An odd thread really. HYUFD demonstrating just how wrong one man can be about so many things at the same time.
Firstly the Red Wall will not vote for Boris in 2024. Dismissing all other leaders because "they will only vote for Boris" is utterly ludicrous when the polls show they won't vote for Boris.
Secondly pretty much everyone here is lined up with the basics of right and wrong. Two months into Covid restrictions the government giving a 3pm "you will not meet with other people" instruction and a 5pm "everyone round to number 10, bring a bottle, we deserve a party" is demonstrably indefensible. Never mind the political optics, it's indefensible to anyone with a brain, a conscience or morals.
So perhaps he of the high church lecturing the rest of us about Christian values may consider the plank in his own eye. I haven't seen such screaming hypocrisy since IDS claimed to be a man of God before proceeding to smash the poor as hard as humanly possible.
Finally, what the red wall voted for. Yes Boris was a bit of a lad, the anti-politician anti-Tory. But they bought that principally because he offered the solution to their problems. Which wasn't Brexit, it was the reason why they voted for Brexit
There are many planks to this. Some voted to get rid of all the foreigners. Some because they wanted money for the NHS. Some to kick the government. And so many more because they wanted their town and their community and their family to have a chance in life that they unfairly were being denied. Fairness is something very high on the agenda of people in the red wall. So the idea they will still vote for the lying cheating mocking incompetent corrupt charlatan is breathtaking.
Boris Johnson is over. The Tory party can either accept this, replace him with someone who represents the values of both the party and the country and have a chance, or keep him and not only lose the election but smash the party into pieces.
The latest polls have the Tories on 33-35% and Labour with only a 3 to 5% lead and there were plenty of garden drinks party photos before that. That is more Cameron midterm polling, nowhere near pre 1997 polling.
The only hypothetical alternative leader polling from Opinium last month had a Truss or Gove led Tories polling worse than a Boris led Tories. Even a Sunak led Tories were only on 34% ie no better than they are polling now.
So the only one wrong on this is you. As long as Boris continues to impose no new restrictions, especially on the vaccinated, he will survive
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. If HYFUD prevails, then the Conservatives will face an extinction level event at the next general election. It never seems to occur to him that the opinion polls he consistently and complacently quotes are a lagging indicator.
Look most commentators on here hate Boris and did not even vote for him in 2019. Yet the 33 to 35% the Tories are still polling is still higher than the Tories got from 1997 to 2005, hardly extinction level
Not true, my guess would be about 60% of the active site voted for Johnson in 2019 and sub 20% intend to next time
Yebbut as HYUFD keeps saying mostd of that 60% - indeed also that 20% - aren't Real Tories anyway.
Exactly. You're only a real Tory if you vote Plaid Cymru to support Welsh secession from the Union.
Even in that town council election 4 of the 6 candidates I voted for were Tory, just there were only 4 Tory candidates
This gets better. So there were 6 Councillors being elected. And you voted in favour of two councillors to oppose your party. Literally voting against your own party!
I understand being a party hack. People usually vote for their own party, and if that means not voting for additional candidates who when elected will oppose your own candidates then yeah, don't vote for them.
You can't vote against the Conservative Party and then haughtily screech at all other Tory party supporters, members and former members that they are not proper Tories because they haven't always supported their own party. YOU haven't always supported your own party.
That plank in your eye must be longer that Peppa's nose by now.
I tried to explain this to @HYUFD before. Maybe an example will do it. Let's assume Tories get 100 votes each and Plaid 80 each so all 4 Tories get elected. Now let's assume all Tory voters do what HYUFD did. Assume they split their votes equally each Plaid candidate will get an extra 33 votes so every Tory candidate will now lose.
Err, pedantically, two of them would.
Ok I am probably going to embarrass myself here but isn't it 100x2/6= 33 added to all Plaid giving each 113 votes meaning all 6 rather 2 get elected.
The idea that the election of a few Plaid councillors to a town council has any impact on the Union is of course absurd anyway.
Obviously if it was a Westminster or Senedd election I would not have voted Plaid at all, for starters as there would have been Tory candidates for every seat available as there were not for this town council election
Does anyone know what the "culture" was in the No. 11 office? Interesting that Sunak is utterly invisible in all of these parties. How was he running his ship?
Look - there is only the one news story of importance this morning - has Scott Morrison government cut up Novaks visa yet?
🔺 JUST IN: Djokovic may have misled the Australian authorities about his movements before entering the country, it has emerged, triggering a new investigation by border officials which could result in him being sent back to an immigrant detention centre https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/judge-orders-novak-djokovics-release-xnbh3nksw
What will happen in the Commons if opposition MPs repeat their accusation that the PM is a liar? Tricky one for the Speaker. Must be tempting for the SNP to risk mass suspensions. https://twitter.com/KennyFarq/status/1480843770786725890
Does anyone know what the "culture" was in the No. 11 office? Interesting that Sunak is utterly invisible in all of these parties. How was he running his ship?
Is it no longer the case, that the No.10 and No.11 SpAd teams are now one and the same, working in “Downing St” as opposed to one office or the other?
Was that ever true? Really? They you could stand two metres from someone if you didn’t know them but not if you did know them? It’s so long ago and much water has flowed under Westminster Bridge, but if that were ever true, it’s even more bonkers than I ever dared believe.
What will happen in the Commons if opposition MPs repeat their accusation that the PM is a liar? Tricky one for the Speaker. Must be tempting for the SNP to risk mass suspensions. https://twitter.com/KennyFarq/status/1480843770786725890
"Would the PM like to apologise for misleading the House ?" etc
An odd thread really. HYUFD demonstrating just how wrong one man can be about so many things at the same time.
Firstly the Red Wall will not vote for Boris in 2024. Dismissing all other leaders because "they will only vote for Boris" is utterly ludicrous when the polls show they won't vote for Boris.
Secondly pretty much everyone here is lined up with the basics of right and wrong. Two months into Covid restrictions the government giving a 3pm "you will not meet with other people" instruction and a 5pm "everyone round to number 10, bring a bottle, we deserve a party" is demonstrably indefensible. Never mind the political optics, it's indefensible to anyone with a brain, a conscience or morals.
So perhaps he of the high church lecturing the rest of us about Christian values may consider the plank in his own eye. I haven't seen such screaming hypocrisy since IDS claimed to be a man of God before proceeding to smash the poor as hard as humanly possible.
Finally, what the red wall voted for. Yes Boris was a bit of a lad, the anti-politician anti-Tory. But they bought that principally because he offered the solution to their problems. Which wasn't Brexit, it was the reason why they voted for Brexit
There are many planks to this. Some voted to get rid of all the foreigners. Some because they wanted money for the NHS. Some to kick the government. And so many more because they wanted their town and their community and their family to have a chance in life that they unfairly were being denied. Fairness is something very high on the agenda of people in the red wall. So the idea they will still vote for the lying cheating mocking incompetent corrupt charlatan is breathtaking.
Boris Johnson is over. The Tory party can either accept this, replace him with someone who represents the values of both the party and the country and have a chance, or keep him and not only lose the election but smash the party into pieces.
The latest polls have the Tories on 33-35% and Labour with only a 3 to 5% lead and there were plenty of garden drinks party photos before that. That is more Cameron midterm polling, nowhere near pre 1997 polling.
The only hypothetical alternative leader polling from Opinium last month had a Truss or Gove led Tories polling worse than a Boris led Tories. Even a Sunak led Tories were only on 34% ie no better than they are polling now.
So the only one wrong on this is you. As long as Boris continues to impose no new restrictions, especially on the vaccinated, he will survive
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. If HYFUD prevails, then the Conservatives will face an extinction level event at the next general election. It never seems to occur to him that the opinion polls he consistently and complacently quotes are a lagging indicator.
Look most commentators on here hate Boris and did not even vote for him in 2019. Yet the 33 to 35% the Tories are still polling is still higher than the Tories got from 1997 to 2005, hardly extinction level
Not true, my guess would be about 60% of the active site voted for Johnson in 2019 and sub 20% intend to next time
Yebbut as HYUFD keeps saying mostd of that 60% - indeed also that 20% - aren't Real Tories anyway.
Exactly. You're only a real Tory if you vote Plaid Cymru to support Welsh secession from the Union.
Even in that town council election 4 of the 6 candidates I voted for were Tory, just there were only 4 Tory candidates
This gets better. So there were 6 Councillors being elected. And you voted in favour of two councillors to oppose your party. Literally voting against your own party!
I understand being a party hack. People usually vote for their own party, and if that means not voting for additional candidates who when elected will oppose your own candidates then yeah, don't vote for them.
You can't vote against the Conservative Party and then haughtily screech at all other Tory party supporters, members and former members that they are not proper Tories because they haven't always supported their own party. YOU haven't always supported your own party.
That plank in your eye must be longer that Peppa's nose by now.
I tried to explain this to @HYUFD before. Maybe an example will do it. Let's assume Tories get 100 votes each and Plaid 80 each so all 4 Tories get elected. Now let's assume all Tory voters do what HYUFD did. Assume they split their votes equally each Plaid candidate will get an extra 33 votes so every Tory candidate will now lose.
Err, pedantically, two of them would.
Ok I am probably going to embarrass myself here but isn't it 100x2/6= 33 added to all Plaid giving each 113 votes meaning all 6 rather 2 get elected.
I didn't think Plaid put up six in this particular case?
I believe so. And in fairness to @HYUFD maybe the Tories didn't stand a chance and he may have done it to stop Labour winning, but then he should have used all 6 on Plaid, but I can understand why he wouldn't. That all comes back to the nonesence of our electoral system where you are required to be a clairvoyant and vote against your own party.
Does anyone know what the "culture" was in the No. 11 office? Interesting that Sunak is utterly invisible in all of these parties. How was he running his ship?
Does anyone know what the "culture" was in the No. 11 office? Interesting that Sunak is utterly invisible in all of these parties. How was he running his ship?
FPT The problem with NPI's, as they have been described, is that where they are mandated by law they represent an unacceptable level of intrusion in to private freedom. They also have a tendency for mission creep - the idea that we can "keep the public safe" by controlling all kinds of disease through controls on human behaviour and biosurveillance is almost irresistable, after normalisation caused by 2 years of such measures being in place. And the idea that such measures are necessitated as they are an alternative to 'lockdowns' is also very useful and convenient, for those in power who seek to effect change of whatever sort. So to my mind at least, and on a philosophical level, NPIs are actually a greater danger than lockdowns.
You'd be brave to assume that, come the Summer, when the remaining rules will - hopefully - have been binned, that you'd seen the back of masks at the very least. You can well imagine that, if this is the last major Covid wave, the Flu could be back with a vengeance next Winter - and there's a material risk that we'll have sundry scientists, doctors, NHS managers and politicians demanding restrictions at the first sign of trouble.
This is absolutely nailed on.
The minor irony is that masks, even the shite ones, are quite effective at reducing the transmission of flu.
Yep, things are getting quite interesting. Up to now I’ve been unmoved by partygate – eg the xmas zoom quiz seemed ok to me and those 3 disparate groupings in the garden looked to me like work – but this latest revelation is a proper shocker. The bookie odds on a BJ exit this year are slashed from 2/1 to evens and I agree with that move. I'm also glad I cashed in my "still PM at the Conf" long position at 1.33. It's nearly 1.8 now and I think I agree with that too.
I mean, c'mon. Here we have, in the midst of a tight lockdown, Boris Johnson signing off on a big party at Downing St and rocking up to it himself. There’s no need to wait for "Sue Gray’s report" before stating this as a fact. That’s what he did. It might have been illegal, was certainly an act of rank hypocrisy, and something else too, something that for me is the worst aspect of what it demonstrates and is (imo) insufficiently commented on in the media. What it demonstrates (I’d argue for about the zillionth time but never mind) is the total absence of empathy and respect that this PM has for the people who he is there to serve.
An odd thread really. HYUFD demonstrating just how wrong one man can be about so many things at the same time.
Firstly the Red Wall will not vote for Boris in 2024. Dismissing all other leaders because "they will only vote for Boris" is utterly ludicrous when the polls show they won't vote for Boris.
Secondly pretty much everyone here is lined up with the basics of right and wrong. Two months into Covid restrictions the government giving a 3pm "you will not meet with other people" instruction and a 5pm "everyone round to number 10, bring a bottle, we deserve a party" is demonstrably indefensible. Never mind the political optics, it's indefensible to anyone with a brain, a conscience or morals.
So perhaps he of the high church lecturing the rest of us about Christian values may consider the plank in his own eye. I haven't seen such screaming hypocrisy since IDS claimed to be a man of God before proceeding to smash the poor as hard as humanly possible.
Finally, what the red wall voted for. Yes Boris was a bit of a lad, the anti-politician anti-Tory. But they bought that principally because he offered the solution to their problems. Which wasn't Brexit, it was the reason why they voted for Brexit
There are many planks to this. Some voted to get rid of all the foreigners. Some because they wanted money for the NHS. Some to kick the government. And so many more because they wanted their town and their community and their family to have a chance in life that they unfairly were being denied. Fairness is something very high on the agenda of people in the red wall. So the idea they will still vote for the lying cheating mocking incompetent corrupt charlatan is breathtaking.
Boris Johnson is over. The Tory party can either accept this, replace him with someone who represents the values of both the party and the country and have a chance, or keep him and not only lose the election but smash the party into pieces.
The latest polls have the Tories on 33-35% and Labour with only a 3 to 5% lead and there were plenty of garden drinks party photos before that. That is more Cameron midterm polling, nowhere near pre 1997 polling.
The only hypothetical alternative leader polling from Opinium last month had a Truss or Gove led Tories polling worse than a Boris led Tories. Even a Sunak led Tories were only on 34% ie no better than they are polling now.
So the only one wrong on this is you. As long as Boris continues to impose no new restrictions, especially on the vaccinated, he will survive
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. If HYFUD prevails, then the Conservatives will face an extinction level event at the next general election. It never seems to occur to him that the opinion polls he consistently and complacently quotes are a lagging indicator.
Look most commentators on here hate Boris and did not even vote for him in 2019. Yet the 33 to 35% the Tories are still polling is still higher than the Tories got from 1997 to 2005, hardly extinction level
Not true, my guess would be about 60% of the active site voted for Johnson in 2019 and sub 20% intend to next time
Yebbut as HYUFD keeps saying mostd of that 60% - indeed also that 20% - aren't Real Tories anyway.
Exactly. You're only a real Tory if you vote Plaid Cymru to support Welsh secession from the Union.
Even in that town council election 4 of the 6 candidates I voted for were Tory, just there were only 4 Tory candidates
This gets better. So there were 6 Councillors being elected. And you voted in favour of two councillors to oppose your party. Literally voting against your own party!
I understand being a party hack. People usually vote for their own party, and if that means not voting for additional candidates who when elected will oppose your own candidates then yeah, don't vote for them.
You can't vote against the Conservative Party and then haughtily screech at all other Tory party supporters, members and former members that they are not proper Tories because they haven't always supported their own party. YOU haven't always supported your own party.
That plank in your eye must be longer that Peppa's nose by now.
I tried to explain this to @HYUFD before. Maybe an example will do it. Let's assume Tories get 100 votes each and Plaid 80 each so all 4 Tories get elected. Now let's assume all Tory voters do what HYUFD did. Assume they split their votes equally each Plaid candidate will get an extra 33 votes so every Tory candidate will now lose.
Err, pedantically, two of them would.
Ok I am probably going to embarrass myself here but isn't it 100x2/6= 33 added to all Plaid giving each 113 votes meaning all 6 rather 2 get elected.
The idea that the election of a few Plaid councillors to a town council has any impact on the Union is of course absurd anyway.
Obviously if it was a Westminster or Senedd election I would not have voted Plaid at all, for starters as there would have been Tory candidates for every seat available as there were not for this town council election
But you potentially unelected 4 Tories. Why would you do that?
I think Boris will be cleared. I've just been passed the statement that he's given to Sue Gray (and the Met):
1. I knew nothing about the party on May 20. I did not read the Reynold's email; I always just delete emails from him, because they are boring. 2. On the evening in question, at 6.30pm. Carrie and I took a glass of Chardonnay into our garden to enjoy the fine weather and discuss our family plans. 3. To my astonishment, dozens of people - SPADs, civil servants, and, I think, Mr Sunak and Ms Truss, were milling about enjoying drinks and snacks. 4. I took a very dim view of this rule-breaking. So I approached each participant individually and told them in no uncertain terms that, as soon as they had finished all their drinks and snacks, they must depart. 5. My strategy was successful; by 11pm, all the participants (except Sunak and Truss, I think) had dispersed, and I had nipped the rule-breaking in the bud. 6. End of statement.
An odd thread really. HYUFD demonstrating just how wrong one man can be about so many things at the same time.
Firstly the Red Wall will not vote for Boris in 2024. Dismissing all other leaders because "they will only vote for Boris" is utterly ludicrous when the polls show they won't vote for Boris.
Secondly pretty much everyone here is lined up with the basics of right and wrong. Two months into Covid restrictions the government giving a 3pm "you will not meet with other people" instruction and a 5pm "everyone round to number 10, bring a bottle, we deserve a party" is demonstrably indefensible. Never mind the political optics, it's indefensible to anyone with a brain, a conscience or morals.
So perhaps he of the high church lecturing the rest of us about Christian values may consider the plank in his own eye. I haven't seen such screaming hypocrisy since IDS claimed to be a man of God before proceeding to smash the poor as hard as humanly possible.
Finally, what the red wall voted for. Yes Boris was a bit of a lad, the anti-politician anti-Tory. But they bought that principally because he offered the solution to their problems. Which wasn't Brexit, it was the reason why they voted for Brexit
There are many planks to this. Some voted to get rid of all the foreigners. Some because they wanted money for the NHS. Some to kick the government. And so many more because they wanted their town and their community and their family to have a chance in life that they unfairly were being denied. Fairness is something very high on the agenda of people in the red wall. So the idea they will still vote for the lying cheating mocking incompetent corrupt charlatan is breathtaking.
Boris Johnson is over. The Tory party can either accept this, replace him with someone who represents the values of both the party and the country and have a chance, or keep him and not only lose the election but smash the party into pieces.
The latest polls have the Tories on 33-35% and Labour with only a 3 to 5% lead and there were plenty of garden drinks party photos before that. That is more Cameron midterm polling, nowhere near pre 1997 polling.
The only hypothetical alternative leader polling from Opinium last month had a Truss or Gove led Tories polling worse than a Boris led Tories. Even a Sunak led Tories were only on 34% ie no better than they are polling now.
So the only one wrong on this is you. As long as Boris continues to impose no new restrictions, especially on the vaccinated, he will survive
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. If HYFUD prevails, then the Conservatives will face an extinction level event at the next general election. It never seems to occur to him that the opinion polls he consistently and complacently quotes are a lagging indicator.
Look most commentators on here hate Boris and did not even vote for him in 2019. Yet the 33 to 35% the Tories are still polling is still higher than the Tories got from 1997 to 2005, hardly extinction level
Not true, my guess would be about 60% of the active site voted for Johnson in 2019 and sub 20% intend to next time
Yebbut as HYUFD keeps saying mostd of that 60% - indeed also that 20% - aren't Real Tories anyway.
Exactly. You're only a real Tory if you vote Plaid Cymru to support Welsh secession from the Union.
Even in that town council election 4 of the 6 candidates I voted for were Tory, just there were only 4 Tory candidates
This gets better. So there were 6 Councillors being elected. And you voted in favour of two councillors to oppose your party. Literally voting against your own party!
I understand being a party hack. People usually vote for their own party, and if that means not voting for additional candidates who when elected will oppose your own candidates then yeah, don't vote for them.
You can't vote against the Conservative Party and then haughtily screech at all other Tory party supporters, members and former members that they are not proper Tories because they haven't always supported their own party. YOU haven't always supported your own party.
That plank in your eye must be longer that Peppa's nose by now.
I tried to explain this to @HYUFD before. Maybe an example will do it. Let's assume Tories get 100 votes each and Plaid 80 each so all 4 Tories get elected. Now let's assume all Tory voters do what HYUFD did. Assume they split their votes equally each Plaid candidate will get an extra 33 votes so every Tory candidate will now lose.
Err, pedantically, two of them would.
Ok I am probably going to embarrass myself here but isn't it 100x2/6= 33 added to all Plaid giving each 113 votes meaning all 6 rather 2 get elected.
I didn't think Plaid put up six in this particular case?
I believe so. And in fairness to @HYUFD maybe the Tories didn't stand a chance and he may have done it to stop Labour winning, but then he should have used all 6 on Plaid, but I can understand why he wouldn't. That all comes back to the nonesence of our electoral system where you are required to be a clairvoyant and vote against your own party.
I think to be fair, colleagues, that this has been done to death now.
My thought is that a lot of the cause of the "parties" was that the Government didn't really expect most people to comply with a lot of the rules in place (and indeed probably didn't think it was reasonable for people to comply with a lot of the rules in place). Obviously there were a lot of people that did, although mostly the ones that were actually enforceable (such as access to hospitals, care homes etc. In addition to where things were just shut). Anything behind closed doors in workplaces or private homes, not so much. Or at least there was a lot of bending and stretching going on.
So why were the rules as they were? Well it comes back to the old thing of "clarity of message", and also the media obsession with claiming every slight nuance in the rules was "too confusing" - as well as the focus on every minor inconsistency as suggesting that the rules were useless. So we just got the lot - rules that mattered and those that didn't alike. And of course this was made worse by the vast majority being written into law (which arguably meant that the 'loopholes' "mattered" - and people couldn't just be asked to exercise common sense. Because in many cases exercising common sense would have actually still meant breaking the law. (and of course there was the issue that some rules were not actually law, but just guidance - but this was not a distinction that was easy for the public to follow (and of course any emphasis on this just made it sound like the things that were just guidance were things you were free to ignore)
However because many in Government knew this, and knew that some of the rules mattered more than others (or at least eg. distinction between sitting in a work meeting, and having a drink with the same people, were basically pointless in effect), combined with the expectation that some wouldn't be complied with, meant that they just operated as they thought others would (and i'm sure in many cases did).
I mean really there should be no comparison between a few people having a drink in an office with people they work with all day, and restrictions on visiting people in hospital. Clearly the latter restriction is far more important. But the comparison can be made, to the hugely damaging perception of the Government, because of the overall message put out (for "clarity") that everything was important and everyone had to do their bit. Even where the rules were frankly bloody stupid.
I was challenged by the Police as to why I was out walking in the park on my own, with the dog. Thankfully having a dog was always a get out of jail card for exercise, and it was friendly and simply intended to underline the new rules. Obviously the Police left it there and went on their way, having made the intended point - but that sort of experience will be in many people's memories.
I think he may get away with this beacuse of the date of May 20th. Listening to the radio news they say that the party took place during lockdown, and ITV refer to it as the height of lockdown. May 20th was a very warm day and Bournemouth beach was very busy as you were allowed to go to the beach, it was not really the height of lockdown. It was a time when there the silly rule that you were not allowed to meet 2 people that you knew socially distanced only one, but you could sit on a beach 2 metres from people that you did not know.
If he had not consistently lied about these parties and about following the rules at all times he might well have a far better chance of getting away with this in the court of public opinion.
Im sure you are right, they were and are a bit thick. they just thought " we were socially distanced" meant that they could stand in the garden. Boris said in Parliament that all the social distancing rules were followed at any gathering he went to. Unfortunately the rules state that if you knew the people then you could not meet them even if you were 2 metres apart, if you didn't know them you could.
The other daft thing is that these people we were working in a poorly ventilated office with each other all day every day.
The rules were contradictory, illogical and baffling. But they absolutely were the rules, were being broadcasted at us by the government (including a presser that very afternoon) and enforced publicly and harshly by the police.
So there is nowhere to hide. Caught bang to rights, the BYOB party was illegal. And Peppa has already lied to parliament about it and had a succession of ministers lie to the public about it.
We had a fun discussion on here yesterday about the whys and wherefores of the word lockdown. What we all agreed on was that 2020 was largely tortuous, and though I had a breakdown I was spared the true horror of not being able to hug a dying parent or trying to do a teams funeral.
The idea that nobody will be bothered by this is baffling to me. People generally don't like the notion of one rule for me, one rule for them. Especially when the rule that affects 99% of us is an egregious repeated kick in the knackers.
This was Bournemouth on the day of the party. Apparently this is the height of the lockdown.
An odd thread really. HYUFD demonstrating just how wrong one man can be about so many things at the same time.
Firstly the Red Wall will not vote for Boris in 2024. Dismissing all other leaders because "they will only vote for Boris" is utterly ludicrous when the polls show they won't vote for Boris.
Secondly pretty much everyone here is lined up with the basics of right and wrong. Two months into Covid restrictions the government giving a 3pm "you will not meet with other people" instruction and a 5pm "everyone round to number 10, bring a bottle, we deserve a party" is demonstrably indefensible. Never mind the political optics, it's indefensible to anyone with a brain, a conscience or morals.
So perhaps he of the high church lecturing the rest of us about Christian values may consider the plank in his own eye. I haven't seen such screaming hypocrisy since IDS claimed to be a man of God before proceeding to smash the poor as hard as humanly possible.
Finally, what the red wall voted for. Yes Boris was a bit of a lad, the anti-politician anti-Tory. But they bought that principally because he offered the solution to their problems. Which wasn't Brexit, it was the reason why they voted for Brexit
There are many planks to this. Some voted to get rid of all the foreigners. Some because they wanted money for the NHS. Some to kick the government. And so many more because they wanted their town and their community and their family to have a chance in life that they unfairly were being denied. Fairness is something very high on the agenda of people in the red wall. So the idea they will still vote for the lying cheating mocking incompetent corrupt charlatan is breathtaking.
Boris Johnson is over. The Tory party can either accept this, replace him with someone who represents the values of both the party and the country and have a chance, or keep him and not only lose the election but smash the party into pieces.
The latest polls have the Tories on 33-35% and Labour with only a 3 to 5% lead and there were plenty of garden drinks party photos before that. That is more Cameron midterm polling, nowhere near pre 1997 polling.
The only hypothetical alternative leader polling from Opinium last month had a Truss or Gove led Tories polling worse than a Boris led Tories. Even a Sunak led Tories were only on 34% ie no better than they are polling now.
So the only one wrong on this is you. As long as Boris continues to impose no new restrictions, especially on the vaccinated, he will survive
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. If HYFUD prevails, then the Conservatives will face an extinction level event at the next general election. It never seems to occur to him that the opinion polls he consistently and complacently quotes are a lagging indicator.
Look most commentators on here hate Boris and did not even vote for him in 2019. Yet the 33 to 35% the Tories are still polling is still higher than the Tories got from 1997 to 2005, hardly extinction level
Not true, my guess would be about 60% of the active site voted for Johnson in 2019 and sub 20% intend to next time
Yebbut as HYUFD keeps saying mostd of that 60% - indeed also that 20% - aren't Real Tories anyway.
Exactly. You're only a real Tory if you vote Plaid Cymru to support Welsh secession from the Union.
Even in that town council election 4 of the 6 candidates I voted for were Tory, just there were only 4 Tory candidates
This gets better. So there were 6 Councillors being elected. And you voted in favour of two councillors to oppose your party. Literally voting against your own party!
I understand being a party hack. People usually vote for their own party, and if that means not voting for additional candidates who when elected will oppose your own candidates then yeah, don't vote for them.
You can't vote against the Conservative Party and then haughtily screech at all other Tory party supporters, members and former members that they are not proper Tories because they haven't always supported their own party. YOU haven't always supported your own party.
That plank in your eye must be longer that Peppa's nose by now.
I tried to explain this to @HYUFD before. Maybe an example will do it. Let's assume Tories get 100 votes each and Plaid 80 each so all 4 Tories get elected. Now let's assume all Tory voters do what HYUFD did. Assume they split their votes equally each Plaid candidate will get an extra 33 votes so every Tory candidate will now lose.
Err, pedantically, two of them would.
Ok I am probably going to embarrass myself here but isn't it 100x2/6= 33 added to all Plaid giving each 113 votes meaning all 6 rather 2 get elected.
The idea that the election of a few Plaid councillors to a town council has any impact on the Union is of course absurd anyway.
Obviously if it was a Westminster or Senedd election I would not have voted Plaid at all, for starters as there would have been Tory candidates for every seat available as there were not for this town council election
But you potentially unelected 4 Tories. Why would you do that?
I voted for every Tory candidate on the ballot paper. However I also on principle use every vote I have.
In any case town and parish elections are less about party politics than the town or village. Indeed most parish councillors tend to be Independent, only at town council level do some candidates stand under a party label
The idea of a computer built using an array of processors may have first arisen in 1952.
Today, the world's most powerful supercomputer has a processing capacity of 442 petaFLOPS, 442,000,000,000,000,000 floating point operations per second.
The first operational computer weather forecast produced by the Met Office in 1965 was run on a computer called Comet that could perform 60,000 arithmetic operations per second.
However, the first experimental forecast was produced in 1952, on EDSAC, which could manage 167 multiplications per second, or 667 other operations.
The current Met Office supercomputer is due for replacement, but can still manage a creditable 16 petaflops - about 100 million million times faster than the machine they borrowed use of in 1952.
I had a tour of the Met Office sometime around 1993, when it was at the old location in Bracknell. They had a couple of “supercomputers” there, known affectionately as “The Cray Twins”, which had less processing power than my phone does now, 30 years later.
As for time to be alive, maybe born in the 1920s or 30s, and going from electricity being novel to the internet being ubiquitous.
If you were born in the early to mid 1920s, and were male, you stood a good chance of fighting in WWII. No thanks. If you were born in the 1930s, you faced living through the war as a child or teenager. No thanks. In the 1990s, I knew a youngish lady who had had polio that had affected her walking. Heck, I believe my mum got polio, fortunately with no long-term effects. No thanks. My grandparents were using an outside toilet into their eighties, in the 1990s (despite my dad and their other kids offering to build one attached to the house for them). (They had an indoors toilet upstairs, but if downstairs would go to the outside one.) No thanks.
We look at the past through rose-tinted spectacles. Much of the past was sh*t.
Here's a prediction: worldwide, in the long term, the Covid outbreak will end up saving more lives than it has cost, as the progress in vaccination and treatment technology will end up saving lives.
I see a better future for my little 'un than I, or any of my ancestors, had. Despite Covid (*), the time to be alive is now.
(*) After all, influenza-style outbreaks, and of other diseases, were hardly unknown.
Oh indeed, the very best time to be alive is right now - despite what we might read every day, about how awful everything in the world is at the moment.
Fascinating thread, and I'm sure Big G and I could share memories.
I'm not quite sure, though, now IS the best time to be alive; our adult (or nearly adult) grandchildren seem to have more concerns than Mrs C and I did. It's our 60th anniversary later this year and I think that, while life is materially better for our two elder grandchildren (one married, one in what appears to be pretty stable relationship), the optimism isn't quite there. Climate change is going to bring about something of a 'reset' in living patterns!
Good morning
Life seemed to be much more carefree 50 plus years ago than today and maybe that is because we had less and certainly did not have 24/7 social media and the complexity of todays world
My wife and I have decided to start sorting out the huge amount of old photos and memorabilia from years ago and we have been reading the wonderful love letters between my grandparents circa the late 1870 to WW1 and the pure romance in the letters is charming and of course were sent daily between each other. I should say my grandfather was a professional soldier and was away from my grandmother quite often.
We also came across a wedding photo of my parents in 1935 with a copy of my mothers wedding dress invoice in the amount of £2 7s 6p
Our first home, a flat over an 'open all hours' shop half way up the Pennines cost us £2 per week! Did have an outside toilet though; a step across from the back door. My mother was a pharmacist who, in the 30's opened her own pharmacy, and I've got her cash book. Meticulous accounting, down the ha'penny!
I had a chat with my lettings agent last week about rents for students in a Midlands' city near here.
The University is charging self-catering rents of between about 160-225 per week in student halls, typically on ~45 week contracts. Towards the expensive end, or a bit more expensive, there are things like inclusive private gyms. Apparently 7-8 years after some of these were built, they are still having to give cashbacks to fill the later rooms.
For me, my self-catering accommodation on campus in West Yorkshire was £17 a week in the first year - mid 1980s.
Nine grand a year, per person, for a self catering hall of residence? That’s nuts, and so many of the students are borrowing money that will never be paid back for this.
Surely that amount rents a three-bed house, anywhere north of about Milton Keynes?
Must check with Grandson Two, now in his first year at Uni in a big N.Western city. Don't think he pays that, but he says there are some more expensive new halls.
New student flats near me have on-site gyms, en-suite rooms and the more luxurious ones come with all sorts of bells and whistles.
My first year? A 12th century courtyard and gaps between window and wall.
I know I'm late to this discussion thread (and post only rarely anyway), but I need to get this off my chest.
It's not that the UK's Covid rules were wrong - they weren't - but that the cavalier attitude towards them demonstrated by the people in charge of running the top political offices in the country speaks volumes about their commitment to running a properly constructed and effective government. That the PM, a man who himself had only recently experienced the full force of Covid, should have so little empathy with the people he works with that he was prepared for them to risk the same outcome in the name of a large social gathering - something that was illegal for the rest of us - is horrifying. Even if you were to give him the benefit of what little doubt there is and take the view that he attended because he believed he was immune and wasn't a personal threat to anyone doesn't absolve him of the responsibility for allowing the event to go ahead in the first place.
The current strata of people who are running the country - not just the politicians but the special advisors and senior civil servants whose stunning lack of self awareness in the face of a deadly worldwide pandemic is now visible with the light of a thousand suns - should all, to a man, shuffle off into a deep and meaningless retirement and let some people in to run the country who have a sense of professionalism, honour and pride in the quality of their work.
It's not that I carry a candle for the other lot all of a sudden (it's unlikely I ever will) but the PM and his coterie need to depart stage right immediately before they undermine whatever is left of the public's perceptions of the need for health and security in a pandemic that's simply not going to go away any time soon.
I'm a card carrying party member and I voted for him in the leadership election, but I'm now compelled to say BORIS OUT!
An odd thread really. HYUFD demonstrating just how wrong one man can be about so many things at the same time.
Firstly the Red Wall will not vote for Boris in 2024. Dismissing all other leaders because "they will only vote for Boris" is utterly ludicrous when the polls show they won't vote for Boris.
Secondly pretty much everyone here is lined up with the basics of right and wrong. Two months into Covid restrictions the government giving a 3pm "you will not meet with other people" instruction and a 5pm "everyone round to number 10, bring a bottle, we deserve a party" is demonstrably indefensible. Never mind the political optics, it's indefensible to anyone with a brain, a conscience or morals.
So perhaps he of the high church lecturing the rest of us about Christian values may consider the plank in his own eye. I haven't seen such screaming hypocrisy since IDS claimed to be a man of God before proceeding to smash the poor as hard as humanly possible.
Finally, what the red wall voted for. Yes Boris was a bit of a lad, the anti-politician anti-Tory. But they bought that principally because he offered the solution to their problems. Which wasn't Brexit, it was the reason why they voted for Brexit
There are many planks to this. Some voted to get rid of all the foreigners. Some because they wanted money for the NHS. Some to kick the government. And so many more because they wanted their town and their community and their family to have a chance in life that they unfairly were being denied. Fairness is something very high on the agenda of people in the red wall. So the idea they will still vote for the lying cheating mocking incompetent corrupt charlatan is breathtaking.
Boris Johnson is over. The Tory party can either accept this, replace him with someone who represents the values of both the party and the country and have a chance, or keep him and not only lose the election but smash the party into pieces.
The latest polls have the Tories on 33-35% and Labour with only a 3 to 5% lead and there were plenty of garden drinks party photos before that. That is more Cameron midterm polling, nowhere near pre 1997 polling.
The only hypothetical alternative leader polling from Opinium last month had a Truss or Gove led Tories polling worse than a Boris led Tories. Even a Sunak led Tories were only on 34% ie no better than they are polling now.
So the only one wrong on this is you. As long as Boris continues to impose no new restrictions, especially on the vaccinated, he will survive
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. If HYFUD prevails, then the Conservatives will face an extinction level event at the next general election. It never seems to occur to him that the opinion polls he consistently and complacently quotes are a lagging indicator.
Look most commentators on here hate Boris and did not even vote for him in 2019. Yet the 33 to 35% the Tories are still polling is still higher than the Tories got from 1997 to 2005, hardly extinction level
Not true, my guess would be about 60% of the active site voted for Johnson in 2019 and sub 20% intend to next time
Yebbut as HYUFD keeps saying mostd of that 60% - indeed also that 20% - aren't Real Tories anyway.
Exactly. You're only a real Tory if you vote Plaid Cymru to support Welsh secession from the Union.
Even in that town council election 4 of the 6 candidates I voted for were Tory, just there were only 4 Tory candidates
This gets better. So there were 6 Councillors being elected. And you voted in favour of two councillors to oppose your party. Literally voting against your own party!
I understand being a party hack. People usually vote for their own party, and if that means not voting for additional candidates who when elected will oppose your own candidates then yeah, don't vote for them.
You can't vote against the Conservative Party and then haughtily screech at all other Tory party supporters, members and former members that they are not proper Tories because they haven't always supported their own party. YOU haven't always supported your own party.
That plank in your eye must be longer that Peppa's nose by now.
I tried to explain this to @HYUFD before. Maybe an example will do it. Let's assume Tories get 100 votes each and Plaid 80 each so all 4 Tories get elected. Now let's assume all Tory voters do what HYUFD did. Assume they split their votes equally each Plaid candidate will get an extra 33 votes so every Tory candidate will now lose.
Err, pedantically, two of them would.
Ok I am probably going to embarrass myself here but isn't it 100x2/6= 33 added to all Plaid giving each 113 votes meaning all 6 rather 2 get elected.
The idea that the election of a few Plaid councillors to a town council has any impact on the Union is of course absurd anyway.
Obviously if it was a Westminster or Senedd election I would not have voted Plaid at all, for starters as there would have been Tory candidates for every seat available as there were not for this town council election
But you potentially unelected 4 Tories. Why would you do that?
I voted for every Tory candidate on the ballot paper. However I also on principle use every vote I have.
In any case town and parish elections are less about party politics than the town or village. Indeed most parish councillors tend to be Independent, only at town council level do some candidates stand under a party label
Why not have a principle where you don’t vote for whoppers?
An odd thread really. HYUFD demonstrating just how wrong one man can be about so many things at the same time.
Firstly the Red Wall will not vote for Boris in 2024. Dismissing all other leaders because "they will only vote for Boris" is utterly ludicrous when the polls show they won't vote for Boris.
Secondly pretty much everyone here is lined up with the basics of right and wrong. Two months into Covid restrictions the government giving a 3pm "you will not meet with other people" instruction and a 5pm "everyone round to number 10, bring a bottle, we deserve a party" is demonstrably indefensible. Never mind the political optics, it's indefensible to anyone with a brain, a conscience or morals.
So perhaps he of the high church lecturing the rest of us about Christian values may consider the plank in his own eye. I haven't seen such screaming hypocrisy since IDS claimed to be a man of God before proceeding to smash the poor as hard as humanly possible.
Finally, what the red wall voted for. Yes Boris was a bit of a lad, the anti-politician anti-Tory. But they bought that principally because he offered the solution to their problems. Which wasn't Brexit, it was the reason why they voted for Brexit
There are many planks to this. Some voted to get rid of all the foreigners. Some because they wanted money for the NHS. Some to kick the government. And so many more because they wanted their town and their community and their family to have a chance in life that they unfairly were being denied. Fairness is something very high on the agenda of people in the red wall. So the idea they will still vote for the lying cheating mocking incompetent corrupt charlatan is breathtaking.
Boris Johnson is over. The Tory party can either accept this, replace him with someone who represents the values of both the party and the country and have a chance, or keep him and not only lose the election but smash the party into pieces.
The latest polls have the Tories on 33-35% and Labour with only a 3 to 5% lead and there were plenty of garden drinks party photos before that. That is more Cameron midterm polling, nowhere near pre 1997 polling.
The only hypothetical alternative leader polling from Opinium last month had a Truss or Gove led Tories polling worse than a Boris led Tories. Even a Sunak led Tories were only on 34% ie no better than they are polling now.
So the only one wrong on this is you. As long as Boris continues to impose no new restrictions, especially on the vaccinated, he will survive
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. If HYFUD prevails, then the Conservatives will face an extinction level event at the next general election. It never seems to occur to him that the opinion polls he consistently and complacently quotes are a lagging indicator.
Look most commentators on here hate Boris and did not even vote for him in 2019. Yet the 33 to 35% the Tories are still polling is still higher than the Tories got from 1997 to 2005, hardly extinction level
Not true, my guess would be about 60% of the active site voted for Johnson in 2019 and sub 20% intend to next time
Yebbut as HYUFD keeps saying mostd of that 60% - indeed also that 20% - aren't Real Tories anyway.
Exactly. You're only a real Tory if you vote Plaid Cymru to support Welsh secession from the Union.
Even in that town council election 4 of the 6 candidates I voted for were Tory, just there were only 4 Tory candidates
This gets better. So there were 6 Councillors being elected. And you voted in favour of two councillors to oppose your party. Literally voting against your own party!
I understand being a party hack. People usually vote for their own party, and if that means not voting for additional candidates who when elected will oppose your own candidates then yeah, don't vote for them.
You can't vote against the Conservative Party and then haughtily screech at all other Tory party supporters, members and former members that they are not proper Tories because they haven't always supported their own party. YOU haven't always supported your own party.
That plank in your eye must be longer that Peppa's nose by now.
I tried to explain this to @HYUFD before. Maybe an example will do it. Let's assume Tories get 100 votes each and Plaid 80 each so all 4 Tories get elected. Now let's assume all Tory voters do what HYUFD did. Assume they split their votes equally each Plaid candidate will get an extra 33 votes so every Tory candidate will now lose.
Err, pedantically, two of them would.
Ok I am probably going to embarrass myself here but isn't it 100x2/6= 33 added to all Plaid giving each 113 votes meaning all 6 rather 2 get elected.
The idea that the election of a few Plaid councillors to a town council has any impact on the Union is of course absurd anyway.
Obviously if it was a Westminster or Senedd election I would not have voted Plaid at all, for starters as there would have been Tory candidates for every seat available as there were not for this town council election
But you potentially unelected 4 Tories. Why would you do that?
I voted for every Tory candidate on the ballot paper. However I also on principle use every vote I have.
In any case town and parish elections are less about party politics than the town or village. Indeed most parish councillors tend to be Independent, only at town council level do some candidates stand under a party label
I know, but how do you think the 4 Tory candidates would have reacted if you had told them what you had done and it had resulted in them all being unelected?
A further point I would make (and I agree this whole story isn’t going away and I don’t see a satisfactory outcome for the Govt) is that what this demonstrates is how destructive a lot of the rules were for effective functioning of organisations with large workforces, with cross working/communication necessary across those organisations.
Whilst everything is being badged as “parties” by view is that informal communication of the sort that is enabled best by such events is fundamental to the effective working of many organisations. It is often at such events that you can really find out what is going on, things that many simply won’t become aware of during the normal course of a working day; where stresses and problems are building up within individual teams etc etc.
Whilst we hear people continually (often for selfish reasons) continue to claim the benefits and effectiveness of widespread WFH it is these sorts of informal events (and indeed more low level informal communication (“water cooler”) that is missed. Few people seem to mention how after decades of organisations everywhere moving towards open plan offices, where everything is visible, we have at a stroke reverted in effect to a world of individual offices and people hidden behind closed doors. And in fact an extreme version compared to whatever existed before. Communication has plummeted (you can’t just have random chats with people outside of your immediate teams over zoom), and no doubt many people are experiencing extreme stress and worry, largely going completely unnoticed.
FWIW this isn't true for me at all. I've never worked in an office where people gathered for informal chats, and I've always thought open-plan offices were just a nuisance imposed by managers for floor-space reasons and I thought everyone agreed. Your post is the first time I've ever seen or heard anyone actually liking it. My experience of open-plan offices is that rows of people beaver away on their computers, heads down, and occasionally grab a coffee and take it back to their desk. Some people go out to lunch with a friend, others will have something in the office kitchen, not talking about work. It's a bit easier to go over and discuss something with a colleague than to call them up on Teams/Zoom, because you can actually see they're free whereas a call may come in at the wrong moment, but otherwise it's pretty much identical to online work. My office of 100 people won't reopen till the spring, if then.
But - an important but - that style of working really missed out on the political schmoozing and gossip which many MPs did. I remember being completely unaware of the Blair-Brown rivalries until I read about them in the press, because I was getting on with Select Committee or Bill committee work and I never spent any time in the Commons bars. As a result, I was probably less effective than I could have been. Bottom line is that every office is different, and it's a mistake to generalise.
What do we think of this keep warm advice and the reaction to it?
With the best will in the world there is no way to wish the higher prices away, and it is hoping to be tough for many people, even with generous government support, so I would have thought that a bit more of a positive approach and some practical advice would be helpful.
Sometimes we just have to do our best to muddle through and cope, as well as asking for/demanding/hoping for/expecting some more help to do so.
Look - there is only the one news story of importance this morning - has Scott Morrison government cut up Novaks visa yet?
🔺 JUST IN: Djokovic may have misled the Australian authorities about his movements before entering the country, it has emerged, triggering a new investigation by border officials which could result in him being sent back to an immigrant detention centre https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/judge-orders-novak-djokovics-release-xnbh3nksw
🤣 what a circus, oh what a show. No way to run a country.
An odd thread really. HYUFD demonstrating just how wrong one man can be about so many things at the same time.
Firstly the Red Wall will not vote for Boris in 2024. Dismissing all other leaders because "they will only vote for Boris" is utterly ludicrous when the polls show they won't vote for Boris.
Secondly pretty much everyone here is lined up with the basics of right and wrong. Two months into Covid restrictions the government giving a 3pm "you will not meet with other people" instruction and a 5pm "everyone round to number 10, bring a bottle, we deserve a party" is demonstrably indefensible. Never mind the political optics, it's indefensible to anyone with a brain, a conscience or morals.
So perhaps he of the high church lecturing the rest of us about Christian values may consider the plank in his own eye. I haven't seen such screaming hypocrisy since IDS claimed to be a man of God before proceeding to smash the poor as hard as humanly possible.
Finally, what the red wall voted for. Yes Boris was a bit of a lad, the anti-politician anti-Tory. But they bought that principally because he offered the solution to their problems. Which wasn't Brexit, it was the reason why they voted for Brexit
There are many planks to this. Some voted to get rid of all the foreigners. Some because they wanted money for the NHS. Some to kick the government. And so many more because they wanted their town and their community and their family to have a chance in life that they unfairly were being denied. Fairness is something very high on the agenda of people in the red wall. So the idea they will still vote for the lying cheating mocking incompetent corrupt charlatan is breathtaking.
Boris Johnson is over. The Tory party can either accept this, replace him with someone who represents the values of both the party and the country and have a chance, or keep him and not only lose the election but smash the party into pieces.
The latest polls have the Tories on 33-35% and Labour with only a 3 to 5% lead and there were plenty of garden drinks party photos before that. That is more Cameron midterm polling, nowhere near pre 1997 polling.
The only hypothetical alternative leader polling from Opinium last month had a Truss or Gove led Tories polling worse than a Boris led Tories. Even a Sunak led Tories were only on 34% ie no better than they are polling now.
So the only one wrong on this is you. As long as Boris continues to impose no new restrictions, especially on the vaccinated, he will survive
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. If HYFUD prevails, then the Conservatives will face an extinction level event at the next general election. It never seems to occur to him that the opinion polls he consistently and complacently quotes are a lagging indicator.
Look most commentators on here hate Boris and did not even vote for him in 2019. Yet the 33 to 35% the Tories are still polling is still higher than the Tories got from 1997 to 2005, hardly extinction level
Not true, my guess would be about 60% of the active site voted for Johnson in 2019 and sub 20% intend to next time
Yebbut as HYUFD keeps saying mostd of that 60% - indeed also that 20% - aren't Real Tories anyway.
Exactly. You're only a real Tory if you vote Plaid Cymru to support Welsh secession from the Union.
Even in that town council election 4 of the 6 candidates I voted for were Tory, just there were only 4 Tory candidates
This gets better. So there were 6 Councillors being elected. And you voted in favour of two councillors to oppose your party. Literally voting against your own party!
I understand being a party hack. People usually vote for their own party, and if that means not voting for additional candidates who when elected will oppose your own candidates then yeah, don't vote for them.
You can't vote against the Conservative Party and then haughtily screech at all other Tory party supporters, members and former members that they are not proper Tories because they haven't always supported their own party. YOU haven't always supported your own party.
That plank in your eye must be longer that Peppa's nose by now.
I tried to explain this to @HYUFD before. Maybe an example will do it. Let's assume Tories get 100 votes each and Plaid 80 each so all 4 Tories get elected. Now let's assume all Tory voters do what HYUFD did. Assume they split their votes equally each Plaid candidate will get an extra 33 votes so every Tory candidate will now lose.
Err, pedantically, two of them would.
Ok I am probably going to embarrass myself here but isn't it 100x2/6= 33 added to all Plaid giving each 113 votes meaning all 6 rather 2 get elected.
The idea that the election of a few Plaid councillors to a town council has any impact on the Union is of course absurd anyway.
Obviously if it was a Westminster or Senedd election I would not have voted Plaid at all, for starters as there would have been Tory candidates for every seat available as there were not for this town council election
But you potentially unelected 4 Tories. Why would you do that?
I voted for every Tory candidate on the ballot paper. However I also on principle use every vote I have.
In any case town and parish elections are less about party politics than the town or village. Indeed most parish councillors tend to be Independent, only at town council level do some candidates stand under a party label
I know, but how do you think the 4 Tory candidates would have reacted if you had told them what you had done and it had resulted in them all being unelected?
I would have told them to stand 6 candidates next time
FPT The problem with NPI's, as they have been described, is that where they are mandated by law they represent an unacceptable level of intrusion in to private freedom. They also have a tendency for mission creep - the idea that we can "keep the public safe" by controlling all kinds of disease through controls on human behaviour and biosurveillance is almost irresistable, after normalisation caused by 2 years of such measures being in place. And the idea that such measures are necessitated as they are an alternative to 'lockdowns' is also very useful and convenient, for those in power who seek to effect change of whatever sort. So to my mind at least, and on a philosophical level, NPIs are actually a greater danger than lockdowns.
Sturgeon’s on the case. “Sometimes when you hear people talk about learning to live with Covid, what seems to be suggested is that one morning we’ll wake up and not have to worry about it anymore, and not have to do anything to try to contain and control it,” Sturgeon said. “That’s not what I mean when I say ‘learning to live with it’. Instead, we will have to ask ourselves what adaptations to pre-pandemic life – face coverings, for example – might be required in the longer-term to enable us to live with it with far fewer protective measures.” https://news.stv.tv/politics/sturgeon-restrictions-are-working-as-we-learn-to-live-with-covid
She is definitely heading for "off her trolley" territory.
An odd thread really. HYUFD demonstrating just how wrong one man can be about so many things at the same time.
Firstly the Red Wall will not vote for Boris in 2024. Dismissing all other leaders because "they will only vote for Boris" is utterly ludicrous when the polls show they won't vote for Boris.
Secondly pretty much everyone here is lined up with the basics of right and wrong. Two months into Covid restrictions the government giving a 3pm "you will not meet with other people" instruction and a 5pm "everyone round to number 10, bring a bottle, we deserve a party" is demonstrably indefensible. Never mind the political optics, it's indefensible to anyone with a brain, a conscience or morals.
So perhaps he of the high church lecturing the rest of us about Christian values may consider the plank in his own eye. I haven't seen such screaming hypocrisy since IDS claimed to be a man of God before proceeding to smash the poor as hard as humanly possible.
Finally, what the red wall voted for. Yes Boris was a bit of a lad, the anti-politician anti-Tory. But they bought that principally because he offered the solution to their problems. Which wasn't Brexit, it was the reason why they voted for Brexit
There are many planks to this. Some voted to get rid of all the foreigners. Some because they wanted money for the NHS. Some to kick the government. And so many more because they wanted their town and their community and their family to have a chance in life that they unfairly were being denied. Fairness is something very high on the agenda of people in the red wall. So the idea they will still vote for the lying cheating mocking incompetent corrupt charlatan is breathtaking.
Boris Johnson is over. The Tory party can either accept this, replace him with someone who represents the values of both the party and the country and have a chance, or keep him and not only lose the election but smash the party into pieces.
The latest polls have the Tories on 33-35% and Labour with only a 3 to 5% lead and there were plenty of garden drinks party photos before that. That is more Cameron midterm polling, nowhere near pre 1997 polling.
The only hypothetical alternative leader polling from Opinium last month had a Truss or Gove led Tories polling worse than a Boris led Tories. Even a Sunak led Tories were only on 34% ie no better than they are polling now.
So the only one wrong on this is you. As long as Boris continues to impose no new restrictions, especially on the vaccinated, he will survive
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. If HYFUD prevails, then the Conservatives will face an extinction level event at the next general election. It never seems to occur to him that the opinion polls he consistently and complacently quotes are a lagging indicator.
Look most commentators on here hate Boris and did not even vote for him in 2019. Yet the 33 to 35% the Tories are still polling is still higher than the Tories got from 1997 to 2005, hardly extinction level
Not true, my guess would be about 60% of the active site voted for Johnson in 2019 and sub 20% intend to next time
Yebbut as HYUFD keeps saying mostd of that 60% - indeed also that 20% - aren't Real Tories anyway.
Exactly. You're only a real Tory if you vote Plaid Cymru to support Welsh secession from the Union.
Oh yes, and advocate the creation of an English Parliament and the secession of Antrim from the Union whiles at it.
An English parliament is perfectly compatible with the Union, just a Union based on equality that treats England the same as the other 3 home nations
We Scttish independistas have been saying that since before 1997!
But it's not compatible with Conservative party policy. And never has been. You'd be better joining PC and campaigning for an English parliament from there.
Most Tory voters and members already back an English parliament.
If and when we go back into opposition the party will likely shift to that position or at least backing EVEL again as the first route back to power
In other words, the Tories don't care about principle - only about themselves.
That is unbecoming of you. Not all "Tories" are the same. Not all Tories are selfish scumbags anymore than all Scottish Nationalists are closet (and not so closet) anti-English racists.
We all know one scumbag English racist , as do you when you look in the mirror.
Thinking back a few threads, did @MoonRabbit have advance knowledge of today’s leak?
No. But after months of hollowing him out for the kill, why did all PB think they would just stop till May?
Hmm, do you work in No 10 Moonrabbit, were you perhaps on the guest list.
I couldn’t make it! It’s on the server log I declined the invite.
Bring your own bottle skinflints. I’d already promised myself to another party Jon Bon Govi was throwing in the Cabinet Office. Knows how to party Jon Bon. Night of the 20th will be legendary 🥳
Comments
Obviously if it was a Westminster or Senedd election I would not have voted Plaid at all, for starters as there would have been Tory candidates for every seat available as there were not for this town council election
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/judge-orders-novak-djokovics-release-xnbh3nksw
https://twitter.com/KennyFarq/status/1480843770786725890
The minor irony is that masks, even the shite ones, are quite effective at reducing the transmission of flu.
I mean, c'mon. Here we have, in the midst of a tight lockdown, Boris Johnson signing off on a big party at Downing St and rocking up to it himself. There’s no need to wait for "Sue Gray’s report" before stating this as a fact. That’s what he did. It might have been illegal, was certainly an act of rank hypocrisy, and something else too, something that for me is the worst aspect of what it demonstrates and is (imo) insufficiently commented on in the media. What it demonstrates (I’d argue for about the zillionth time but never mind) is the total absence of empathy and respect that this PM has for the people who he is there to serve.
1. I knew nothing about the party on May 20. I did not read the Reynold's email; I always just delete emails from him, because they are boring.
2. On the evening in question, at 6.30pm. Carrie and I took a glass of Chardonnay into our garden to enjoy the fine weather and discuss our family plans.
3. To my astonishment, dozens of people - SPADs, civil servants, and, I think, Mr Sunak and Ms Truss, were milling about enjoying drinks and snacks.
4. I took a very dim view of this rule-breaking. So I approached each participant individually and told them in no uncertain terms that, as soon as they had finished all their drinks and snacks, they must depart.
5. My strategy was successful; by 11pm, all the participants (except Sunak and Truss, I think) had dispersed, and I had nipped the rule-breaking in the bud.
6. End of statement.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52743749
In any case town and parish elections are less about party politics than the town or village. Indeed most parish councillors tend to be Independent, only at town council level do some candidates stand under a party label
My first year? A 12th century courtyard and gaps between window and wall.
It's not that the UK's Covid rules were wrong - they weren't - but that the cavalier attitude towards them demonstrated by the people in charge of running the top political offices in the country speaks volumes about their commitment to running a properly constructed and effective government. That the PM, a man who himself had only recently experienced the full force of Covid, should have so little empathy with the people he works with that he was prepared for them to risk the same outcome in the name of a large social gathering - something that was illegal for the rest of us - is horrifying. Even if you were to give him the benefit of what little doubt there is and take the view that he attended because he believed he was immune and wasn't a personal threat to anyone doesn't absolve him of the responsibility for allowing the event to go ahead in the first place.
The current strata of people who are running the country - not just the politicians but the special advisors and senior civil servants whose stunning lack of self awareness in the face of a deadly worldwide pandemic is now visible with the light of a thousand suns - should all, to a man, shuffle off into a deep and meaningless retirement and let some people in to run the country who have a sense of professionalism, honour and pride in the quality of their work.
It's not that I carry a candle for the other lot all of a sudden (it's unlikely I ever will) but the PM and his coterie need to depart stage right immediately before they undermine whatever is left of the public's perceptions of the need for health and security in a pandemic that's simply not going to go away any time soon.
I'm a card carrying party member and I voted for him in the leadership election, but I'm now compelled to say BORIS OUT!
Being able to afford good wine and knowing anything about it aren't necessarily correlated.
But - an important but - that style of working really missed out on the political schmoozing and gossip which many MPs did. I remember being completely unaware of the Blair-Brown rivalries until I read about them in the press, because I was getting on with Select Committee or Bill committee work and I never spent any time in the Commons bars. As a result, I was probably less effective than I could have been. Bottom line is that every office is different, and it's a mistake to generalise.
With the best will in the world there is no way to wish the higher prices away, and it is hoping to be tough for many people, even with generous government support, so I would have thought that a bit more of a positive approach and some practical advice would be helpful.
Sometimes we just have to do our best to muddle through and cope, as well as asking for/demanding/hoping for/expecting some more help to do so.
Bring your own bottle skinflints. I’d already promised myself to another party Jon Bon Govi was throwing in the Cabinet Office. Knows how to party Jon Bon. Night of the 20th will be legendary 🥳