, in Europe 67 per cent of people can commute to city centres in 30 minutes, compared with just 40 per cent in Britain. Our scattered cities make public transport trickier and send more of us flocking to our cars. And that time wasted is money wasted. Rome and Manchester are the same size but the Italian capital, despite its notoriously chaotic road traffic, is 55 per cent more productive, “partly because a much larger share of its workforce can travel into the city centre by public transport”."
(snipped)
In this, as so many things, we seem to be a half way house between Europe and the US.
It’s also though a historical feature of the why cities in Europe and the U.K. developed
As the first industrial nation, cities in the U.K. developed around their industries. Birmingham, Manchester etc all had factories right in the heart of the City Centre. Go back to the 1930s and their populations were concentrated as they had to be close to the factories. When these factories closed, there was no need to be close. Moreover, because factories occupied space close to the city centres, slum clearance meant replacement housing had to be built further out.
European cities were not designed in the same way. Factories were put in specific districts away from the city centres. It was a lot more planned. Often, population control concerns meant the building of large wide roads which were difficult to barricade against and could allow the rapid deployment of troops.
I can't really see a good way out of this for the Tories.
What a mess.
Boris gets pushed out.
And the Tories probably face a decade or more in opposition.
Removing proven election winners rarely works. After forcing Thatcher out the Tories lost 3 out of 4 of the next general elections, after Blair went Labour has lost 4 General elections in a row.
There is a reason non Tories want Boris out as he is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and also the leader with most appeal to the RedWall. Remove him and Starmer's job becomes easier
I concur.
Keep Boris. Please.
HYUFD as tone death as ever is see.
HYUFD - I’ve voted conservative. Consistently. Not anymore.
And there’s plenty more who’ll do the same until Bojo is gone. It was funny when he was mayor and plummeting down zip wires. It stopped being funny when he became prime minister
Am I right that the media are all ignoring the horrific story about what happened in Afghanistan, to spend their efforts instead on whether it was wrong for a group of people to have a drink after work, in the office, a year ago?
Led by the likes of Kay Burley, who clearly knows a party when she sees one?
Yes, I half suspect Boris leaked the video as it was less embarrassing than the fact his PPS overrode the Defence and Foreign Office to get some dogs out for Carrie.
A story which has legs. Would be interesting to know the etiquette about signing letters as a PPS - did she but PPS to BJ on other letters clearly about constituency business? Has anyone cooked up a connection between her constituency and Farthing anyway?
I am one of her constituents. The Farthing animal charity was based in Exeter. She mainly cares about Sellafield. Farming, tourism and the nuclear industry are what matter in Copeland.
It's pretty obvious she was doing what she was told to by the PM.
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
We have media stories. But do we have Conservativertebrae?
That reminds me of one of my favourite political quotes:
- “You could feel a chill along Westminster's Labour back benches, looking for a spine to run up.”
Said of the atmosphere in the Commons after Winnie Ewing’s seminal Hamilton by-election victory.
Enitrely off topic, but a subject we often cover: why is traffic congestion so bad in the UK? An article in the Telegraph which sets out my views quite well: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/08/life-slow-lane-london-became-worlds-congested-city/ "Two factors that make it dreamy or nightmarish to drive into and around cities, though, are counterintuitive, in that they have nothing to do with transport at all. The data, though, show that how densely cities are populated and how thriving their centres are makes a huge difference to drivers.
If cities are densely populated, it is easy to provide a coherent public transport network to lower car numbers. Paris, with almost 54,000 people per square mile and busy Metro stops every 200 yards, is the classic example. Sheffield, with 4,000 people per square mile, has a tramline that is considerably less popular.
Moreover Paris has a thriving centre, so it is easy to funnel people in the single direction they are all going. Whereas Sheffield, like many British cities outside London, has been hollowed out; jobs are spread all over the place, so workers find it far easier to drive to their offices.
This combination of city densities and thriving centres transforms public transport planning and so has a huge impact on drivers. For example, Leeds and Marseille have a similar population but, according to a recent Centre for Cities report, because Marseille is denser, 87 per cent of people can reach its centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with just 38 per cent in Leeds. Indeed, in Europe 67 per cent of people can commute to city centres in 30 minutes, compared with just 40 per cent in Britain. Our scattered cities make public transport trickier and send more of us flocking to our cars. And that time wasted is money wasted. Rome and Manchester are the same size but the Italian capital, despite its notoriously chaotic road traffic, is 55 per cent more productive, “partly because a much larger share of its workforce can travel into the city centre by public transport”."
(Mods - Hope it's ok to provide a direct quote that size!)
I'm inclined to view that as yet another silly hit piece in the Telegraph. But TBF it is a bit more than that.
Their "world's most congested" list from the research company does not seem to include anything in Asia except Oz/Nz and Turkey. No China, no India, no Mumbai.
Rome/Manchester. Does Manchester not have a smaller centre, and they have only been doing serious stuff wrt public transprot for a few years. Also Rome gets the capital city stuff - Embassys, Govt etc.
In the UK, we need work on creating a better public transport system,l kbut it is a 30-50 year project and requires backstabber Boris not to cancel projects such as HS2 NE.
If you look at eg Nottingham, you'll see that Trams + Cycleways + Light Rail have kept congestion under control for a couple of decades. IIRC traffic has not increased much at all.
Certainly accept your criticism's regarding definitions and comparators. Comparing Manchester with the likes of Essen, Rotterdam would be better. And would still show the same results: density leads to fewer hours lost in congestion. Agree providing public transport is a long-term project. (As a Mancunian, I bridle slightly at the suggestion that we have only been doing serious stuff wrt to public transport for a few years - our tram/light rail network predates (and is rather better than) Nottingham's!)
But these are quibbles: the broader point is how you plan your cities. And it's perfectly possible to plan for high or medium-high density and still provide a good quality of life.
Senior Tory MP this morning - ‘Every lie just compounds the problem. But lying eventually catches people out. Another awful mess created out of Downing St. Question now in tea room is Boris reaching a tipping point - where he is becoming a liability and no longer an asset?’ https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1468514849521025026
How will Boris approach it today? Is his only course the 'independent enquiry by civil servant' route, or does he have another?
Could a road be developing where only the Tories could win an election, but their chances of doing so depends on going outside the current gang for a leader; which would place Jeremy Hunt near the top. He is the only Tory anywhere in the betting who doesn't have his hands in the gore of Boris's government.
FWIW I think he is by some way the most credible next leader/next PM apart from SKS.
Also worth noting is the tone of the BBC R4 Today coverage - with no attempt to say anything other than the government/10 Downing St/Boris has profoundly misled or worse. It feels like a tipping point.
Your last paragraph sums up why an independent enquiry won't work. We know what happened. He hosted a party. At Downing Street. For his staff and allegedly a few hacks. They then laughed about how illegal it was. Then covered it up. Then the PM and his cabinet ministers openly lied about if for the last week.
What is there to investigate? And whilst that goes on what would be the line - "we need to wait for the report before we comment"? He's as guilty as a puppy sat next to a pile of poo.
It was pretty clear what happened to David Kelly, too...
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
We have media stories. But do we have Conservativertebrae?
That reminds me of one of my favourite political quotes:
- “You could feel a chill along Westminster's Labour back benches, looking for a spine to run up.”
Said of the atmosphere in the Commons after Winnie Ewing’s seminal Hamilton by-election victory.
I can't really see a good way out of this for the Tories.
What a mess.
Boris gets pushed out.
And the Tories probably face a decade or more in opposition.
Removing proven election winners rarely works. After forcing Thatcher out the Tories lost 3 out of 4 of the next general elections, after Blair went Labour has lost 4 General elections in a row.
There is a reason non Tories want Boris out as he is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and also the leader with most appeal to the RedWall. Remove him and Starmer's job becomes easier
No. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see what a massive liability Boris now is. Leaving him in office is the surest way to sink your corrupt party. I and others want him out knowing that his Tory successor is likely to win the election.
I want him out because of right and wrong. Because of standards. Because of national embarrassment. You and the remaining Peppa apologists will literally defend anything. We understand - politics means that you have to defend the indefensible sometimes. But it doesn't mean that you are right.
Seriously, your histrionics of the last few days have been embarrassing.
No. You want him out as you fear Boris as a proven election winner who built the biggest Tory coalition since Thatcher. Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories, there is no alternative leader with Boris' charisma and appeal to the RedWall swing seats
You know not everyone is like you, HYUFD. We don't all go on what is ultimately just a bottom-half-of-the-internet message board to conceal our true views and ramp for our chosen team.
It happens to be my view that it has reached a point where Sunak would give the Tories a better chance at the next General Election than Johnson, who is a joke too many people no longer find funny. Others may disagree with that, and I see the argument in some ways as he has a great deal of charisma and did make a breakthrough in the north of England in 2019.
But those of us who share my view are generally (I think) not lying about our position as some kind of pathetic attempt to make the political weather on a minority interest website. It's just our view.
Although I’d love to be able to back you up, I’m afraid that FUDHY is right on this occasion (“Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories”). I just can’t see Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid doing as well as Johnson in the Midlands and North. All the other touted names would be calamities everywhere.
Sunak would - because he can go back to 2020/21 and remind people - all that furlough money you lived on - I did that.
And all the tax increases that you working people are now going to have to pay.
I can't really see a good way out of this for the Tories.
What a mess.
Boris gets pushed out.
And the Tories probably face a decade or more in opposition.
Removing proven election winners rarely works. After forcing Thatcher out the Tories lost 3 out of 4 of the next general elections, after Blair went Labour has lost 4 General elections in a row.
There is a reason non Tories want Boris out as he is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and also the leader with most appeal to the RedWall. Remove him and Starmer's job becomes easier
No. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see what a massive liability Boris now is. Leaving him in office is the surest way to sink your corrupt party. I and others want him out knowing that his Tory successor is likely to win the election.
I want him out because of right and wrong. Because of standards. Because of national embarrassment. You and the remaining Peppa apologists will literally defend anything. We understand - politics means that you have to defend the indefensible sometimes. But it doesn't mean that you are right.
Seriously, your histrionics of the last few days have been embarrassing.
No. You want him out as you fear Boris as a proven election winner who built the biggest Tory coalition since Thatcher. Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories, there is no alternative leader with Boris' charisma and appeal to the RedWall swing seats
You know not everyone is like you, HYUFD. We don't all go on what is ultimately just a bottom-half-of-the-internet message board to conceal our true views and ramp for our chosen team.
It happens to be my view that it has reached a point where Sunak would give the Tories a better chance at the next General Election than Johnson, who is a joke too many people no longer find funny. Others may disagree with that, and I see the argument in some ways as he has a great deal of charisma and did make a breakthrough in the north of England in 2019.
But those of us who share my view are generally (I think) not lying about our position as some kind of pathetic attempt to make the political weather on a minority interest website. It's just our view.
Although I’d love to be able to back you up, I’m afraid that FUDHY is right on this occasion (“Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories”). I just can’t see Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid doing as well as Johnson in the Midlands and North. All the other touted names would be calamities everywhere.
Sunak would - because he can go back to 2020/21 and remind people - all that furlough money you lived on - I did that.
Electoral behaviour is driven by gratitude?
Well, it’s a “brave” new theory.
(“Brave” in the Yes Minister sense.)
It's driven by what will you give me over the next few years.
Sunak has the ability to demonstrate that he did it in the past - and that does nudge things in his direction provided the rest of the manifesto has sweeties in it.
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
"And that process was a steady gradual one, rather than a shock that turned the polls in a week, or even a month.
It seems crazy now, but in early Summer 1992, JMthePM really was master of all he surveyed, and people were talking about how the Conservatives would be the party of power basically forever..."
You
"If the Tories win the next GE, are you going to cease with these knowing ‘it’s all about to go wrong for them’ insights, or will it just mean you’re one election closer to being proved right…"
...This combination of city densities and thriving centres transforms public transport planning and so has a huge impact on drivers. For example, Leeds and Marseille have a similar population but, according to a recent Centre for Cities report, because Marseille is denser, 87 per cent of people can reach its centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with just 38 per cent in Leeds. Indeed, in Europe 67 per cent of people can commute to city centres in 30 minutes, compared with just 40 per cent in Britain. Our scattered cities make public transport trickier and send more of us flocking to our cars. And that time wasted is money wasted. Rome and Manchester are the same size but the Italian capital, despite its notoriously chaotic road traffic, is 55 per cent more productive, “partly because a much larger share of its workforce can travel into the city centre by public transport”."
(snipped)
In this, as so many things, we seem to be a half way house between Europe and the US.
It’s also though a historical feature of the why cities in Europe and the U.K. developed
As the first industrial nation, cities in the U.K. developed around their industries. Birmingham, Manchester etc all had factories right in the heart of the City Centre. Go back to the 1930s and their populations were concentrated as they had to be close to the factories. When these factories closed, there was no need to be close. Moreover, because factories occupied space close to the city centres, slum clearance meant replacement housing had to be built further out.
European cities were not designed in the same way. Factories were put in specific districts away from the city centres. It was a lot more planned. Often, population control concerns meant the building of large wide roads which were difficult to barricade against and could allow the rapid deployment of troops.
*Some* cities eg Manchester vs Norwich
A lot of European cities have also been rebuilt. Though not Rome.
NP Amms @thatgirl409 · 5h I'm treating an ICU nurse manager for depression. (Many, tbh) Today she told me that every new grad nurse that has started this year has left the profession within 3 months.
Not the job.
The actual profession.
Sit with that a minute
That’s what I was talking with Foxy about a couple of days ago.
They are going to have to educate and recruit like madmen to just stand still. Shame all those EU nurses aren’t allowed to apply…
But it is true here too. My own Trust has 60 vacancies in ICU and a similar number in Theatre Recovery (who have been Seconded to ICU to cover). Our last Spanish nurse leaves next week.
I think the problem is rather like Wehrmacht losses in 1941-2. Not horrendous numbers in absolute terms, but in critical areas in technical branches like the Panzers, and also junior officers and NCOs disproportionately. Replacing with undertrained rookies and volksturm may restore the numbers but not capabilities.
Redeployment has trashed postgraduate training and will be an ongoing problem for years. Our junior doctors have missed so much training that they are a year or more behind their milestones, and are not going to be accredited in time. Ditto the nurses and medical students, and as for GP Trainees over the last 2 years...
This is untenable. People won't follow them. They need a new leader just to enforce those rules.
Yep - I pointed that out last night - and it's why I suspect the next PM will appear rather rapidly because no-one is going to do anything Boris asks for after last night.
I can't really see a good way out of this for the Tories.
What a mess.
Boris gets pushed out.
And the Tories probably face a decade or more in opposition.
Removing proven election winners rarely works. After forcing Thatcher out the Tories lost 3 out of 4 of the next general elections, after Blair went Labour has lost 4 General elections in a row.
There is a reason non Tories want Boris out as he is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and also the leader with most appeal to the RedWall. Remove him and Starmer's job becomes easier
No. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see what a massive liability Boris now is. Leaving him in office is the surest way to sink your corrupt party. I and others want him out knowing that his Tory successor is likely to win the election.
I want him out because of right and wrong. Because of standards. Because of national embarrassment. You and the remaining Peppa apologists will literally defend anything. We understand - politics means that you have to defend the indefensible sometimes. But it doesn't mean that you are right.
Seriously, your histrionics of the last few days have been embarrassing.
No. You want him out as you fear Boris as a proven election winner who built the biggest Tory coalition since Thatcher. Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories, there is no alternative leader with Boris' charisma and appeal to the RedWall swing seats
You know not everyone is like you, HYUFD. We don't all go on what is ultimately just a bottom-half-of-the-internet message board to conceal our true views and ramp for our chosen team.
It happens to be my view that it has reached a point where Sunak would give the Tories a better chance at the next General Election than Johnson, who is a joke too many people no longer find funny. Others may disagree with that, and I see the argument in some ways as he has a great deal of charisma and did make a breakthrough in the north of England in 2019.
But those of us who share my view are generally (I think) not lying about our position as some kind of pathetic attempt to make the political weather on a minority interest website. It's just our view.
Although I’d love to be able to back you up, I’m afraid that FUDHY is right on this occasion (“Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories”). I just can’t see Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid doing as well as Johnson in the Midlands and North. All the other touted names would be calamities everywhere.
Sunak would - because he can go back to 2020/21 and remind people - all that furlough money you lived on - I did that.
Electoral behaviour is driven by gratitude?
Well, it’s a “brave” new theory.
(“Brave” in the Yes Minister sense.)
It's driven by what will you give me over the next few years.
Sunak has the ability to demonstrate that he did it in the past - and that does nudge things in his direction provided the rest of the manifesto has sweeties in it.
He's taken quite a lot away too: the UC uplift, the NI increases, etc. Those hit Red Wall voters.
There is no such thing as a temporary Prime Minister. So which Tory MP will be appointed PM while a vote for Tory party leader is held or will the party think blow it and just ask Rishi to take the job?
Rishi is a shoo in.
Personally, I’d go for Liz Truss, but I just can’t see the Tories going for her in their current swivel-eyed iteration.
Why do you think Sunak is more swivel-eyed than Truss? I thought you would say the opposite to be honest.
I don’t.
I just think that the swivel-eyes will just about tolerate Sunak, while Truss would be a step too far.
Said it before, but keep an eye on the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace. Impressive real-world back-story, and comes across as likeable and sane.
Truss seems too awkward to me to be a serious contender. Still Sunak's to lose though.
I can't really see a good way out of this for the Tories.
What a mess.
Boris gets pushed out.
And the Tories probably face a decade or more in opposition.
Removing proven election winners rarely works. After forcing Thatcher out the Tories lost 3 out of 4 of the next general elections, after Blair went Labour has lost 4 General elections in a row.
There is a reason non Tories want Boris out as he is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and also the leader with most appeal to the RedWall. Remove him and Starmer's job becomes easier
No. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see what a massive liability Boris now is. Leaving him in office is the surest way to sink your corrupt party. I and others want him out knowing that his Tory successor is likely to win the election.
I want him out because of right and wrong. Because of standards. Because of national embarrassment. You and the remaining Peppa apologists will literally defend anything. We understand - politics means that you have to defend the indefensible sometimes. But it doesn't mean that you are right.
Seriously, your histrionics of the last few days have been embarrassing.
No. You want him out as you fear Boris as a proven election winner who built the biggest Tory coalition since Thatcher. Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories, there is no alternative leader with Boris' charisma and appeal to the RedWall swing seats
You know not everyone is like you, HYUFD. We don't all go on what is ultimately just a bottom-half-of-the-internet message board to conceal our true views and ramp for our chosen team.
It happens to be my view that it has reached a point where Sunak would give the Tories a better chance at the next General Election than Johnson, who is a joke too many people no longer find funny. Others may disagree with that, and I see the argument in some ways as he has a great deal of charisma and did make a breakthrough in the north of England in 2019.
But those of us who share my view are generally (I think) not lying about our position as some kind of pathetic attempt to make the political weather on a minority interest website. It's just our view.
Although I’d love to be able to back you up, I’m afraid that FUDHY is right on this occasion (“Remove him and it is all downhill for the Tories”). I just can’t see Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid doing as well as Johnson in the Midlands and North. All the other touted names would be calamities everywhere.
That depends on the future trajectory of Johnson's numbers.
The alternatives might well be worse than historic Boris, but still a distinct improvement on future Boris. At some point I am guessing that panic will set in; not for a while, though.
I concur.
I set out my detailed thoughts on this last week and cannot find the post now, but in summary, the best Con leadership options are, in descending order:
1. New improved Boris (problem: requires great teamwork) 2. Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid (problems: Starmer’s stature improves; Red Wall) 3. Same old Boris (ie status quo) 4. Rory Stewart (stop scoffing at the back) 5. One of the bampots: Raab, Gove, Patel
Enitrely off topic, but a subject we often cover: why is traffic congestion so bad in the UK? An article in the Telegraph which sets out my views quite well: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/08/life-slow-lane-london-became-worlds-congested-city/ "Two factors that make it dreamy or nightmarish to drive into and around cities, though, are counterintuitive, in that they have nothing to do with transport at all. The data, though, show that how densely cities are populated and how thriving their centres are makes a huge difference to drivers.
If cities are densely populated, it is easy to provide a coherent public transport network to lower car numbers. Paris, with almost 54,000 people per square mile and busy Metro stops every 200 yards, is the classic example. Sheffield, with 4,000 people per square mile, has a tramline that is considerably less popular.
Moreover Paris has a thriving centre, so it is easy to funnel people in the single direction they are all going. Whereas Sheffield, like many British cities outside London, has been hollowed out; jobs are spread all over the place, so workers find it far easier to drive to their offices.
This combination of city densities and thriving centres transforms public transport planning and so has a huge impact on drivers. For example, Leeds and Marseille have a similar population but, according to a recent Centre for Cities report, because Marseille is denser, 87 per cent of people can reach its centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with just 38 per cent in Leeds. Indeed, in Europe 67 per cent of people can commute to city centres in 30 minutes, compared with just 40 per cent in Britain. Our scattered cities make public transport trickier and send more of us flocking to our cars. And that time wasted is money wasted. Rome and Manchester are the same size but the Italian capital, despite its notoriously chaotic road traffic, is 55 per cent more productive, “partly because a much larger share of its workforce can travel into the city centre by public transport”."
(Mods - Hope it's ok to provide a direct quote that size!)
I'm inclined to view that as yet another silly hit piece in the Telegraph. But TBF it is a bit more than that.
Their "world's most congested" list from the research company does not seem to include anything in Asia except Oz/Nz and Turkey. No China, no India, no Mumbai.
Rome/Manchester. Does Manchester not have a smaller centre, and they have only been doing serious stuff wrt public transprot for a few years. Also Rome gets the capital city stuff - Embassys, Govt etc.
In the UK, we need work on creating a better public transport system,l kbut it is a 30-50 year project and requires backstabber Boris not to cancel projects such as HS2 NE.
If you look at eg Nottingham, you'll see that Trams + Cycleways + Light Rail have kept congestion under control for a couple of decades. IIRC traffic has not increased much at all.
Certainly accept your criticism's regarding definitions and comparators. Comparing Manchester with the likes of Essen, Rotterdam would be better. And would still show the same results: density leads to fewer hours lost in congestion. Agree providing public transport is a long-term project. (As a Mancunian, I bridle slightly at the suggestion that we have only been doing serious stuff wrt to public transport for a few years - our tram/light rail network predates (and is rather better than) Nottingham's!)
But these are quibbles: the broader point is how you plan your cities. And it's perfectly possible to plan for high or medium-high density and still provide a good quality of life.
Metroland suburbs (or even budget knockoffs like Romford) show that you can have houses with gardens whilst still having the density of population to support decent public transport and all the good stuff of life (shops, schools, parks, surgeries...) in walking range.
It's adding lots of cars- space to store them at home, space for them to circulate, space to store them at destinations- that tips the balance.
Organisations like Create Streets and Strong Towns are interesting on all this stuff
This is untenable. People won't follow them. They need a new leader just to enforce those rules.
Yep - I pointed that out last night - and it's why I suspect the next PM will appear rather rapidly because no-one is going to do anything Boris asks for after last night.
Of course they will, if it's the law. This is our government. The aim is to get people nervous and hanging on to nurse.
What should worry Boris Johnson even more than how to get out of the No10 party hole he has dug is the mood among Tory backbenchers, which is darkening rapidly. One 2019 intake agitator tells me it is "yet another easily avoided shitshow". PM's personal authority again at stake. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1468515948579676163
Boris has to buck up and by god this time we mean it! Ok, we said the same thing in November. And October. And September before that. And through the summer too, and before!
Not really
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
"And that process was a steady gradual one, rather than a shock that turned the polls in a week, or even a month.
It seems crazy now, but in early Summer 1992, JMthePM really was master of all he surveyed, and people were talking about how the Conservatives would be the party of power basically forever..."
You
"If the Tories win the next GE, are you going to cease with these knowing ‘it’s all about to go wrong for them’ insights, or will it just mean you’re one election closer to being proved right…"
I'd like to know which Cabinet Ministers attended the party:-
Sunak. He will certainly have known about it. Judging by his guilty expression yesterday when asked I think he attended too.
Who else? Which senior civil servants? Journalists?
I thought that opinion was that we hadn't heard about the party before precisely because the journalists who should have been making waves were quaffing the PM's champagne with everyone else!
For personal and family reasons I hope there are no restrictions planned on travel into the UK from SE Asia. Mrs C, and a cohort of younger C's would be dreadfully disappointed. Especially as they've all been vaccinated, tested and been isolating ready for the trip.
Literally shitting on the economy to try and cover the dirt from their dodgy Xmas party last year. There's no need for plan B, in fact we have less people in hospital now than when it was first considered and fewer people being hospitalised as well. Omicron is simply an unknown at this stage too, this is a dead cat to try and get the media to move on from dodgy Xmas parties, his wife clearly forcing him to save a bunch of disease ridden animals that would likely have been put down on arrival instead of people who needed and still need a way out of Afghanistan and now the casual manner in which the c**** at No 10 clearly despise the people they are supposed to be serving.
The Tory party needs to act and remove this menace from power.
Comments
As pointed out, the report is from Texas.
Some immeasurably wise sage called Hartlepool as peak Boris, but up to a month ago everything appeared comparatively tickety boo, and @isam wasconfidently stating that Boris's much heralded comeuppance was as far away as ever. Now we have Paterson, planes and parties. The first was Paterson, and that was only 5 weeks ago. Life is coming fast at Bojo
Old Holborn pointed out that he's the 3rd person in Bulgaria to have had a booster jab.
McDonalds in Oregon are hiring 14 year olds due to the 'labor shortage'. Pretty sure that's Brexit too.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/08/life-slow-lane-london-became-worlds-congested-city/
"Two factors that make it dreamy or nightmarish to drive into and around cities, though, are counterintuitive, in that they have nothing to do with transport at all. The data, though, show that how densely cities are populated and how thriving their centres are makes a huge difference to drivers.
If cities are densely populated, it is easy to provide a coherent public transport network to lower car numbers. Paris, with almost 54,000 people per square mile and busy Metro stops every 200 yards, is the classic example. Sheffield, with 4,000 people per square mile, has a tramline that is considerably less popular.
Moreover Paris has a thriving centre, so it is easy to funnel people in the single direction they are all going. Whereas Sheffield, like many British cities outside London, has been hollowed out; jobs are spread all over the place, so workers find it far easier to drive to their offices.
This combination of city densities and thriving centres transforms public transport planning and so has a huge impact on drivers. For example, Leeds and Marseille have a similar population but, according to a recent Centre for Cities report, because Marseille is denser, 87 per cent of people can reach its centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with just 38 per cent in Leeds. Indeed, in Europe 67 per cent of people can commute to city centres in 30 minutes, compared with just 40 per cent in Britain. Our scattered cities make public transport trickier and send more of us flocking to our cars. And that time wasted is money wasted. Rome and Manchester are the same size but the Italian capital, despite its notoriously chaotic road traffic, is 55 per cent more productive, “partly because a much larger share of its workforce can travel into the city centre by public transport”."
(Mods - Hope it's ok to provide a direct quote that size!)
Can we report him for something that will get him long term hospitality?
I have to say that Nicola didn't distinguish herself when she was Health Minister at Holyrood with regards to nurse education.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/nicola-sturgeon-blamed-unfilled-nursing-jobs-break-records-343490
https://twitter.com/thatgirl409?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
AIUI NHS employment has significantly increased during the last year.
I note for the comment that it would have impossible for the PM NOT to know a party was going on, even if he wasn't there, or around, so why on earth didn't he just say 'sorry' or 'forgive me'. And I've said hard things to the party-goers.
It would have rebounded to his credit. Instead of which .......
Nobody else can hold the current Conservative coalition together. Partly that's because of Bozza's real (if superficial) appeal to people, and partly because it's built on a lie, and nobody else can lie like Boris. People like the idea of having their cake and eating it, it's a vote winner, but it can't be done. And only Johnson can convincingly say it can.
Replace Boris by anyone else and a chunk of the coalition falls off. But keep him and stuff like this will keep happening and layers of the party will just corrode away.
The best answer would have been to forsee this and try a different path, but it's too late for that. The 2019-21 Conservative party is like Warsaw Pact athletes back in the day. Doped to the eyeballs with something that gave them a triumph in one competition but left them with ruined health for decades afterwards.
The team principal press conferences on Friday feature the combination of Christian Horner and Toto Wolff in one of them.
That is going to generate a lot of stories.
I’m not playing either, but my hunch would be to oppose the LDs at those odds.
Hope all is good, Peter.
What is there to investigate? And whilst that goes on what would be the line - "we need to wait for the report before we comment"? He's as guilty as a puppy sat next to a pile of poo.
"Good old Boris, he'll get Brexit done" of 2019 is not the same political attraction as "lying corrupt clown Boris will keep trousering our money".
If you think Boris 2021 is the mega political pull that will secure the red wall then you truly are clueless.
- “You could feel a chill along Westminster's Labour back benches, looking for a spine to run up.”
Said of the atmosphere in the Commons after Winnie Ewing’s seminal Hamilton by-election victory.
Other leaders will simply slice a chunk of the party away which is a problem but nowhere near as damaging as Boris will be over the medium to long term.
Even so, there are record numbers of nursing vacancies, so nursing capacity is potentially highly vulnerable to a large number of older nurses deciding to retire once Covid is done.
*10 Unsustainable Pressures on the Health and Care System in England
"Downing Street continues to deny that there was a party: a denial with all of the believability, but none of the charm, of a chocolate-covered toddler insisting they didn’t eat everything in the box."
But [i comment] there are things more important than the Tory Party's future -
"More important than any political fallout is that government ministers can’t now go an air to encourage booster uptake and to communicate important public health messages for fear of being asked about the video; that if another lockdown becomes necessary to buy time for more booster shots, the government may feel unable to risk the political damage of having to explain why it’s lockdown for you and me, and cheese and wine for the Downing Street team; that as we head into an uncertain few weeks, the government may well be fighting Omicron with both hands tied behind its back."
If its a choice between having a house in the suburbs and a car or a flat in the inner city and using a bus which do you think most British people will chose ?
How many people care if their city is more 'productive' if it requires them to accept a lower quality of life ?
It went down a treat at the last election, but Johnson’s natural incompetence and lack of seriousness may eventually toxify his own brand - it was said (by Max Hastings IIRC, & I paraphrase) that everyone likes Johnson initially, but the more you get to know him, the less you end up liking him. Well, the country is going through exactly that process now - the question for the Tories is going to be, exactly /how/ well will the electorate get to know him by the time the next election rolls around?
Do you still believe Betfair announcements on how they will settle a market? Personally I haven't had a bet with them since the US Presidential Election market fiasco.
Scots expect their democratic choices to be respected. Blackford accurately represents the views of Scotland’s democratic institutions, which have continued support in public opinion.
The alternatives might well be worse than historic Boris, but still a distinct improvement on future Boris. At some point I am guessing that panic will set in; not for a while, though.
It made one gasp and stretch one's eyes
"This was an operational decision. Neither the PM nor Mrs Johnson were involved. This letter was nothing to do with Ms Harrison’s role as the PM’s PPS, she was acting in her capacity as a constituency MP.”
This is surely what is going to do for him. It's a taking the piss, not even trying lie
I do hope Harrison gets called by the FAC
I just think that the swivel-eyes will just about tolerate Sunak, while Truss would be a step too far.
- The very wide-ranging powers effectively stopping any form of protest
- The curbs on judicial review
- The refusal of a Minister yesterday to confirm that the government would remain within the ECHR (something they have always previously done)
- The powers to take away British passports on a whim from British citizens
This is a dangerous government. Starmer should not just focus on the PM, easy and fun as it is to do. He needs to nail the Cabinet - who have been complicit in supporting Boris, in destroying the only worthwhile policy this government has (Levelling Up) and who are supporting the above dangerously authoritarian policies.
Sunak, Patel, Javid, Truss: they all need to be tied to Boris because the reality is that he is PM because these and all the other Tory MPs crying their crocodile tears now supported him.
Is it?
Though the spectacle of Starmer and Blackford tearing into Raab would be entertaining.
Looking forward to next Thursday!!!
And it's the sort of thing I nowadays watch out for - as it sends me down a path that is 9 times out of 10 worth investigating.
Their "world's most congested" list from the research company does not seem to include anything in Asia except Oz/Nz and Turkey. No China, no India, no Mumbai.
Rome/Manchester. Does Manchester not have a smaller centre, and they have only been doing serious stuff wrt public transprot for a few years. Also Rome gets the capital city stuff - Embassys, Govt etc.
In the UK, we need work on creating a better public transport system, but it is a 30-50 year project and requires backstabber Boris not to cancel projects such as HS2 NE.
If you look at eg Nottingham, you'll see that Trams + Cycleways + Light Rail have kept congestion under control for a couple of decades. IIRC traffic has not increased much at all.
Well, it’s a “brave” new theory.
(“Brave” in the Yes Minister sense.)
As the first industrial nation, cities in the U.K. developed around their industries. Birmingham, Manchester etc all had factories right in the heart of the City Centre. Go back to the 1930s and their populations were concentrated as they had to be close to the factories. When these factories closed, there was no need to be close. Moreover, because factories occupied space close to the city centres, slum clearance meant replacement housing had to be built further out.
European cities were not designed in the same way. Factories were put in specific districts away from the city centres. It was a lot more planned. Often, population control concerns meant the building of large wide roads which were difficult to barricade against and could allow the rapid deployment of troops.
HYUFD - I’ve voted conservative. Consistently. Not anymore.
And there’s plenty more who’ll do the same until Bojo is gone. It was funny when he was mayor and plummeting down zip wires. It stopped being funny when he became prime minister
It's pretty obvious she was doing what she was told to by the PM.
Agree providing public transport is a long-term project.
(As a Mancunian, I bridle slightly at the suggestion that we have only been doing serious stuff wrt to public transport for a few years - our tram/light rail network predates (and is rather better than) Nottingham's!)
But these are quibbles: the broader point is how you plan your cities. And it's perfectly possible to plan for high or medium-high density and still provide a good quality of life.
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1468528194777145344
SCOOP: Boris Johnson set to announce Plan B
Three senior Whitehall officials say further Covid restrictions will be announced imminently - including vaccine passports and working from home.
Ministers expected sign off proposals at Covid-O meeting.
https://www.ft.com/content/bd0a637e-3e2b-4637-9548-d9eac1e20838
Yeah - a winning argument that one.
Sunak has the ability to demonstrate that he did it in the past - and that does nudge things in his direction provided the rest of the manifesto has sweeties in it.
@Stuartinromford
"And that process was a steady gradual one, rather than a shock that turned the polls in a week, or even a month.
It seems crazy now, but in early Summer 1992, JMthePM really was master of all he surveyed, and people were talking about how the Conservatives would be the party of power basically forever..."
You
"If the Tories win the next GE, are you going to cease with these knowing ‘it’s all about to go wrong for them’ insights, or will it just mean you’re one election closer to being proved right…"
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/09/13/the-latest-polls-having-little-impact-on-the-next-general-election-betting/
next thread, incidentally, was
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/09/14/what-do-we-think-of-isams-con-majority-bet/
A lot of European cities have also been rebuilt. Though not Rome.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/the-mass-exodus-of-americas-health-care-workers/620713/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
But it is true here too. My own Trust has 60 vacancies in ICU and a similar number in Theatre Recovery (who have been Seconded to ICU to cover). Our last Spanish nurse leaves next week.
I think the problem is rather like Wehrmacht losses in 1941-2. Not horrendous numbers in absolute terms, but in critical areas in technical branches like the Panzers, and also junior officers and NCOs disproportionately. Replacing with undertrained rookies and volksturm may restore the numbers but not capabilities.
Redeployment has trashed postgraduate training and will be an ongoing problem for years. Our junior doctors have missed so much training that they are a year or more behind their milestones, and are not going to be accredited in time. Ditto the nurses and medical students, and as for GP Trainees over the last 2 years...
Sunak. He will certainly have known about it. Judging by his guilty expression yesterday when asked I think he attended too.
Who else? Which senior civil servants? Journalists?
Truss seems too awkward to me to be a serious contender. Still Sunak's to lose though.
I set out my detailed thoughts on this last week and cannot find the post now, but in summary, the best Con leadership options are, in descending order:
1. New improved Boris (problem: requires great teamwork)
2. Sunak, Truss, Hunt or Javid (problems: Starmer’s stature improves; Red Wall)
3. Same old Boris (ie status quo)
4. Rory Stewart (stop scoffing at the back)
5. One of the bampots: Raab, Gove, Patel
It's adding lots of cars- space to store them at home, space for them to circulate, space to store them at destinations- that tips the balance.
Organisations like Create Streets and Strong Towns are interesting on all this stuff
I've supported all the other changes and restrictions, but they can go screw themselves if they try
Shows what a great bet that was at 6/4 - 3 months later with all the scandals that have gone on… it’s 13/8
For personal and family reasons I hope there are no restrictions planned on travel into the UK from SE Asia. Mrs C, and a cohort of younger C's would be dreadfully disappointed. Especially as they've all been vaccinated, tested and been isolating ready for the trip.
The Tory party needs to act and remove this menace from power.
Holidays are part of private life
Everyone is entitled to privacy
Therefore Boris should get a superinjunction preventing us from discussing Kabul AND the existence of the superinjunction
Same applies to parties
Is Braverman up to the job or not?