If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Yeah, I'm torn on this one. Would either of the two recently-deceased MPs want democracy suspended in their memory? The MP blown up by the IRA wasn't treated in the same fashion.
Govern in a good way that deserves re-election. Reconnect to the liberal Conservative principles that Boris campaigned on in 2019 that got the majority and reconnect to those voters.
Do that and I could back them again. Fail to do so and I'll probably vote for the Lib Dems in 2024.
I would like you to stop rewriting history to suit yourself.
Johnson campaigned on Brexit. If his message had been 'vote for me and get yourself a boatload of small state and social liberalism' there'd have been no majority.
And if you'd read anything Boris had ever written for decades, including in the Brexit debate, then you'd have seen plenty of social liberalism and small state in it as I did.
What a load of Bollocks! I don't blame them hiding the name of the author. Probably Charles Moore. Sorry I mean Baron Moore of Etchingham (what a ridiculous country we live in!)
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Dead wrong, the show must go on. You wanna show respect for Amess you can do it at the funeral. Thereafter you show respect for democracy.
The Tories think the rural vote is in the bag no matter what they do, just like Labour used to think about the urban poor in Scotland
Labour still win the urban poor in England and Wales and won the inner cities there even in 2019. The only reason they lost it in Scotland was the SNP overtook them on the populist left, same as the only reason the Tories would lose rural areas in England is if another party overtook them on the populist right like ReformUK.
For example they would need to be annihilated like the Canadian Tories were in 1993 when they lost rural areas in the West to the Refom party as well as suburban and commuter belt areas to the Liberals.
Shropshire North is like Christchurch, a LD by election win in 1993 on an even bigger swing than North Shropshire that went Tory again in 1997
Why do you make the assumption that in the rural areas it would need a right wing party such as Reform for the Tories to lose those areas.
I would refer you to Tim Farron who sits in what should by any criteria you use be a very safe Tory - even more so than say Richmond (Yorks).
Because rightwing parties always win most rural areas across the western world and left liberal parties always win most inner city areas. Thus the only way the Tories would lose most rural areas is if a rightwing populist party overtook them like Reform beat the Canadian Tories in rural areas in 1993 or Le Pen beat Fillon in rural areas in round 1 of the French 2017 presidential election.
Tim Farron was virtually the only non Tory MP in rural England in 2019, using him as an example is about as useful as saying the Tories won Cities of London and Westminster and Chelsea and Fulham in 2019 and therefore could sweep inner London next time!
Besides you nobody on this site even cares that Reform UK exists. You keep boostering them, and its quite self-evident that you'd rather vote for them than the Tories, but nobody else is doing so.
The Lib Dems have a record of success in the past even in rural seats, in 2010 the Lib Dems won many rural seats yet there has never been a Reform MP elected. Its beyond a joke to hold them up as serious.
No, it is you who voted for Farage in 2019 not me, I still voted Tory. The point was just the only way the Tories would lose most rural seats would be to a populist right of centre party like ReformUK.
Remember in the 2019 European elections when you voted Brexit Party and I voted Tory, most rural constituencies voted for the Brexit Party. Even in 1997 or 2005 or 2010 most rural constituencies still voted Tory not LD however
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don't think Reform are standing a candidate in Southend West.
The Tories think the rural vote is in the bag no matter what they do, just like Labour used to think about the urban poor in Scotland
Labour still win the urban poor in England and Wales and won the inner cities there even in 2019. The only reason they lost it in Scotland was the SNP overtook them on the populist left, same as the only reason the Tories would lose rural areas in England is if another party overtook them on the populist right like ReformUK.
For example they would need to be annihilated like the Canadian Tories were in 1993 when they lost rural areas in the West to the Refom party as well as suburban and commuter belt areas to the Liberals.
Shropshire North is like Christchurch, a LD by election win in 1993 on an even bigger swing than North Shropshire that went Tory again in 1997
Why do you make the assumption that in the rural areas it would need a right wing party such as Reform for the Tories to lose those areas.
I would refer you to Tim Farron who sits in what should by any criteria you use be a very safe Tory - even more so than say Richmond (Yorks).
@HYUFD makes that assumption because that's what he would do, that's the way he thinks.
Most of the (many) Tories I meet here in North Dorset are centre-right, often appalled by the current incumbent of No 10, would probably never vote Labour or Reform but might well be minded to vote LD or abstain if Johnson is still PM come the next GE.
Quite. I am in Cox's constituency in Devon. He has a maj of 25,000, but it was LD till 2005
North Dorset hasn't been Lib since 1950, but the LibDems ran the Tory quite close (under 4000 ma) in 1997, 2001 and 2005.
Tactical voting does not have to mean defeat for the Tories. There was heavy LD Tactical voting for Labour in 1992 and Labour tactical voting for LD in return but Major held on despite losing some seats, only in 1997 did it prove fatal
Next GE is 1997 with a hint of 2017
What should frighten you most at the moment is the fact that no 5 in the singles chart is BORIS JOHNSON IS STILL A F**KING C**T by the K**ts. Sooo reminiscent of the damage inflicted on May by cassette boy
The damage that saw May re elected in 2017?
Not just the worst point ever made on pb, almost certainly unrivalled anywhere.
If the Tories got the same number of seats in 2024 we did in 2017 they would be re elected
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Dead wrong, the show must go on. You wanna show respect for Amess you can do it at the funeral. Thereafter you show respect for democracy.
I got three likes. See how many you get. 😝
I respect the point of view though, seems to be a question genuinely dividing intelligent decent opinion.
Tony Livesey managed quite an amazing career progression from the editor of Daily / Sun Sport to the BBC R5 Drive Time Show. Now are these "papers" still a thing in 2021, who is buying them?
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
At the moment Southend West will be a straight fight between the Tories and UKIP with 1 independent Freedom Party candidate too.
Another desperately quiet day at work and I come on here to find a nice thread about the Liberal Democrats which is always welcome.
North Shropshire has undeniably given both the party and Ed Davey a real boost. Davey now has two by-election gains to his credit and let's not forget he's a fighter having lost Kingston & Surbiton in the 2015 catastrophe, he went and won it back in 2017 and now has a healthy 10,000 majority. He's the only LD MP who lost his seat in 2015, regained it in 2017 and held on in 2019 (both Jo Swinson and Stephen Lloyd regained seats lost in 2015 at the next GE but lost at the last GE).
All isn't sweetness and light - the poll ratings remain modest at this time and I suspect there are islands of activity between vast oceans of constituencies where there is no meaningful LD presence.
As an example, the LDs hold 152 council seats in London but 109 of those are in Sutton, Kingston and Richmond which means only 43 seats in the remaining Boroughs and large numbers with no LD presence at all. I'm all for targeting resources but the party needs to start getting into new areas and building strength and winning seats.
Take a borough like Bromley - in 1998, the Liberal Democrats won 25 seats and for a short while ran the council with Labour - in 2014, the last councillors were defeated. That's the scale of the rebuilding that still needs to start seven years after the end of the Coalition.
There will be those who ask for what the Liberal Democrats stand - actually, that's not very important now - it's enough to be a home for disillusioned Conservatives (of whom there seem to be many currently) but there will come a point when the party will need to articulate its USP in a crowded market. They've made a good start opposing some of the proposed restrictions and no one talks about re-joining the EU or any of that nonsense.
In the same way, talking about the relationship with Starmer's Labour isn't all that important either. Both parties are fishing in different ponds for the same fish and it doesn't much matter on whose hook they end up.
FAir comment.
It's interest looking at Farron's seat - I was wondering if it is a Nonconformist area (to an extent), but it took the LDs years of work pre-Farron to win it, and is a a LD-Tory marginal much of the time recently.
Current majority 1934.
He needs a swing in the current direction to make it safe.
The provisional boundary review, as it stands, is awful for Farron. Destroys his seat and the successor is really tough. If anyone can do it, he can. But, notionally, he doesn't have a majority and isn't even all that close.
The Tories think the rural vote is in the bag no matter what they do, just like Labour used to think about the urban poor in Scotland
Labour still win the urban poor in England and Wales and won the inner cities there even in 2019. The only reason they lost it in Scotland was the SNP overtook them on the populist left, same as the only reason the Tories would lose rural areas in England is if another party overtook them on the populist right like ReformUK.
For example they would need to be annihilated like the Canadian Tories were in 1993 when they lost rural areas in the West to the Refom party as well as suburban and commuter belt areas to the Liberals.
Shropshire North is like Christchurch, a LD by election win in 1993 on an even bigger swing than North Shropshire that went Tory again in 1997
Why do you make the assumption that in the rural areas it would need a right wing party such as Reform for the Tories to lose those areas.
I would refer you to Tim Farron who sits in what should by any criteria you use be a very safe Tory - even more so than say Richmond (Yorks).
Because rightwing parties always win most rural areas across the western world and left liberal parties always win most inner city areas. Thus the only way the Tories would lose most rural areas is if a rightwing populist party overtook them like Reform beat the Canadian Tories in rural areas in 1993 or Le Pen beat Fillon in rural areas in round 1 of the French 2017 presidential election.
Tim Farron was virtually the only non Tory MP in rural England in 2019, using him as an example is about as useful as saying the Tories won Cities of London and Westminster and Chelsea and Fulham in 2019 and therefore could sweep inner London next time!
Besides you nobody on this site even cares that Reform UK exists. You keep boostering them, and its quite self-evident that you'd rather vote for them than the Tories, but nobody else is doing so.
The Lib Dems have a record of success in the past even in rural seats, in 2010 the Lib Dems won many rural seats yet there has never been a Reform MP elected. Its beyond a joke to hold them up as serious.
No, it is you who voted for Farage in 2019 not me, I still voted Tory. The point was just the only way the Tories would lose most rural seats would be to a populist right of centre party like ReformUK.
Remember in the 2019 European elections when you voted Brexit Party and I voted Tory, most rural constituencies voted for the Brexit Party. Even in 1997 or 2005 or 2010 most rural constituencies still voted Tory not LD however
The 2019 European Elections were not a real election. They weren't a vote for Westminster. It was not a vote to send Farage or anyone else to Parliament since it wasn't a vote for Parliament. Casting a protest vote in them was entirely reasonable which is why I was in the 92% of voters who did not vote for the Tories in that election. That you were in the 8% who did is not something to feel smug about.
Casting a protest vote in the 2019 European Elections was no more a serious vote for Westminster than voting for Ed Balls doing Gangnam Style was a vote for making him Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I'm quite careful about predicting the LDs likely performance at the next election although I think their long term prospects in large parts of South of England look very good indeed.
I would be surprised if they don't pick up a few seats such as Wimbledon, S Cambs, Guildford at a minimum although nothing is certain.
They should stick to a realistic target of around 20 Tory held seats and not fall into the trap of trying to replicate local election/by election campaigning in the circumstances of a general election.
The Tories think the rural vote is in the bag no matter what they do, just like Labour used to think about the urban poor in Scotland
Labour still win the urban poor in England and Wales and won the inner cities there even in 2019. The only reason they lost it in Scotland was the SNP overtook them on the populist left, same as the only reason the Tories would lose rural areas in England is if another party overtook them on the populist right like ReformUK.
For example they would need to be annihilated like the Canadian Tories were in 1993 when they lost rural areas in the West to the Refom party as well as suburban and commuter belt areas to the Liberals.
Shropshire North is like Christchurch, a LD by election win in 1993 on an even bigger swing than North Shropshire that went Tory again in 1997
Why do you make the assumption that in the rural areas it would need a right wing party such as Reform for the Tories to lose those areas.
I would refer you to Tim Farron who sits in what should by any criteria you use be a very safe Tory - even more so than say Richmond (Yorks).
They can win rural areas (especially in by elections, look at the Penrith 1983 by election as well which they nearly pulled off) but only on the back of large personal votes rather than national policy. We saw what happened to North Norfolk after Norman Lamb stood down in 2019 after doing well to defy gravity in 2017. Westmorland and Lonsdale is better for the Lib Dems than some of these other seats but they are still likely to lose it if Farron stands down (or is butchered in boundary changes).
I would also argue that rural seats like Orkney and Shetland and Caithness in Scotland are more vulnerable due to how unusual they are than Edinburgh West and NE Fife which are more stereotypical LD seats nowadays.
For general elections I do think they have to focus building up a long term block on the South East under FPTP (even if that means writing off most of the country) which is the only way they can build a sustainable long term presence (and cause longer term problems for the Tories).
The self isolation period for positive cases will reduce from 10 days to 7 days subject to negative lateral flow tests on day 6 & 7. This policy will apply retrospectively and takes effect tomorrow.
Govern in a good way that deserves re-election. Reconnect to the liberal Conservative principles that Boris campaigned on in 2019 that got the majority and reconnect to those voters.
Do that and I could back them again. Fail to do so and I'll probably vote for the Lib Dems in 2024.
I would like you to stop rewriting history to suit yourself.
Johnson campaigned on Brexit. If his message had been 'vote for me and get yourself a boatload of small state and social liberalism' there'd have been no majority.
Even if there were some nice liberal words uttered by Boris, the inexcusably illiberal actions taken by his government, before and after 2019 election, renders such analysis risible.
Men truly manifest themselves in the long patterns of their acts, and not in any nutshell of self-theory. or, simply Actions speak louder than words
How does that render it risible? You're merely reaffirming my own point!
The illiberal actions post 2019 election are precisely why I've stopped supporting him.
Stop being illiberal, get back to what was being said and start putting actions behind the words and I'll happily support him again despite this midterm wobble.
Continue down this path of illiberalism and I'll hold my nose and vote for Ed Davey's party.
I think you probably missed "before" and "before and after [the] 2019 election".
I tend to take people at their word until such a point they have demonstrated the opposite through their actions.
I read the before but was a bit confused about it, considering this Government was only formed in July 2019 and the death of the 2017-19 Parliament was almost entirely dominated by Brexit divisions. What illiberal actions were implemented between July 2019 and the election in December 2019?
Boris Johnson's government has frequently demonstrated a centralising tendency and undertaken frequent attacks any who might hold him accountable. Amongst these were the wide ranging purge of party members, the illegal prorogation of parliament, the threats against some media outlets, and the attacks on the independence of the judicial system.
All of these things done by Boris Johnson himself, and often amplified by the ministers of his government.
The man sometimes talks like a liberal, but frequently does not act like one. None of these facts is new or even controversial. Many have voiced support for these actions whilst attacking liberalism, which is fair enough although not what I want from a politician, because I'm certainly a small-l liberal. It's a little disconcerting when people illiberality under the flag of liberalism.
So nothing really then?
There was no 'radical purge' of party members. There was a three line whip on a confidence vote over Europe exactly as John Major did with the Maastricht vote in 1993. Just as Major did in 1993 and following precedent of decades, anyone who failed to vote with the Party on that confidence motion lost the whip and they were informed in advance that was going to happen too. "The bastards" all-but-one got in line in 1993 and the only one that didn't lost the whip, the same happened to 2019's "bastards" who brought the loss of the whip upon themselves.
According to the English High Court at the time there was no "illegal prorogation of Parliament", the English High Court ruled the prorogation was entirely legal and it again followed precedent. The Supreme Court invented new case law that rendered it void so Parliament was immediately recalled as a result. Nothing illiberal or shocking about that.
I don't recall any "threats" against the media or the judicial system either so can't respond to those. It seems to me we have a vigorous media and the judicial systems independence clearly still exists which is why the Supreme Court was able to invent new rules to render the prorogation void.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that the Divisional Court in England concluded that the prorogation was not justiciable, not that it was "entirely legal and it again followed precedent".
In any case, the Supreme Court said it was illegal. We have separation of powers in this country and that is part of the backbone of liberalism. We should be proud of that, not attacking it. The fact that it was embarrassing and problematic for the government is a sign of it working, but we were treated for a long pattern of anger against the courts from Johnson and his acolytes over the issue. The mature thing to do when the law has found you in the wrong is to dust yourself off and try not to make the same mistake again, instead of bitching about it and having your cronies threaten to make the Supreme Court appointed like in the USA.
IANAL so I'm not sure about the niceties of what the Divisional Court said but my understanding is if the Supreme Court had upheld rather than overturned that ruling, then the prorogation would not have been deemed "illegal".
Yes we do have an independent Supreme Court and its ruling was followed. It wasn't like Johnson responded like Andrew Jackson “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
"Bitching about it" is what people who lose an argument tend to do, its venting and its free speech and that's just as protected so long as it remains low level like that. If actions were done to render the Court's decision moot (besides passing a law which is legal) then that'd be illiberal, having some nobodies bitching is not.
Look, I've brought you to the water but I can't make you drink. Johnson's "free" to say what he likes and so are his minions. But the threats, veiled or otherwise, against the judiciary and the BBC have the potential to stymie them holding the government to account, and that is illiberal. Yes, free speech is a good thing, and yes, instances of speaking freely can harm the liberal values that this country was at the very prow of developing. In short, liberalism demands thoughtful restraint from those in power. There are systems of government that do not put that soft requirement on the leader, and no liberal really wants those variants of government.
In any case, I do not think you are a liberal at all. I think you are a libertarian. Tell me if I'm wrong and I'll withdraw that statement, but I get the sense we're not just singing off different hymn sheets but in totally different churches.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
Govern in a good way that deserves re-election. Reconnect to the liberal Conservative principles that Boris campaigned on in 2019 that got the majority and reconnect to those voters.
Do that and I could back them again. Fail to do so and I'll probably vote for the Lib Dems in 2024.
I would like you to stop rewriting history to suit yourself.
Johnson campaigned on Brexit. If his message had been 'vote for me and get yourself a boatload of small state and social liberalism' there'd have been no majority.
Even if there were some nice liberal words uttered by Boris, the inexcusably illiberal actions taken by his government, before and after 2019 election, renders such analysis risible.
Men truly manifest themselves in the long patterns of their acts, and not in any nutshell of self-theory. or, simply Actions speak louder than words
How does that render it risible? You're merely reaffirming my own point!
The illiberal actions post 2019 election are precisely why I've stopped supporting him.
Stop being illiberal, get back to what was being said and start putting actions behind the words and I'll happily support him again despite this midterm wobble.
Continue down this path of illiberalism and I'll hold my nose and vote for Ed Davey's party.
I think you probably missed "before" and "before and after [the] 2019 election".
I tend to take people at their word until such a point they have demonstrated the opposite through their actions.
I read the before but was a bit confused about it, considering this Government was only formed in July 2019 and the death of the 2017-19 Parliament was almost entirely dominated by Brexit divisions. What illiberal actions were implemented between July 2019 and the election in December 2019?
Boris Johnson's government has frequently demonstrated a centralising tendency and undertaken frequent attacks any who might hold him accountable. Amongst these were the wide ranging purge of party members, the illegal prorogation of parliament, the threats against some media outlets, and the attacks on the independence of the judicial system.
All of these things done by Boris Johnson himself, and often amplified by the ministers of his government.
The man sometimes talks like a liberal, but frequently does not act like one. None of these facts is new or even controversial. Many have voiced support for these actions whilst attacking liberalism, which is fair enough although not what I want from a politician, because I'm certainly a small-l liberal. It's a little disconcerting when people illiberality under the flag of liberalism.
So nothing really then?
There was no 'radical purge' of party members. There was a three line whip on a confidence vote over Europe exactly as John Major did with the Maastricht vote in 1993. Just as Major did in 1993 and following precedent of decades, anyone who failed to vote with the Party on that confidence motion lost the whip and they were informed in advance that was going to happen too. "The bastards" all-but-one got in line in 1993 and the only one that didn't lost the whip, the same happened to 2019's "bastards" who brought the loss of the whip upon themselves.
According to the English High Court at the time there was no "illegal prorogation of Parliament", the English High Court ruled the prorogation was entirely legal and it again followed precedent. The Supreme Court invented new case law that rendered it void so Parliament was immediately recalled as a result. Nothing illiberal or shocking about that.
I don't recall any "threats" against the media or the judicial system either so can't respond to those. It seems to me we have a vigorous media and the judicial systems independence clearly still exists which is why the Supreme Court was able to invent new rules to render the prorogation void.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that the Divisional Court in England concluded that the prorogation was not justiciable, not that it was "entirely legal and it again followed precedent".
In any case, the Supreme Court said it was illegal. We have separation of powers in this country and that is part of the backbone of liberalism. We should be proud of that, not attacking it. The fact that it was embarrassing and problematic for the government is a sign of it working, but we were treated for a long pattern of anger against the courts from Johnson and his acolytes over the issue. The mature thing to do when the law has found you in the wrong is to dust yourself off and try not to make the same mistake again, instead of bitching about it and having your cronies threaten to make the Supreme Court appointed like in the USA.
If you have a court making political rulings, your are going to get comments.
There was a reason that the court (rightly) gave the finger to an attempt to use Human Rights/Sex discrimination legislation to take judicial control of benefits spending. This was under the Coalition.
As a judge of my father's aquaintance pointed out, if you have the courts controlling the majority of government spending (which was the implication), then the courts would be running the country, not Parliament. And that won't end well.....
Govern in a good way that deserves re-election. Reconnect to the liberal Conservative principles that Boris campaigned on in 2019 that got the majority and reconnect to those voters.
Do that and I could back them again. Fail to do so and I'll probably vote for the Lib Dems in 2024.
I would like you to stop rewriting history to suit yourself.
Johnson campaigned on Brexit. If his message had been 'vote for me and get yourself a boatload of small state and social liberalism' there'd have been no majority.
Even if there were some nice liberal words uttered by Boris, the inexcusably illiberal actions taken by his government, before and after 2019 election, renders such analysis risible.
Men truly manifest themselves in the long patterns of their acts, and not in any nutshell of self-theory. or, simply Actions speak louder than words
How does that render it risible? You're merely reaffirming my own point!
The illiberal actions post 2019 election are precisely why I've stopped supporting him.
Stop being illiberal, get back to what was being said and start putting actions behind the words and I'll happily support him again despite this midterm wobble.
Continue down this path of illiberalism and I'll hold my nose and vote for Ed Davey's party.
I think you probably missed "before" and "before and after [the] 2019 election".
I tend to take people at their word until such a point they have demonstrated the opposite through their actions.
I read the before but was a bit confused about it, considering this Government was only formed in July 2019 and the death of the 2017-19 Parliament was almost entirely dominated by Brexit divisions. What illiberal actions were implemented between July 2019 and the election in December 2019?
Boris Johnson's government has frequently demonstrated a centralising tendency and undertaken frequent attacks any who might hold him accountable. Amongst these were the wide ranging purge of party members, the illegal prorogation of parliament, the threats against some media outlets, and the attacks on the independence of the judicial system.
All of these things done by Boris Johnson himself, and often amplified by the ministers of his government.
The man sometimes talks like a liberal, but frequently does not act like one. None of these facts is new or even controversial. Many have voiced support for these actions whilst attacking liberalism, which is fair enough although not what I want from a politician, because I'm certainly a small-l liberal. It's a little disconcerting when people illiberality under the flag of liberalism.
So nothing really then?
There was no 'radical purge' of party members. There was a three line whip on a confidence vote over Europe exactly as John Major did with the Maastricht vote in 1993. Just as Major did in 1993 and following precedent of decades, anyone who failed to vote with the Party on that confidence motion lost the whip and they were informed in advance that was going to happen too. "The bastards" all-but-one got in line in 1993 and the only one that didn't lost the whip, the same happened to 2019's "bastards" who brought the loss of the whip upon themselves.
According to the English High Court at the time there was no "illegal prorogation of Parliament", the English High Court ruled the prorogation was entirely legal and it again followed precedent. The Supreme Court invented new case law that rendered it void so Parliament was immediately recalled as a result. Nothing illiberal or shocking about that.
I don't recall any "threats" against the media or the judicial system either so can't respond to those. It seems to me we have a vigorous media and the judicial systems independence clearly still exists which is why the Supreme Court was able to invent new rules to render the prorogation void.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that the Divisional Court in England concluded that the prorogation was not justiciable, not that it was "entirely legal and it again followed precedent".
In any case, the Supreme Court said it was illegal. We have separation of powers in this country and that is part of the backbone of liberalism. We should be proud of that, not attacking it. The fact that it was embarrassing and problematic for the government is a sign of it working, but we were treated for a long pattern of anger against the courts from Johnson and his acolytes over the issue. The mature thing to do when the law has found you in the wrong is to dust yourself off and try not to make the same mistake again, instead of bitching about it and having your cronies threaten to make the Supreme Court appointed like in the USA.
IANAL so I'm not sure about the niceties of what the Divisional Court said but my understanding is if the Supreme Court had upheld rather than overturned that ruling, then the prorogation would not have been deemed "illegal".
Yes we do have an independent Supreme Court and its ruling was followed. It wasn't like Johnson responded like Andrew Jackson “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
"Bitching about it" is what people who lose an argument tend to do, its venting and its free speech and that's just as protected so long as it remains low level like that. If actions were done to render the Court's decision moot (besides passing a law which is legal) then that'd be illiberal, having some nobodies bitching is not.
Look, I've brought you to the water but I can't make you drink. Johnson's "free" to say what he likes and so are his minions. But the threats, veiled or otherwise, against the judiciary and the BBC have the potential to stymie them holding the government to account, and that is illiberal. Yes, free speech is a good thing, and yes, instances of speaking freely can harm the liberal values that this country was at the very prow of developing. In short, liberalism demands thoughtful restraint from those in power. There are systems of government that do not put that soft requirement on the leader, and no liberal really wants those variants of government.
In any case, I do not think you are a liberal at all. I think you are a libertarian. Tell me if I'm wrong and I'll withdraw that statement, but I get the sense we're not just singing off different hymn sheets but in totally different churches.
Classically liberal/libertarian there's not much of a difference.
I believe in economic and social liberalism. I don't think the government should be telling us how to spend our money or what to do in our bedrooms or in our lives. I don't care what you call that.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
In case of Jo Cox, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Green Party all declined to contest the election, as a mark of respect.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
In case of Jo Cox, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Green Party all declined to contest the election, as a mark of respect.
Yet that didn't happen for the late Mr Neave's seat. The logical difference escapes me. Have we collectively become a bunch of emotion-junkie wimps?
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Dead wrong, the show must go on. You wanna show respect for Amess you can do it at the funeral. Thereafter you show respect for democracy.
I think I'm with you on this but it's agonising. Ultimately I think you can separate the man from the party. Amess, regrettably, is not around to contest the seat. Someone else is standing for the Conservatives. Will he or she be better than the possible alternatives who could have stood for other parties? That ought to be up to the voters to decide. If the voters think the best course of action is to replace the murdered MP with a new one from the same party, that is a noble choice but their choice.
The Tories think the rural vote is in the bag no matter what they do, just like Labour used to think about the urban poor in Scotland
Labour still win the urban poor in England and Wales and won the inner cities there even in 2019. The only reason they lost it in Scotland was the SNP overtook them on the populist left, same as the only reason the Tories would lose rural areas in England is if another party overtook them on the populist right like ReformUK.
For example they would need to be annihilated like the Canadian Tories were in 1993 when they lost rural areas in the West to the Refom party as well as suburban and commuter belt areas to the Liberals.
Shropshire North is like Christchurch, a LD by election win in 1993 on an even bigger swing than North Shropshire that went Tory again in 1997
Why do you make the assumption that in the rural areas it would need a right wing party such as Reform for the Tories to lose those areas.
I would refer you to Tim Farron who sits in what should by any criteria you use be a very safe Tory - even more so than say Richmond (Yorks).
Because rightwing parties always win most rural areas across the western world and left liberal parties always win most inner city areas. Thus the only way the Tories would lose most rural areas is if a rightwing populist party overtook them like Reform beat the Canadian Tories in rural areas in 1993 or Le Pen beat Fillon in rural areas in round 1 of the French 2017 presidential election.
Tim Farron was virtually the only non Tory MP in rural England in 2019, using him as an example is about as useful as saying the Tories won Cities of London and Westminster and Chelsea and Fulham in 2019 and therefore could sweep inner London next time!
Besides you nobody on this site even cares that Reform UK exists. You keep boostering them, and its quite self-evident that you'd rather vote for them than the Tories, but nobody else is doing so.
The Lib Dems have a record of success in the past even in rural seats, in 2010 the Lib Dems won many rural seats yet there has never been a Reform MP elected. Its beyond a joke to hold them up as serious.
No, it is you who voted for Farage in 2019 not me, I still voted Tory. The point was just the only way the Tories would lose most rural seats would be to a populist right of centre party like ReformUK.
Remember in the 2019 European elections when you voted Brexit Party and I voted Tory, most rural constituencies voted for the Brexit Party. Even in 1997 or 2005 or 2010 most rural constituencies still voted Tory not LD however
The 2019 European Elections were not a real election. They weren't a vote for Westminster. It was not a vote to send Farage or anyone else to Parliament since it wasn't a vote for Parliament. Casting a protest vote in them was entirely reasonable which is why I was in the 92% of voters who did not vote for the Tories in that election. That you were in the 8% who did is not something to feel smug about.
Casting a protest vote in the 2019 European Elections was no more a serious vote for Westminster than voting for Ed Balls doing Gangnam Style was a vote for making him Chancellor of the Exchequer.
It was a national election and that does not change the fact the only time the Tories have ever lost a majority of rural constituencies was to the Brexit Party in the 2019 European elections or UKIP in the 2014 European elections ie on both occasions to parties to their right.
The Liberal Democrats have never won a majority of rural constituencies at a general election or in the European elections however
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
At the moment Southend West will be a straight fight between the Tories and UKIP with 1 independent Freedom Party candidate too.
Some of the Southend W wards used to be Liberal territory in my younger days. Some of the areas, though were rock-solid all-my-life-and-my-father-before-me Conservative. I went to school in the area and I didn't find many agreeing with me in political discussions in the VIth.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
In case of Jo Cox, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Green Party all declined to contest the election, as a mark of respect.
Yet that didn't happen for the late Mr Neave's seat. The logical difference escapes me. Have we collectively become a bunch of emotion-junkie wimps?
It is a strange argument that the way to respond to an attack on democracy is to suspend it.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
They should have gone for somebody more impartial like Prince Andrew....
Mrs P and I watched the Queen's speech on Christmas Day for the first time in years (mainly I admit because we thought it might be her last).
It was noticeable that Andrew was the only royal not to feature.
I don't think Prince Harry got a mention did he? I wasn't watching or listening closely, so he might have done, but I remember picking up very clear mentions of Willian and Kate doing great work about something or other, expecting Harry name to be mentioned next on the list and I don't think it came.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
At the moment Southend West will be a straight fight between the Tories and UKIP with 1 independent Freedom Party candidate too.
Some of the Southend W wards used to be Liberal territory in my younger days. Some of the areas, though were rock-solid all-my-life-and-my-father-before-me Conservative. I went to school in the area and I didn't find many agreeing with me in political discussions in the VIth.
If it is a straight Tory v UKIP battle, the more liberal areas may end up voting Tory while some of the more conservative areas cast a UKIP protest vote
I know this was discussed on here a few days ago but was a conclusion reached about whether the covid case numbers are inflated at all by mutiple positive tests by the same individual being recorded as multiple cases?
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
That is bringing the party list principle into a pure FPTP system where the voter elects the person, does it not?
It's surely for the voter to decide how to respond to the murder.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...the comment about taking a long time and miracle it even runs (after 2 years of this) doesn't sound like systems have been modernised, more sticking plasters.
I know this was discussed on here a few days ago but was a conclusion reached about whether the covid case numbers are inflated at all by mutiple positive tests by the same individual being recorded as multiple cases?
They attempt to filter them out, using correlation of data, as I understand it. This is, like much of the data quality, an ongoing process.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
Normal democracy is resumed soon enough when general election comes, meanwhile does it not feel distasteful to you for usual yah boo party politics in seat to change hands mid term after an assassination?
Anything other than assassination I would agree with you. But medical death and assassination not same thing to me, like you lumped them together.
Govern in a good way that deserves re-election. Reconnect to the liberal Conservative principles that Boris campaigned on in 2019 that got the majority and reconnect to those voters.
Do that and I could back them again. Fail to do so and I'll probably vote for the Lib Dems in 2024.
I would like you to stop rewriting history to suit yourself.
Johnson campaigned on Brexit. If his message had been 'vote for me and get yourself a boatload of small state and social liberalism' there'd have been no majority.
Even if there were some nice liberal words uttered by Boris, the inexcusably illiberal actions taken by his government, before and after 2019 election, renders such analysis risible.
Men truly manifest themselves in the long patterns of their acts, and not in any nutshell of self-theory. or, simply Actions speak louder than words
How does that render it risible? You're merely reaffirming my own point!
The illiberal actions post 2019 election are precisely why I've stopped supporting him.
Stop being illiberal, get back to what was being said and start putting actions behind the words and I'll happily support him again despite this midterm wobble.
Continue down this path of illiberalism and I'll hold my nose and vote for Ed Davey's party.
I think you probably missed "before" and "before and after [the] 2019 election".
I tend to take people at their word until such a point they have demonstrated the opposite through their actions.
I read the before but was a bit confused about it, considering this Government was only formed in July 2019 and the death of the 2017-19 Parliament was almost entirely dominated by Brexit divisions. What illiberal actions were implemented between July 2019 and the election in December 2019?
Boris Johnson's government has frequently demonstrated a centralising tendency and undertaken frequent attacks any who might hold him accountable. Amongst these were the wide ranging purge of party members, the illegal prorogation of parliament, the threats against some media outlets, and the attacks on the independence of the judicial system.
All of these things done by Boris Johnson himself, and often amplified by the ministers of his government.
The man sometimes talks like a liberal, but frequently does not act like one. None of these facts is new or even controversial. Many have voiced support for these actions whilst attacking liberalism, which is fair enough although not what I want from a politician, because I'm certainly a small-l liberal. It's a little disconcerting when people illiberality under the flag of liberalism.
So nothing really then?
There was no 'radical purge' of party members. There was a three line whip on a confidence vote over Europe exactly as John Major did with the Maastricht vote in 1993. Just as Major did in 1993 and following precedent of decades, anyone who failed to vote with the Party on that confidence motion lost the whip and they were informed in advance that was going to happen too. "The bastards" all-but-one got in line in 1993 and the only one that didn't lost the whip, the same happened to 2019's "bastards" who brought the loss of the whip upon themselves.
According to the English High Court at the time there was no "illegal prorogation of Parliament", the English High Court ruled the prorogation was entirely legal and it again followed precedent. The Supreme Court invented new case law that rendered it void so Parliament was immediately recalled as a result. Nothing illiberal or shocking about that.
I don't recall any "threats" against the media or the judicial system either so can't respond to those. It seems to me we have a vigorous media and the judicial systems independence clearly still exists which is why the Supreme Court was able to invent new rules to render the prorogation void.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that the Divisional Court in England concluded that the prorogation was not justiciable, not that it was "entirely legal and it again followed precedent".
In any case, the Supreme Court said it was illegal. We have separation of powers in this country and that is part of the backbone of liberalism. We should be proud of that, not attacking it. The fact that it was embarrassing and problematic for the government is a sign of it working, but we were treated for a long pattern of anger against the courts from Johnson and his acolytes over the issue. The mature thing to do when the law has found you in the wrong is to dust yourself off and try not to make the same mistake again, instead of bitching about it and having your cronies threaten to make the Supreme Court appointed like in the USA.
If you have a court making political rulings, your are going to get comments.
There was a reason that the court (rightly) gave the finger to an attempt to use Human Rights/Sex discrimination legislation to take judicial control of benefits spending. This was under the Coalition.
As a judge of my father's aquaintance pointed out, if you have the courts controlling the majority of government spending (which was the implication), then the courts would be running the country, not Parliament. And that won't end well.....
I don't really know what you're talking about with having judicial control of benefits spending, but it sounds like a wild tangent. I'm not and never have argued for that.
"Owen Jones 🌳🌹 @OwenJones84 I'm sorry but it is absolutely *ridiculous* that France is going through a bigger Omicron wave than Britain and yet has imposed travel restrictions against Britain to protect itself against Omicron. 12:48 pm · 30 Dec 2021"
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
In case of Jo Cox, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Green Party all declined to contest the election, as a mark of respect.
It's a reasonable choice for them to make. But it woukd be reasonable, and to my mind preferable, for them to choose to stand instead, with no loss of respect.
"Owen Jones 🌳🌹 @OwenJones84 I'm sorry but it is absolutely *ridiculous* that France is going through a bigger Omicron wave than Britain and yet has imposed travel restrictions against Britain to protect itself against Omicron. 12:48 pm · 30 Dec 2021"
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
The Tory candidate in Eastbourne made that exact point. The voters begged to differ.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
That is bringing the party list principle into a pure FPTP system where the voter elects the person, does it not?
It's surely for the voter to decide how to respond to the murder.
Not party list principle, just a principle about how to respond to murders.
Parties should be entitled to stand if they wish to do so, as UKIP are doing. But parties declining to do so out of respect, is the right thing to do.
Politically motivated murders should not be rewarded by replacing a victim with an MP from a party the murderer might have preferred. To go down that path increases the risk of more such murders to all MPs so its also self-preservation and quite right for all MPs and all politicians to set aside their yah-boo differences for politically-motivated murder by-elections.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
None of the three cases - Eastbourne, Batley, or Southend - involved killers who had any interest whatsoever in the outcome of the subsequent by-election.
These were murders by extremist Irish republicans, a lone maniac on the far right and (if reports are correct although trial to come) a religiously motivated terrorist. The one thing all of those have in common is hatred of the democratic process per se - indeed, arguably a vibrant, contested democratic election is the best possible answer to that.
Coronavirus situation in Germany likely more alarming then estimated.
"Significant underreporting" over the Christmas and New Year holidays could have distorted current number of coronavirus cases, explained Health Minister Karl Lauterbach on Wednesday.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...
Sigh. A cheap comment.
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
At the moment Southend West will be a straight fight between the Tories and UKIP with 1 independent Freedom Party candidate too.
Some of the Southend W wards used to be Liberal territory in my younger days. Some of the areas, though were rock-solid all-my-life-and-my-father-before-me Conservative. I went to school in the area and I didn't find many agreeing with me in political discussions in the VIth.
This is a news report from Southend West during the 1987 election campaign that I stumbled across recently.
No could about it, 6 days worth of deaths will be around 800 form England alone, plus whatever we have from the other three nations in the UK, potentially over 1,000 deaths reported today. Expect major panic.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
In case of Jo Cox, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Green Party all declined to contest the election, as a mark of respect.
I know... and I think they were all wrong, and did at the time.
NHS England have reported 365 new Covid hospital deaths over the period 25-30th Dec.. These I think will be added to today's 4pm http://gov.uk number so I expect lots of noise on here about the high death number.
It's very difficult and the times and mood about these things have changed.
There were those in 1990 who considered it distasteful for the Eastbourne by-election to be contested after the murder of Ian Gow. However, the sense then was it would have been a negation of the very democracy the IRA sought to undermine to have an uncontested election.
The murder of Jo Cox, in the street, public, blatant, was no less horrible and no less worthy of outright condemnation yet it felt different - perhaps because it took place in such a febrile atmosphere whereas Gow was killed two days before the Iraq invasion of Kuwait but in a much calmer domestic mood.
Perhaps there was just that sense the emotions produced by the Referendum had in some small way contributed to the event (I'm speculating). I could understand the unwillingness of the Conservative, LD and other parties not to contest the resulting by-election but I didn't think then it was right and I don't think opting out of contesting Southend West is right.
One option would have been to have names on the ballot paper but no campaign - simply a vote on the day. Yet how does that respect democracy? Democracy is about the electoral process - the campaigning, the cut and thrust, the contact with the electorate on the doorstep, in the street, at the hustings if you will.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
‘ No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands. “
I agree with Bart.
Two MP assassinations in recent years, the political establishment have to ask, what is normal, is this the new normal, how to stop it becoming a trend.
As well as the principle Bart neatly summed up, dialling down on division and hype seems sensible too, where can be applied within democracy.
NHS England have reported 365 new Covid hospital deaths over the period 25-30th Dec.. These I think will be added to today's 4pm http://gov.uk number so I expect lots of noise on here about the high death number.
That's a lot lower than I expected, like way, way lower. Tomorrow's figure could be pretty big because it will be the first proper working day being backfilled.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...
Sigh. A cheap comment.
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
I was only (half) joking. But it clearly is sticking plasters because of the state of a lot of this.
On a more serious note, I am aware that Patrick Vallance in particular has raised this issue of the data collection and processing, not just for testing, but much wider issues across the government / civil service. He is pushing for large scale modernisation programme as an essential next step forward.
I know they wanted the assistance of the likes of machine learning types and they said fine, just send me the data in consistent format containing x,y and z, and basically the couldn't.
NHS England have reported 365 new Covid hospital deaths over the period 25-30th Dec.. These I think will be added to today's 4pm http://gov.uk number so I expect lots of noise on here about the high death number.
Govern in a good way that deserves re-election. Reconnect to the liberal Conservative principles that Boris campaigned on in 2019 that got the majority and reconnect to those voters.
Do that and I could back them again. Fail to do so and I'll probably vote for the Lib Dems in 2024.
Looking at the 2019 Conservative manifesto, it is remarkable that essentially none of it has been implemented. There are several broken promises on no NI increases, East Midlands rail hub, Northern Powerhouse and no progress on levelling up, investment in science etc. Even the "Get Brexit Done", a slogan not a policy, is questionable. Why are government officials banned from mentioning it if it's "done".
Of course a pandemic got in the way. Remarkable though.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
At the moment Southend West will be a straight fight between the Tories and UKIP with 1 independent Freedom Party candidate too.
Some of the Southend W wards used to be Liberal territory in my younger days. Some of the areas, though were rock-solid all-my-life-and-my-father-before-me Conservative. I went to school in the area and I didn't find many agreeing with me in political discussions in the VIth.
If it is a straight Tory v UKIP battle, the more liberal areas may end up voting Tory while some of the more conservative areas cast a UKIP protest vote
Agree, although as I know nothing of the new Tory candidate I don't know if she'd repel Left of Centre voters, as a Johnsonite would. Eldest Grandson and his wife live in the constituency; I shall get to have a look at the Tory literature.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
None of the three cases - Eastbourne, Batley, or Southend - involved killers who had any interest whatsoever in the outcome of the subsequent by-election.
These were murders by extremist Irish republicans, a lone maniac on the far right and (if reports are correct although trial to come) a religiously motivated terrorist. The one thing all of those have in common is hatred of the democratic process per se - indeed, arguably a vibrant, contested democratic election is the best possible answer to that.
It also works both ways of course. If the party gets to keep the constituency even when one of its MPs is assassinated, then what would have prevented, say, Boris bumping off a load of Remainer Tories to replace them with hardcore Leavers and get Brexit done? A constituency's MP should be solely in the hands of the voters.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
That is bringing the party list principle into a pure FPTP system where the voter elects the person, does it not?
It's surely for the voter to decide how to respond to the murder.
Not party list principle, just a principle about how to respond to murders.
Parties should be entitled to stand if they wish to do so, as UKIP are doing. But parties declining to do so out of respect, is the right thing to do.
Politically motivated murders should not be rewarded by replacing a victim with an MP from a party the murderer might have preferred. To go down that path increases the risk of more such murders to all MPs so its also self-preservation and quite right for all MPs and all politicians to set aside their yah-boo differences for politically-motivated murder by-elections.
But we don't elect parties for Westminster seats. We elect individuals. Your argument is a corruption of the system.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...
Sigh. A cheap comment.
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
I remember a brief sojourn I had at a major telecommunications company who had some of the worst data processes I ever saw in my entire career to date. Basically every individual was like a living database, so X runs process and sends data that Y uses, then Y runs process and sends data that Z uses, etc...
Some of these processes were so complex they were set up to run overnight, so you just left the computer on and hoped it ran.
When it inevitably failed, rerunning it took most of the day, which meant everyone else's processes were even more delayed.
Very quickly you got to the stage where if anything failed and you couldn't get it recovered that day, you could never recover at all as you couldn't catch up. If it failed over a bank holiday weekend it was a complete disaster.
Total nightmare, stuck it out 9 months before going back to my previous job where at least the databases were updated in a reliable way leaving me to actually analyse the data rather than simply be a cog in the wheel producing it...
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...
Sigh. A cheap comment.
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
I was only (half) joking. But it clearly is sticking plasters because of the state of a lot of this.
On a more serious note, I am aware that Patrick Vallance in particular has raised this issue of the data collection and processing, not just for testing, but much wider issues across the government / civil service. He is pushing for large scale modernisation programme as an essential next step forward.
Yes.
The hope is that the idiots trying for a Universal Data Collection Format for everything in government are quietly drowned in the North Sea. Since this would make the NHS IT project look like a shining beacon....
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
That is bringing the party list principle into a pure FPTP system where the voter elects the person, does it not?
It's surely for the voter to decide how to respond to the murder.
Not party list principle, just a principle about how to respond to murders.
Parties should be entitled to stand if they wish to do so, as UKIP are doing. But parties declining to do so out of respect, is the right thing to do.
Politically motivated murders should not be rewarded by replacing a victim with an MP from a party the murderer might have preferred. To go down that path increases the risk of more such murders to all MPs so its also self-preservation and quite right for all MPs and all politicians to set aside their yah-boo differences for politically-motivated murder by-elections.
But we don't elect parties for Westminster seats. We elect individuals. Your argument is a corruption of the system.
In normal circumstances I completely agree with you.
But MPs getting murdered is already a corruption of the system. Ensuring such a corruption isn't "rewarded" and encouraged to happen more often is entirely appropriate and a form of self-preservation for the lives of all politicians of all parties.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
At the moment Southend West will be a straight fight between the Tories and UKIP with 1 independent Freedom Party candidate too.
Some of the Southend W wards used to be Liberal territory in my younger days. Some of the areas, though were rock-solid all-my-life-and-my-father-before-me Conservative. I went to school in the area and I didn't find many agreeing with me in political discussions in the VIth.
If it is a straight Tory v UKIP battle, the more liberal areas may end up voting Tory while some of the more conservative areas cast a UKIP protest vote
Agree, although as I know nothing of the new Tory candidate I don't know if she'd repel Left of Centre voters, as a Johnsonite would. Eldest Grandson and his wife live in the constituency; I shall get to have a look at the Tory literature.
The Tory candidate hoping to hold off UKIP in Southend is Anna Firth, a barrister and Sevenoaks District Councillor who fought Canterbury in 2019.
Govern in a good way that deserves re-election. Reconnect to the liberal Conservative principles that Boris campaigned on in 2019 that got the majority and reconnect to those voters.
Do that and I could back them again. Fail to do so and I'll probably vote for the Lib Dems in 2024.
Looking at the 2019 Conservative manifesto, it is remarkable that essentially none of it has been implemented. There are several broken promises on no NI increases, East Midlands rail hub, Northern Powerhouse and no progress on levelling up, investment in science etc. Even the "Get Brexit Done", a slogan not a policy, is questionable. Why are government officials banned from mentioning it if it's "done".
Of course a pandemic got in the way. Remarkable though.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
None of the three cases - Eastbourne, Batley, or Southend - involved killers who had any interest whatsoever in the outcome of the subsequent by-election.
These were murders by extremist Irish republicans, a lone maniac on the far right and (if reports are correct although trial to come) a religiously motivated terrorist. The one thing all of those have in common is hatred of the democratic process per se - indeed, arguably a vibrant, contested democratic election is the best possible answer to that.
You acknowledge the difference between a mid term by election and GE day? You think it would actually be proper democratic process, not two fingers to Liar Boris.
If the seat changes hands, the Ames supporters have been defrauded by the violence, not beaten by honest democracy. The terrorist will have won.
Back to the original comment, Mikes I agree was the self interest of libdems losing momentum. Sometimes there are more valued causes than self interest.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
That is bringing the party list principle into a pure FPTP system where the voter elects the person, does it not?
It's surely for the voter to decide how to respond to the murder.
Not party list principle, just a principle about how to respond to murders.
Parties should be entitled to stand if they wish to do so, as UKIP are doing. But parties declining to do so out of respect, is the right thing to do.
Politically motivated murders should not be rewarded by replacing a victim with an MP from a party the murderer might have preferred. To go down that path increases the risk of more such murders to all MPs so its also self-preservation and quite right for all MPs and all politicians to set aside their yah-boo differences for politically-motivated murder by-elections.
But we don't elect parties for Westminster seats. We elect individuals. Your argument is a corruption of the system.
In normal circumstances I completely agree with you.
But MPs getting murdered is already a corruption of the system. Ensuring such a corruption isn't "rewarded" and encouraged to happen more often is entirely appropriate and a form of self-preservation for the lives of all politicians of all parties.
I don't understand your argument that having a contested election to replace an MP who has been murdered "rewards" a killer whose motivations are anti-democratic.
You state it as some kind of revealed truth that needs no justification. But it doesn't make sense.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...the comment about taking a long time and miracle it even runs (after 2 years of this) doesn't sound like systems have been modernised, more sticking plasters.
What cyber security conscious organisation runs public facing data on Excel!??? Chr%st on a bike. This is amateur hour at the circus.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...
Sigh. A cheap comment.
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
I remember a brief sojourn I had at a major telecommunications company who had some of the worst data processes I ever saw in my entire career to date. Basically every individual was like a living database, so X runs process and sends data that Y uses, then Y runs process and sends data that Z uses, etc...
Some of these processes were so complex they were set up to run overnight, so you just left the computer on and hoped it ran.
When it inevitably failed, rerunning it took most of the day, which meant everyone else's processes were even more delayed.
Very quickly you got to the stage where if anything failed and you couldn't get it recovered that day, you could never recover at all as you couldn't catch up. If it failed over a bank holiday weekend it was a complete disaster.
Total nightmare, stuck it out 9 months before going back to my previous job where at least the databases were updated in a reliable way leaving me to actually analyse the data rather than simply be a cog in the wheel producing it...
It is everywhere.
Look at those towers in Canary Wharf.
In many of them, a third of the building is occupied (if they aren't working from home) by people who spend their days reconciling data from one system to another. In a number of places it is more.
I am currently working on a system that removes nearly all human input from such flows. It automatically checks the data in a number of ways (and adding rules is simple), and generates reports on anything questionable, with levels of flagging. When we ran it on the historical data set, we were finding issues and mistakes going back decades. Not to mention more... interesting issues.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...
Sigh. A cheap comment.
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
I was only (half) joking. But it clearly is sticking plasters because of the state of a lot of this.
On a more serious note, I am aware that Patrick Vallance in particular has raised this issue of the data collection and processing, not just for testing, but much wider issues across the government / civil service. He is pushing for large scale modernisation programme as an essential next step forward.
Yes.
The hope is that the idiots trying for a Universal Data Collection Format for everything in government are quietly drowned in the North Sea. Since this would make the NHS IT project look like a shining beacon....
A one sized fits all approach across totally unrelated sectors sounds a terrible idea, but there must be a way of moving things to a systems / procedures in which people aren't having to write loads of different transformation scripts just to ingest the similar data.
And it certainly shouldn't be anywhere near being Excel based.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
That is bringing the party list principle into a pure FPTP system where the voter elects the person, does it not?
It's surely for the voter to decide how to respond to the murder.
Not party list principle, just a principle about how to respond to murders.
Parties should be entitled to stand if they wish to do so, as UKIP are doing. But parties declining to do so out of respect, is the right thing to do.
Politically motivated murders should not be rewarded by replacing a victim with an MP from a party the murderer might have preferred. To go down that path increases the risk of more such murders to all MPs so its also self-preservation and quite right for all MPs and all politicians to set aside their yah-boo differences for politically-motivated murder by-elections.
But we don't elect parties for Westminster seats. We elect individuals. Your argument is a corruption of the system.
In normal circumstances I completely agree with you.
But MPs getting murdered is already a corruption of the system. Ensuring such a corruption isn't "rewarded" and encouraged to happen more often is entirely appropriate and a form of self-preservation for the lives of all politicians of all parties.
So what? One might as well shut down elections and surgeries completely. The core fact is that individuals are elected, not parties.
When a MP crosses the floor the seat doesnt' fall vacant, does it?
Politically motivated murders should not be rewarded by replacing a victim with an MP from a party the murderer might have preferred. To go down that path increases the risk of more such murders to all MPs so its also self-preservation and quite right for all MPs and all politicians to set aside their yah-boo differences for politically-motivated murder by-elections.
This would be a good argument if it seemed plausible that politically motivated murders were being committed in order to reduce a government's majority from 80 to 78, or whatever the figures might be. That doesn't seem to me to be the motivation at all, which I judge to be more along the lines of "grab media headlines", "try to scare other MPs into changing policy or not speaking out on an issue", "result of mental illness", and so on.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
At the moment Southend West will be a straight fight between the Tories and UKIP with 1 independent Freedom Party candidate too.
Some of the Southend W wards used to be Liberal territory in my younger days. Some of the areas, though were rock-solid all-my-life-and-my-father-before-me Conservative. I went to school in the area and I didn't find many agreeing with me in political discussions in the VIth.
If it is a straight Tory v UKIP battle, the more liberal areas may end up voting Tory while some of the more conservative areas cast a UKIP protest vote
Agree, although as I know nothing of the new Tory candidate I don't know if she'd repel Left of Centre voters, as a Johnsonite would. Eldest Grandson and his wife live in the constituency; I shall get to have a look at the Tory literature.
The Tory candidate hoping to hold off UKIP in Southend is Anna Firth, a barrister and Sevenoaks District Councillor who fought Canterbury in 2019.
''hoping to hold off''' is an interesting choice of phrase here...
What are the principal threats and opportunities facing Johnson's premiership in 2022?
I was thinking:
Opportunities: 1. Omicron might be the effective end of Covid, if mild and it becomes ubiquitous... 2. ...in which case the decision not to increase restrictions further could look inspired. 3. Having survived the Q4 scandals there might be a quiet period with no fresh scandals. 4. If a leadership challenge comes Johnson could see it off with votes to spare, so deferring any further challenge to 2023 at the earliest. 5. Some foreign event leads to a 'rally to the flag' boost for Johnson (I'm thinking Ukraine, but hopefully not).
Threats: 1. Omicron proves very nasty and Johnson's decision to avoid further restrictions looks misguided at best. 2. Further Covid variants extend the misery throughout 2022. 3. Energy price rises hit consumers hard. 4. Supply issues come to the fore as the new EU trade regimes kicks in. 5. The NI rises land badly with the public. 6. Further hitherto unrevealed Johnson scandals emerge. 7. Major financial crash sparked by Evergreen/Ukraine/something else. 8. Tory MPs don't recover their faith in Johnson as a winner after an extended period of bad polls.
I am sure there are others on both sides of the account. Thoughts anyone?
Happily on topic 😁. Really Nice header. Lib Dems with mojo and Jade with 100% record at political bets after taking derision when first put the bet on.
It was never in doubt in my mind 👍🏻 Like who’d vote Boris ever again? All the everyday people, most brainy people, and idiot anti vaxxers all say he’s a liar. So that’s everyone then.
Interesting day all part of things I listed out to do this week. Went up on moor to show my other half the spot where I posed naked on a cross for an art class. Couldn’t be sure of exact spot, I remembered it felt like the highest spot on ganderhill but couldn’t decide what it was today. It’s Christmas drizzly and windy but totally maffin now than Sunday in May few years ago when I did it, very grey and sleet on the ground that day, I was freezing even before taking my duffel coat and jeans off.
I explained I couldn’t hold my arms up long they were really hurting, the heather not good to dance through in bare foot. And like grouse humming in laughing way at me on wind. we listened for some and couldn’t hear them. I don’t know why, I thought she’d be more interested in my wacky money making past adventures. She said that was mad, and you are still just as mad, in her poshest private girls school accent. Then we came back down to car and got some groceries. 🤷♀️
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
None of the three cases - Eastbourne, Batley, or Southend - involved killers who had any interest whatsoever in the outcome of the subsequent by-election.
These were murders by extremist Irish republicans, a lone maniac on the far right and (if reports are correct although trial to come) a religiously motivated terrorist. The one thing all of those have in common is hatred of the democratic process per se - indeed, arguably a vibrant, contested democratic election is the best possible answer to that.
You acknowledge the difference between a mid term by election and GE day? You think it would actually be proper democratic process, not two fingers to Liar Boris.
If the seat changes hands, the Ames supporters have been defrauded by the violence, not beaten by honest democracy. The terrorist will have won.
No they aren't. People voted for David Amess to be their Conservative MP in 2019. That, tragically, is no longer an option. But the murder itself deprives them of it, not the subsequent by-election. At the subsequent by-election, they can stick with the Conservatives (with a different candidate who may not be to their taste as Mr Amess was) or choose another option - that's simply democracy.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
At the moment Southend West will be a straight fight between the Tories and UKIP with 1 independent Freedom Party candidate too.
Some of the Southend W wards used to be Liberal territory in my younger days. Some of the areas, though were rock-solid all-my-life-and-my-father-before-me Conservative. I went to school in the area and I didn't find many agreeing with me in political discussions in the VIth.
This is a news report from Southend West during the 1987 election campaign that I stumbled across recently.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...the comment about taking a long time and miracle it even runs (after 2 years of this) doesn't sound like systems have been modernised, more sticking plasters.
What cyber security conscious organisation runs public facing data on Excel!??? Chr%st on a bike. This is amateur hour at the circus.
Some public organisations will not connect to another organisations systems under any circumstances (empire threat) and will only provide data as an exported CSV or Excel file.
This isn't the problem with the data for the dashboard, largely.
What they are doing is data reconciliation on a vast mass of data, much of it never to be seen (personal information).
So they are given a torrent of raw data on vaccinations. Some of it is duplicated, some is entered wrong etc etc.
What we see at the end is a small part of the underlying data set that is cleared for release.
What are the principal threats and opportunities facing Johnson's premiership in 2022?
I was thinking:
Opportunities: 1. Omicron might be the effective end of Covid, if mild and it becomes ubiquitous... 2. ...in which case the decision not to increase restrictions further could look inspired. 3. Having survived the Q4 scandals there might be a quiet period with no fresh scandals. 4. If a leadership challenge comes Johnson could see it off with votes to spare, so deferring any further challenge to 2023 at the earliest. 5. Some foreign event leads to a 'rally to the flag' boost for Johnson (I'm thinking Ukraine, but hopefully not).
Threats: 1. Omicron proves very nasty and Johnson's decision to avoid further restrictions looks misguided at best. 2. Further Covid variants extend the misery throughout 2022. 3. Energy price rises hit consumers hard. 4. Supply issues come to the fore as the new EU trade regimes kicks in. 5. The NI rises land badly with the public. 6. Further hitherto unrevealed Johnson scandals emerge. 7. Major financial crash sparked by Evergreen/Ukraine/something else. 8. Tory MPs don't recover their faith in Johnson as a winner after an extended period of bad polls.
I am sure there are others on both sides of the account. Thoughts anyone?
He gets bored with the job, and wants to spend more time with his family.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...
Sigh. A cheap comment.
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
I remember a brief sojourn I had at a major telecommunications company who had some of the worst data processes I ever saw in my entire career to date. Basically every individual was like a living database, so X runs process and sends data that Y uses, then Y runs process and sends data that Z uses, etc...
Some of these processes were so complex they were set up to run overnight, so you just left the computer on and hoped it ran.
When it inevitably failed, rerunning it took most of the day, which meant everyone else's processes were even more delayed.
Very quickly you got to the stage where if anything failed and you couldn't get it recovered that day, you could never recover at all as you couldn't catch up. If it failed over a bank holiday weekend it was a complete disaster.
Total nightmare, stuck it out 9 months before going back to my previous job where at least the databases were updated in a reliable way leaving me to actually analyse the data rather than simply be a cog in the wheel producing it...
It is everywhere.
Look at those towers in Canary Wharf.
In many of them, a third of the building is occupied (if they aren't working from home) by people who spend their days reconciling data from one system to another. In a number of places it is more.
I am currently working on a system that removes nearly all human input from such flows. It automatically checks the data in a number of ways (and adding rules is simple), and generates reports on anything questionable, with levels of flagging. When we ran it on the historical data set, we were finding issues and mistakes going back decades. Not to mention more... interesting issues.
Could you not just mention the more... interesting issues but actually dish the dirt?
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
None of the three cases - Eastbourne, Batley, or Southend - involved killers who had any interest whatsoever in the outcome of the subsequent by-election.
These were murders by extremist Irish republicans, a lone maniac on the far right and (if reports are correct although trial to come) a religiously motivated terrorist. The one thing all of those have in common is hatred of the democratic process per se - indeed, arguably a vibrant, contested democratic election is the best possible answer to that.
You acknowledge the difference between a mid term by election and GE day? You think it would actually be proper democratic process, not two fingers to Liar Boris.
If the seat changes hands, the Ames supporters have been defrauded by the violence, not beaten by honest democracy. The terrorist will have won.
No they aren't. People voted for David Amess to be their Conservative MP in 2019. That, tragically, is no longer an option. But the murder itself deprives them of it, not the subsequent by-election. At the subsequent by-election, they can stick with the Conservatives (with a different candidate who may not be to their taste as Mr Amess was) or choose another option - that's simply democracy.
More precisely, their MP (there not being a Totnes-style primary, of course) whose Conservative candidacy was no doubt important but not the primary qualification: the primary qualification is that he was a sane non-bankrupt person etc.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...the comment about taking a long time and miracle it even runs (after 2 years of this) doesn't sound like systems have been modernised, more sticking plasters.
What cyber security conscious organisation runs public facing data on Excel!??? Chr%st on a bike. This is amateur hour at the circus.
Are you talking about Excel the file format, Excel the windows program or Excel the online version?
In all cases the security issue isn't really in Excel unless you are allowing VBA macros to be run at which point you've completely lost the battle.
Lib Dems have got their mojo back. Only a Lib Dem would utter a phrase like that.
The LDs will only gain about 10 seats in the next GE IMO, especially if voters think they will support a Lab Government
The Tories will be toxic waste by the next GE. So I think we can say that anti Tory tactical voting will be a big thing next time out. The last time that happened was 1997. Lib Dems benefit strongly from anti Tory swings, and actually they are surprisingly rare, but now odds on next time.
What are the principal threats and opportunities facing Johnson's premiership in 2022?
I was thinking:
Opportunities: 1. Omicron might be the effective end of Covid, if mild and it becomes ubiquitous... 2. ...in which case the decision not to increase restrictions further could look inspired. 3. Having survived the Q4 scandals there might be a quiet period with no fresh scandals. 4. If a leadership challenge comes Johnson could see it off with votes to spare, so deferring any further challenge to 2023 at the earliest. 5. Some foreign event leads to a 'rally to the flag' boost for Johnson (I'm thinking Ukraine, but hopefully not).
Threats: 1. Omicron proves very nasty and Johnson's decision to avoid further restrictions looks misguided at best. 2. Further Covid variants extend the misery throughout 2022. 3. Energy price rises hit consumers hard. 4. Supply issues come to the fore as the new EU trade regimes kicks in. 5. The NI rises land badly with the public. 6. Further hitherto unrevealed Johnson scandals emerge. 7. Major financial crash sparked by Evergreen/Ukraine/something else. 8. Tory MPs don't recover their faith in Johnson as a winner after an extended period of bad polls.
I am sure there are others on both sides of the account. Thoughts anyone?
He gets bored with the job, and wants to spend more time with his family.
Good one. There's also the not inconsiderable possibility of a genuine long-covid issue.
The Tories think the rural vote is in the bag no matter what they do, just like Labour used to think about the urban poor in Scotland
Labour still win the urban poor in England and Wales and won the inner cities there even in 2019. The only reason they lost it in Scotland was the SNP overtook them on the populist left, same as the only reason the Tories would lose rural areas in England is if another party overtook them on the populist right like ReformUK.
For example they would need to be annihilated like the Canadian Tories were in 1993 when they lost rural areas in the West to the Refom party as well as suburban and commuter belt areas to the Liberals.
Shropshire North is like Christchurch, a LD by election win in 1993 on an even bigger swing than North Shropshire that went Tory again in 1997
You’re citing the 1997 election as precedent for the Tories?
An operation to remove the masts from a sunken cargo ship in the River Thames, containing 1,400 tonnes of unstable explosives onboard, will involve Royal Navy specialists.
It is believed that if the unexploded ordnance on the SS Richard Montgomery were triggered it could lead to the nearby oil and gas facilities in Sheerness being damaged, the Daily Telegraph reports.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
At the moment Southend West will be a straight fight between the Tories and UKIP with 1 independent Freedom Party candidate too.
Some of the Southend W wards used to be Liberal territory in my younger days. Some of the areas, though were rock-solid all-my-life-and-my-father-before-me Conservative. I went to school in the area and I didn't find many agreeing with me in political discussions in the VIth.
If it is a straight Tory v UKIP battle, the more liberal areas may end up voting Tory while some of the more conservative areas cast a UKIP protest vote
Agree, although as I know nothing of the new Tory candidate I don't know if she'd repel Left of Centre voters, as a Johnsonite would. Eldest Grandson and his wife live in the constituency; I shall get to have a look at the Tory literature.
The Tory candidate hoping to hold off UKIP in Southend is Anna Firth, a barrister and Sevenoaks District Councillor who fought Canterbury in 2019.
''hoping to hold off''' is an interesting choice of phrase here...
Runner-up to Rosie Duffield in Canterbury last time, I see. From Sevenoaks, after the Association said they wanted someone local. You, Mr HYUFD, didn't put your name forward, did you?
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
‘ No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands. “
I agree with Bart.
Two MP assassinations in recent years, the political establishment have to ask, what is normal, is this the new normal, how to stop it becoming a trend.
As well as the principle Bart neatly summed up, dialling down on division and hype seems sensible too, where can be applied within democracy.
These weren't politically motivated. We all run the risk of being murdered by terrorists. Murdering an MP is aa dreadful thing to do, but it is on exactly the same moral level as murdering anybody else.
Handing it to the existing party, is the one set up which permits the murderer to know in advance the electoral outcome of his act.
Happily on topic 😁. Really Nice header. Lib Dems with mojo and Jade with 100% record at political bets after taking derision when first put the bet on.
It was never in doubt in my mind 👍🏻 Like who’d vote Boris ever again? All the everyday people, most brainy people, and idiot anti vaxxers all say he’s a liar. So that’s everyone then.
Interesting day all part of things I listed out to do this week. Went up on moor to show my other half the spot where I posed naked on a cross for an art class. Couldn’t be sure of exact spot, I remembered it felt like the highest spot on ganderhill but couldn’t decide what it was today. It’s Christmas drizzly and windy but totally maffin now than Sunday in May few years ago when I did it, very grey and sleet on the ground that day, I was freezing even before taking my duffel coat and jeans off.
I explained I couldn’t hold my arms up long they were really hurting, the heather not good to dance through in bare foot. And like grouse humming in laughing way at me on wind. we listened for some and couldn’t hear them. I don’t know why, I thought she’d be more interested in my wacky money making past adventures. She said that was mad, and you are still just as mad, in her poshest private girls school accent. Then we came back down to car and got some groceries. 🤷♀️
Well that fucks May off with her field of wheat!
LOL.! She might have chose better weather!
But I got nine hundred pounds and bought some right expensive boots! Nine hundred pounds when you are just eighteen! I was chuffed with it. I had more money than anyone. didn’t tell my dad or mum till over a year though. They thought I’d stayed out for a pyjama party, which wasn’t quite a Boris level lie 😉
No could about it, 6 days worth of deaths will be around 800 form England alone, plus whatever we have from the other three nations in the UK, potentially over 1,000 deaths reported today. Expect major panic.
Presumably flagged as strongly as possible as 'includes backdated data'.
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...
Sigh. A cheap comment.
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
I was only (half) joking. But it clearly is sticking plasters because of the state of a lot of this.
On a more serious note, I am aware that Patrick Vallance in particular has raised this issue of the data collection and processing, not just for testing, but much wider issues across the government / civil service. He is pushing for large scale modernisation programme as an essential next step forward.
Yes.
The hope is that the idiots trying for a Universal Data Collection Format for everything in government are quietly drowned in the North Sea. Since this would make the NHS IT project look like a shining beacon....
A one sized fits all approach across totally unrelated sectors sounds a terrible idea, but there must be a way of moving things to a systems / procedures in which people aren't having to write loads of different transformation scripts just to ingest the similar data.
And it certainly shouldn't be anywhere near being Excel based.
"A one sized fits all approach across totally unrelated sectors sounds a terrible idea" - have you been near government? That's how the mandarins think...
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...
Sigh. A cheap comment.
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
I remember a brief sojourn I had at a major telecommunications company who had some of the worst data processes I ever saw in my entire career to date. Basically every individual was like a living database, so X runs process and sends data that Y uses, then Y runs process and sends data that Z uses, etc...
Some of these processes were so complex they were set up to run overnight, so you just left the computer on and hoped it ran.
When it inevitably failed, rerunning it took most of the day, which meant everyone else's processes were even more delayed.
Very quickly you got to the stage where if anything failed and you couldn't get it recovered that day, you could never recover at all as you couldn't catch up. If it failed over a bank holiday weekend it was a complete disaster.
Total nightmare, stuck it out 9 months before going back to my previous job where at least the databases were updated in a reliable way leaving me to actually analyse the data rather than simply be a cog in the wheel producing it...
It is everywhere.
Look at those towers in Canary Wharf.
In many of them, a third of the building is occupied (if they aren't working from home) by people who spend their days reconciling data from one system to another. In a number of places it is more.
I am currently working on a system that removes nearly all human input from such flows. It automatically checks the data in a number of ways (and adding rules is simple), and generates reports on anything questionable, with levels of flagging. When we ran it on the historical data set, we were finding issues and mistakes going back decades. Not to mention more... interesting issues.
Could you not just mention the more... interesting issues but actually dish the dirt?
What are the principal threats and opportunities facing Johnson's premiership in 2022?
I was thinking:
Opportunities: 1. Omicron might be the effective end of Covid, if mild and it becomes ubiquitous... 2. ...in which case the decision not to increase restrictions further could look inspired. 3. Having survived the Q4 scandals there might be a quiet period with no fresh scandals. 4. If a leadership challenge comes Johnson could see it off with votes to spare, so deferring any further challenge to 2023 at the earliest. 5. Some foreign event leads to a 'rally to the flag' boost for Johnson (I'm thinking Ukraine, but hopefully not).
Threats: 1. Omicron proves very nasty and Johnson's decision to avoid further restrictions looks misguided at best. 2. Further Covid variants extend the misery throughout 2022. 3. Energy price rises hit consumers hard. 4. Supply issues come to the fore as the new EU trade regimes kicks in. 5. The NI rises land badly with the public. 6. Further hitherto unrevealed Johnson scandals emerge. 7. Major financial crash sparked by Evergreen/Ukraine/something else. 8. Tory MPs don't recover their faith in Johnson as a winner after an extended period of bad polls.
I am sure there are others on both sides of the account. Thoughts anyone?
He gets bored with the job, and wants to spend more time with his family.
Good one. There's also the not inconsiderable possibility of a genuine long-covid issue.
Being serious I strongly believe Boris seems to have had genuine long-covid issues for over a year but that doesn't seem to resulted in him stepping back
Excel spreadsheet has fallen over with the huge numbers...
Sigh. A cheap comment.
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
I was only (half) joking. But it clearly is sticking plasters because of the state of a lot of this.
On a more serious note, I am aware that Patrick Vallance in particular has raised this issue of the data collection and processing, not just for testing, but much wider issues across the government / civil service. He is pushing for large scale modernisation programme as an essential next step forward.
Yes.
The hope is that the idiots trying for a Universal Data Collection Format for everything in government are quietly drowned in the North Sea. Since this would make the NHS IT project look like a shining beacon....
A one sized fits all approach across totally unrelated sectors sounds a terrible idea, but there must be a way of moving things to a systems / procedures in which people aren't having to write loads of different transformation scripts just to ingest the similar data.
And it certainly shouldn't be anywhere near being Excel based.
"A one sized fits all approach across totally unrelated sectors sounds a terrible idea" - have you been near government? That's how the mandarins think...
I really feel there is a much simpler explanation than racism for why people, mostly those supporting teams playing in European domestic leagues, moan about Afcon. People do already moan about players getting injured playing for their country in friendlies for example, and if the timing meant players were absent for many games of the league you can be damn sure they'd moan about a European championship too.
On the media coverage around Afcon [Ian Wright] claimed: "There is no greater honour than representing your country. The coverage is completely tinged with racism.
"We played our Euros across 10 countries in the middle of a pandemic and there's no issue at all. But Cameroon, a single country hosting a tournament, is a problem.
If that is the case and they have their MOJO back they need to fight Southend West, as do Labour, otherwise their MOJO could stall amid a massive Reform Party vote. Suggest this issue is worth a thread on its won.
I agreee
I don’t agree. Assassinated when doing constituency work. It’s good manners to stand aside out of respect, and good principle not to look to gain from assassinated MP seat.
Like Eastbourne?
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen was right, and that the Lib Dems were wrong to gain Eastbourne.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
‘ No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands. “
I agree with Bart.
Two MP assassinations in recent years, the political establishment have to ask, what is normal, is this the new normal, how to stop it becoming a trend.
As well as the principle Bart neatly summed up, dialling down on division and hype seems sensible too, where can be applied within democracy.
These weren't politically motivated. We all run the risk of being murdered by terrorists. Murdering an MP is aa dreadful thing to do, but it is on exactly the same moral level as murdering anybody else.
Handing it to the existing party, is the one set up which permits the murderer to know in advance the electoral outcome of his act.
Well that kicked off an interesting debate!
I’m glad I’m on same side as party leaderships and political establishment.
Comments
Remember in the 2019 European elections when you voted Brexit Party and I voted Tory, most rural constituencies voted for the Brexit Party. Even in 1997 or 2005 or 2010 most rural constituencies still voted Tory not LD however
UKIP are fielding a candidate FWIW.
Sunday Sport. @thesundaysport
Replying to @BBCNewsPR
That's putting it mildly. It didn't even meet OUR editorial standards.
https://twitter.com/thesundaysport/status/1476574541346394114?s=20
I respect the point of view though, seems to be a question genuinely dividing intelligent decent opinion.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/treatments-for-coronavirus/
Casting a protest vote in the 2019 European Elections was no more a serious vote for Westminster than voting for Ed Balls doing Gangnam Style was a vote for making him Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I would be surprised if they don't pick up a few seats such as Wimbledon, S Cambs, Guildford at a minimum although nothing is certain.
They should stick to a realistic target of around 20 Tory held seats and not fall into the trap of trying to replicate local election/by election campaigning in the circumstances of a general election. They can win rural areas (especially in by elections, look at the Penrith 1983 by election as well which they nearly pulled off) but only on the back of large personal votes rather than national policy. We saw what happened to North Norfolk after Norman Lamb stood down in 2019 after doing well to defy gravity in 2017. Westmorland and Lonsdale is better for the Lib Dems than some of these other seats but they are still likely to lose it if Farron stands down (or is butchered in boundary changes).
I would also argue that rural seats like Orkney and Shetland and Caithness in Scotland are more vulnerable due to how unusual they are than Edinburgh West and NE Fife which are more stereotypical LD seats nowadays.
For general elections I do think they have to focus building up a long term block on the South East under FPTP (even if that means writing off most of the country) which is the only way they can build a sustainable long term presence (and cause longer term problems for the Tories).
The self isolation period for positive cases will reduce from 10 days to 7 days subject to negative lateral flow tests on day 6 & 7. This policy will apply retrospectively and takes effect tomorrow.
https://twitter.com/paulgivan/status/1476541064857239553?s=20
In any case, I do not think you are a liberal at all. I think you are a libertarian. Tell me if I'm wrong and I'll withdraw that statement, but I get the sense we're not just singing off different hymn sheets but in totally different churches.
I think the precedent set by Batley & Spen (first time around) is entirely wrong. There is no issue of "manners" here. The murders of both Jo Cox and David Amess were utterly tragic, but so were the deaths of James Brokenshire and Cheryl Gillan. But the residents in all those areas need to go on to pick a new MP, and I really don't see why they shouldn't have the usual range of choices.
There was a reason that the court (rightly) gave the finger to an attempt to use Human Rights/Sex discrimination legislation to take judicial control of benefits spending. This was under the Coalition.
As a judge of my father's aquaintance pointed out, if you have the courts controlling the majority of government spending (which was the implication), then the courts would be running the country, not Parliament. And that won't end well.....
I believe in economic and social liberalism. I don't think the government should be telling us how to spend our money or what to do in our bedrooms or in our lives. I don't care what you call that.
Stella
@RisuToInu
·
7h
Remember when Prince Charles at 35 married a 19 year old woman who he met when she was 16?
Please don’t tell me harm isn’t normalised when that wedding was televised and everyone cheered
Ultimately I think you can separate the man from the party. Amess, regrettably, is not around to contest the seat. Someone else is standing for the Conservatives. Will he or she be better than the possible alternatives who could have stood for other parties? That ought to be up to the voters to decide. If the voters think the best course of action is to replace the murdered MP with a new one from the same party, that is a noble choice but their choice.
The Liberal Democrats have never won a majority of rural constituencies at a general election or in the European elections however
It was noticeable that Andrew was the only royal not to feature.
Yes the deaths of Brokenshire and Gillan were tragic, but they were also natural. Seeking a replacement by following natural processes is reasonable.
The deaths or Cox and Amess are different, they were unnatural. They were politically motivated murders. If people who dislike a party can go around killing that parties MPs and seeking the MPs seat change hands as a result then that is leading us down a very dark path.
No politically motivated murder should ever be rewarded by the seat changing hands.
Colleagues are working hard to resolve the issue, but they had to restart a process which takes a few hours for it to run.
PS: Some processes take a long time to run. It is a miracle that we get them to run seamlessly on most days (90% of the time).
https://twitter.com/Pouriaaa/status/1476578149370671111?s=20
And a possible source:
We had a data dump from NHSE today for deaths from 24 December. So it's 6 days worth of data. These are the parts people don't see.
https://twitter.com/Pouriaaa/status/1476579582975385607?s=20
Expect major panic over deaths.....
It's surely for the voter to decide how to respond to the murder.
Anything other than assassination I would agree with you. But medical death and assassination not same thing to me, like you lumped them together.
https://twitter.com/Pouriaaa/status/1476579582975385607?s=20
Could be a big rise.
@OwenJones84
I'm sorry but it is absolutely *ridiculous* that France is going through a bigger Omicron wave than Britain and yet has imposed travel restrictions against Britain to protect itself against Omicron.
12:48 pm · 30 Dec 2021"
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1476535646651142145
Parties should be entitled to stand if they wish to do so, as UKIP are doing. But parties declining to do so out of respect, is the right thing to do.
Politically motivated murders should not be rewarded by replacing a victim with an MP from a party the murderer might have preferred. To go down that path increases the risk of more such murders to all MPs so its also self-preservation and quite right for all MPs and all politicians to set aside their yah-boo differences for politically-motivated murder by-elections.
These were murders by extremist Irish republicans, a lone maniac on the far right and (if reports are correct although trial to come) a religiously motivated terrorist. The one thing all of those have in common is hatred of the democratic process per se - indeed, arguably a vibrant, contested democratic election is the best possible answer to that.
"Significant underreporting" over the Christmas and New Year holidays could have distorted current number of coronavirus cases, explained Health Minister Karl Lauterbach on Wednesday.
https://twitter.com/dw_politics/status/1476582870785437701?s=20
The dashboard team has to put up with large amounts of data being sent in, in a variety of forms. Due to the usual problems of little empires*, they can't force the hundreds of data sources to do anything in a vaguely similar way, much of the time.
So they have a huge array of data transformation processes, verification processes, and manual checks.
Then someone decides to change a format in a spreadsheet, or change the format, just because. So they end up having to write a new transformer on the fly.....
So wash you mouth out with salty water and send them something nice for Christmas. They deserve it.
*P.J. O'Rourke observed that the beauty of a well-designed Fascism is that it gives every piss-ant an ant hill to piss from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqIh9r_igww
https://twitter.com/MartinThornber/status/1476564502338588672
There were those in 1990 who considered it distasteful for the Eastbourne by-election to be contested after the murder of Ian Gow. However, the sense then was it would have been a negation of the very democracy the IRA sought to undermine to have an uncontested election.
The murder of Jo Cox, in the street, public, blatant, was no less horrible and no less worthy of outright condemnation yet it felt different - perhaps because it took place in such a febrile atmosphere whereas Gow was killed two days before the Iraq invasion of Kuwait but in a much calmer domestic mood.
Perhaps there was just that sense the emotions produced by the Referendum had in some small way contributed to the event (I'm speculating). I could understand the unwillingness of the Conservative, LD and other parties not to contest the resulting by-election but I didn't think then it was right and I don't think opting out of contesting Southend West is right.
One option would have been to have names on the ballot paper but no campaign - simply a vote on the day. Yet how does that respect democracy? Democracy is about the electoral process - the campaigning, the cut and thrust, the contact with the electorate on the doorstep, in the street, at the hustings if you will.
I agree with Bart.
Two MP assassinations in recent years, the political establishment have to ask, what is normal, is this the new normal, how to stop it becoming a trend.
As well as the principle Bart neatly summed up, dialling down on division and hype seems sensible too, where can be applied within democracy.
On a more serious note, I am aware that Patrick Vallance in particular has raised this issue of the data collection and processing, not just for testing, but much wider issues across the government / civil service. He is pushing for large scale modernisation programme as an essential next step forward.
I know they wanted the assistance of the likes of machine learning types and they said fine, just send me the data in consistent format containing x,y and z, and basically the couldn't.
Fill that "hole" to match the existing slope etc.....
What kind of background music should we play at the panic, this evening? @MoonRabbit ?
I am thinking that the biscuits should be simple Hobnob for a change.
Of course a pandemic got in the way. Remarkable though.
Eldest Grandson and his wife live in the constituency; I shall get to have a look at the Tory literature.
Some of these processes were so complex they were set up to run overnight, so you just left the computer on and hoped it ran.
When it inevitably failed, rerunning it took most of the day, which meant everyone else's processes were even more delayed.
Very quickly you got to the stage where if anything failed and you couldn't get it recovered that day, you could never recover at all as you couldn't catch up. If it failed over a bank holiday weekend it was a complete disaster.
Total nightmare, stuck it out 9 months before going back to my previous job where at least the databases were updated in a reliable way leaving me to actually analyse the data rather than simply be a cog in the wheel producing it...
The hope is that the idiots trying for a Universal Data Collection Format for everything in government are quietly drowned in the North Sea. Since this would make the NHS IT project look like a shining beacon....
But MPs getting murdered is already a corruption of the system. Ensuring such a corruption isn't "rewarded" and encouraged to happen more often is entirely appropriate and a form of self-preservation for the lives of all politicians of all parties.
If the seat changes hands, the Ames supporters have been defrauded by the violence, not beaten by honest democracy. The terrorist will have won.
Back to the original comment, Mikes I agree was the self interest of libdems losing momentum. Sometimes there are more valued causes than self interest.
You state it as some kind of revealed truth that needs no justification. But it doesn't make sense.
Look at those towers in Canary Wharf.
In many of them, a third of the building is occupied (if they aren't working from home) by people who spend their days reconciling data from one system to another. In a number of places it is more.
I am currently working on a system that removes nearly all human input from such flows. It automatically checks the data in a number of ways (and adding rules is simple), and generates reports on anything questionable, with levels of flagging. When we ran it on the historical data set, we were finding issues and mistakes going back decades. Not to mention more... interesting issues.
And it certainly shouldn't be anywhere near being Excel based.
When a MP crosses the floor the seat doesnt' fall vacant, does it?
I was thinking:
Opportunities:
1. Omicron might be the effective end of Covid, if mild and it becomes ubiquitous...
2. ...in which case the decision not to increase restrictions further could look inspired.
3. Having survived the Q4 scandals there might be a quiet period with no fresh scandals.
4. If a leadership challenge comes Johnson could see it off with votes to spare, so deferring any further challenge to 2023 at the earliest.
5. Some foreign event leads to a 'rally to the flag' boost for Johnson (I'm thinking Ukraine, but hopefully not).
Threats:
1. Omicron proves very nasty and Johnson's decision to avoid further restrictions looks misguided at best.
2. Further Covid variants extend the misery throughout 2022.
3. Energy price rises hit consumers hard.
4. Supply issues come to the fore as the new EU trade regimes kicks in.
5. The NI rises land badly with the public.
6. Further hitherto unrevealed Johnson scandals emerge.
7. Major financial crash sparked by Evergreen/Ukraine/something else.
8. Tory MPs don't recover their faith in Johnson as a winner after an extended period of bad polls.
I am sure there are others on both sides of the account. Thoughts anyone?
This isn't the problem with the data for the dashboard, largely.
What they are doing is data reconciliation on a vast mass of data, much of it never to be seen (personal information).
So they are given a torrent of raw data on vaccinations. Some of it is duplicated, some is entered wrong etc etc.
What we see at the end is a small part of the underlying data set that is cleared for release.
But I absoilutely agree.
In all cases the security issue isn't really in Excel unless you are allowing VBA macros to be run at which point you've completely lost the battle.
How desperately low can you sink?
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20211227/p2a/00m/0na/072000c
An operation to remove the masts from a sunken cargo ship in the River Thames, containing 1,400 tonnes of unstable explosives onboard, will involve Royal Navy specialists.
It is believed that if the unexploded ordnance on the SS Richard Montgomery were triggered it could lead to the nearby oil and gas facilities in Sheerness being damaged, the Daily Telegraph reports.
What could possibly go wrong?
Handing it to the existing party, is the one set up which permits the murderer to know in advance the electoral outcome of his act.
But I got nine hundred pounds and bought some right expensive boots! Nine hundred pounds when you are just eighteen! I was chuffed with it. I had more money than anyone.
didn’t tell my dad or mum till over a year though. They thought I’d stayed out for a pyjama party, which wasn’t quite a Boris level lie 😉
On the media coverage around Afcon [Ian Wright] claimed: "There is no greater honour than representing your country. The coverage is completely tinged with racism.
"We played our Euros across 10 countries in the middle of a pandemic and there's no issue at all. But Cameroon, a single country hosting a tournament, is a problem.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59825904
I’m glad I’m on same side as party leaderships and political establishment.
I think.