If Labour are over 10% ahead in the next round of polls then yes there will almost certainly be a VONC sooner than later.
If however Boris has kept the Labour lead under 10% despite the media and opposition onslaught after the attempted Cummings coup I think he will survive. He should then be safe until the next general election, in May he can probably point to a few key Tory holds in the likes of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in the locals and in the 2023 locals the Tories did so awfully in 2019 anyway there is little further for them to fall.
What do think happens if there are further stories, pictures etc, and a gradual erosion of the lead? A sudden jump back to a 10% Labour lead next week would maybe create enough panic, but would a drip of 1-2% with each revelation, evidence of further lies in the House, and abject non-apology ever be enough to give the party courage to act.
Assuming, of course, that any kind of principled stand is too much expect from Tory MPs and it's all down to the polls.
Short of a big double digit Labour lead lasting beyond a week Boris will survive. Drip drips can easily reverse back too
Adam Payne @adampayne26 · 2m I’m told the post-PMQs mood among Tory MPs elected in 2019 is “dark and subdued” with many feeling that they will lose their seats at the next election as things stand
I suspect many of them are looking at the leadership options and finally grasping how screwed they actually are come the next election..
The Red Wall seats may not be returning 100% red but they won't be very much blue left.
And which candidates will appeal to RW voters? Not Rishi or Truss nor the present Cabinet.
Look beyond them for the value bets.
I’ve been thinking along those lines.
My first suggestion is Robert Halfon. Come on PB, let’s brainstorm…
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
You are a disgrace to the conservative party and an utter embarrassment for those of us who want a decent and honest party socially distanced drink in the garden
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Just step away from the screen for a bit. I do it every so often when I find I’m spouting bollocks.
That would mean @HYUFD would need a long sabbatical
Cases - Falling. R is below 1 in a number of regions. Within England R is below 1, expected for the youngest (under 19) groups. Clear showing for the vaccine/booster effect. Admissions - R is nearly 1 - flat. MV beds - slowly declining Deaths, still going up.
My decision to rejoin the Tory party and take part in a 2022 leadership election is proving very wise.
I might do the same but how does it work regarding the three months for rejoining? Is that three months before the vacancy is announced, or three months before the ballot?
Unless he gets replaced after the May elections, it seems unlikely I'd be able to rejoin and still get a vote for a 2022 election since its looking like a 2022 election will be before May.
Why didn't you rejoin when "Boris" took over? You liked him an awful lot, both the man and his vision.
"Whatever the truth of covid origins, and whether or not the truth ever emerges, this is starting to look like a scientific scandal of the greatest magnitude"
Regarding @HYUFD’s allegations from this morning’s thread: For the good of the country and its people, and our international reputation, let’s hope that Cummings’ attempted coup is successful, the Tories destroy themselves in a vicious internal civil war and that they are out of office for a generation. Just to rub it in, while they are out of office, Scotland becomes independent and Ireland reunites. It would be suitable revenge for Johnson’s government’s behaviour.
My decision to rejoin the Tory party and take part in a 2022 leadership election is proving very wise.
I might do the same but how does it work regarding the three months for rejoining? Is that three months before the vacancy is announced, or three months before the ballot?
Unless he gets replaced after the May elections, it seems unlikely I'd be able to rejoin and still get a vote for a 2022 election since its looking like a 2022 election will be before May.
Why didn't you rejoin when "Boris" took over? You liked him an awful lot, both the man and his vision.
I did. I quit when he lifted National Insurance. I wrote a thread header here saying so at the time.
I joined originally when Howard was leader even though I really disliked Howard but because I was disgusted at the party choosing IDS over Ken Clarke and I wanted a say in the next election which I got and voted for Cameron. I've since quit twice, when May was elected in 2016 (before her deal or any of those divisions) and when the Tories increased National Insurance.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
You arrogant English right winger who seems to want to destroy all those who want to do the right thing in the interests of the conservative party
Mind you you did betray the party yourself when it suited you when you voted for Plaid
Laura Kuenssberg @bbclaurak · 6m Another Tory MP told me that in the tearoom the PM told him and colleagues 'it's not his fault and he's bravely taking the blame for others' - 'caused much consternation among colleagues' given that he'd just given a public apology
The other point to add is that you are the boss of those others and the boss often takes responsibility for the actions of their staff.
I think he will have to go. But, at the end of the day, this so-called party is hardly Suez or, for that matter, Iraq, is it? Pretty small beer for a political beast the size of Boris to be finally toppled by something so inconsequential.
Those who make the laws should not break the laws. It seems pretty fundamental to me.
Well, I agree. But, actually, I don't think the event on the 20th was quite so black and white as that, although, 18 months later the optics are terrible.
I'm not sure the nature of any of the individual events is entirely clearcut. But the PM was quite happy to declare himself outraged over some of them, and watch underlings resign while denying any knowledge. It is that which makes his position utterly indefensible.
I've been dodging in and out all day..... life and all that ...... and have missed any reference to Carrie. Was she at the party (or whatever it was on 20th? If so, why? Unless she just popped in to keep an eye on her husband, or to play the Lady of the Manor.
Cases - Falling. R is below 1 in a number of regions. Within England R is below 1, expected for the youngest (under 19) groups. Clear showing for the vaccine/booster effect. Admissions - R is nearly 1 - flat. MV beds - slowly declining Deaths, still going up.
0/10 chance of an apocalypse. Should have been 1/10 at the most previously.
Simply a not happening even, with cases not causing hospitalisations and R flat how on earth is there a 50-50 chance of an apocalypse.
I'm not sure the nature of any of the individual events is entirely clearcut. But the PM was quite happy to declare himself outraged over some of them, and watch underlings resign while denying any knowledge. It is that which makes his position utterly indefensible.
I think it's even worse than that. Even if you stretch your credulity to the outermost limits of human credulity-stretching, and accept the ludicrous claim that he neither knew in advance about the party nor noticed when he attended it that it was contrary to the very rules which he had set and repeatedly told us about, there is still the further obstacle that he solemnly told the House, after the initial stories had hit the media, that there were no breaches of the rules. In other words, that even after the accusations were made, it never crossed the minds of either himself or of any of his advisers and civil servants, who were supposed to be carefully checking because this was a formal statement to the House, that the 20th May gig might have been illegal at the time.
That enormous Twang! you can hear is the most-stretched credulity in history finally snapping.
If Labour are over 10% ahead in the next round of polls then yes there will almost certainly be a VONC sooner than later.
If however Boris has kept the Labour lead under 10% despite the media and opposition onslaught after the attempted Cummings coup I think he will survive. He should then be safe until the next general election, in May he can probably point to a few key Tory holds in the likes of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in the locals and in the 2023 locals the Tories did so awfully in 2019 anyway there is little further for them to fall.
This is not a Cummings coup
Boris is responsible for wallpapergate, partygate, Paterson debacle, and sleeze and as my son ( who is a conservative) said Carrie has been at the heart of this with her extravagant entitled attitude and love of parties
You need to accept Boris is totally self inflicted toast
I've called for Boris to go but find these misogynistic attacks on Carrie casting her as some sort of Lady Macbeth villain very distasteful.
If Boris broke his own rules he needs to resign, no ifs or buts. What his wife did or didn't do is immaterial to that. He is responsible for his own actions - not Cummings, not Carrie or anyone else.
The buck stops with him, nobody else.
It's not misogynistic to criticise a woman. The charge that she has driven poor policy decisions and egged Boris on to spend money that he needed to get from unorthodox sources for a flat refurb because she was snobbish about the John Lewisiness of it, these are sensible criticisms to make. I do not know whether they are true, but they should be dealt with on that basis of truth or falsity, not on her gender.
FWIW I don't think the Lady Macbeth analogy is the right one. Marie Antoinette is better. As we all know from our deep and detailed reading of history (right?), the criticisms against her were a mixture of on the nose and wildly wrong.
I'm in no position to call Carrie guilty or innocent, but charges of misogyny seem to come a little too easily here.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 · 2m I’m told the post-PMQs mood among Tory MPs elected in 2019 is “dark and subdued” with many feeling that they will lose their seats at the next election as things stand
I suspect many of them are looking at the leadership options and finally grasping how screwed they actually are come the next election..
The Red Wall seats may not be returning 100% red but they won't be very much blue left.
And which candidates will appeal to RW voters? Not Rishi or Truss nor the present Cabinet.
Look beyond them for the value bets.
I’ve been thinking along those lines.
My first suggestion is Robert Halfon. Come on PB, let’s brainstorm…
I'd say Ruth Davidson but there is the little matter of her being in the Upper House. Having said that, Clem Attlee thought that the best PM of his lifetime was the Marquess of Salisbury.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Wrong. Constitutional instability does matter to a Tory Govt. If there is a good reason for getting rid of Boris it's that he is catnip to the SNP. It's not at all surprising that Ruth Davidson and Douglas Ross have been so uncompromising. They know how we plays to Scottish public opinion.
Cases - Falling. R is below 1 in a number of regions. Within England R is below 1, expected for the youngest (under 19) groups. Clear showing for the vaccine/booster effect. Admissions - R is nearly 1 - flat. MV beds - slowly declining Deaths, still going up.
0/10 chance of an apocalypse. Should have been 1/10 at the most previously.
Simply a not happening even, with cases not causing hospitalisations and R flat how on earth is there a 50-50 chance of an apocalypse.
The NHS is under a lot of strain from the staff absences etc. Until cases and admissions drop a fair bit more, we are not out of the woods on this wave. Yet.
My decision to rejoin the Tory party and take part in a 2022 leadership election is proving very wise.
Who will you be backing?
Hunt, Sunak, or Truss.
It's a shame there are no Tory MPs with I-surnames, so that with an extra potential candidate and a bit of shuffling PB'ers could come up with a suitable acronym.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 · 2m I’m told the post-PMQs mood among Tory MPs elected in 2019 is “dark and subdued” with many feeling that they will lose their seats at the next election as things stand
I suspect many of them are looking at the leadership options and finally grasping how screwed they actually are come the next election..
The Red Wall seats may not be returning 100% red but they won't be very much blue left.
It was notable that MPs were standing up and asking Boris for more funding for their constituencies' pet projects.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Scots should stop whinging
We are talking about the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
That you think he should "stop whinging" just demonstrates how mad you have gone today. Are there enemies within? Your own MPs and officials need now to be cast out for their crimes of pointing at the stark naked Prime Minister and saying " what clothes, we can see your cock"?
If Labour are over 10% ahead in the next round of polls then yes there will almost certainly be a VONC sooner than later.
If however Boris has kept the Labour lead under 10% despite the media and opposition onslaught after the attempted Cummings coup I think he will survive. He should then be safe until the next general election, in May he can probably point to a few key Tory holds in the likes of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in the locals and in the 2023 locals the Tories did so awfully in 2019 anyway there is little further for them to fall.
This is not a Cummings coup
Boris is responsible for wallpapergate, partygate, Paterson debacle, and sleeze and as my son ( who is a conservative) said Carrie has been at the heart of this with her extravagant entitled attitude and love of parties
You need to accept Boris is totally self inflicted toast
I've called for Boris to go but find these misogynistic attacks on Carrie casting her as some sort of Lady Macbeth villain very distasteful.
If Boris broke his own rules he needs to resign, no ifs or buts. What his wife did or didn't do is immaterial to that. He is responsible for his own actions - not Cummings, not Carrie or anyone else.
The buck stops with him, nobody else.
Great post.
The Lady Macbeth stuff is the most hackneyed sexist trope of all.
If Labour are over 10% ahead in the next round of polls then yes there will almost certainly be a VONC sooner than later.
If however Boris has kept the Labour lead under 10% despite the media and opposition onslaught after the attempted Cummings coup I think he will survive. He should then be safe until the next general election, in May he can probably point to a few key Tory holds in the likes of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in the locals and in the 2023 locals the Tories did so awfully in 2019 anyway there is little further for them to fall.
This is not a Cummings coup
Boris is responsible for wallpapergate, partygate, Paterson debacle, and sleeze and as my son ( who is a conservative) said Carrie has been at the heart of this with her extravagant entitled attitude and love of parties
You need to accept Boris is totally self inflicted toast
I've called for Boris to go but find these misogynistic attacks on Carrie casting her as some sort of Lady Macbeth villain very distasteful.
If Boris broke his own rules he needs to resign, no ifs or buts. What his wife did or didn't do is immaterial to that. He is responsible for his own actions - not Cummings, not Carrie or anyone else.
The buck stops with him, nobody else.
It's not misogynistic to criticise a woman. The charge that she has driven poor policy decisions and egged Boris on to spend money that he needed to get from unorthodox sources for a flat refurb because she was snobbish about the John Lewisiness of it, these are sensible criticisms to make. I do not know whether they are true, but they should be dealt with on that basis of truth or falsity, not on her gender.
FWIW I don't think the Lady Macbeth analogy is the right one. Marie Antoinette is better. As we all know from our deep and detailed reading of history (right?), the criticisms against her were a mixture of on the nose and wildly wrong.
I'm in no position to call Carrie guilty or innocent, but charges of misogyny seem to come a little too easily here.
It is not misogynistic to criticise a woman. I've criticised and backed women before.
It is misogynistic to blame a woman for a man's actions. Boris is the PM. Boris made the lockdown rules, not Carrie. If Boris has done things wrong, then he has done so, he needs to take responsibility. Nobody else.
Lawmakers can't be lawbreakers and Boris needs to go for his own actions - Carrie isn't a lawmaker. She isn't responsible, he is.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
You are a disgrace to the conservative party and an utter embarrassment for those of us who want a decent and honest party
Says the man who does not even vote Tory at many general elections
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
You are a disgrace to the conservative party and an utter embarrassment for those of us who want a decent and honest party
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
You are a disgrace to the conservative party and an utter embarrassment for those of us who want a decent and honest party
Says the man who does not even vote Tory at many general elections
As you are now attacking your own MPs perhaps you may want to reconsider your attack lines.
Cases - Falling. R is below 1 in a number of regions. Within England R is below 1, expected for the youngest (under 19) groups. Clear showing for the vaccine/booster effect. Admissions - R is nearly 1 - flat. MV beds - slowly declining Deaths, still going up.
0/10 chance of an apocalypse. Should have been 1/10 at the most previously.
Simply a not happening even, with cases not causing hospitalisations and R flat how on earth is there a 50-50 chance of an apocalypse.
My decision to rejoin the Tory party and take part in a 2022 leadership election is proving very wise.
Who will you be backing?
Hunt, Sunak, or Truss.
It's a shame there are no Tory MPs with I-surnames, so that with an extra potential candidate and a bit of shuffling PB'ers could come up with a suitable acronym.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
You are a disgrace to the conservative party and an utter embarrassment for those of us who want a decent and honest party
Says the man who does not even vote Tory at many general elections
As you are now attacking your own MPs perhaps you may want to reconsider your attack lines.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 · 2m I’m told the post-PMQs mood among Tory MPs elected in 2019 is “dark and subdued” with many feeling that they will lose their seats at the next election as things stand
I suspect many of them are looking at the leadership options and finally grasping how screwed they actually are come the next election..
The Red Wall seats may not be returning 100% red but they won't be very much blue left.
And which candidates will appeal to RW voters? Not Rishi or Truss nor the present Cabinet.
Look beyond them for the value bets.
I’ve been thinking along those lines.
My first suggestion is Robert Halfon. Come on PB, let’s brainstorm…
I'd say Ruth Davidson but there is the little matter of her being in the Upper House. Having said that, Clem Attlee thought that the best PM of his lifetime was the Marquess of Salisbury.
Rishi has been doing a lot of work to get his own name on the levelling up agenda (putting the Treasury in Darlington etc.). I don't think it's a forgone conclusion that he'd be unpopular there. If we call Benjamin Disraeli white, I would quite like the Tories to have the first non-white PM. Another feather in their cap whilst Labour has given us nothing but pale male and stale...
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
You are a disgrace to the conservative party and an utter embarrassment for those of us who want a decent and honest party
Says the man who does not even vote Tory at many general elections
Many - fake news - just twice for Blair
At least I did not vote for a separatist party
Is voting for Blair half as bad as voting for PC? An interesting question of political calculus.
"Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’
"Emails to Dr Anthony Fauci show ‘likely’ explanation identified at start of coronavirus pandemic, but there were worries about saying so"
"Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.
"An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.
"The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.
It probably came from the lab, as I have been telling you for 18 months. This was also the opinion of many leading scientists right from the start, as I have been telling you for 18 months. it was probably engineered in the lab to be more transmissible, as I have been telling you for 18 months. But for various reasons there was a high level conspiracy to cover this up and crush an extremely plausible hypothesis: lab leak. As I have been telling you for 18 months.
You are repeating repeating repeating yourself again old chap. The Wuhan lab as a possible source is a "no shit Sherlock" theory. Much more interested in your aliens stuff, or the many "we are all going to die" stories.
You denied this for many many months, you silly twit. And described it as a mad "conspiracy theory". To be fair, you were hardly alone. The mass delusional stupidity on this issue has been quite something to witness
A few frightened scientists, politicians, bureaucrats and editors of the Lancet, scared of upsetting China and scared that science would get the blame for killing ~20m people, hoodwinked the entire world, for a year, until it all fell apart
I don't think this site needs any lessons on stupidity, or delusion come to that, from you, or your various reincarnations.
Statement from Dan Poulter MP; Dan Poulter says in statement: “I am pleased that the Prime Minister has apologised, but it’s not much consolation to those of us who cared for patients on the frontline of the NHS and saw them die of Covid".
"Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’
"Emails to Dr Anthony Fauci show ‘likely’ explanation identified at start of coronavirus pandemic, but there were worries about saying so"
"Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.
"An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.
"The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.
It probably came from the lab, as I have been telling you for 18 months. This was also the opinion of many leading scientists right from the start, as I have been telling you for 18 months. it was probably engineered in the lab to be more transmissible, as I have been telling you for 18 months. But for various reasons there was a high level conspiracy to cover this up and crush an extremely plausible hypothesis: lab leak. As I have been telling you for 18 months.
So they found one senior scientist who thought it was 50/50 and another 60/40. Not exactly conclusive? Unknowable this one.
That's Jeremy Farrar, the leader of the Wellcome Trust, who thought it was 70/30 lab leak, and said so
Also this, from the earliest emails:
"In the emails, Sir Jeremy said that other scientists also believed the virus could not have evolved naturally. One such scientist was Professor Mike Farzan, of Scripps Research, the expert who discovered how the original Sars virus binds to human cells.
Scientists were particularly concerned by a part of Covid-19 called the furin cleavage site, a section of the spike protein which helps it enter cells and makes it so infectious to humans.
Summarising Professor Farzan’s concerns in an email, Sir Jeremy said: “He is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time (to) explain that as an event outside the lab, though there are possible ways in nature but highly unlikely."
And these guys
"The emails also show that Bob Garry, of the University of Texas, was unconvinced that Covid-19 emerged naturally.
“I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature,” he said.
"Professor Andrew Rambaut, from the University of Edinburgh, also said that furin cleavage site “strikes me as unusual”. "
And there are dozens more if you look at what is being revealed, right now, in the USA, it is all spilling out
But of course you know better, but also you know that all this is "unknowable" so let's not bother trying to know. But you still somehow know. Is that right?
Farrar changed his mind from 70/30 to 50/50 so over time thought it less likely. If you ask him today he might give a different percentage again. In five years time yet another percentage. I doubt even he will get to 100/0 so yes for the likes of you and I it is unknowable. Perhaps a few people in the CCP or the Wuhan lab do really know.
He didn't just change his mind, he did this in a matter of days:
On February 1 2020 he wrote that he thought lab leak was likely by 70/30 to 60/40. ie Probable. Not just possible, PROBABLE. And he wrote that many important virologists agreed with him, and also thought it highly likely the virus had been engineered
Then just 18 days later the same Jeremy Farrar co-signed this letter in The Lancet:
"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife as have so many other emerging pathogens This is further supported by a letter from the presidents of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and by the scientific communities they represent. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus."
Wow. So in 18 days Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust went from thinking lab leak was the probable origin of the virus to thinking it was "overwhelmingly likely" the virus actually came from nature and that anyone who did suggest it came from the lab like, say, er, himself just two weeks before, was indulging in dangerous "conspiracy theories"
To make this total about-turn Jeremy Farrar must have seen some incredible evidence of natural origin, absolutely convincing copper-bottomed smoking-gun shit, right? And yet he has never shared it with anyone else. Which is a shame, as it would be nice to know where the virus came from. Ah well
And remember, the Lancet letter was organised by Peter Daszak, the co-head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who led the gain of function research, and yet Daszak does not reveal this link in any place in the letter, and actually declares "no conflict of interest" - a statement the Lancet had to retract, painfully, a year later
It was a massive cover-up, now completely blown open. And yes, it really matters if science is this deeply corrupted
Adam Payne @adampayne26 · 2m I’m told the post-PMQs mood among Tory MPs elected in 2019 is “dark and subdued” with many feeling that they will lose their seats at the next election as things stand
I suspect many of them are looking at the leadership options and finally grasping how screwed they actually are come the next election..
The Red Wall seats may not be returning 100% red but they won't be very much blue left.
So they have been perusing the redwall subsamples. Naughty boys.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Of course, the English never whinge. Ahem.
And it is (I say again) not Tory policy to have an English Parliament. So who's the wrong sort of Tory then?
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
You are a disgrace to the conservative party and an utter embarrassment for those of us who want a decent and honest party
Says the man who does not even vote Tory at many general elections
HYUFD, if you are going to go dismissing the views of anyone who isn't an ultra-loyalist - or even those loyalists like Douglas Ross who happen , pretty soon there will only be you and Boris left.
It's not the ultra-loyalists you need. As you've noted in the past, there is a core of people who will vote Tory in any circumstance - though Boris is trying is hardest to test that. It's those like Big G who may or may not vote Tory.
Any chance this Tory leadership campaign may actually become a debate about policy and vision? Like what is the Conservative Party for? Haven't had one of them for 17 years.
If Labour are over 10% ahead in the next round of polls then yes there will almost certainly be a VONC sooner than later.
If however Boris has kept the Labour lead under 10% despite the media and opposition onslaught after the attempted Cummings coup I think he will survive. He should then be safe until the next general election, in May he can probably point to a few key Tory holds in the likes of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in the locals and in the 2023 locals the Tories did so awfully in 2019 anyway there is little further for them to fall.
This is not a Cummings coup
Boris is responsible for wallpapergate, partygate, Paterson debacle, and sleeze and as my son ( who is a conservative) said Carrie has been at the heart of this with her extravagant entitled attitude and love of parties
You need to accept Boris is totally self inflicted toast
No, this is a Cummings coup with leaks done to advance his agenda
I'm sure Cummings is leaking in order to get Boris and Carrie out but ask yourself this... who gave him the ammunition to leak in the first place?
Craig Oliver @CraigOliver100 · 4h Boris Johnson on the ropes at PMQs, his only defence: wait for the inquiry results. He must be fairly confident Sue Gray is going to say people sincerely believed the parties were office events & technically ok. That’ll cause outrage among many but he’ll try to use it to move on.
My take with the obvious caveat that I am not a Tory MP nor even a supporter.
What I think the Tory MPs want to have happen is for them to be able to hang on until after the May elections and then dump Johnson. What I suspect they fear the most is Starmer or someone else calling for a vote of No Confidence in Johnson where they are forced to back him. They will have to back him because they don't want an election before the new seat boundaries are in place and whilst the party as a whole is on the back foot. They want to be able to get rid of Johnson in their own time -and sooner rather than later - and replace him with someone they hope will be able to put all this stuff behind them.
I am not sure if this is either possible or practical but it seems to me to be the only way they even start to recover.
That's my take as well. Tories have now firmly inked in May/June as his exit date (hence bets on a 2022 departure are heading for free money), but now events are spiralling out of control. Yet no-one wants to take the job in advance of the tax rises, fuel bill crisis, and the local election losses.
If Labour are over 10% ahead in the next round of polls then yes there will almost certainly be a VONC sooner than later.
If however Boris has kept the Labour lead under 10% despite the media and opposition onslaught after the attempted Cummings coup I think he will survive. He should then be safe until the next general election, in May he can probably point to a few key Tory holds in the likes of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in the locals and in the 2023 locals the Tories did so awfully in 2019 anyway there is little further for them to fall.
What do think happens if there are further stories, pictures etc, and a gradual erosion of the lead? A sudden jump back to a 10% Labour lead next week would maybe create enough panic, but would a drip of 1-2% with each revelation, evidence of further lies in the House, and abject non-apology ever be enough to give the party courage to act.
Assuming, of course, that any kind of principled stand is too much expect from Tory MPs and it's all down to the polls.
Short of a big double digit Labour lead lasting beyond a week Boris will survive. Drip drips can easily reverse back too
"Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’
"Emails to Dr Anthony Fauci show ‘likely’ explanation identified at start of coronavirus pandemic, but there were worries about saying so"
"Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.
"An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.
"The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.
It probably came from the lab, as I have been telling you for 18 months. This was also the opinion of many leading scientists right from the start, as I have been telling you for 18 months. it was probably engineered in the lab to be more transmissible, as I have been telling you for 18 months. But for various reasons there was a high level conspiracy to cover this up and crush an extremely plausible hypothesis: lab leak. As I have been telling you for 18 months.
So they found one senior scientist who thought it was 50/50 and another 60/40. Not exactly conclusive? Unknowable this one.
That's Jeremy Farrar, the leader of the Wellcome Trust, who thought it was 70/30 lab leak, and said so
Also this, from the earliest emails:
"In the emails, Sir Jeremy said that other scientists also believed the virus could not have evolved naturally. One such scientist was Professor Mike Farzan, of Scripps Research, the expert who discovered how the original Sars virus binds to human cells.
Scientists were particularly concerned by a part of Covid-19 called the furin cleavage site, a section of the spike protein which helps it enter cells and makes it so infectious to humans.
Summarising Professor Farzan’s concerns in an email, Sir Jeremy said: “He is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time (to) explain that as an event outside the lab, though there are possible ways in nature but highly unlikely."
And these guys
"The emails also show that Bob Garry, of the University of Texas, was unconvinced that Covid-19 emerged naturally.
“I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature,” he said.
"Professor Andrew Rambaut, from the University of Edinburgh, also said that furin cleavage site “strikes me as unusual”. "
And there are dozens more if you look at what is being revealed, right now, in the USA, it is all spilling out
But of course you know better, but also you know that all this is "unknowable" so let's not bother trying to know. But you still somehow know. Is that right?
Farrar changed his mind from 70/30 to 50/50 so over time thought it less likely. If you ask him today he might give a different percentage again. In five years time yet another percentage. I doubt even he will get to 100/0 so yes for the likes of you and I it is unknowable. Perhaps a few people in the CCP or the Wuhan lab do really know.
He didn't just change his mind, he did this in a matter of days:
On February 1 2020 he wrote that he thought lab leak was likely by 70/30 to 60/40. ie Probable. Not just possible, PROBABLE. And he wrote that many important virologists agreed with him, and also thought it highly likely the virus had been engineered
Then just 18 days later the same Jeremy Farrar co-signed this letter in The Lancet:
"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife as have so many other emerging pathogens This is further supported by a letter from the presidents of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and by the scientific communities they represent. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus."
Wow. So in 18 days Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust went from thinking lab leak was the probable origin of the virus to thinking it was "overwhelmingly likely" the virus actually came from nature and that anyone who did suggest it came from the lab like, say, er, himself just two weeks before, was indulging in dangerous "conspiracy theories"
To make this total about-turn Jeremy Farrar must have seen some incredible evidence of natural origin, absolutely convincing copper-bottomed smoking-gun shit, right? And yet he has never shared it with anyone else. Which is a shame, as it would be nice to know where the virus came from. Ah well
And remember, the Lancet letter was organised by Peter Daszak, the co-head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who led the gain of function research, and yet Daszak does not reveal this link in any place in the letter, and actually declares "no conflict of interest" - a statement the Lancet had to retract, painfully, a year later
It was a massive cover-up, now completely blown open. And yes, it really matters if science is this deeply corrupted
As I say a big part of the reason it is unknowable is that we can't trust analysis of it. Saying that scientists were not honest about it is hardly going to make me change my mind that we will never know.
Any chance this Tory leadership campaign may actually become a debate about policy and vision? Like what is the Conservative Party for? Haven't had one of them for 17 years.
We had one in 2019. Hunt and Boris were selling completely different policies and visions and the right one won then.
But the issues of 2019 are in the past and Boris is now damaged goods. We don't need to refight 2019's battles, so we need policy and vision for the post-Covid, post-Brexit future.
My take with the obvious caveat that I am not a Tory MP nor even a supporter.
What I think the Tory MPs want to have happen is for them to be able to hang on until after the May elections and then dump Johnson. What I suspect they fear the most is Starmer or someone else calling for a vote of No Confidence in Johnson where they are forced to back him. They will have to back him because they don't want an election before the new seat boundaries are in place and whilst the party as a whole is on the back foot. They want to be able to get rid of Johnson in their own time -and sooner rather than later - and replace him with someone they hope will be able to put all this stuff behind them.
I am not sure if this is either possible or practical but it seems to me to be the only way they even start to recover.
That's my take as well. Tories have now firmly inked in May/June as his exit date (hence bets on a 2022 departure are heading for free money), but now events are spiralling out of control. Yet no-one wants to take the job in advance of the tax rises, fuel bill crisis, and the local election losses.
+1 - the thing I picked out when looking at the 2022 local elections is how few things there are actually that important for Tory MPs. One of the few MPS with anything to worry about is @Tissue_Price in Newcastle-under-Lyme..
It's why the Scottish MPs are complaining because the English ones (in most cases) have little to worry about in May.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Scots should stop whinging
We are talking about the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
That you think he should "stop whinging" just demonstrates how mad you have gone today. Are there enemies within? Your own MPs and officials need now to be cast out for their crimes of pointing at the stark naked Prime Minister and saying " what clothes, we can see your cock"?
Truly Mad.
On reflection, HYUFD might have a point. He and his fellow ideologues can't have whinging remainer or pretend remainer Jocks within the party. And I can't see ahy successor to Mr J being any more sympathetic. Which raises a serious question about what happens to the Scottish Tories, whose entire rationale is union with London.
If Labour are over 10% ahead in the next round of polls then yes there will almost certainly be a VONC sooner than later.
If however Boris has kept the Labour lead under 10% despite the media and opposition onslaught after the attempted Cummings coup I think he will survive. He should then be safe until the next general election, in May he can probably point to a few key Tory holds in the likes of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in the locals and in the 2023 locals the Tories did so awfully in 2019 anyway there is little further for them to fall.
This is not a Cummings coup
Boris is responsible for wallpapergate, partygate, Paterson debacle, and sleeze and as my son ( who is a conservative) said Carrie has been at the heart of this with her extravagant entitled attitude and love of parties
You need to accept Boris is totally self inflicted toast
No, this is a Cummings coup with leaks done to advance his agenda
I'm sure Cummings is leaking in order to get Boris and Carrie out but ask yourself this... who gave him the ammunition to leak in the first place?
The fable of the fox and the scorpion not on the Eton reading list?
(Edit: Wiki says it was a frog not a fox. Ah well.)
Absolute lols at the Scottish case figures. Down almost 50% week on week.
Everyone is going to shit their pants tomorrow.
Why?
Scotland currently doesn't report lfd results. On the 5th they told people to stop getting a pcr if they get a positive lfd. Been a massive "drop" in cases since the 6th. Tomorrow Scotland starts reporting lfd results.
Any chance this Tory leadership campaign may actually become a debate about policy and vision? Like what is the Conservative Party for? Haven't had one of them for 17 years.
We had one in 2019. Hunt and Boris were selling completely different policies and visions and the right one won then.
But the issues of 2019 are in the past and Boris is now damaged goods. We don't need to refight 2019's battles, so we need policy and vision for the post-Covid, post-Brexit future.
Do we have any guarantee that the right one this time won't collapse into utter and total incoherence in less than 3 years like the previous two?
If Labour are over 10% ahead in the next round of polls then yes there will almost certainly be a VONC sooner than later.
If however Boris has kept the Labour lead under 10% despite the media and opposition onslaught after the attempted Cummings coup I think he will survive. He should then be safe until the next general election, in May he can probably point to a few key Tory holds in the likes of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in the locals and in the 2023 locals the Tories did so awfully in 2019 anyway there is little further for them to fall.
This is not a Cummings coup
Boris is responsible for wallpapergate, partygate, Paterson debacle, and sleeze and as my son ( who is a conservative) said Carrie has been at the heart of this with her extravagant entitled attitude and love of parties
You need to accept Boris is totally self inflicted toast
No, this is a Cummings coup with leaks done to advance his agenda
I'm sure Cummings is leaking in order to get Boris and Carrie out but ask yourself this... who gave him the ammunition to leak in the first place?
Himself, surely? He was at the heart of the operation at this time.
Any chance this Tory leadership campaign may actually become a debate about policy and vision? Like what is the Conservative Party for? Haven't had one of them for 17 years.
We had one in 2019. Hunt and Boris were selling completely different policies and visions and the right one won then.
But the issues of 2019 are in the past and Boris is now damaged goods. We don't need to refight 2019's battles, so we need policy and vision for the post-Covid, post-Brexit future.
And that surely is either Brexit redone or Levelling up vs economic prudency.
And the latter is a problem as it determines where things go from here on in. Locally Darlington Council has moved from big projects (Northern relief road) to here are 3 roundabouts that may make getting into / out of town 10 seconds quicker.
And if levelling up is dead so are the Tory's hope in those red wall seats (remember the recent subsamples and that's before the MPs fail to deliver).
Adam Payne @adampayne26 · 2m I’m told the post-PMQs mood among Tory MPs elected in 2019 is “dark and subdued” with many feeling that they will lose their seats at the next election as things stand
I suspect many of them are looking at the leadership options and finally grasping how screwed they actually are come the next election..
The Red Wall seats may not be returning 100% red but they won't be very much blue left.
And which candidates will appeal to RW voters? Not Rishi or Truss nor the present Cabinet.
Look beyond them for the value bets.
I’ve been thinking along those lines.
My first suggestion is Robert Halfon. Come on PB, let’s brainstorm…
I'd say Ruth Davidson but there is the little matter of her being in the Upper House. Having said that, Clem Attlee thought that the best PM of his lifetime was the Marquess of Salisbury.
Ruth has many merits but I'd say her appeal to the red wall isn't one of them.
Regarding @HYUFD’s allegations from this morning’s thread: For the good of the country and its people, and our international reputation, let’s hope that Cummings’ attempted coup is successful, the Tories destroy themselves in a vicious internal civil war and that they are out of office for a generation. Just to rub it in, while they are out of office, Scotland becomes independent and Ireland reunites. It would be suitable revenge for Johnson’s government’s behaviour.
If Scotland becomes independent then bang go a lot of Scottish leftwing MPs making it easier for the Tories to get back into power. Preserving the UK may be good for the country, not for the Tories as such.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Scots should stop whinging
We are talking about the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
That you think he should "stop whinging" just demonstrates how mad you have gone today. Are there enemies within? Your own MPs and officials need now to be cast out for their crimes of pointing at the stark naked Prime Minister and saying " what clothes, we can see your cock"?
Truly Mad.
On reflection, HYUFD might have a point. He and his fellow ideologues can't have whinging remainer or pretend remainer Jocks within the party. And I can't see ahy successor to Mr J being any more sympathetic. Which raises a serious question about what happens to the Scottish Tories, whose entire rationale is union with London.
Political union with London, but not necessarily party union with the English and Welsh Tory Party. There's every case for a Scottish only Unionist Party.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
You are a disgrace to the conservative party and an utter embarrassment for those of us who want a decent and honest party
Says the man who does not even vote Tory at many general elections
Yet he's never voted for Plaid and he actually lives in Wales!
Laura Kuenssberg @bbclaurak · 6m Another Tory MP told me that in the tearoom the PM told him and colleagues 'it's not his fault and he's bravely taking the blame for others' - 'caused much consternation among colleagues' given that he'd just given a public apology
The other point to add is that you are the boss of those others and the boss often takes responsibility for the actions of their staff.
I think he will have to go. But, at the end of the day, this so-called party is hardly Suez or, for that matter, Iraq, is it? Pretty small beer for a political beast the size of Boris to be finally toppled by something so inconsequential.
Precisely the right measure of beer for a beasty the size of BJ, and in any case you can be sure he didn’t buy it.
I did that survey an hour ago and was one of the 35%. My crime was to pop inside my parents’ house for a slash after a socially distanced walk with my Mum in late May 2020. If that sort of thing was Johnson’s offence no one would give a monkeys. Few of us organised drinks parties.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
Laura Kuenssberg @bbclaurak · 6m Another Tory MP told me that in the tearoom the PM told him and colleagues 'it's not his fault and he's bravely taking the blame for others' - 'caused much consternation among colleagues' given that he'd just given a public apology
The other point to add is that you are the boss of those others and the boss often takes responsibility for the actions of their staff.
I think he will have to go. But, at the end of the day, this so-called party is hardly Suez or, for that matter, Iraq, is it? Pretty small beer for a political beast the size of Boris to be finally toppled by something so inconsequential.
The totality isn't small beer, though, it's a yard of ale - a critical mass of the public realizing they have an empty conman for a PM. If indeed they have realized this. Because it is down to the public what happens now. Tory MPs won't ditch him unless the polls give a clear & settled view that their GE chances are better under a realistic alternative. This isn't a done deal, imo, far from it.
Any chance this Tory leadership campaign may actually become a debate about policy and vision? Like what is the Conservative Party for? Haven't had one of them for 17 years.
We had one in 2019. Hunt and Boris were selling completely different policies and visions and the right one won then.
But the issues of 2019 are in the past and Boris is now damaged goods. We don't need to refight 2019's battles, so we need policy and vision for the post-Covid, post-Brexit future.
Do we have any guarantee that the right one this time won't collapse into utter and total incoherence in less than 3 years like the previous two?
Of course not. There's never any guarantees in life.
Boris was the right man for the job, he had the right policies and vision and he's delivered it - and an eighty seat majority too.
But the three years he's been in power has had about 10 years worth of "events" in Covid and its overwhelmed him. He's done well for most of Covid, but he's broken his own rules and that's an absolute no-no so he has to go.
Had it not been for Covid then Boris would probably have been PM for eight or nine years, but he's done.
"Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’
"Emails to Dr Anthony Fauci show ‘likely’ explanation identified at start of coronavirus pandemic, but there were worries about saying so"
"Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.
"An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.
"The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.
It probably came from the lab, as I have been telling you for 18 months. This was also the opinion of many leading scientists right from the start, as I have been telling you for 18 months. it was probably engineered in the lab to be more transmissible, as I have been telling you for 18 months. But for various reasons there was a high level conspiracy to cover this up and crush an extremely plausible hypothesis: lab leak. As I have been telling you for 18 months.
So they found one senior scientist who thought it was 50/50 and another 60/40. Not exactly conclusive? Unknowable this one.
That's Jeremy Farrar, the leader of the Wellcome Trust, who thought it was 70/30 lab leak, and said so
Also this, from the earliest emails:
"In the emails, Sir Jeremy said that other scientists also believed the virus could not have evolved naturally. One such scientist was Professor Mike Farzan, of Scripps Research, the expert who discovered how the original Sars virus binds to human cells.
Scientists were particularly concerned by a part of Covid-19 called the furin cleavage site, a section of the spike protein which helps it enter cells and makes it so infectious to humans.
Summarising Professor Farzan’s concerns in an email, Sir Jeremy said: “He is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time (to) explain that as an event outside the lab, though there are possible ways in nature but highly unlikely."
And these guys
"The emails also show that Bob Garry, of the University of Texas, was unconvinced that Covid-19 emerged naturally.
“I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature,” he said.
"Professor Andrew Rambaut, from the University of Edinburgh, also said that furin cleavage site “strikes me as unusual”. "
And there are dozens more if you look at what is being revealed, right now, in the USA, it is all spilling out
But of course you know better, but also you know that all this is "unknowable" so let's not bother trying to know. But you still somehow know. Is that right?
Farrar changed his mind from 70/30 to 50/50 so over time thought it less likely. If you ask him today he might give a different percentage again. In five years time yet another percentage. I doubt even he will get to 100/0 so yes for the likes of you and I it is unknowable. Perhaps a few people in the CCP or the Wuhan lab do really know.
He didn't just change his mind, he did this in a matter of days:
On February 1 2020 he wrote that he thought lab leak was likely by 70/30 to 60/40. ie Probable. Not just possible, PROBABLE. And he wrote that many important virologists agreed with him, and also thought it highly likely the virus had been engineered
Then just 18 days later the same Jeremy Farrar co-signed this letter in The Lancet:
"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife as have so many other emerging pathogens This is further supported by a letter from the presidents of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and by the scientific communities they represent. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus."
Wow. So in 18 days Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust went from thinking lab leak was the probable origin of the virus to thinking it was "overwhelmingly likely" the virus actually came from nature and that anyone who did suggest it came from the lab like, say, er, himself just two weeks before, was indulging in dangerous "conspiracy theories"
To make this total about-turn Jeremy Farrar must have seen some incredible evidence of natural origin, absolutely convincing copper-bottomed smoking-gun shit, right? And yet he has never shared it with anyone else. Which is a shame, as it would be nice to know where the virus came from. Ah well
And remember, the Lancet letter was organised by Peter Daszak, the co-head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who led the gain of function research, and yet Daszak does not reveal this link in any place in the letter, and actually declares "no conflict of interest" - a statement the Lancet had to retract, painfully, a year later
It was a massive cover-up, now completely blown open. And yes, it really matters if science is this deeply corrupted
As I say a big part of the reason it is unknowable is that we can't trust analysis of it. Saying that scientists were not honest about it is hardly going to make me change my mind that we will never know.
It really matters if the western scientific establishment is this dishonest, and this corrupted by its links with China. Farrar needs to own this as much as Boris needs to own HIS lies. And of course it's not just Farrar, there are hundreds of scientists who knew it was probably from the lab who joined in the cover-up, for various reasons. A few desperate Japanese-soldier types are STILL fighting a rearguard action, tho most have given up and gone quiet
It doesn't matter whether it was 25% or 55% - the key point in today's discussion is that the people setting the rules and telling the rest of us how to live our lives broke the rules.
As Julia HB has been pointing out, its almost as if they knew the rules were ridiculous and would make no difference.
"Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’
"Emails to Dr Anthony Fauci show ‘likely’ explanation identified at start of coronavirus pandemic, but there were worries about saying so"
"Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.
"An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.
"The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.
It probably came from the lab, as I have been telling you for 18 months. This was also the opinion of many leading scientists right from the start, as I have been telling you for 18 months. it was probably engineered in the lab to be more transmissible, as I have been telling you for 18 months. But for various reasons there was a high level conspiracy to cover this up and crush an extremely plausible hypothesis: lab leak. As I have been telling you for 18 months.
So they found one senior scientist who thought it was 50/50 and another 60/40. Not exactly conclusive? Unknowable this one.
That's Jeremy Farrar, the leader of the Wellcome Trust, who thought it was 70/30 lab leak, and said so
Also this, from the earliest emails:
"In the emails, Sir Jeremy said that other scientists also believed the virus could not have evolved naturally. One such scientist was Professor Mike Farzan, of Scripps Research, the expert who discovered how the original Sars virus binds to human cells.
Scientists were particularly concerned by a part of Covid-19 called the furin cleavage site, a section of the spike protein which helps it enter cells and makes it so infectious to humans.
Summarising Professor Farzan’s concerns in an email, Sir Jeremy said: “He is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time (to) explain that as an event outside the lab, though there are possible ways in nature but highly unlikely."
And these guys
"The emails also show that Bob Garry, of the University of Texas, was unconvinced that Covid-19 emerged naturally.
“I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature,” he said.
"Professor Andrew Rambaut, from the University of Edinburgh, also said that furin cleavage site “strikes me as unusual”. "
And there are dozens more if you look at what is being revealed, right now, in the USA, it is all spilling out
But of course you know better, but also you know that all this is "unknowable" so let's not bother trying to know. But you still somehow know. Is that right?
Farrar changed his mind from 70/30 to 50/50 so over time thought it less likely. If you ask him today he might give a different percentage again. In five years time yet another percentage. I doubt even he will get to 100/0 so yes for the likes of you and I it is unknowable. Perhaps a few people in the CCP or the Wuhan lab do really know.
He didn't just change his mind, he did this in a matter of days:
On February 1 2020 he wrote that he thought lab leak was likely by 70/30 to 60/40. ie Probable. Not just possible, PROBABLE. And he wrote that many important virologists agreed with him, and also thought it highly likely the virus had been engineered
Then just 18 days later the same Jeremy Farrar co-signed this letter in The Lancet:
"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife as have so many other emerging pathogens This is further supported by a letter from the presidents of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and by the scientific communities they represent. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus."
Wow. So in 18 days Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust went from thinking lab leak was the probable origin of the virus to thinking it was "overwhelmingly likely" the virus actually came from nature and that anyone who did suggest it came from the lab like, say, er, himself just two weeks before, was indulging in dangerous "conspiracy theories"
To make this total about-turn Jeremy Farrar must have seen some incredible evidence of natural origin, absolutely convincing copper-bottomed smoking-gun shit, right? And yet he has never shared it with anyone else. Which is a shame, as it would be nice to know where the virus came from. Ah well
And remember, the Lancet letter was organised by Peter Daszak, the co-head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who led the gain of function research, and yet Daszak does not reveal this link in any place in the letter, and actually declares "no conflict of interest" - a statement the Lancet had to retract, painfully, a year later
It was a massive cover-up, now completely blown open. And yes, it really matters if science is this deeply corrupted
I think it's only fair that posters on this site actually recognise the basic truth of what @Leon is saying and stop just having a Pavolvian reaction when they see his posts.
His point is a fundamentally correct one namely that, regardless of what you believe about the lab leak theory, if the Telegraph is right, you had one of the country's leading scientists go in less than 3 weeks from thinking it was probable it came from a lab to dismissing such views as conspiracy theory without any explanation - now or then - as to what prompted such a radical change of view. Nor the role of Daszak and his behaviour, which can only be described, generously, as "interesting."
These are the people that we are told to trust. I think any of us, if they were faced with someone at work (or even a Prime Minister) who repeated this pattern of behaviour, would be asking questions about their veracity and what went on.
Post-this crisis, there has to be an inquiry but not one conducted by the scientific community as there is a fair chance it will be a whitewash. And quite frankly, it will be the best for science.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips · 3h The wish that he'd done something different is very weak considering they went on to have various other party. So the PM didn't wish it enough to change his behaviour
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
If the Union is to be preserved it will be by the UK Tories refusing indyref2 when in power, or by UK Labour offering Scots devomax and scraping a No vote in an indyref2 when they are in power.
The SCons are now largely completely irrelevant to preserving the Union and will be unless they somehow managed to deprive the SNP and Greens of a Holyrood majority, which they failed to do last year while Boris won a landslide for the UK Tories 2 years before
If Labour are over 10% ahead in the next round of polls then yes there will almost certainly be a VONC sooner than later.
If however Boris has kept the Labour lead under 10% despite the media and opposition onslaught after the attempted Cummings coup I think he will survive. He should then be safe until the next general election, in May he can probably point to a few key Tory holds in the likes of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in the locals and in the 2023 locals the Tories did so awfully in 2019 anyway there is little further for them to fall.
This is not a Cummings coup
Boris is responsible for wallpapergate, partygate, Paterson debacle, and sleeze and as my son ( who is a conservative) said Carrie has been at the heart of this with her extravagant entitled attitude and love of parties
You need to accept Boris is totally self inflicted toast
I've called for Boris to go but find these misogynistic attacks on Carrie casting her as some sort of Lady Macbeth villain very distasteful.
If Boris broke his own rules he needs to resign, no ifs or buts. What his wife did or didn't do is immaterial to that. He is responsible for his own actions - not Cummings, not Carrie or anyone else.
The buck stops with him, nobody else.
The continual finger-pointing at Carrie - which is a particular feature over at ConHome - is distasteful and wrong.
The issue isn't her, it's him - we have a PM with no political principles or beliefs of his own, who judges every suggestion that comes his way through the prism of political and personal advantage. Therefore anyone who gets his ear and pitches something as being in his own interest catches his attention, regardless of whether it fits with the manifesto or Conservative thinking. If it wasn't her, it would be others.
The lesson - pick a national leader who actually believes in something other than himself (or herself).
Any chance this Tory leadership campaign may actually become a debate about policy and vision? Like what is the Conservative Party for? Haven't had one of them for 17 years.
We had one in 2019. Hunt and Boris were selling completely different policies and visions and the right one won then.
But the issues of 2019 are in the past and Boris is now damaged goods. We don't need to refight 2019's battles, so we need policy and vision for the post-Covid, post-Brexit future.
Do we have any guarantee that the right one this time won't collapse into utter and total incoherence in less than 3 years like the previous two?
Of course not. There's never any guarantees in life.
Boris was the right man for the job, he had the right policies and vision and he's delivered it - and an eighty seat majority too.
But the three years he's been in power has had about 10 years worth of "events" in Covid and its overwhelmed him. He's done well for most of Covid, but he's broken his own rules and that's an absolute no-no so he has to go.
Had it not been for Covid then Boris would probably have been PM for eight or nine years, but he's done.
He's not like that really, he's just been under a lot of pressure lately. You don't know him like I do.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Scots should stop whinging
We are talking about the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
That you think he should "stop whinging" just demonstrates how mad you have gone today. Are there enemies within? Your own MPs and officials need now to be cast out for their crimes of pointing at the stark naked Prime Minister and saying " what clothes, we can see your cock"?
Truly Mad.
On reflection, HYUFD might have a point. He and his fellow ideologues can't have whinging remainer or pretend remainer Jocks within the party. And I can't see ahy successor to Mr J being any more sympathetic. Which raises a serious question about what happens to the Scottish Tories, whose entire rationale is union with London.
Political union with London, but not necessarily party union with the English and Welsh Tory Party. There's every case for a Scottish only Unionist Party.
Except that the very action of splitting is a huge political defeat for them. The last serious proposal was brutally stamped out.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
If the Union is to be preserved it will be by the UK Tories refusing indyref2 when in power, or by UK Labour offering Scots devomax and scraping a No vote in an indyref2 when they are in power.
The SCons are now largely completely irrelevant to preserving the Union and will be unless they somehow managed to deprive the SNP and Greens of a Holyrood majority, which they failed to do last year while Boris won a landslide for the UK Tories 2 years before
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
As I've mentioned above, you're artificially conflating two separate issues. There's a long tradition of country-specific Unionist parties like the Ulster Unionists in the UK. It would do the cause of the Scottish Tories, and Unionism in general a lot of good if they form a new one.
No, it's a huge propaganda victory for the SNP - and a huge personal defeat for the MPs. They will instantly be disqualified de jure or in practice from being PM of the UK. The party's focus will move to Holyrood - and deviate more and more from the London-based party. As we are seeing happen.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips · 3h The wish that he'd done something different is very weak considering they went on to have various other party. So the PM didn't wish it enough to change his behaviour
That makes no sense. He said he wishes today that he'd done things differently, not that he wished it then.
Unless he's had any illegal lockdown parties since 12pm today you'd need a TARDIS or a Genie for a wish today to have changed the past.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Scots should stop whinging
We are talking about the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
That you think he should "stop whinging" just demonstrates how mad you have gone today. Are there enemies within? Your own MPs and officials need now to be cast out for their crimes of pointing at the stark naked Prime Minister and saying " what clothes, we can see your cock"?
Truly Mad.
On reflection, HYUFD might have a point. He and his fellow ideologues can't have whinging remainer or pretend remainer Jocks within the party. And I can't see ahy successor to Mr J being any more sympathetic. Which raises a serious question about what happens to the Scottish Tories, whose entire rationale is union with London.
Political union with London, but not necessarily party union with the English and Welsh Tory Party. There's every case for a Scottish only Unionist Party.
Except that the very action of splitting is a huge political defeat for them. The last serious proposal was brutally stamped out.
Not at all - if they bring it about after it being denied before, especially if there is a tussle, it will give them renewed credentials with the Scottish electorate.
Any chance this Tory leadership campaign may actually become a debate about policy and vision? Like what is the Conservative Party for? Haven't had one of them for 17 years.
We had one in 2019. Hunt and Boris were selling completely different policies and visions and the right one won then.
But the issues of 2019 are in the past and Boris is now damaged goods. We don't need to refight 2019's battles, so we need policy and vision for the post-Covid, post-Brexit future.
Do we have any guarantee that the right one this time won't collapse into utter and total incoherence in less than 3 years like the previous two?
Of course not. There's never any guarantees in life.
Boris was the right man for the job, he had the right policies and vision and he's delivered it - and an eighty seat majority too.
But the three years he's been in power has had about 10 years worth of "events" in Covid and its overwhelmed him. He's done well for most of Covid, but he's broken his own rules and that's an absolute no-no so he has to go.
Had it not been for Covid then Boris would probably have been PM for eight or nine years, but he's done.
You got to the correct answer, but your workings out are all over the place.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips · 3h The wish that he'd done something different is very weak considering they went on to have various other party. So the PM didn't wish it enough to change his behaviour
That makes no sense. He said he wishes today that he'd done things differently, not that he wished it then.
Unless he's had any illegal lockdown parties since 12pm today you'd need a TARDIS or a Genie for a wish today to have changed the past.
I wonder whether this wish that he'd done things differently occurred before or after it became public and he got in the shit for it.
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Scots should stop whinging
We are talking about the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
That you think he should "stop whinging" just demonstrates how mad you have gone today. Are there enemies within? Your own MPs and officials need now to be cast out for their crimes of pointing at the stark naked Prime Minister and saying " what clothes, we can see your cock"?
Truly Mad.
On reflection, HYUFD might have a point. He and his fellow ideologues can't have whinging remainer or pretend remainer Jocks within the party. And I can't see ahy successor to Mr J being any more sympathetic. Which raises a serious question about what happens to the Scottish Tories, whose entire rationale is union with London.
Political union with London, but not necessarily party union with the English and Welsh Tory Party. There's every case for a Scottish only Unionist Party.
Except that the very action of splitting is a huge political defeat for them. The last serious proposal was brutally stamped out.
Not at all - if they being it about after it being denied before, especially if there is a tussle, it will give them renewed credentials with the Scottish electorate.
You're missing the point that it beautifully feeds into the independist argument that "those buggers based in London are incompetent numpties who couldn't have a bevvy in a Gorbals model lodging house". If those b. b. in London are so incompetent that Mr Ross doesn't want to be seen on the same side of the street as them, then why should Scotland be ruled by them?
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips · 3h The wish that he'd done something different is very weak considering they went on to have various other party. So the PM didn't wish it enough to change his behaviour
That makes no sense. He said he wishes today that he'd done things differently, not that he wished it then.
Unless he's had any illegal lockdown parties since 12pm today you'd need a TARDIS or a Genie for a wish today to have changed the past.
I wonder whether this wish that he'd done things differently occurred before or after it became public and he got in the shit for it.
It came after. The timeline was in his sentence when he said it. 😂
"Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’
"Emails to Dr Anthony Fauci show ‘likely’ explanation identified at start of coronavirus pandemic, but there were worries about saying so"
"Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.
"An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.
"The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.
It probably came from the lab, as I have been telling you for 18 months. This was also the opinion of many leading scientists right from the start, as I have been telling you for 18 months. it was probably engineered in the lab to be more transmissible, as I have been telling you for 18 months. But for various reasons there was a high level conspiracy to cover this up and crush an extremely plausible hypothesis: lab leak. As I have been telling you for 18 months.
So they found one senior scientist who thought it was 50/50 and another 60/40. Not exactly conclusive? Unknowable this one.
That's Jeremy Farrar, the leader of the Wellcome Trust, who thought it was 70/30 lab leak, and said so
Also this, from the earliest emails:
"In the emails, Sir Jeremy said that other scientists also believed the virus could not have evolved naturally. One such scientist was Professor Mike Farzan, of Scripps Research, the expert who discovered how the original Sars virus binds to human cells.
Scientists were particularly concerned by a part of Covid-19 called the furin cleavage site, a section of the spike protein which helps it enter cells and makes it so infectious to humans.
Summarising Professor Farzan’s concerns in an email, Sir Jeremy said: “He is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time (to) explain that as an event outside the lab, though there are possible ways in nature but highly unlikely."
And these guys
"The emails also show that Bob Garry, of the University of Texas, was unconvinced that Covid-19 emerged naturally.
“I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature,” he said.
"Professor Andrew Rambaut, from the University of Edinburgh, also said that furin cleavage site “strikes me as unusual”. "
And there are dozens more if you look at what is being revealed, right now, in the USA, it is all spilling out
But of course you know better, but also you know that all this is "unknowable" so let's not bother trying to know. But you still somehow know. Is that right?
Farrar changed his mind from 70/30 to 50/50 so over time thought it less likely. If you ask him today he might give a different percentage again. In five years time yet another percentage. I doubt even he will get to 100/0 so yes for the likes of you and I it is unknowable. Perhaps a few people in the CCP or the Wuhan lab do really know.
He didn't just change his mind, he did this in a matter of days:
On February 1 2020 he wrote that he thought lab leak was likely by 70/30 to 60/40. ie Probable. Not just possible, PROBABLE. And he wrote that many important virologists agreed with him, and also thought it highly likely the virus had been engineered
Then just 18 days later the same Jeremy Farrar co-signed this letter in The Lancet:
"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife as have so many other emerging pathogens This is further supported by a letter from the presidents of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and by the scientific communities they represent. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus."
Wow. So in 18 days Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust went from thinking lab leak was the probable origin of the virus to thinking it was "overwhelmingly likely" the virus actually came from nature and that anyone who did suggest it came from the lab like, say, er, himself just two weeks before, was indulging in dangerous "conspiracy theories"
To make this total about-turn Jeremy Farrar must have seen some incredible evidence of natural origin, absolutely convincing copper-bottomed smoking-gun shit, right? And yet he has never shared it with anyone else. Which is a shame, as it would be nice to know where the virus came from. Ah well
And remember, the Lancet letter was organised by Peter Daszak, the co-head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who led the gain of function research, and yet Daszak does not reveal this link in any place in the letter, and actually declares "no conflict of interest" - a statement the Lancet had to retract, painfully, a year later
It was a massive cover-up, now completely blown open. And yes, it really matters if science is this deeply corrupted
I think it's only fair that posters on this site actually recognise the basic truth of what @Leon is saying and stop just having a Pavolvian reaction when they see his posts.
His point is a fundamentally correct one namely that, regardless of what you believe about the lab leak theory, if the Telegraph is right, you had one of the country's leading scientists go in less than 3 weeks from thinking it was probable it came from a lab to dismissing such views as conspiracy theory without any explanation - now or then - as to what prompted such a radical change of view. Nor the role of Daszak and his behaviour, which can only be described, generously, as "interesting."
These are the people that we are told to trust. I think any of us, if they were faced with someone at work (or even a Prime Minister) who repeated this pattern of behaviour, would be asking questions about their veracity and what went on.
Post-this crisis, there has to be an inquiry but not one conducted by the scientific community as there is a fair chance it will be a whitewash. And quite frankly, it will be the best for science.
Well said
You can see the crucial importance of this, in what is happening right now, today, on Twitter. Whether it came from the lab or not (it did, surely, but whatever) there is now incontrovertible evidence that scientists conspired with bureaucrats to crush the very idea that it came from the lab, even if they personally thought that explanation was likely. For a year the concept of "lab leak" was literally banned by Facebook, Youtube etc
So now every nutter on social media is saying Look, they lied about lab leak - which they did - how can we trust them on vaccines, or therapies, or anything else? The awful, stupid conspiracy has undermined science at the worst possible time.
And it is a fair question, hard to answer. How CAN we trust them on vaccines if they lied about Covid origins so profusely and shamelessly?
I do trust them, because vaccines seem to work. But anyone with doubts now has many more doubts
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Scots should stop whinging
We are talking about the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
That you think he should "stop whinging" just demonstrates how mad you have gone today. Are there enemies within? Your own MPs and officials need now to be cast out for their crimes of pointing at the stark naked Prime Minister and saying " what clothes, we can see your cock"?
Truly Mad.
On reflection, HYUFD might have a point. He and his fellow ideologues can't have whinging remainer or pretend remainer Jocks within the party. And I can't see ahy successor to Mr J being any more sympathetic. Which raises a serious question about what happens to the Scottish Tories, whose entire rationale is union with London.
Political union with London, but not necessarily party union with the English and Welsh Tory Party. There's every case for a Scottish only Unionist Party.
Except that the very action of splitting is a huge political defeat for them. The last serious proposal was brutally stamped out.
Not at all - if they bring it about after it being denied before, especially if there is a tussle, it will give them renewed credentials with the Scottish electorate.
Difficult situation, because if he stays, it will make the Scottish Tories look weak, or have to take further action, such as leave the Tory Party unilaterally. That course of action wouldn't be a bad idea for them electorally.
But it's pointless. Being a Scottish Tory is now all about Union with London.
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
If the Union is to be preserved it will be by the UK Tories refusing indyref2 when in power, or by UK Labour offering Scots devomax and scraping a No vote in an indyref2 when they are in power.
The SCons are now largely completely irrelevant to preserving the Union and will be unless they somehow managed to deprive the SNP and Greens of a Holyrood majority, which they failed to do last year while Boris won a landslide for the UK Tories 2 years before
What Scots decide is f**k all to do with you.
The UK government constitutionally and legally has the final say over the Union and it will decide if and when an indyref2 is ever allowed
Scottish Tory Douglas Ross says Boris Johnson should resign - and says he will write to the 1922 Committee to express no confidence in his leadership. "It's his government that put these rules in place, and he has to be held to account for his actions." https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1481294784652324871
Scottish Tory MPs are less than 2% of Tory MPs overall
Must be because the Union is so tremendously popular north of the border.
Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government which would have a big majority even with 0 Scottish MPs and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely.
Otherwise Scots have Holyrood for most of their domestic policy anyway
Lets pick this apart: "Opinion north of the border does not matter to a Tory government"
So the opinion of elected Scottish Conservative MPs doesn't matter? The opinion of the leader of the party in Scotland doesn't matter?
"and can refuse indyref2 indefinitely"
As you have no respect for party colleagues north of the border and do not think their opinions matter, I can understand why you keep reposting this.
Unionist my arse. You vote for Welsh Nationalists, provide succour to Scottish Nationalists and only care about England.
Not compared to the majority of the Party that is not Scottish, it does not have a veto in the Tory Party as it does not have a veto UK wide either.
England does not even have its own parliament unlike Scotland however so Scots should stop whinging
Scots should stop whinging
We are talking about the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
That you think he should "stop whinging" just demonstrates how mad you have gone today. Are there enemies within? Your own MPs and officials need now to be cast out for their crimes of pointing at the stark naked Prime Minister and saying " what clothes, we can see your cock"?
Truly Mad.
On reflection, HYUFD might have a point. He and his fellow ideologues can't have whinging remainer or pretend remainer Jocks within the party. And I can't see ahy successor to Mr J being any more sympathetic. Which raises a serious question about what happens to the Scottish Tories, whose entire rationale is union with London.
Political union with London, but not necessarily party union with the English and Welsh Tory Party. There's every case for a Scottish only Unionist Party.
Except that the very action of splitting is a huge political defeat for them. The last serious proposal was brutally stamped out.
Not at all - if they bring it about after it being denied before, especially if there is a tussle, it will give them renewed credentials with the Scottish electorate.
PS There was certainly a case for it, when things were going steadily, as Murdo Fraser put back in 2011. And he got kneed in the goolies for it. Right now, it would look all wrong.
My decision to rejoin the Tory party and take part in a 2022 leadership election is proving very wise.
I might do the same but how does it work regarding the three months for rejoining? Is that three months before the vacancy is announced, or three months before the ballot?
Unless he gets replaced after the May elections, it seems unlikely I'd be able to rejoin and still get a vote for a 2022 election since its looking like a 2022 election will be before May.
Why didn't you rejoin when "Boris" took over? You liked him an awful lot, both the man and his vision.
I did. I quit when he lifted National Insurance. I wrote a thread header here saying so at the time.
I joined originally when Howard was leader even though I really disliked Howard but because I was disgusted at the party choosing IDS over Ken Clarke and I wanted a say in the next election which I got and voted for Cameron. I've since quit twice, when May was elected in 2016 (before her deal or any of those divisions) and when the Tories increased National Insurance.
Gosh, you're in and out like a tomcat. I picture you tearing up the card with gusto rather than just prosaically stopping the direct debit. Please don't disabuse me of that if I'm wrong.
Comments
Today is a good day.
Cases - Falling. R is below 1 in a number of regions. Within England R is below 1, expected for the youngest (under 19) groups. Clear showing for the vaccine/booster effect.
Admissions - R is nearly 1 - flat.
MV beds - slowly declining
Deaths, still going up.
For the good of the country and its people, and our international reputation, let’s hope that Cummings’ attempted coup is successful, the Tories destroy themselves in a vicious internal civil war and that they are out of office for a generation. Just to rub it in, while they are out of office, Scotland becomes independent and Ireland reunites. It would be suitable revenge for Johnson’s government’s behaviour.
I joined originally when Howard was leader even though I really disliked Howard but because I was disgusted at the party choosing IDS over Ken Clarke and I wanted a say in the next election which I got and voted for Cameron. I've since quit twice, when May was elected in 2016 (before her deal or any of those divisions) and when the Tories increased National Insurance.
Mind you you did betray the party yourself when it suited you when you voted for Plaid
Unless she just popped in to keep an eye on her husband, or to play the Lady of the Manor.
Simply a not happening even, with cases not causing hospitalisations and R flat how on earth is there a 50-50 chance of an apocalypse.
That enormous Twang! you can hear is the most-stretched credulity in history finally snapping.
FWIW I don't think the Lady Macbeth analogy is the right one. Marie Antoinette is better. As we all know from our deep and detailed reading of history (right?), the criticisms against her were a mixture of on the nose and wildly wrong.
I'm in no position to call Carrie guilty or innocent, but charges of misogyny seem to come a little too easily here.
We are talking about the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
That you think he should "stop whinging" just demonstrates how mad you have gone today. Are there enemies within? Your own MPs and officials need now to be cast out for their crimes of pointing at the stark naked Prime Minister and saying " what clothes, we can see your cock"?
Truly Mad.
The Lady Macbeth stuff is the most hackneyed sexist trope of all.
PBers would be wise to avoid it.
It is misogynistic to blame a woman for a man's actions. Boris is the PM. Boris made the lockdown rules, not Carrie. If Boris has done things wrong, then he has done so, he needs to take responsibility. Nobody else.
Lawmakers can't be lawbreakers and Boris needs to go for his own actions - Carrie isn't a lawmaker. She isn't responsible, he is.
At least I did not vote for a separatist party
Statement from Dan Poulter MP; Dan Poulter says in statement: “I am pleased that the Prime Minister has apologised, but it’s not much consolation to those of us who cared for patients on the frontline of the NHS and saw them die of Covid".
https://twitter.com/andrewpolitics/status/1481303986401689601
On February 1 2020 he wrote that he thought lab leak was likely by 70/30 to 60/40. ie Probable. Not just possible, PROBABLE. And he wrote that many important virologists agreed with him, and also thought it highly likely the virus had been engineered
Then just 18 days later the same Jeremy Farrar co-signed this letter in The Lancet:
"We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife as have so many other emerging pathogens This is further supported by a letter from the presidents of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and by the scientific communities they represent. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus."
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext
Wow. So in 18 days Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust went from thinking lab leak was the probable origin of the virus to thinking it was "overwhelmingly likely" the virus actually came from nature and that anyone who did suggest it came from the lab like, say, er, himself just two weeks before, was indulging in dangerous "conspiracy theories"
To make this total about-turn Jeremy Farrar must have seen some incredible evidence of natural origin, absolutely convincing copper-bottomed smoking-gun shit, right? And yet he has never shared it with anyone else. Which is a shame, as it would be nice to know where the virus came from. Ah well
And remember, the Lancet letter was organised by Peter Daszak, the co-head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who led the gain of function research, and yet Daszak does not reveal this link in any place in the letter, and actually declares "no conflict of interest" - a statement the Lancet had to retract, painfully, a year later
It was a massive cover-up, now completely blown open. And yes, it really matters if science is this deeply corrupted
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/01/12/why-did-scientists-suppress-the-lab-leak-theory/
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1481304390178947077
https://twitter.com/nickeardleybbc/status/1481303544535953408
A Simple Plan to Solve All of America’s Problems
The U.S. doesn’t have enough COVID tests—or houses, immigrants, physicians, or solar panels. We need an abundance agenda.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/scarcity-crisis-college-housing-health-care/621221/
Somewhat utopia, somewhat common sense.
Pretty well non partisan.
It's not the ultra-loyalists you need. As you've noted in the past, there is a core of people who will vote Tory in any circumstance - though Boris is trying is hardest to test that. It's those like Big G who may or may not vote Tory.
Haven't had one of them for 17 years.
So reporting data comparisons are going to be a bit fun....
Craig Oliver
@CraigOliver100
·
4h
Boris Johnson on the ropes at PMQs, his only defence: wait for the inquiry results. He must be fairly confident Sue Gray is going to say people sincerely believed the parties were office events & technically ok. That’ll cause outrage among many but he’ll try to use it to move on.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1481296627235229697?s=20
But the issues of 2019 are in the past and Boris is now damaged goods. We don't need to refight 2019's battles, so we need policy and vision for the post-Covid, post-Brexit future.
It's why the Scottish MPs are complaining because the English ones (in most cases) have little to worry about in May.
The people who wrote the rules are not.
Regular people can be law breakers, if they're prepared to take the consequences of doing so.
Law makers can not be law breakers.
(Edit: Wiki says it was a frog not a fox. Ah well.)
On the 5th they told people to stop getting a pcr if they get a positive lfd.
Been a massive "drop" in cases since the 6th.
Tomorrow Scotland starts reporting lfd results.
What is wrong with her? 🤷♀️
If she ain’t careful PBs “Jizz with Liz” meme is going to go Global Britain.
And the latter is a problem as it determines where things go from here on in. Locally Darlington Council has moved from big projects (Northern relief road) to here are 3 roundabouts that may make getting into / out of town 10 seconds quicker.
And if levelling up is dead so are the Tory's hope in those red wall seats (remember the recent subsamples and that's before the MPs fail to deliver).
Even the Irish do not want to have to take on subsidising NI from the UK
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/the-centenary/centenary-poll-44-in-northern-ireland-want-referendum-but-would-not-accept-higher-taxes-to-fund-reunification-40375678.html
Actually, this reminds me of something that surprised me yesterday and might be a straw in the wind. There came in the letterbox a leaflet from one of the Regional MSPs, a Tory. I was astounded by it. It did not mention independence or referenda once. Not once. It could have been a LD leaflet but for the colour.
This is an amazing change for the ScoTories, who have for over a decade been the Ruth Davidson No Surrender to Indy No Referendum Party with that plastered all over their bumf, right down to the lowest local authority election (with Mr Ross only being a minor typological edit, so to speak).
There is obviously some very urgent underwear-changing, reverse-ferreting and policy-wonking going on amongst the ScoTories.
Boris was the right man for the job, he had the right policies and vision and he's delivered it - and an eighty seat majority too.
But the three years he's been in power has had about 10 years worth of "events" in Covid and its overwhelmed him. He's done well for most of Covid, but he's broken his own rules and that's an absolute no-no so he has to go.
Had it not been for Covid then Boris would probably have been PM for eight or nine years, but he's done.
As Julia HB has been pointing out, its almost as if they knew the rules were ridiculous and would make no difference.
His point is a fundamentally correct one namely that, regardless of what you believe about the lab leak theory, if the Telegraph is right, you had one of the country's leading scientists go in less than 3 weeks from thinking it was probable it came from a lab to dismissing such views as conspiracy theory without any explanation - now or then - as to what prompted such a radical change of view. Nor the role of Daszak and his behaviour, which can only be described, generously, as "interesting."
These are the people that we are told to trust. I think any of us, if they were faced with someone at work (or even a Prime Minister) who repeated this pattern of behaviour, would be asking questions about their veracity and what went on.
Post-this crisis, there has to be an inquiry but not one conducted by the scientific community as there is a fair chance it will be a whitewash. And quite frankly, it will be the best for science.
https://twitter.com/KieranPAndrews/status/1481307092908707842
Full scale revolt among Scottish Tories, nine so far backing Douglas Ross's call for PM to quit:
Jackson Carlaw
Liz Smith
Murdo Fraser
Craig Hoy
Douglas Lumsden
Tess White
Finlay Carson
Sharon Dowey
Meghan Gallacher
https://twitter.com/ChrisGreenNews/status/1481304424370814976
Jess Phillips MP
@jessphillips
·
3h
The wish that he'd done something different is very weak considering they went on to have various other party. So the PM didn't wish it enough to change his behaviour
The SCons are now largely completely irrelevant to preserving the Union and will be unless they somehow managed to deprive the SNP and Greens of a Holyrood majority, which they failed to do last year while Boris won a landslide for the UK Tories 2 years before
The issue isn't her, it's him - we have a PM with no political principles or beliefs of his own, who judges every suggestion that comes his way through the prism of political and personal advantage. Therefore anyone who gets his ear and pitches something as being in his own interest catches his attention, regardless of whether it fits with the manifesto or Conservative thinking. If it wasn't her, it would be others.
The lesson - pick a national leader who actually believes in something other than himself (or herself).
Unless he's had any illegal lockdown parties since 12pm today you'd need a TARDIS or a Genie for a wish today to have changed the past.
Knee touching?
Careful. Porn, drugs, prostitution etc is Sean’s specialist area.
My hero.
You can see the crucial importance of this, in what is happening right now, today, on Twitter. Whether it came from the lab or not (it did, surely, but whatever) there is now incontrovertible evidence that scientists conspired with bureaucrats to crush the very idea that it came from the lab, even if they personally thought that explanation was likely. For a year the concept of "lab leak" was literally banned by Facebook, Youtube etc
So now every nutter on social media is saying Look, they lied about lab leak - which they did - how can we trust them on vaccines, or therapies, or anything else? The awful, stupid conspiracy has undermined science at the worst possible time.
And it is a fair question, hard to answer.
How CAN we trust them on vaccines if they lied about Covid origins so profusely and shamelessly?
I do trust them, because vaccines seem to work. But anyone with doubts now has many more doubts
https://twitter.com/breeallegretti/status/1481308305129627649
Today she’s defending Boris Johnson after he admitted doing just that.
As Home Sec she’s responsible for upholding the rule of law for all. Not one rule for your mates & another for everyone else https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1481310148215848960/photo/1