Speaking to Tory MPs tonight yes there are some who think PM can still get through this (just) but a growing number are now beyond angry, they're lost. They don't know what the plan is or why they ought to back it. Even PM admitting he was at party now won't be enough for them. https://twitter.com/KateEMcCann/status/1481030691949326337
A remarkable number of Tory MPs who seem to suffer from Battered Partner Syndrome.
The Independent story on Downing Street staffers and others being instructed to delete information on their phones to hide evidence of the criminal party in the garden. That in itself is a criminal offence is it not?
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
It's the 'taking the piss' effect, combined with the cumulative weight of minor transgression upon minor transgression, and the provably true point that we know what the guy at the top of it all things about following rules if you have the connections to avoid them.
It wears everyone down in the end.
I think you are right but are missing the bigger picture. COVID has worn everyone down. Relentlessly, over 2 long, brutal years. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel, folk are starting to process it all. The tsunami of repressed emotion is about to roll. We are only at the point where the sea has retreated. The natural first reaction to trauma is to lash out and find someone to blame. The incompetence and arrogance of this crew (not just Boris) is providing an easy target to foist all the anger, grief, sorrow and frustration onto. Even for the things that weren't necessarily their fault. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Could be mid 90"s.
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
The most amazing thing of course is why everyone or anyone is amazed at Boris being Boris.
Told you so is a weak rhetorical device but I (plenty of us on PB) told you so.
And I voted for him. Labour have a lot to answer for.
Had Burnham won the Labour leadership in 2015 he may well have beaten May at the next general election and still be PM now having delivered too a softer Brexit.
By electing Corbyn as their leader, Labour enabled the Boris premiership we now have and the Brexit deal we have as well
Speaking to Tory MPs tonight yes there are some who think PM can still get through this (just) but a growing number are now beyond angry, they're lost. They don't know what the plan is or why they ought to back it. Even PM admitting he was at party now won't be enough for them. https://twitter.com/KateEMcCann/status/1481030691949326337
A remarkable number of Tory MPs who seem to suffer from Battered Partner Syndrome.
Not to mention PB posters.
Sandpit, HYUFD and Marquee Mark still claiming it is for the good of the kids, as far as I can tell.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
Brexit is not dying, it’s over. We left the EU. I don’t understand why you don’t get this. We have trading relationships now with the eu. We don’t have a say in how the eu is run, they don’t have one in how the U.K. is run. But Brexit is over.
In 2020 many of the various holidays and feast days fell conveniently on a Friday or on a weekend.
I'm curious as to how that is different to any other year ?
Bank holidays are always on Fridays or Mondays.
There was some no mark on some crappy radio channel in my barbers the other week who had news that “the way Easter falls this year, you can take four days off work and have a ten day break.”
That’s the case every year.
The "special" ones are very late easters where you can book 4 days off and get 11 days holiday in a row.
Next chance is 2038.
You'll need to make the most of it too, next one after that is 2079.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
The most amazing thing of course is why everyone or anyone is amazed at Boris being Boris.
Told you so is a weak rhetorical device but I (plenty of us on PB) told you so.
And I voted for him. Labour have a lot to answer for.
Had Burnham won the Labour leadership in 2015 he may well have beaten May at the next general election and still be PM now having delivered too a softer Brexit.
By electing Corbyn as their leader, Labour enabled the Boris premiership we now have and the Brexit deal we have as well
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
Brexit is not dying, it’s over. We left the EU. I don’t understand why you don’t get this. We have trading relationships now with the eu. We don’t have a say in how the eu is run, they don’t have one in how the U.K. is run. But Brexit is over.
Brexit as a dynamic force, powerful enough to dictate ongoing government policy and stoke culture wars is dead.
All the promises have crumbled to ashes, and it’s leading advocates either exposed as liars or departed the scene.
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
Brexit is not dying, it’s over. We left the EU. I don’t understand why you don’t get this. We have trading relationships now with the eu. We don’t have a say in how the eu is run, they don’t have one in how the U.K. is run. But Brexit is over.
No, the brexiteers now have to deliver on their promises. No state is permanent in politics.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
As I suggested in a previous thread, it’s perhaps because he’s lying, knowing that everyone knows he’s lying, and still assuming it will be accepted.
Society rests on the assumption of shared rules. As Cyclefree’s header argues, when its leaders make it very clear the rules they expect you to follow don’t apply to them, the social contact is in danger of breaking down.
As a reasonable conservative, of course you’re annoyed.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
It's the 'taking the piss' effect, combined with the cumulative weight of minor transgression upon minor transgression, and the provably true point that we know what the guy at the top of it all things about following rules if you have the connections to avoid them.
It wears everyone down in the end.
I think you are right but are missing the bigger picture. COVID has worn everyone down. Relentlessly, over 2 long, brutal years. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel, folk are starting to process it all. The tsunami of repressed emotion is about to roll. We are only at the point where the sea has retreated. The natural first reaction to trauma is to lash out and find someone to blame. The incompetence and arrogance of this crew (not just Boris) is providing an easy target to foist all the anger, grief, sorrow and frustration onto. Even for the things that weren't necessarily their fault. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Could be mid 90"s.
Definitely a late Major vibe about the place. Luckily Starmer is not as big a jerk as Blair, and whoever the Shadow Chancellor is is not a resentful delusionist like Brown.
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
Brexit is not dying, it’s over. We left the EU. I don’t understand why you don’t get this. We have trading relationships now with the eu. We don’t have a say in how the eu is run, they don’t have one in how the U.K. is run. But Brexit is over.
Brexit hasn’t finished - it’s gone from trade deals being something we never had to worry about to something the foreign secretary is going to spend / her life dealing with.
The thing is Brexit creates a treadmill that can never end as the EU tries to score a few points off us and other countries join in
See for example the EU/US steel deal that we aren’t part of.
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
Brexit is not dying, it’s over. We left the EU. I don’t understand why you don’t get this. We have trading relationships now with the eu. We don’t have a say in how the eu is run, they don’t have one in how the U.K. is run. But Brexit is over.
Brexit the act - leaving the EU - is over. We left. Brexit the movement is not remotely over. Nobody has got what they were promised or what they were expected. The longer that we go post Brexit where nobody gets what they were promised the worse it gets for the Tories.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
I'm afraid this reminds me strongly of "Chaos with Ed Miliband". What could be much more feebly directionless, drifting and chaotic than the last six years of May and Johnson ?
Change of subject, an excellent and rather chilling thread on the consoling myth that "viruses get milder over time"
They really don't, unless you mean aeons of time and milder means "their aim* is not to wipe out all their hosts entirely"
"This Thread is a layman's understanding regarding virus pathogenicity and evolution: science only says that viruses which kill all their hosts will disappear. That's all. From this, it doesn't follow that viruses have an "inner desire" not to kill their hosts or to become milder."
"2/ Starting with viruses affecting non-human animals, species with small populations can quickly go extinct due to viral epidemics. Ebola has pushed gorillas toward extinction."
Isn't the 'viruses become milder' theory merely the application of the more times you have contact with the virus the greater the knowledge your immune system has of it and so the better protection it can give you ?
I don't think so. If you want protection, vaccination is a much better way to get it. At various times in the pandemic, people like Matt Ridley have said that lockdowns are bad because they delay the virus evolving into something benign.
Now with Omicron, it does look like that has happened (it's moved from the lungs to the throat, so it spreads faster but causes a lot less trouble to humans), but it was dumb luck that it happened now. That's what evolution is- dumb luck followed brutal selection on the outcomes.
Having said that, it's a bit of dumb luck I'm vary happy to bank.
AIUI the best protection from the future effects of a virus is to have previously been infected by the same virus.
What vaccinations allow is for the initial infection to be much less dangerous and painful.
Speaking to Tory MPs tonight yes there are some who think PM can still get through this (just) but a growing number are now beyond angry, they're lost. They don't know what the plan is or why they ought to back it. Even PM admitting he was at party now won't be enough for them. https://twitter.com/KateEMcCann/status/1481030691949326337
A remarkable number of Tory MPs who seem to suffer from Battered Partner Syndrome.
Not to mention PB posters.
Sandpit, HYUFD and Marquee Mark still claiming it is for the good of the kids, as far as I can tell.
JohnO folded this morning. I think MM was wavering too.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
Unfortunately this reminds me strongly of "Chaos with Ed Miliband". What could be much more feeble and chaotic than the last six years of May and Johnson ?
Yeah. "Coalition of Chaos" isn't going to work next time.
Change of subject, an excellent and rather chilling thread on the consoling myth that "viruses get milder over time"
They really don't, unless you mean aeons of time and milder means "their aim* is not to wipe out all their hosts entirely"
"This Thread is a layman's understanding regarding virus pathogenicity and evolution: science only says that viruses which kill all their hosts will disappear. That's all. From this, it doesn't follow that viruses have an "inner desire" not to kill their hosts or to become milder."
"2/ Starting with viruses affecting non-human animals, species with small populations can quickly go extinct due to viral epidemics. Ebola has pushed gorillas toward extinction."
Isn't the 'viruses become milder' theory merely the application of the more times you have contact with the virus the greater the knowledge your immune system has of it and so the better protection it can give you ?
I don't think so. If you want protection, vaccination is a much better way to get it. At various times in the pandemic, people like Matt Ridley have said that lockdowns are bad because they delay the virus evolving into something benign.
Now with Omicron, it does look like that has happened (it's moved from the lungs to the throat, so it spreads faster but causes a lot less trouble to humans), but it was dumb luck that it happened now. That's what evolution is- dumb luck followed brutal selection on the outcomes.
Having said that, it's a bit of dumb luck I'm vary happy to bank.
It's not dumb luck, it's the evolutionary pathway. Omicron was successful because it evaded our existing immunity from vaccines and infection. To achieve that evasion it gave up a lot of virulence as it became a less good ACE-2 binding agent. Our immunity has created a common evolutionary pathway for COVID, another variant that outcompetes Omicron will need to give up yet more virulence. In a population with our immunity levels Omicron looks like it hospitalises 1/500 for overnight stays, a less virulent variant could be 2-3x less than that and we'll get a big immunity boost from Omicron adding in another 2-3x reduction. We could be at a stage soon where the next variant causes just 20-40k hospitalisation in total and 7-10k deaths.
Brexit the movement is not remotely over. Nobody has got what they were promised or what they were expected. The longer that we go post Brexit where nobody gets what they were promised the worse it gets for the Tories.
To be fair, Brexit is about to rip the Tory Party apart (again) which is a key deliverable...
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
Hang on. Churchill put in long hours, was fizzing with ideas and took his role and responsibilities with the gravest seriousness.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
I remember reporting on here a conversation I had at dinner back when May was still PM.
Said they weren’t worried about Boris as PM because they could “wrangle him like you wrangle a toddler”.
I told them at the time that I wasn’t comfortable they could keep him under control.
It is somewhat impressive, if not counterintuitive, that even though we all know the newspaper is going the way of the dodo and has been for a while, the front pages are still the bedrock of the political temperature of the nation.
Brexit the movement is not remotely over. Nobody has got what they were promised or what they were expected. The longer that we go post Brexit where nobody gets what they were promised the worse it gets for the Tories.
To be fair, Brexit is about to rip the Tory Party apart (again) which is a key deliverable...
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
No, Boris is more Berlusconi than Churchill
Beautiful.
Thank you HY. That has crowned a great day. Goodnight!
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
Hang on. Churchill put in long hours, was fizzing with ideas and took his role and responsibilities with the gravest seriousness.
Boris puts in long hours fizzing his ideas inside his wives, his mistresses, his technology and music teachers. He certainly takes his need to impregnate as many women as possible very seriously.
It is somewhat impressive, if not counterintuitive, that even though we all know the newspaper is going the way of the dodo and has been for a while, the front pages are still the bedrock of the political temperature of the nation.
Or something.
Because there is nothing to replace them. They still have a role
Also, they are no longer necessarily doomed. Some are now turning a decent profit with a paywall/sub model, indeed some are growing mightily - like the NYT, which has just swallowed The Athletic
"New York Times Co. to Buy The Athletic for $550 Million in Cash The deal could help the media company reach its goal of 10 million subscriptions ahead of schedule."
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
Brexit is the recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline.
Yet you think Scotland leaving a much deeper union is going to have the opposite effect.
I understand how people can be against Brexit and I understand how people can be for Scottish independence.
But to be strongly against leaving one political union but strongly for leaving another political union is Orwellian double-think.
Interestingly, Scottish voters wanted to stay in both unions but the Tories told them to go fuck themselves.
In 2020 many of the various holidays and feast days fell conveniently on a Friday or on a weekend.
I'm curious as to how that is different to any other year ?
Bank holidays are always on Fridays or Mondays.
I'm thinking of VE Day and Robbie Burns day - which fell on a Saturday, for instance. There were a number of long weekends like that where Daughter had plans for special events etc to maximise revenue. I remember her telling me that she was looking forward to planning all these events because having got her first year under her belt she could really push the boat out in the second.
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
Brexit is not dying, it’s over. We left the EU. I don’t understand why you don’t get this. We have trading relationships now with the eu. We don’t have a say in how the eu is run, they don’t have one in how the U.K. is run. But Brexit is over.
Brexit, as a political cause, is dead. As an administrative inconvenience, it will be with us for decades.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
I remember reporting on here a conversation I had at dinner back when May was still PM.
Said they weren’t worried about Boris as PM because they could “wrangle him like you wrangle a toddler”.
I told them at the time that I wasn’t comfortable they could keep him under control.
I can understand their perspective. How many people could reasonably have conceived that Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson was so gratuitously stupid?
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
Hang on. Churchill put in long hours, was fizzing with ideas and took his role and responsibilities with the gravest seriousness.
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
Brexit is not dying, it’s over. We left the EU. I don’t understand why you don’t get this. We have trading relationships now with the eu. We don’t have a say in how the eu is run, they don’t have one in how the U.K. is run. But Brexit is over.
No, the brexiteers now have to deliver on their promises. No state is permanent in politics.
The pro-Europeans never had to deliver on the promises made in 1975 so not clear that's true. Besides, the main thrust of taking back control from unelected Eurocrats has been delivered already. The left is on for constant hidings if it tries to take us back in. Especially if it means cutting off trade deals signed with with black and brown countries to prioritize white ones.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
I remember reporting on here a conversation I had at dinner back when May was still PM.
Said they weren’t worried about Boris as PM because they could “wrangle him like you wrangle a toddler”.
I told them at the time that I wasn’t comfortable they could keep him under control.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
No, Boris is more Berlusconi than Churchill
That's it. Fold the tents, Furl the flags
HYUFD HAS TURNED
Repeat
HYUFD HAS TURNED
Don’t know about that. He’s spoken approvingly of Berlusconi - specifically his electoral success, which is all appears to matter - on several occasions.
I doubt any Tory PM, not just Boris, will impose any more Covid restrictions again. Especially on the vaccinated.
Credibly they could not do so and their supporters and MPs will not allow them to do so. Only way we may get more restrictions in England is a Starmer premiership with Labour having won most seats, which is more likely than not now
What if there were a new variant with vaccine breakthrough and greater severity spreading rapidly? I don't expect that to happen, but it could.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
It's the 'taking the piss' effect, combined with the cumulative weight of minor transgression upon minor transgression, and the provably true point that we know what the guy at the top of it all things about following rules if you have the connections to avoid them.
It wears everyone down in the end.
I think you are right but are missing the bigger picture. COVID has worn everyone down. Relentlessly, over 2 long, brutal years. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel, folk are starting to process it all. The tsunami of repressed emotion is about to roll. We are only at the point where the sea has retreated. The natural first reaction to trauma is to lash out and find someone to blame. The incompetence and arrogance of this crew (not just Boris) is providing an easy target to foist all the anger, grief, sorrow and frustration onto. Even for the things that weren't necessarily their fault. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Could be mid 90"s.
Part of the evil genius of releasing this now.
When you tell a story, people tend to remember the beginning, the memorable intense bit, and the end. People who present for a living use that idea a lot.
If the government had been lucky, the vaccination triumph this time last year would have been the final chapter of the Covid story, and we would have remembered Boris leading us safe to the other side (unlike those poor Europeans). As it is, now looks like being the end of Covid as a big story, and the government could have hoped the story would be them judging it just right. But Someone (with a lah-de-dah Northern accent, one imagines) has covered that with party scandals. That's what we will remember.
Evil, and any minister who held onto the story ought to be toast. But genius.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
I remember reporting on here a conversation I had at dinner back when May was still PM.
Said they weren’t worried about Boris as PM because they could “wrangle him like you wrangle a toddler”.
I told them at the time that I wasn’t comfortable they could keep him under control.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
I remember reporting on here a conversation I had at dinner back when May was still PM.
Said they weren’t worried about Boris as PM because they could “wrangle him like you wrangle a toddler”.
I told them at the time that I wasn’t comfortable they could keep him under control.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
As I suggested in a previous thread, it’s perhaps because he’s lying, knowing that everyone knows he’s lying, and still assuming it will be accepted.
Society rests on the assumption of shared rules. As Cyclefree’s header argues, when its leaders make it very clear the rules they expect you to follow don’t apply to them, the social contact is in danger of breaking down.
As a reasonable conservative, of course you’re annoyed.
Which is also the problem with the suggested mea culpa strategy. This isn’t a one off or a short term lapse; everyone can see this is part of a pattern of a whole lifetime of dishonesty, arrogance, carelessness and sense of entitlement. At his age it’s too late to apologise for it all, and no-one believes he is capable of change.
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
Brexit is not dying, it’s over. We left the EU. I don’t understand why you don’t get this. We have trading relationships now with the eu. We don’t have a say in how the eu is run, they don’t have one in how the U.K. is run. But Brexit is over.
No, the brexiteers now have to deliver on their promises. No state is permanent in politics.
The pro-Europeans never had to deliver on the promises made in 1975 so not clear that's true. Besides, the main thrust of taking back control from unelected Eurocrats has been delivered already. The left is on for constant hidings if it tries to take us back in. Especially if it means cutting off trade deals signed with with black and brown countries to prioritize white ones.
Nah, all the polling is showing Bregret. Even the dimmist now realise that Brexit is a polished turd.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
"In many ways he is like his hero Churchill."
Name some.
Churchill was a fanatical details man, a masterful orator, a horseman and warrior, a hugely productive and disciplined writer and historian, and a marked non-wanker. He is also not Johnson's hero. Johnson's hero is Johnson, he pretends it is Churchill in the obviously not forlorn hope that exceptionally silly people will see some sort of fantastical resemblance between the two of them.
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
Brexit is not dying, it’s over. We left the EU. I don’t understand why you don’t get this. We have trading relationships now with the eu. We don’t have a say in how the eu is run, they don’t have one in how the U.K. is run. But Brexit is over.
Brexit, as a political cause, is dead. As an administrative inconvenience, it will be with us for decades.
Depends who you are considering and how you define Brexit.
Remember that farmers and fishermen didn't vote for Brexit where leaving the EU was the end game. They did so wanting better fortunes and opportunities outside the CAP and CFP. As their fortunes and opportunities have got worse they don't consider the political cause dead.
Same with red wall WWC voters. Same with the low tax low regulation high Tories. That their respective expectations are contradictory and incompatible doesn't matter. Brexit as a political cause can't be dead whilst its objectives remain largely unfulfilled.
Brexit, as a political cause, is dead. As an administrative inconvenience, it will be with us for decades.
As the administrative inconveniences mount, so the political cause grows.
Brexit is alive and kicking...
We'll need to see rejoin polling at around 65% before a Labour government would have the nerve to try and take us back in. The EU would need to be convinced, too, that we're back in for good.
It is somewhat impressive, if not counterintuitive, that even though we all know the newspaper is going the way of the dodo and has been for a while, the front pages are still the bedrock of the political temperature of the nation.
Or something.
Because there is nothing to replace them. They still have a role
Also, they are no longer necessarily doomed. Some are now turning a decent profit with a paywall/sub model, indeed some are growing mightily - like the NYT, which has just swallowed The Athletic
"New York Times Co. to Buy The Athletic for $550 Million in Cash The deal could help the media company reach its goal of 10 million subscriptions ahead of schedule."
Wow that's a big move by the NYT....lets hope they do leave the Athletic well alone and try not to start insert politics into it. The Athletic is great because its approach isn't legacy media.
In 2020 many of the various holidays and feast days fell conveniently on a Friday or on a weekend.
I'm curious as to how that is different to any other year ?
Bank holidays are always on Fridays or Mondays.
I'm thinking of VE Day and Robbie Burns day - which fell on a Saturday, for instance. There were a number of long weekends like that where Daughter had plans for special events etc to maximise revenue. I remember her telling me that she was looking forward to planning all these events because having got her first year under her belt she could really push the boat out in the second.
Alas ....
Thanks.
But Burns Night is in January so wouldn't have been affected by covid in 2020.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
It's the 'taking the piss' effect, combined with the cumulative weight of minor transgression upon minor transgression, and the provably true point that we know what the guy at the top of it all things about following rules if you have the connections to avoid them.
It wears everyone down in the end.
I think you are right but are missing the bigger picture. COVID has worn everyone down. Relentlessly, over 2 long, brutal years. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel, folk are starting to process it all. The tsunami of repressed emotion is about to roll. We are only at the point where the sea has retreated. The natural first reaction to trauma is to lash out and find someone to blame. The incompetence and arrogance of this crew (not just Boris) is providing an easy target to foist all the anger, grief, sorrow and frustration onto. Even for the things that weren't necessarily their fault. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Could be mid 90"s.
Part of the evil genius of releasing this now.
When you tell a story, people tend to remember the beginning, the memorable intense bit, and the end. People who present for a living use that idea a lot.
If the government had been lucky, the vaccination triumph this time last year would have been the final chapter of the Covid story, and we would have remembered Boris leading us safe to the other side (unlike those poor Europeans). As it is, now looks like being the end of Covid as a big story, and the government could have hoped the story would be them judging it just right. But Someone (with a lah-de-dah Northern accent, one imagines) has covered that with party scandals. That's what we will remember.
Evil, and any minister who held onto the story ought to be toast. But genius.
"Could be letters going in" "Some Tory MPs are beyond angry"
Forgive me, but we've heard all this before. The Conservative Party has become sclerotic and not fit for purpose. It needs time in opposition. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that removing Boris isn't enough. Today is a groundhog day of sorts. We're exactly where we were weeks ago, with the same things being repeated. They should have offed him already. Enough. Get them out. All of them.
Absolutely.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
Brexit is not dying, it’s over. We left the EU. I don’t understand why you don’t get this. We have trading relationships now with the eu. We don’t have a say in how the eu is run, they don’t have one in how the U.K. is run. But Brexit is over.
Brexit, as a political cause, is dead. As an administrative inconvenience, it will be with us for decades.
Depends who you are considering and how you define Brexit.
Remember that farmers and fishermen didn't vote for Brexit where leaving the EU was the end game. They did so wanting better fortunes and opportunities outside the CAP and CFP. As their fortunes and opportunities have got worse they don't consider the political cause dead.
Same with red wall WWC voters. Same with the low tax low regulation high Tories. That their respective expectations are contradictory and incompatible doesn't matter. Brexit as a political cause can't be dead whilst its objectives remain largely unfulfilled.
But it is dead because no sane political party will go near Rejoin for a long time
This despite the fact I reckon there will be a narrow window of opportunity to do it, in a few years.
The problem is that assembling the Remainers is gonna make herding cats look easy. They are too disparate. For this reason it very likely won't happen. and as the years pass we will grow further away from the EU, and get used to being different. How many divorces are followed by remarriage? Liz Taylor and Richard Burton? That went well
Candidates announced for the Southend West by election on February 3rd.
Christopher Anderson - Freedom Alliance Catherine Blaiklock - English Democrats Olga Childs - Independent Ben Downton - Heritage Party Anna Firth - Conservative Party Jayda Fransen - Independent Steve Laws - UKIP Graham Moore - English Constitution Party Jason Pilley - Psychedelic Movement https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-59956467
Brexit, as a political cause, is dead. As an administrative inconvenience, it will be with us for decades.
As the administrative inconveniences mount, so the political cause grows.
Brexit is alive and kicking...
We'll need to see rejoin polling at around 65% before a Labour government would have the nerve to try and take us back in. The EU would need to be convinced, too, that we're back in for good.
The only way to lock us in for good (which I agree the EU would want) is to demand euro membership. Would we ever pay that price?
What Cyclefree and her family, and so many others, have been through is just appalling. All the same, I don't think it's right to generalise from the current incumbent in 10 Downing Street. He is - how shall I put this uncontroversially? - sui generis. They aren't all like that.
Yet he has remade the Tory Party in his own image, as Lady Davidson did the Scottish Conservatives. I'm not so sure (though I do wonder about the increasing chasm opening up at Gretna and Lamberton).
Spare us. Your First Minister and the Leader of the SNP allegedly conspired to get her beloved previous boss, and the ex First minister, fitted up on charges of rape and ruined for life, amongst other things. She only escaped because the entire Scottish Establishment is captured by the apparatus of a corrupt, one party state. Which stinks evermore, every day
Compared to THAT a lockdown breaking party, however stupid and contemptible (which it is), is quite small beer
Those seem to be the kind of specific allegations that get OGH in trouble and you banned / regenerated. Careful Sean...
Sean thinks the rules don’t apply to him.
Lots of people would agree with his allegations, given the jury decision.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
Hang on. Churchill put in long hours, was fizzing with ideas and took his role and responsibilities with the gravest seriousness.
Are you sure it was ideas he was fizzing with?
Hic.
Churchill used to pore over shipping and production statistics. Can't see Boris doing that.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
I remember reporting on here a conversation I had at dinner back when May was still PM.
Said they weren’t worried about Boris as PM because they could “wrangle him like you wrangle a toddler”.
I told them at the time that I wasn’t comfortable they could keep him under control.
Martin Reynolds appears to be a damn fool as well.
And I don't doubt that there are plenty of others in Westminster and Whitehall as well.
Thinking about it is there a culture among the connected in Westminster where the people who work together also socialise together and even live together ?
In which case the whole drinking at work might be more normal than for most people who have work, social life and home all as discrete worlds.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
Hang on. Churchill put in long hours, was fizzing with ideas and took his role and responsibilities with the gravest seriousness.
I don’t think the analogy holds, either. Churchill may have hopped parties but he had strong principles and arguably his fault was holding onto them beyond the point where they were relevant or in his own political interests - for example his obsession with empire and opposition to Indian independence.
And he staked his reputation on opposing Hitler when it was unpopular within his party and in sections of the media, and stuck with it until he was justified by history.
Churchill didn’t write two articles, one on “no surrender” and another mapping out the treaty terms with Germany.
Boris doesn’t have a single principle that he wouldn’t change tomorrow if it was to his benefit.
A small army of researchers in politics, history would like to thank Boris Johnson for all his hard work as Prime Minster, providing them with a rich vein of material for them to mine in the years to come.
Change of subject, an excellent and rather chilling thread on the consoling myth that "viruses get milder over time"
They really don't, unless you mean aeons of time and milder means "their aim* is not to wipe out all their hosts entirely"
"This Thread is a layman's understanding regarding virus pathogenicity and evolution: science only says that viruses which kill all their hosts will disappear. That's all. From this, it doesn't follow that viruses have an "inner desire" not to kill their hosts or to become milder."
"2/ Starting with viruses affecting non-human animals, species with small populations can quickly go extinct due to viral epidemics. Ebola has pushed gorillas toward extinction."
Isn't the 'viruses become milder' theory merely the application of the more times you have contact with the virus the greater the knowledge your immune system has of it and so the better protection it can give you ?
I don't think so. If you want protection, vaccination is a much better way to get it. At various times in the pandemic, people like Matt Ridley have said that lockdowns are bad because they delay the virus evolving into something benign.
Now with Omicron, it does look like that has happened (it's moved from the lungs to the throat, so it spreads faster but causes a lot less trouble to humans), but it was dumb luck that it happened now. That's what evolution is- dumb luck followed brutal selection on the outcomes.
Having said that, it's a bit of dumb luck I'm vary happy to bank.
It's not dumb luck, it's the evolutionary pathway. Omicron was successful because it evaded our existing immunity from vaccines and infection. To achieve that evasion it gave up a lot of virulence as it became a less good ACE-2 binding agent. Our immunity has created a common evolutionary pathway for COVID, another variant that outcompetes Omicron will need to give up yet more virulence. In a population with our immunity levels Omicron looks like it hospitalises 1/500 for overnight stays, a less virulent variant could be 2-3x less than that and we'll get a big immunity boost from Omicron adding in another 2-3x reduction. We could be at a stage soon where the next variant causes just 20-40k hospitalisation in total and 7-10k deaths.
In this particular case, likely true. But as far as virulence is concerned in general, it’s likely random(ish) chance. Continuing reproduction is all that counts from an evolutionary point of view, and the tricks that viruses have for cell entry, making multiple copies of themselves, and immune evasion at all stages of the process can throw up random surprises.
Brexit, as a political cause, is dead. As an administrative inconvenience, it will be with us for decades.
As the administrative inconveniences mount, so the political cause grows.
Brexit is alive and kicking...
We'll need to see rejoin polling at around 65% before a Labour government would have the nerve to try and take us back in. The EU would need to be convinced, too, that we're back in for good.
The only way to lock us in for good (which I agree the EU would want) is to demand euro membership. Would we ever pay that price?
Hmm
Also the Tories could just announce they would pull us out again once they were back in power. No way the EU would want to deal with the whole situation again.
The pandemic is drawing to its close in UK. A lengthy processing is beginning. It won't be pretty, personally, politically or socially. I have a feeling the Tory Party, at least at the higher levels, is hideously out of touch with society. May be heading for a mid 90's scenario.
Yes, but the difference is that Labour have Blair figure, nor the genius of Mandelson behind the scenes.
In 2020 many of the various holidays and feast days fell conveniently on a Friday or on a weekend.
I'm curious as to how that is different to any other year ?
Bank holidays are always on Fridays or Mondays.
There was some no mark on some crappy radio channel in my barbers the other week who had news that “the way Easter falls this year, you can take four days off work and have a ten day break.”
That’s the case every year.
The "special" ones are very late easters where you can book 4 days off and get 11 days holiday in a row.
Next chance is 2038.
You'll need to make the most of it too, next one after that is 2079.
Candidates announced for the Southend West by election on February 3rd.
Christopher Anderson - Freedom Alliance Catherine Blaiklock - English Democrats Olga Childs - Independent Ben Downton - Heritage Party Anna Firth - Conservative Party Jayda Fransen - Independent Steve Laws - UKIP Graham Moore - English Constitution Party Jason Pilley - Psychedelic Movement https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-59956467
I’m pretty sure that, if I lived in Southend, that would be the one time in my life that I’d vote Tory.
Brexit, as a political cause, is dead. As an administrative inconvenience, it will be with us for decades.
As the administrative inconveniences mount, so the political cause grows.
Brexit is alive and kicking...
We'll need to see rejoin polling at around 65% before a Labour government would have the nerve to try and take us back in. The EU would need to be convinced, too, that we're back in for good.
The only way to lock us in for good (which I agree the EU would want) is to demand euro membership. Would we ever pay that price?
Hmm
It’s a measure of Brexit’s deadness that you are even posing this question.
As it happens, I agree that Rejoin is not at all feasible, let alone euro-membership, but some sort of re-entry into the single market (Swiss style) seems a reasonably likely trajectory.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
Hang on. Churchill put in long hours, was fizzing with ideas and took his role and responsibilities with the gravest seriousness.
I don’t think the analogy holds, either. Churchill may have hopped parties but he had strong principles and arguably his fault was holding onto them beyond the point where they were relevant or in his own political interests - for example his obsession with empire and opposition to Indian independence.
And he staked his reputation on opposing Hitler when it was unpopular within his party and in sections of the media, and stuck with it until he was justified by history.
Churchill didn’t write two articles, one on “no surrender” and another mapping out the treaty terms with Germany.
Boris doesn’t have a single principle that he wouldn’t change tomorrow if it was to his benefit.
Brexit, as a political cause, is dead. As an administrative inconvenience, it will be with us for decades.
As the administrative inconveniences mount, so the political cause grows.
Brexit is alive and kicking...
We'll need to see rejoin polling at around 65% before a Labour government would have the nerve to try and take us back in. The EU would need to be convinced, too, that we're back in for good.
The only way to lock us in for good (which I agree the EU would want) is to demand euro membership. Would we ever pay that price?
Hmm
Also the Tories could just announce they would pull us out again once they were back in power. No way the EU would want to deal with the whole situation again.
I think that it is the Conservatives that will move to Rejoin in the end, but first they have to recover their values.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
"In many ways he is like his hero Churchill."
Name some.
Churchill was a fanatical details man, a masterful orator, a horseman and warrior, a hugely productive and disciplined writer and historian, and a marked non-wanker. He is also not Johnson's hero. Johnson's hero is Johnson, he pretends it is Churchill in the obviously not forlorn hope that exceptionally silly people will see some sort of fantastical resemblance between the two of them.
A PB delight is turn of phrase of the day. Always quality. "Marked non-wanker" is my winner for Tuesday.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
It's the 'taking the piss' effect, combined with the cumulative weight of minor transgression upon minor transgression, and the provably true point that we know what the guy at the top of it all things about following rules if you have the connections to avoid them.
It wears everyone down in the end.
I think you are right but are missing the bigger picture. COVID has worn everyone down. Relentlessly, over 2 long, brutal years. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel, folk are starting to process it all. The tsunami of repressed emotion is about to roll. We are only at the point where the sea has retreated. The natural first reaction to trauma is to lash out and find someone to blame. The incompetence and arrogance of this crew (not just Boris) is providing an easy target to foist all the anger, grief, sorrow and frustration onto. Even for the things that weren't necessarily their fault. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Could be mid 90"s.
Part of the evil genius of releasing this now.
When you tell a story, people tend to remember the beginning, the memorable intense bit, and the end. People who present for a living use that idea a lot.
If the government had been lucky, the vaccination triumph this time last year would have been the final chapter of the Covid story, and we would have remembered Boris leading us safe to the other side (unlike those poor Europeans). As it is, now looks like being the end of Covid as a big story, and the government could have hoped the story would be them judging it just right. But Someone (with a lah-de-dah Northern accent, one imagines) has covered that with party scandals. That's what we will remember.
Evil, and any minister who held onto the story ought to be toast. But genius.
The trouble for the wannabe successors is that the clown has self destructed too early.
Brexit, as a political cause, is dead. As an administrative inconvenience, it will be with us for decades.
As the administrative inconveniences mount, so the political cause grows.
Brexit is alive and kicking...
We'll need to see rejoin polling at around 65% before a Labour government would have the nerve to try and take us back in. The EU would need to be convinced, too, that we're back in for good.
The only way to lock us in for good (which I agree the EU would want) is to demand euro membership. Would we ever pay that price?
Hmm
It’s a measure of Brexit’s deadness that you are even posing this question.
As it happens, I agree that Rejoin is not at all feasible, let alone euro-membership, but some sort of re-entry into the single market (Swiss style) seems a reasonably likely trajectory.
That will be the next step, to a EEA style deal. Then the realisation that we want a seat at the top table will become the motivating factor for patriotic Tories.
I agree. I’m surprised myself how annoyed I am about what seems a comparatively minor transgression in objective terms.
Although as my wife noted this evening it’s their “let them eat cake” moment
I'm more annoyed at Boris frittering away a great big win, a lot of goodwill, an 80 seat majority, and probably his own job, with a series of such ridiculous unforced errors. Is it Long Covid destroying his brain? These are the actions of a clueless man, which he wasn't before - erratic, but never clueless
He has now ushered in the likelihood of a feeble Starmer-led Coalition government, hijacked by the trouble-making SNP, which is a recipe for more stagnation, division and relative decline. Brilliant, not
He's self-indulgent, doesn't do details and has a limited attention span.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
Hang on. Churchill put in long hours, was fizzing with ideas and took his role and responsibilities with the gravest seriousness.
Are you sure it was ideas he was fizzing with?
Hic.
Churchill used to pore over shipping and production statistics. Can't see Boris doing that.
Comments
Told you so is a weak rhetorical device but I (plenty of us on PB) told you so.
And I voted for him. Labour have a lot to answer for.
COVID has worn everyone down. Relentlessly, over 2 long, brutal years. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel, folk are starting to process it all. The tsunami of repressed emotion is about to roll. We are only at the point where the sea has retreated.
The natural first reaction to trauma is to lash out and find someone to blame.
The incompetence and arrogance of this crew (not just Boris) is providing an easy target to foist all the anger, grief, sorrow and frustration onto. Even for the things that weren't necessarily their fault.
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
Could be mid 90"s.
Brexit is dying, levelling up never got beyond to the starting line.
The only purpose the Tories serve is to prevent unnecessary covid restrictions, and with omicron on the wane, we don’t need them for that anymore.
By electing Corbyn as their leader, Labour enabled the Boris premiership we now have and the Brexit deal we have as well
Sandpit, HYUFD and Marquee Mark still claiming it is for the good of the kids, as far as I can tell.
Everyone connected with him knows about his flaws as well as his positive attributes.
In many ways he is like his hero Churchill.
But what Churchill had was an Alanbrooke and that's what Boris lacks.
Why ?
Did he feel he didn't need one ? Did he not want any constraints ? Is everyone else in Westminster some combination of self-serving schemer and fuckwit ?
Next chance is 2038.
You'll need to make the most of it too, next one after that is 2079.
If it was over, Truss wouldn't still be talking about it.
All the promises have crumbled to ashes, and it’s leading advocates either exposed as liars or departed the scene.
It’s just a clean up job now.
Society rests on the assumption of shared rules. As Cyclefree’s header argues, when its leaders make it very clear the rules they expect you to follow don’t apply to them, the social contact is in danger of breaking down.
As a reasonable conservative, of course you’re annoyed.
The thing is Brexit creates a treadmill that can never end as the EU tries to score a few points off us and other countries join in
See for example the EU/US steel deal that we aren’t part of.
Brexit the movement is not remotely over. Nobody has got what they were promised or what they were expected. The longer that we go post Brexit where nobody gets what they were promised the worse it gets for the Tories.
What vaccinations allow is for the initial infection to be much less dangerous and painful.
(ht @hendopolis) https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1481035644478631938/photo/1
HYUFD HAS TURNED
Repeat
HYUFD HAS TURNED
Said they weren’t worried about Boris as PM because they could “wrangle him like you wrangle a toddler”.
I told them at the time that I wasn’t comfortable they could keep him under control.
To quote @TOPPING ”I told you so”
Or something.
Thank you HY. That has crowned a great day. Goodnight!
Also, they are no longer necessarily doomed. Some are now turning a decent profit with a paywall/sub model, indeed some are growing mightily - like the NYT, which has just swallowed The Athletic
"New York Times Co. to Buy The Athletic for $550 Million in Cash
The deal could help the media company reach its goal of 10 million subscriptions ahead of schedule."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/business/new-york-times-the-athletic.html
And in the UK
"Ten years of the Times digital paywall: How Murdoch's 'big gamble' paid off"
https://pressgazette.co.uk/ten-years-of-the-times-digital-paywall-how-murdochs-big-gamble-paid-off/
Alas ....
Anyway, just delurking to express my utter disgust with him and the MPs who are trying to excuse his behaviour.
As an administrative inconvenience, it will be with us for decades.
Hic.
Fwiw my kipper super Boris fan mate text me out of the blue today saying “Boris doing himself no favours lately”
He’s spoken approvingly of Berlusconi - specifically his electoral success, which is all appears to matter - on several occasions.
Brexit is alive and kicking...
When you tell a story, people tend to remember the beginning, the memorable intense bit, and the end. People who present for a living use that idea a lot.
If the government had been lucky, the vaccination triumph this time last year would have been the final chapter of the Covid story, and we would have remembered Boris leading us safe to the other side (unlike those poor Europeans). As it is, now looks like being the end of Covid as a big story, and the government could have hoped the story would be them judging it just right. But Someone (with a lah-de-dah Northern accent, one imagines) has covered that with party scandals. That's what we will remember.
Evil, and any minister who held onto the story ought to be toast. But genius.
Martin Reynolds appears to be a damn fool as well.
And I don't doubt that there are plenty of others in Westminster and Whitehall as well.
What the Little Englanders wanted was to stop foreigners arriving.
And the numbers have shot up. Patel has no control
Keeping very quiet…
Name some.
Churchill was a fanatical details man, a masterful orator, a horseman and warrior, a hugely productive and disciplined writer and historian, and a marked non-wanker. He is also not Johnson's hero. Johnson's hero is Johnson, he pretends it is Churchill in the obviously not forlorn hope that exceptionally silly people will see some sort of fantastical resemblance between the two of them.
Remember that farmers and fishermen didn't vote for Brexit where leaving the EU was the end game. They did so wanting better fortunes and opportunities outside the CAP and CFP. As their fortunes and opportunities have got worse they don't consider the political cause dead.
Same with red wall WWC voters. Same with the low tax low regulation high Tories. That their respective expectations are contradictory and incompatible doesn't matter. Brexit as a political cause can't be dead whilst its objectives remain largely unfulfilled.
But Burns Night is in January so wouldn't have been affected by covid in 2020.
StuartDickson said:
» show previous quotes
Sean’s posts are fascinating. He comes across as a total shit though.
I disagree, I like him
This despite the fact I reckon there will be a narrow window of opportunity to do it, in a few years.
The problem is that assembling the Remainers is gonna make herding cats look easy. They are too disparate. For this reason it very likely won't happen. and as the years pass we will grow further away from the EU, and get used to being different. How many divorces are followed by remarriage? Liz Taylor and Richard Burton? That went well
Christopher Anderson - Freedom Alliance
Catherine Blaiklock - English Democrats
Olga Childs - Independent
Ben Downton - Heritage Party
Anna Firth - Conservative Party
Jayda Fransen - Independent
Steve Laws - UKIP
Graham Moore - English Constitution Party
Jason Pilley - Psychedelic Movement
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-59956467
Hmm
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59960989
In which case the whole drinking at work might be more normal than for most people who have work, social life and home all as discrete worlds.
And he staked his reputation on opposing Hitler when it was unpopular within his party and in sections of the media, and stuck with it until he was justified by history.
Churchill didn’t write two articles, one on “no surrender” and another mapping out the treaty terms with Germany.
Boris doesn’t have a single principle that he wouldn’t change tomorrow if it was to his benefit.
But as far as virulence is concerned in general, it’s likely random(ish) chance. Continuing reproduction is all that counts from an evolutionary point of view, and the tricks that viruses have for cell entry, making multiple copies of themselves, and immune evasion at all stages of the process can throw up random surprises.
As it happens, I agree that Rejoin is not at all feasible, let alone euro-membership, but some sort of re-entry into the single market (Swiss style) seems a reasonably likely trajectory.
"Marked non-wanker" is my winner for Tuesday.
Catching up.
Are these the worst front pages for as sitting PM in god knows how many decades?
Fecking awful.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/59868823