Three days after Boris Johnson's staff held a party in Downing Street's basement with a suitcase of wine and a DJ, the Prime Minister posted this video telling the public to maintain their "discipline" in following Covid rules. https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1481985417817862152/video/1
God, I hate middle class wankers who pretend to be working class/poor so they can get a sympathetic hearing/opportunities.
A woman who won a coveted scholarship in the US to study at Oxford after claiming she was poor, overcame childhood abuse and grew up in foster care lost the opportunity after it emerged she was middle-class and went to a $30,000-a-year private school.
Mr. Malmesbury, I approve of the Constable Savage reference.
I am quite convinced that Constable Savage, having attained 100% in his Awareness and Sensitivity exams, is out arresting black people for ordering their coffee "Black".
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
One of the most distasteful elements (for me) of both the No10 party story and the Djokovic story is the arrogance. Both smack of "rules are for little people". Djokovic clearly thinks he is so important that he can behave by a different set of rules to others and so does Johnson.
That doesn't explain why the Australians clearly gave him the impression he would be able to play despite knowing he wasn't vaccinated.
Perhaps they assumed he was telling the truth when he stated he had not visited another country in the 14 days before travelling to Australia?
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Cummings says there are two Boris Johnsons: what he calls Boris-Normal (Boris-N) and Boris-Self-Aware (Boris-SA). Boris-N is a lazy, self-indulgent chancer. He has no interest in policy, doesn’t bother to read his papers, has no idea how to chair a meeting, and cannot enter a room without looking for the exit routes. This Boris only cares about his own prospects and will do whatever it takes to bolster them. But that means that occasionally, when things get really sticky, a different Boris emerges. Boris-SA knows he’s hopelessly out of his depth and will do whatever he is told to survive.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Perhaps. But Cummings' demands and man-management were so gratuitous that whatever his other skills, it would have gone wrong for Boris even if Cummings had stayed, because the No 10 operation would have fallen apart - and Cummings' preferred political style only works when he or his proxies have absolute authority, which in turn only works when (as in 2019), you can purge your enemies and then win without them; by late 2020, that was no longer the score.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
Yes exactly. That sort of thing.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
Everyone who was there said, in their various versions, that Halifax turned the job down.
The policy that Halifax suggested later, incidentally - making some kind of armistice with the Germans after the fall of France* - was the plan from WWI, if France had collapsed.
*Before the fall of France, he told a German envoy that peace was impossible with Hitler ruling Germany.
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I get the sense you are trolling by proxy. There's no reason why people criticised by Cummings have to take his words to heart. They could just shrug and think "yeah ok mate". Trouble is, a small number of people will react, and he (and you) will take that as validation and vindication.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
Yes exactly. That sort of thing.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Perhaps. But Cummings' demands and man-management were so gratuitous that whatever his other skills, it would have gone wrong for Boris even if Cummings had stayed, because the No 10 operation would have fallen apart - and Cummings' preferred political style only works when he or his proxies have absolute authority, which in turn only works when (as in 2019), you can purge your enemies and then win without them; by late 2020, that was no longer the score.
Cummings does of course deploy hindsight with spectacular effect when polishing his own record.
His comments about proroguing parliament also suggest he has Putin's (and Trump's) talent for being spectacularly good at short term domestic tactics and woefully inadequate at long term strategy. They are so obsessed with the political world they live in that they forget that the people they piss off now - here or abroad - might be people they need one day. So they keep burning bridges until all the allies run out.
Longitudinal analysis reveals high prevalence of Epstein-Barr virus associated with multiple sclerosis https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj8222 Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system of unknown etiology. We tested the hypothesis that MS is caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in a cohort comprising more than 10 million young adults on active duty in the US military, 955 of whom were diagnosed with MS during their period of service. Risk of MS increased 32-fold after infection with EBV but was not increased after infection with other viruses, including the similarly transmitted cytomegalovirus. Serum levels of neurofilament light chain, a biomarker of neuroaxonal degeneration, increased only after EBV seroconversion. These findings cannot be explained by any known risk factor for MS and suggest EBV as the leading cause of MS.
Note that something like 90% of adults will have had EBV.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Perhaps. But Cummings' demands and man-management were so gratuitous that whatever his other skills, it would have gone wrong for Boris even if Cummings had stayed, because the No 10 operation would have fallen apart - and Cummings' preferred political style only works when he or his proxies have absolute authority, which in turn only works when (as in 2019), you can purge your enemies and then win without them; by late 2020, that was no longer the score.
Cummings does of course deploy hindsight with spectacular effect when polishing his own record.
His comments about proroguing parliament also suggest he has Putin's (and Trump's) talent for being spectacularly good at short term domestic tactics and woefully inadequate at long term strategy. They are so obsessed with the political world they live in that they forget that the people they piss off now - here or abroad - might people they need one day. So they keep burning bridges until all the allies run out.
Yes, indeed. I hope that at least some of the many candidates for next PM are reflecting that not only do standards matter, but also that long term successful governments are not built on creating us vs them scenarios, trying to piss off big sections of society but based on having a plan (not slogans) to improve the lives of people across society, whether they voted for you or not.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
Yes exactly. That sort of thing.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
God, I hate middle class wankers who pretend to be working class/poor so they can get a sympathetic hearing/opportunities.
A woman who won a coveted scholarship in the US to study at Oxford after claiming she was poor, overcame childhood abuse and grew up in foster care lost the opportunity after it emerged she was middle-class and went to a $30,000-a-year private school.
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
When I hear that I'm bring despised, I always think of Rick's comment to Ugarte in Casablanca when Ugarte asks if Rick despises him, and Rick says that if he gave him any thought he probably would. So in my book if someone despises you it's probably best to count that as a win. Anyway, I may be a Guardian reading Leftie but I also work in finance and predict things for a living so maybe he'd give me a pass. Who knows. My dislike of Cummings rests on a couple of things, apart from his role in making Brexit happen, which I think is a bad thing (a view I think Cummings himself is coming round to, BTW). First, I dislike his elitist view of humanity. Second, I think he is a deeply dishonest campaigner. Since I believe in the intrinsically equal worth of all human beings and think that people in public life should be honest, I think Cummings is a scumbag, albeit an interesting and clever one.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Trouble is, whenever people ask for a looksee at this "loads of evidence" conversations tend to evaporate. I've had some people respond to the challenge by saying "well I work in X and I've noticed Y is more expensive", which is somewhat unsatisfying, and I've seen a few tantalising bits of information about some well-paid skilled trades seeing a rise in wages, but that's not what you're talking about, is it? Further complicating this is the obvious pandemic effect. I've seen people trying to claim a partial rebound from pre-pandemic levels following lockdowns represents a Brexit dividend.
With such a poor-quality information ecosystem, anybody remaining unconvinced is probably reacting correctly at this stage.
TimT said: I can't believe how excited I am at the prospect of having eagles nesting on our property. rcs1000 said: Just checking: do you own a small dog?
Bald Eagle update.
It's official, we have a pair of bald eagles now on our property at this very moment. One is perched on our roof, the other in the top of a tree across two pastures. They are active. Hoping this means they build a nest and hatch a brood in March.
Bald eagles grow to be about 15lbs. Our small dog is 22 lbs. Given physics, and two big Geman shepherds to help out, not so worried about Bernie. The free-range chickens, however ...
This year reminds me very much of 2003, when Crispin Blunt famously demanded a leadership election a matter of seconds after the local election polls closed at 10pm on 1st May. (Ironically the Tories won the projected national share that year with 35%/30%/30% and an increase of over 500 councillors).
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I get the sense you are trolling by proxy. There's no reason why people criticised by Cummings have to take his words to heart. They could just shrug and think "yeah ok mate". Trouble is, a small number of people will react, and he (and you) will take that as validation and vindication.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
I am unwinding after a tough day at work. You are in breach of the lockdown guidelines. He has apologised to the Queen for two illegal parties held the night before the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Cummings wasn't smart enough to realize that a leading spin doctor the papers loved to cover shouldn't go walkabout during a lockdown.
Also, Dom wasn't smart enough to realise that Boris didn't want to sleep with him, so wouldn't do what Dom told him to.
If you want to be a puppet master, make sure you know where you know where you are going to be sticking your hand.
God, I hate middle class wankers who pretend to be working class/poor so they can get a sympathetic hearing/opportunities.
A woman who won a coveted scholarship in the US to study at Oxford after claiming she was poor, overcame childhood abuse and grew up in foster care lost the opportunity after it emerged she was middle-class and went to a $30,000-a-year private school.
TimT said: I can't believe how excited I am at the prospect of having eagles nesting on our property. rcs1000 said: Just checking: do you own a small dog?
Bald Eagle update.
It's official, we have a pair of bald eagles now on our property at this very moment. One is perched on our roof, the other in the top of a tree across two pastures. They are active. Hoping this means they build a nest and hatch a brood in March.
Bald eagles grow to be about 15lbs. Our small dog is 22 lbs. Given physics, and two big Geman shepherds to help out, not so worried about Bernie. The free-range chickens, however ...
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
Yes exactly. That sort of thing.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses.
By 1940, it wasn't even accepted that a PM couldn't sit in the Lords. It was only 38 years then since it had last happened (the equivalent of 1984 from now), and Curzon had been seriously considered as a PM candidate in the early 1920s.
While it was certainly seen as unhelpful that a PM might sit in a House where the main opposition had barely any representation, it wasn't an absolute bar.
In any case, there were provisions that could have been made to ease the difficulty. One was to amend the HoC standing orders, to allow a non-MP PM to be able to address MPs from within the chamber; IIRC, another would have been for the king to put Halifax's peerage into abeyance.
Either way, you don't lose a world war for a point of minor constitutional principle which wasn't even convention at that stage. Had Halifax been the MP and Churchill the peer (far from impossible), it's very likely that the latter would still have become PM.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses.
By 1940, it wasn't even accepted that a PM couldn't sit in the Lords. It was only 38 years then since it had last happened (the equivalent of 1984 from now), and Curzon had been seriously considered as a PM candidate in the early 1920s.
While it was certainly seen as unhelpful that a PM might sit in a House where the main opposition had barely any representation, it wasn't an absolute bar.
In any case, there were provisions that could have been made to ease the difficulty. One was to amend the HoC standing orders, to allow a non-MP PM to be able to address MPs from within the chamber; IIRC, another would have been for the king to put Halifax's peerage into abeyance.
Either way, you don't lose a world war for a point of minor constitutional principle which wasn't even convention at that stage. Had Halifax been the MP and Churchill the peer (far from impossible), it's very likely that the latter would still have become PM.
IIRC Halifax claimed that his reason was that he thought it would end up as Asquith vs Lloyd George all over again, and that the country needed better than that.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I get the sense you are trolling by proxy. There's no reason why people criticised by Cummings have to take his words to heart. They could just shrug and think "yeah ok mate". Trouble is, a small number of people will react, and he (and you) will take that as validation and vindication.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
I think he adopted the lab leak theory on the basis of the superb https://scottaaronson.blog/ - the guy is a computer scientist but with wider interests. The newest but one piece is a guest slot about the dreadful Scientific American E O Wilson piece. The most recent which I don't understand but sounds fun is about an attempt to set up a real world schrodinger's tardigrade.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
His significant talents seem to be anything but wasted currently, given the likely political developments.
TimT said: I can't believe how excited I am at the prospect of having eagles nesting on our property. rcs1000 said: Just checking: do you own a small dog?
Bald Eagle update.
It's official, we have a pair of bald eagles now on our property at this very moment. One is perched on our roof, the other in the top of a tree across two pastures. They are active. Hoping this means they build a nest and hatch a brood in March.
Bald eagles grow to be about 15lbs. Our small dog is 22 lbs. Given physics, and two big Geman shepherds to help out, not so worried about Bernie. The free-range chickens, however ...
Eagles or chickens? What does PB think?
Eagle would be pretty tough, no?
LOL. It may be moot. A redtail hawk has just chased off the eagles. Either way, the chickens' odds are not looking good ...
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
Yes exactly. That sort of thing.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I get the sense you are trolling by proxy. There's no reason why people criticised by Cummings have to take his words to heart. They could just shrug and think "yeah ok mate". Trouble is, a small number of people will react, and he (and you) will take that as validation and vindication.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
I mean, no. If he thinks you can use a 52-48 vote say that one side are invariably fools, then not only is he wrong, he doesn't even deserve to be taken seriously. It's the sort of thing someone says when they're congenitally giddy, or when they're trolling. In either case (and I do not think of Cummings as giddy), it's the sort of thing that can -- ought to -- be brushed aside with little worry. The fundamental issue here is complexity, and the multidimensionality of opinion making. People come to the same conclusions (e.g. Leave), for so many different reasons. Vote Leave understood this excellently and their microtargeting strategy was [chef's kiss]. Cummings understands this, unless he's had a debilitating stroke or a heavy blow to the head in the intervening years. So him saying the above is really just a case of provocation.
And that's ok, being provocative has its merits and can certainly be a lot of fun. But it's a mistake to look for deep philosophy when what you're seeing is a clown with a custard pie.
Longitudinal analysis reveals high prevalence of Epstein-Barr virus associated with multiple sclerosis https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj8222 Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system of unknown etiology. We tested the hypothesis that MS is caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in a cohort comprising more than 10 million young adults on active duty in the US military, 955 of whom were diagnosed with MS during their period of service. Risk of MS increased 32-fold after infection with EBV but was not increased after infection with other viruses, including the similarly transmitted cytomegalovirus. Serum levels of neurofilament light chain, a biomarker of neuroaxonal degeneration, increased only after EBV seroconversion. These findings cannot be explained by any known risk factor for MS and suggest EBV as the leading cause of MS.
Note that something like 90% of adults will have had EBV.
They will need to lower their prices considerably if governments are going to consider mass childhood vaccination (as for HPV) in the future.
My cousin and best friend (same person) had a brilliant career at the bar cut short at about 30 by the disease. Horrible horrible thing.
I'm sorry to hear that. Viruses have many ways if messing with your immune system in unexpected ways, and we're finding out (as recently with measles) how nasty that can be for some people.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
Yes exactly. That sort of thing.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is the person to complain to
She could at least added one horse in there!
Lin-Manuel is a he...
Apologies. Looking beyond the moustache the beard should have been the clincher.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Cummings strategy has been to rely on his opponents doing things to their own disadvantage. It's a strategy that has worked more often than it should have done. The problem with the "Mad Man" game theory however is that you have to actually be mad for any chance of success, while mad isn't a good personality trait for getting on in life, in general.
Should add having read the article, and having been a PM myself, Cummings is a good project manager: focused on results and marshalling resources to achieve those results. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near policy however
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
His significant talents seem to be anything but wasted currently, given the likely political developments.
Maybe the next Tory leader will invite him back, providing he agrees to work behind the scenes.
Week 2 Admissions are projected to be down 18% week-on-week Week 2 Deaths I am now projecting to be falling, by a tiny 3.5% but still a clear fall suggesting that deaths have peaked or at the very least are peaking.
In Hospital numbers are clearly trending down.
If you take week 47 as OMICRON START WEEK then it's taken 7 weeks for SA to get to this point.
We've seen similar from previous peaks - cases up and down, then a long, fat tail
This week is now a lot better than what I was projecting at the start of the week - it was looking like deaths were still rising and admissions would be flat. Near 20% week on week fall is a decent figure.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
His significant talents seem to be anything but wasted currently, given the likely political developments.
Maybe the next Tory leader will invite him back, providing he agrees to work behind the scenes.
Longitudinal analysis reveals high prevalence of Epstein-Barr virus associated with multiple sclerosis https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj8222 Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system of unknown etiology. We tested the hypothesis that MS is caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in a cohort comprising more than 10 million young adults on active duty in the US military, 955 of whom were diagnosed with MS during their period of service. Risk of MS increased 32-fold after infection with EBV but was not increased after infection with other viruses, including the similarly transmitted cytomegalovirus. Serum levels of neurofilament light chain, a biomarker of neuroaxonal degeneration, increased only after EBV seroconversion. These findings cannot be explained by any known risk factor for MS and suggest EBV as the leading cause of MS.
Note that something like 90% of adults will have had EBV.
They will need to lower their prices considerably if governments are going to consider mass childhood vaccination (as for HPV) in the future.
My cousin and best friend (same person) had a brilliant career at the bar cut short at about 30 by the disease. Horrible horrible thing.
I'm sorry to hear that. Viruses have many ways if messing with your immune system, and we're finding out (as recently with measles) how nasty that can be for some people.
EBV is a strange bug. Not just associated with mono and now MS, but also Burkett's lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Epstein was my prof at uni.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
Yes exactly. That sort of thing.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is the person to complain to
She could at least added one horse in there!
Lin-Manuel is a he...
Apologies. Looking beyond the moustache the beard should have been the clincher.
Are we allowed to assume things from the presence of beard?
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I get the sense you are trolling by proxy. There's no reason why people criticised by Cummings have to take his words to heart. They could just shrug and think "yeah ok mate". Trouble is, a small number of people will react, and he (and you) will take that as validation and vindication.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
I mean, no. If he thinks you can use a 52-48 vote say that one side are invariably fools, then not only is he wrong, he doesn't even deserve to be taken seriously. It's the sort of thing someone says when they're congenitally giddy, or when they're trolling. In either case (and I do not think of Cummings as giddy), it's the sort of thing that can -- ought to -- be brushed aside with little worry. The fundamental issue here is complexity, and the multidimensionality of opinion making. People come to the same conclusions (e.g. Leave), for so many different reasons. Vote Leave understood this excellently and their microtargeting strategy was [chef's kiss]. Cummings understands this, unless he's had a debilitating stroke or a heavy blow to the head in the intervening years. So him saying the above is really just a case of provocation.
And that's ok, being provocative has its merits and can certainly be a lot of fun. But it's a mistake to look for deep philosophy when what you're seeing is a clown with a custard pie.
As he says: invariably fools. And incapable of self-awareness: of realising they are fools
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I get the sense you are trolling by proxy. There's no reason why people criticised by Cummings have to take his words to heart. They could just shrug and think "yeah ok mate". Trouble is, a small number of people will react, and he (and you) will take that as validation and vindication.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I get the sense you are trolling by proxy. There's no reason why people criticised by Cummings have to take his words to heart. They could just shrug and think "yeah ok mate". Trouble is, a small number of people will react, and he (and you) will take that as validation and vindication.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
There was a moment back there when Dom and Boris did annoys Remoaners and Lefties beyond measure. But such have been their laughable failings - Boris and his parties, Dom's eye test, a generally lacklustre Brexit - that the Remoaners/Lefties are now in a supremely smug 'We told you so' mood. In fact, for Boris's enemies, Dom has become something akin to a national treasure and they'll be sorry when he finally goes away.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
A book I read recently - it may have been 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari, or it may not have been - had as one of its central premises the tendency of the human brain to divide people into 'us' and 'them'. It went on to see how much better 'us' liberals were at not doing this - not like 'them' conservatives. And how 'us' liberals were therefore better. It was a very interesting book with an absolutely startling lack of self-awareness.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
His significant talents seem to be anything but wasted currently, given the likely political developments.
Maybe the next Tory leader will invite him back, providing he agrees to work behind the scenes.
He doesn't want to work behind the scenes. He wants to be the number 1 guy.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Perhaps. But Cummings' demands and man-management were so gratuitous that whatever his other skills, it would have gone wrong for Boris even if Cummings had stayed, because the No 10 operation would have fallen apart - and Cummings' preferred political style only works when he or his proxies have absolute authority, which in turn only works when (as in 2019), you can purge your enemies and then win without them; by late 2020, that was no longer the score.
That’s the issue with Cummo.
He understands and values the skills needed to diagnose problems, and those needed to devise solutions. He doesn’t understand or value the skills needed to implement these solutions, in any discipline where people are involved (hence his reading list is almost entirely about non-people subjects like science, tech and crypto). Insofar as people figure in his worldview it is as the passive recipients of manipulative messages.
Hence he turned out to be pretty useless in practice, working in the political world of number ten, not least because he couldn’t get on with anyone.
For Cummo’s prescriptions to work, it would need a world where he and a few acolytes make almost every decision, with the rest of humanity doomed to try and scratch whatever fulfilment we could from simply following instructions. As commander of an army of obedient but versatile robots, he’d be really scary.
The idea that, in the real world, a sub-optimal technical solution might deliver better outcomes if some decentralisation is built into it such that its actors gain motivation and satisfaction from making their own decisions, even if some of these are not always for the best, wouldn’t compute for him.
Then again, there are a lot of politicians who are like that, as well. But that is more due to the lure of power than lack of understanding.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
A book I read recently - it may have been 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari, or it may not have been - had as one of its central premises the tendency of the human brain to divide people into 'us' and 'them'. It went on to see how much better 'us' liberals were at not doing this - not like 'them' conservatives. And how 'us' liberals were therefore better. It was a very interesting book with an absolutely startling lack of self-awareness.
Lol, yes. As I say below ‘lack of self awareness’ is basically the idiot liberal lefty USP
It’s also interesting to read Cummings contempt for Starmer and his team. Too lazy, intellectually lacking, not hungry enough. Sounds fair. They just got lucky with Boris being such a berk
However I’m very surprised that he rates Nandy. But given that The Dom is so insightful on other things I might reassess her. Given that I am, like you, NOT a closed-minded imbecile Remainer Guardianista
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Cummings strategy has been to rely on his opponents doing things to their own disadvantage. It's a strategy that has worked more often than it should have done. The problem with the "Mad Man" game theory however is that you have to actually be mad for any chance of success, while mad isn't a good personality trait for getting on in life, in general.
Should add having read the article, and having been a PM myself, Cummings is a good project manager: focused on results and marshalling resources to achieve those results. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near policy however
It's a toxic fashion in politics to take the extremes of the opposite side and amplify them to your supporters as if it represents all of the opposite side. And it's easy to provoke a reaction from excitable people on any side of an argument. None of this is clever, but it can be done with skill. So you don't even need to go as far as relying on opponents to make mistakes. You make idiots make mistakes, and if it's the wrong idiots, just recast them as your opponents. It's been amazingly lucrative for several people. I just wish otherwise intelligent people would notice the trick and stop listening to those who play that game. Fundamentally, these people aren't any good for us.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
A book I read recently - it may have been 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari, or it may not have been - had as one of its central premises the tendency of the human brain to divide people into 'us' and 'them'. It went on to see how much better 'us' liberals were at not doing this - not like 'them' conservatives. And how 'us' liberals were therefore better. It was a very interesting book with an absolutely startling lack of self-awareness.
I find it interesting that as religion as such fades in the population, the instincts and habits we associate with religion have been re-purposed.
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I get the sense you are trolling by proxy. There's no reason why people criticised by Cummings have to take his words to heart. They could just shrug and think "yeah ok mate". Trouble is, a small number of people will react, and he (and you) will take that as validation and vindication.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
I mean, no. If he thinks you can use a 52-48 vote say that one side are invariably fools, then not only is he wrong, he doesn't even deserve to be taken seriously. It's the sort of thing someone says when they're congenitally giddy, or when they're trolling. In either case (and I do not think of Cummings as giddy), it's the sort of thing that can -- ought to -- be brushed aside with little worry. The fundamental issue here is complexity, and the multidimensionality of opinion making. People come to the same conclusions (e.g. Leave), for so many different reasons. Vote Leave understood this excellently and their microtargeting strategy was [chef's kiss]. Cummings understands this, unless he's had a debilitating stroke or a heavy blow to the head in the intervening years. So him saying the above is really just a case of provocation.
And that's ok, being provocative has its merits and can certainly be a lot of fun. But it's a mistake to look for deep philosophy when what you're seeing is a clown with a custard pie.
As he says: invariably fools. And incapable of self-awareness: of realising they are fools
Loads of people will see the revived City Hall vid doing the rounds and think it footage from a recent party. It's one of those things that isn't true, but is plausible.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
It leaves a real danger of sliding into a weird sort of new autocracy with no one willing to challenge the liberal consensus. What we've seen from history is great advancement when the existing consensus is challenged, from the enlightenment to heretical scientists to Calvinism/reformation and the end of colonialism. It is in cultures where the consensus can't be challenged like Islam where there has been no leaps forwards for society, in fact they have gone backwards with women's rights, gay rights and minority rights all going backwards based on an unchallengable consensus view.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses.
By 1940, it wasn't even accepted that a PM couldn't sit in the Lords. It was only 38 years then since it had last happened (the equivalent of 1984 from now), and Curzon had been seriously considered as a PM candidate in the early 1920s.
While it was certainly seen as unhelpful that a PM might sit in a House where the main opposition had barely any representation, it wasn't an absolute bar.
In any case, there were provisions that could have been made to ease the difficulty. One was to amend the HoC standing orders, to allow a non-MP PM to be able to address MPs from within the chamber; IIRC, another would have been for the king to put Halifax's peerage into abeyance.
Either way, you don't lose a world war for a point of minor constitutional principle which wasn't even convention at that stage. Had Halifax been the MP and Churchill the peer (far from impossible), it's very likely that the latter would still have become PM.
Awesome post.
Opening bit
“ Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses. “.
Absolutely spot on as the history as I know it. But does raise questions as, not without skills and merit was Halifax nonetheless not leadership material crucially in his own mind? And how history books would wrongly copy each other as the reason for the decision as something else?
One of the weaknesses of history books and historians is how so much of it just copies each other? Especially now in the internet age, it’s not so many sources as it appears if all says same thing with so few alternative perspectives.
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I think Cummings is a scumbag, albeit an interesting one.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
A book I read recently - it may have been 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari, or it may not have been - had as one of its central premises the tendency of the human brain to divide people into 'us' and 'them'. It went on to see how much better 'us' liberals were at not doing this - not like 'them' conservatives. And how 'us' liberals were therefore better. It was a very interesting book with an absolutely startling lack of self-awareness.
Lol, yes. As I say below ‘lack of self awareness’ is basically the idiot liberal lefty USP
It’s also interesting to read Cummings contempt for Starmer and his team. Too lazy, intellectually lacking, not hungry enough. Sounds fair. They just got lucky with Boris being such a berk
However I’m very surprised that he rates Nandy. But given that The Dom is so insightful on other things I might reassess her. Given that I am, like you, NOT a closed-minded imbecile Remainer Guardianista
‘lack of self awareness’ is basically the idiot liberal lefty USP
Fixed that for you, no charge.
Everyone has their lack of self awareness. The only question is how much.
The least self aware proclaim they are totally self aware......
TimT said: I can't believe how excited I am at the prospect of having eagles nesting on our property. rcs1000 said: Just checking: do you own a small dog?
Bald Eagle update.
It's official, we have a pair of bald eagles now on our property at this very moment. One is perched on our roof, the other in the top of a tree across two pastures. They are active. Hoping this means they build a nest and hatch a brood in March.
Bald eagles grow to be about 15lbs. Our small dog is 22 lbs. Given physics, and two big Geman shepherds to help out, not so worried about Bernie. The free-range chickens, however ...
Eagles or chickens? What does PB think?
Be great watching them if they do nest and have chicks. Think, though, that the free-range chickens are going to have to penned, and in a pen with a roof.
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I get the sense you are trolling by proxy. There's no reason why people criticised by Cummings have to take his words to heart. They could just shrug and think "yeah ok mate". Trouble is, a small number of people will react, and he (and you) will take that as validation and vindication.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
I mean, no. If he thinks you can use a 52-48 vote say that one side are invariably fools, then not only is he wrong, he doesn't even deserve to be taken seriously. It's the sort of thing someone says when they're congenitally giddy, or when they're trolling. In either case (and I do not think of Cummings as giddy), it's the sort of thing that can -- ought to -- be brushed aside with little worry. The fundamental issue here is complexity, and the multidimensionality of opinion making. People come to the same conclusions (e.g. Leave), for so many different reasons. Vote Leave understood this excellently and their microtargeting strategy was [chef's kiss]. Cummings understands this, unless he's had a debilitating stroke or a heavy blow to the head in the intervening years. So him saying the above is really just a case of provocation.
And that's ok, being provocative has its merits and can certainly be a lot of fun. But it's a mistake to look for deep philosophy when what you're seeing is a clown with a custard pie.
As he says: invariably fools. And incapable of self-awareness: of realising they are fools
People like me are still living in what we call the reality-based community. I believe that solutions emerge from my judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. Dom's an empire now, and when he acts, he creates his own reality. And while I am studying that reality—judiciously, as I will—he'll act again, creating other new realities, which I can study too, and that's how things will sort out. He's history's actor.
With apologies to The National (the band) and... er, Karl Rove.
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
Cummings is a bit like a malfunctioning prototype of Elon Musk.....they can identify problems, there isn't problem they don't think can be solved (especially ones that everybody else says no that's impossible), they are in a rush to solve them all and in doing so very weird and difficult individuals who see everybody else as wasting their time on this planet.
The difference is Musk gets shit done (albeit over promises, as he believes just a few more days and whatever remaining issue will be solved), Cummings just does a shit.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
It leaves a real danger of sliding into a weird sort of new autocracy with no one willing to challenge the liberal consensus. What we've seen from history is great advancement when the existing consensus is challenged, from the enlightenment to heretical scientists to Calvinism/reformation and the end of colonialism. It is in cultures where the consensus can't be challenged like Islam where there has been no leaps forwards for society, in fact they have gone backwards with women's rights, gay rights and minority rights all going backwards based on an unchallengable consensus view.
Liberalism faced two pretty robust challenges after achieving hegemony. The first from about 1917 starting in Eastern Europe, and the second from the 1920s and 30s starting in Southern and Central Europe. It won both challenges. Finding a new creditable alternative is a bit of a task.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
A book I read recently - it may have been 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari, or it may not have been - had as one of its central premises the tendency of the human brain to divide people into 'us' and 'them'. It went on to see how much better 'us' liberals were at not doing this - not like 'them' conservatives. And how 'us' liberals were therefore better. It was a very interesting book with an absolutely startling lack of self-awareness.
Yes, I remember that (and I think it was Sapiens). He takes the platonic ideal of a liberal - objective, evidence based, head over heart, open to change etc - and then assumes that self identifying liberals actually behave like that. When they generally don't. Like him they are human beings. I say that as a self-identifying liberal myself.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
Yes exactly. That sort of thing.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is the person to complain to
She could at least added one horse in there!
Lin-Manuel is a he...
Apologies. Looking beyond the moustache the beard should have been the clincher.
Are we allowed to assume things from the presence of beard?
Anyway, that's not a beard. This is a beard
I would be moved to argue that that is TWO beards.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
It leaves a real danger of sliding into a weird sort of new autocracy with no one willing to challenge the liberal consensus. What we've seen from history is great advancement when the existing consensus is challenged, from the enlightenment to heretical scientists to Calvinism/reformation and the end of colonialism. It is in cultures where the consensus can't be challenged like Islam where there has been no leaps forwards for society, in fact they have gone backwards with women's rights, gay rights and minority rights all going backwards based on an unchallengable consensus view.
Liberalism faced two pretty robust challenges after achieving hegemony. The first from about 1917 starting in Eastern Europe, and the second from the 1920s and 30s starting in Southern and Central Europe. It won both challenges. Finding a new creditable alternative is a bit of a task.
Maybe, but that doesn't mean the consensus should be immune to challenges or that those who challenge it should be cast as evil.
Lol, yes. As I say below ‘lack of self awareness’ is basically the idiot liberal lefty USP
[snip]
What I find so remarkable is the self-awareness of such figures as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lord Frost, Dominic Raab, Mark Francois, Iain Duncan-Smith, and Nadine Dorries.
Come to think of it, not just self-awareness, any kind of awareness.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses.
By 1940, it wasn't even accepted that a PM couldn't sit in the Lords. It was only 38 years then since it had last happened (the equivalent of 1984 from now), and Curzon had been seriously considered as a PM candidate in the early 1920s.
While it was certainly seen as unhelpful that a PM might sit in a House where the main opposition had barely any representation, it wasn't an absolute bar.
In any case, there were provisions that could have been made to ease the difficulty. One was to amend the HoC standing orders, to allow a non-MP PM to be able to address MPs from within the chamber; IIRC, another would have been for the king to put Halifax's peerage into abeyance.
Either way, you don't lose a world war for a point of minor constitutional principle which wasn't even convention at that stage. Had Halifax been the MP and Churchill the peer (far from impossible), it's very likely that the latter would still have become PM.
Awesome post.
Opening bit
“ Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses. “.
Absolutely spot on as the history as I know it. But does raise questions as, not without skills and merit was Halifax nonetheless not leadership material crucially in his own mind? And how history books would wrongly copy each other as the reason for the decision as something else?
One of the weaknesses of history books and historians is how so much of it just copies each other? Especially now in the internet age, it’s not so many sources as it appears if all says same thing with so few alternative perspectives.
Indeed - going back to primary sources often reveals interesting things.
A very good recent example was "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" which pointed out that much of the layers of scholarship on the battle was wrong. Among other things, the Japanese carriers had physical limitations which meant that various things couldn't be true. And a major Japanese source had been proved to be less than accurate y historians in Japan....
From my reading of the period, Halifax saw himself as the wrong man to be PM - in a World War*. I think he would have jumped at the job, if it had been a matter of managing the continuing recovery of the economy, dealing with social issues and a bit of diplomacy.
*I seem to recall a story, that one of the pacifist types in the Labour party asked Atlee why he was serving under that "ghastly warmonger and warlover, Churchill?". Atlee is supposed to have replied that the country needed a warmonger.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
It leaves a real danger of sliding into a weird sort of new autocracy with no one willing to challenge the liberal consensus. What we've seen from history is great advancement when the existing consensus is challenged, from the enlightenment to heretical scientists to Calvinism/reformation and the end of colonialism. It is in cultures where the consensus can't be challenged like Islam where there has been no leaps forwards for society, in fact they have gone backwards with women's rights, gay rights and minority rights all going backwards based on an unchallengable consensus view.
Liberalism faced two pretty robust challenges after achieving hegemony. The first from about 1917 starting in Eastern Europe, and the second from the 1920s and 30s starting in Southern and Central Europe. It won both challenges. Finding a new creditable alternative is a bit of a task.
Maybe, but that doesn't mean the consensus should be immune to challenges or that those who challenge it should be cast as evil.
Not at all, and I'm all ears for an alternative. But given the alternatives I have seen so far, I remain a liberal for now.
Lol, yes. As I say below ‘lack of self awareness’ is basically the idiot liberal lefty USP
[snip]
What I find so remarkable is the self-awareness of such figures as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lord Frost, Dominic Raab, Mark Francois, Iain Duncan-Smith, and Nadine Dorries.
Come to think of it, not just self-awareness, any kind of awareness.
And yet that doesn't detract from those rich liberal remainers being served coffee by a minimum wage Romanian telling working class English people they simply needed to "work harder" to succeed.
This is pretty interesting, on Cummings and his blog. I still wouldn't give the toe-rag a penny of my hard-earned cash to read it myself, mind.
Cummings despises Guardian-reading lefties above all others, it turns out, so I can understand your reluctance
For me, it was slightly unnerving to discover that he is mildly obsessed with the super-efficient governance of Singapore, as I share the same modest obsession (I had no idea of his). Cummings is also convinced that he is nearly always right about everything
I get the sense you are trolling by proxy. There's no reason why people criticised by Cummings have to take his words to heart. They could just shrug and think "yeah ok mate". Trouble is, a small number of people will react, and he (and you) will take that as validation and vindication.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
No, he’s just right. On this and other things. That his style annoys annoying lefties is a side salad of satisfaction, it’s not fundamentally important
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
I mean, no. If he thinks you can use a 52-48 vote say that one side are invariably fools, then not only is he wrong, he doesn't even deserve to be taken seriously. It's the sort of thing someone says when they're congenitally giddy, or when they're trolling. In either case (and I do not think of Cummings as giddy), it's the sort of thing that can -- ought to -- be brushed aside with little worry. The fundamental issue here is complexity, and the multidimensionality of opinion making. People come to the same conclusions (e.g. Leave), for so many different reasons. Vote Leave understood this excellently and their microtargeting strategy was [chef's kiss]. Cummings understands this, unless he's had a debilitating stroke or a heavy blow to the head in the intervening years. So him saying the above is really just a case of provocation.
And that's ok, being provocative has its merits and can certainly be a lot of fun. But it's a mistake to look for deep philosophy when what you're seeing is a clown with a custard pie.
As he says: invariably fools. And incapable of self-awareness: of realising they are fools
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
Yes exactly. That sort of thing.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is the person to complain to
She could at least added one horse in there!
Lin-Manuel is a he...
Apologies. Looking beyond the moustache the beard should have been the clincher.
Are we allowed to assume things from the presence of beard?
Anyway, that's not a beard. This is a beard
Something has gone wrong there for sure. Sad for him. 😕. Some sort of fungi eating away at the middle. I wouldn’t rule out moths.
To answer your question, if Po can make that mistake, so can I.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
It leaves a real danger of sliding into a weird sort of new autocracy with no one willing to challenge the liberal consensus. What we've seen from history is great advancement when the existing consensus is challenged, from the enlightenment to heretical scientists to Calvinism/reformation and the end of colonialism. It is in cultures where the consensus can't be challenged like Islam where there has been no leaps forwards for society, in fact they have gone backwards with women's rights, gay rights and minority rights all going backwards based on an unchallengable consensus view.
Liberalism faced two pretty robust challenges after achieving hegemony. The first from about 1917 starting in Eastern Europe, and the second from the 1920s and 30s starting in Southern and Central Europe. It won both challenges. Finding a new creditable alternative is a bit of a task.
You seem to have missed the rise of China. Hint: it’s not exactly liberal
Lol, yes. As I say below ‘lack of self awareness’ is basically the idiot liberal lefty USP
[snip]
What I find so remarkable is the self-awareness of such figures as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lord Frost, Dominic Raab, Mark Francois, Iain Duncan-Smith, and Nadine Dorries.
Come to think of it, not just self-awareness, any kind of awareness.
And yet that doesn't detract from those rich liberal remainers being served coffee by a minimum wage Romanian telling working class English people they simply needed to "work harder" to succeed.
Err, I'll think you'll find that it's rich Brexiteers who are most likely to have that attitude. Indeed it is implicit in what they now claim was the principal motive for Brexit.
Lol, yes. As I say below ‘lack of self awareness’ is basically the idiot liberal lefty USP
[snip]
What I find so remarkable is the self-awareness of such figures as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lord Frost, Dominic Raab, Mark Francois, Iain Duncan-Smith, and Nadine Dorries.
Come to think of it, not just self-awareness, any kind of awareness.
And yet that doesn't detract from those rich liberal remainers being served coffee by a minimum wage Romanian telling working class English people they simply needed to "work harder" to succeed.
TL;DR there are tw*ts in all walks of life and political creeds.
The MPs select the two to be put to the membership (those with 3months membership - which may be significant). Think they would have to select Sunak but not sure Truss is a certainty for the second slot. Hunt benefits from not being in the Cabinet so therefore "not to blame for letting Boris get away with it". Any election assuming Boris resigns in the next fortnight will last until the end of February. Which helpfully for Sunak is before the tax rises and Gas and Electricity prices hit.
Lol, yes. As I say below ‘lack of self awareness’ is basically the idiot liberal lefty USP
[snip]
What I find so remarkable is the self-awareness of such figures as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lord Frost, Dominic Raab, Mark Francois, Iain Duncan-Smith, and Nadine Dorries.
Come to think of it, not just self-awareness, any kind of awareness.
And yet that doesn't detract from those rich liberal remainers being served coffee by a minimum wage Romanian telling working class English people they simply needed to "work harder" to succeed.
Err, I'll think you'll find that it's rich Brexiteers who are most likely to have that attitude. Indeed it is implicit in what they now claim was the principal motive for Brexit.
It's shocking that you accuse others of having no self awareness, Richard.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
It leaves a real danger of sliding into a weird sort of new autocracy with no one willing to challenge the liberal consensus. What we've seen from history is great advancement when the existing consensus is challenged, from the enlightenment to heretical scientists to Calvinism/reformation and the end of colonialism. It is in cultures where the consensus can't be challenged like Islam where there has been no leaps forwards for society, in fact they have gone backwards with women's rights, gay rights and minority rights all going backwards based on an unchallengable consensus view.
Liberalism faced two pretty robust challenges after achieving hegemony. The first from about 1917 starting in Eastern Europe, and the second from the 1920s and 30s starting in Southern and Central Europe. It won both challenges. Finding a new creditable alternative is a bit of a task.
You seem to have missed the rise of China. Hint: it’s not exactly liberal
I'm very glad to add that to the list of liberalism's enemies. Oddly, it doesn't change my point that liberalism's opponents are still lacking a credible alternative.
TimT said: I can't believe how excited I am at the prospect of having eagles nesting on our property. rcs1000 said: Just checking: do you own a small dog?
Bald Eagle update.
It's official, we have a pair of bald eagles now on our property at this very moment. One is perched on our roof, the other in the top of a tree across two pastures. They are active. Hoping this means they build a nest and hatch a brood in March.
Bald eagles grow to be about 15lbs. Our small dog is 22 lbs. Given physics, and two big Geman shepherds to help out, not so worried about Bernie. The free-range chickens, however ...
Eagles or chickens? What does PB think?
Eagle would be pretty tough, no?
LOL. It may be moot. A redtail hawk has just chased off the eagles. Either way, the chickens' odds are not looking good ...
I do like the occasional Nature Notdes on PB even if they are not of the 'featherfooted through the plashy fen passes the questing vole' variety. We've had some very nice moths in the past.
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
It leaves a real danger of sliding into a weird sort of new autocracy with no one willing to challenge the liberal consensus. What we've seen from history is great advancement when the existing consensus is challenged, from the enlightenment to heretical scientists to Calvinism/reformation and the end of colonialism. It is in cultures where the consensus can't be challenged like Islam where there has been no leaps forwards for society, in fact they have gone backwards with women's rights, gay rights and minority rights all going backwards based on an unchallengable consensus view.
Liberalism faced two pretty robust challenges after achieving hegemony. The first from about 1917 starting in Eastern Europe, and the second from the 1920s and 30s starting in Southern and Central Europe. It won both challenges. Finding a new creditable alternative is a bit of a task.
You seem to have missed the rise of China. Hint: it’s not exactly liberal
China seems to be sowing the seeds of its own future stagnation. Its illiberalism under Xi and predecessors being a prime reason (ever more inefficient state control of investment, discouragement of free speech, nobbling of its financial centre in Hong Kong, suppression of internal migration, and further back the long term demographic timebomb of the authoritarian one child policy). I may be wrong, of course. Time will tell.
Lol, yes. As I say below ‘lack of self awareness’ is basically the idiot liberal lefty USP
[snip]
What I find so remarkable is the self-awareness of such figures as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lord Frost, Dominic Raab, Mark Francois, Iain Duncan-Smith, and Nadine Dorries.
Come to think of it, not just self-awareness, any kind of awareness.
Half those people are just a bit dim
What is interesting about Remainers is - as Cummings notes - the more educated and ‘intelligent’ they are, the more clueless they become. At the extreme end, Remoaners with Strasbourg Syndrome, they actually go mad. A C Grayling is the paramount example.
And I don’t say that with relish or in attempt to troll. I met Grayling before Brexit and he was a very charming man. Witty, personable, affable, and obviously intelligent. Seeing him have a public, prolonged breakdown on Twitter post-2016, is genuinely sad
It confirms that Cummings is infuriatingly clever and cunning - if you are his enemy
This is superbly bang-on:
“Cummings thinks remainers are invariably fools, above all the better-educated ones, because they are incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. His shorthand for these people is Jolyons (after the remainer lawyer Jolyon Maugham) or, as he says of Keir Starmer, the ones who can’t resist giving “the London idiot answer” to any difficult question because they daren’t think for themselves. When Starmer got himself tangled up over the question of whether “only women have a cervix”, it was, Cummings says, because “he’s a dead player working off a script” – and the voters can smell that a mile off.”
Remainers are invariably fools, ESPECIALLY the posher ones. Absolutely right
The article also contains the brilliant revelation that the only reason Cummings and Boris prorogued parliament was to drive their opponents crazy (it worked), get them to talk about nothing else, until they eventually went so mad they provoked an election
I guess Cummings could be lying, but if it’s true it’s genius. It all went wrong for Boris when he lost this guy
Na, it is just that he like you, wants to rebut the idea that Leavers are generally thick, so it remains an obsession of his, like it is yours. It is OK @Leon, you aren't all thick. Obsessed about a trivial and pointless thing, yes, but not all of you are stupid. That feel better now?
He's got a point about some remainers not being able to think independently of the consensus liberal London view. It's the whole argument I've had loads of times with a few people on here about wages at the lower end, there's loads of studies saying it wasn't impacted by A10 migration but then we've had loads of real world evidence of wage rises for those people since Brexit because of low skilled labour shortages. It's like those same people who can't see beyond the phrase "follow the science" on the pandemic. Sometimes the consensus view is wrong and it's been difficult to get some more ardent remainers to see that, whether that's on wages for the lower skilled or on the correct post-vaccine pandemic response.
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Yes. I think it’s essentially the religious module in the human brain, which is at work here, the bit of our mind wired for faith. Except god is replaced by secular atheist faith in this or that liberal piety. In this case, the secular faith is EU membership
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
You know, I get everything you’re saying. I can see what you mean about posh Remainers.
From my decidedly non-posh standpoint, I think what appals me most about Brexit is that Red Wall people have been promised that we will Take Back Control. And we will.
But I fear, and nothing has happened to disabuse me of this notion, in fact things like that Leeds leg of HS2 being cancelled reinforce it, is that Red Wallers have been persuaded to hand back control to a system that, more often than not, elects Conservative governments that, more often than not, screw the north, the people and communities I am part of.
The EU, or EEC as it was then, handed over big bucks through coalfield regeneration funding, which did help. Now I might be wrong, but I suspect a Conservative government wouldn’t have done such a thing.
Yes, we’re free to spend our own money now how we want. The point being the country very often chooses to elect a government that chooses to spend a disproportionate amount in the South East and London.
I suspect that Boris is now expendable. He got the Red Wallers vote, he sang the siren song on levelling up. Will it last or will the Tory Party revert to type? I suspect the latter.
Yes, wages have gone up for some unskilled people. Will it last? Will they be eaten up by inflation?
Red Wallers were convinced, I think, to vote to hand control from one remote bureaucracy, the EU, that at least had their interests at heart to some extent, though no doubt many will disagree, and give that control to another remote bureaucracy, in Westminster, that very often doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the north and the Midlands.
Thanks the con trick that really pisses me off.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong. But I think Boris being flushed away will see levelling up go with him and the party return to type. Belt-tightening, inflation, post-pandemic austerity. Red Wallers will be no better off.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses.
By 1940, it wasn't even accepted that a PM couldn't sit in the Lords. It was only 38 years then since it had last happened (the equivalent of 1984 from now), and Curzon had been seriously considered as a PM candidate in the early 1920s.
While it was certainly seen as unhelpful that a PM might sit in a House where the main opposition had barely any representation, it wasn't an absolute bar.
In any case, there were provisions that could have been made to ease the difficulty. One was to amend the HoC standing orders, to allow a non-MP PM to be able to address MPs from within the chamber; IIRC, another would have been for the king to put Halifax's peerage into abeyance.
Either way, you don't lose a world war for a point of minor constitutional principle which wasn't even convention at that stage. Had Halifax been the MP and Churchill the peer (far from impossible), it's very likely that the latter would still have become PM.
Awesome post.
Opening bit
“ Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses. “.
Absolutely spot on as the history as I know it. But does raise questions as, not without skills and merit was Halifax nonetheless not leadership material crucially in his own mind? And how history books would wrongly copy each other as the reason for the decision as something else?
One of the weaknesses of history books and historians is how so much of it just copies each other? Especially now in the internet age, it’s not so many sources as it appears if all says same thing with so few alternative perspectives.
Indeed - going back to primary sources often reveals interesting things.
A very good recent example was "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" which pointed out that much of the layers of scholarship on the battle was wrong. Among other things, the Japanese carriers had physical limitations which meant that various things couldn't be true. And a major Japanese source had been proved to be less than accurate y historians in Japan....
From my reading of the period, Halifax saw himself as the wrong man to be PM - in a World War*. I think he would have jumped at the job, if it had been a matter of managing the continuing recovery of the economy, dealing with social issues and a bit of diplomacy.
*I seem to recall a story, that one of the pacifist types in the Labour party asked Atlee why he was serving under that "ghastly warmonger and warlover, Churchill?". Atlee is supposed to have replied that the country needed a warmonger.
I think what you have added to what David posted nails it now.
“ Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses. “.
+
“ Halifax saw himself as the wrong man to be PM in a war “
= pretty much the true history of what happened. 👍🏻
Though still probably some questions around prevalence of “sign a truce rather than attempt a war” feeling? Like you said, go back to original sources, that would be a view of it from the other side of the war, without knowing that we won, without full or any awareness of the horrors of the concentration camps, and likely so many other ways where the view would be different, than the view of the same spot in history post war.
Lol, yes. As I say below ‘lack of self awareness’ is basically the idiot liberal lefty USP
[snip]
What I find so remarkable is the self-awareness of such figures as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lord Frost, Dominic Raab, Mark Francois, Iain Duncan-Smith, and Nadine Dorries.
Come to think of it, not just self-awareness, any kind of awareness.
Half those people are just a bit dim
What is interesting about Remainers is - as Cummings notes - the more educated and ‘intelligent’ they are, the more clueless they become. At the extreme end, Remoaners with Strasbourg Syndrome, they actually go mad. A C Grayling is the paramount example.
And I don’t say that with relish or in attempt to troll. I met Grayling before Brexit and he was a very charming man. Witty, personable, affable, and obviously intelligent. Seeing him have a public, prolonged breakdown on Twitter post-2016, is genuinely sad
I agree, Grayling and many others like him have gone bonkers over Brexit. I suppose it's because it is so obviously irrational that they can't get their heads around it.
But at least as many Leavers have also gone bonkers over it, as we see every day both here and in the media. Unfortunately some of the most bonkers ones seem to be running the country.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
The whole point of science is you ask questions. History is a social science, you have to question what you are being told.
Any problem with that?
Here’s my question on this one. The problem with the meeting, where Halifax went in as likely PM and Churchill emerged as leader, is that there was only the 3 people there - and should we trust any of their accounts as telling the truth?
No one really knows how the game is played The art of the trade How the sausage gets made We just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens
Yes exactly. That sort of thing.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is the person to complain to
She could at least added one horse in there!
Lin-Manuel is a he...
Apologies. Looking beyond the moustache the beard should have been the clincher.
Are we allowed to assume things from the presence of beard?
Anyway, that's not a beard. This is a beard
I would be moved to argue that that is TWO beards.
It’s obviously Donald Pleasance playing someone in a production, whose he playing?
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
That’s where I disagree with you Rottenborough. I can’t do it because I am a Lord buries the truth and distorts true history which needs to be revised, therefore your favourite history books on your shelf you always thought was history are lying to you and you need to get new ones. The truth being “havn’t slept for a week thinking I have to be war PM, I think we should make deal with Germans anyway.”
Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses.
By 1940, it wasn't even accepted that a PM couldn't sit in the Lords. It was only 38 years then since it had last happened (the equivalent of 1984 from now), and Curzon had been seriously considered as a PM candidate in the early 1920s.
While it was certainly seen as unhelpful that a PM might sit in a House where the main opposition had barely any representation, it wasn't an absolute bar.
In any case, there were provisions that could have been made to ease the difficulty. One was to amend the HoC standing orders, to allow a non-MP PM to be able to address MPs from within the chamber; IIRC, another would have been for the king to put Halifax's peerage into abeyance.
Either way, you don't lose a world war for a point of minor constitutional principle which wasn't even convention at that stage. Had Halifax been the MP and Churchill the peer (far from impossible), it's very likely that the latter would still have become PM.
Awesome post.
Opening bit
“ Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses. “.
Absolutely spot on as the history as I know it. But does raise questions as, not without skills and merit was Halifax nonetheless not leadership material crucially in his own mind? And how history books would wrongly copy each other as the reason for the decision as something else?
One of the weaknesses of history books and historians is how so much of it just copies each other? Especially now in the internet age, it’s not so many sources as it appears if all says same thing with so few alternative perspectives.
Indeed - going back to primary sources often reveals interesting things.
A very good recent example was "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" which pointed out that much of the layers of scholarship on the battle was wrong. Among other things, the Japanese carriers had physical limitations which meant that various things couldn't be true. And a major Japanese source had been proved to be less than accurate y historians in Japan....
From my reading of the period, Halifax saw himself as the wrong man to be PM - in a World War*. I think he would have jumped at the job, if it had been a matter of managing the continuing recovery of the economy, dealing with social issues and a bit of diplomacy.
*I seem to recall a story, that one of the pacifist types in the Labour party asked Atlee why he was serving under that "ghastly warmonger and warlover, Churchill?". Atlee is supposed to have replied that the country needed a warmonger.
I think what you have added to what David posted nails it now.
“ Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses. “.
+
“ Halifax saw himself as the wrong man to be PM in a war “
= pretty much the true history of what happened. 👍🏻
Though still probably some questions around prevalence of “sign a truce rather than attempt a war” feeling? Like you said, go back to original sources, that would be a view of it from the other side of the war, without knowing that we won, without full or any awareness of the horrors of the concentration camps, and likely so many other ways where the view would be different, than the view of the same spot in history post war.
Were not the worst horrors of the concentration camps after 1940? I rather suspect that had we signed a truce with Hitler the latter would have turned his attention to the East sooner.
Comments
Does that make me a bad person?
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in the room where it happens
It's almost as if the consensus is there to exist and not be challenged, which we know is a recipe for disaster in the long term.
Have to say your prose isn’t as good as mine, Nige.
The policy that Halifax suggested later, incidentally - making some kind of armistice with the Germans after the fall of France* - was the plan from WWI, if France had collapsed.
*Before the fall of France, he told a German envoy that peace was impossible with Hitler ruling Germany.
Is it worth it? I guess if you're after a short-lived feeling of self satisfaction, yes. If you're after a more profound experience or insight, probably not.
His comments about proroguing parliament also suggest he has Putin's (and Trump's) talent for being spectacularly good at short term domestic tactics and woefully inadequate at long term strategy. They are so obsessed with the political world they live in that they forget that the people they piss off now - here or abroad - might be people they need one day. So they keep burning bridges until all the allies run out.
Bloody pandemic.
Anyway, I may be a Guardian reading Leftie but I also work in finance and predict things for a living so maybe he'd give me a pass. Who knows.
My dislike of Cummings rests on a couple of things, apart from his role in making Brexit happen, which I think is a bad thing (a view I think Cummings himself is coming round to, BTW). First, I dislike his elitist view of humanity. Second, I think he is a deeply dishonest campaigner. Since I believe in the intrinsically equal worth of all human beings and think that people in public life should be honest, I think Cummings is a scumbag, albeit an interesting and clever one.
I've had some people respond to the challenge by saying "well I work in X and I've noticed Y is more expensive", which is somewhat unsatisfying, and I've seen a few tantalising bits of information about some well-paid skilled trades seeing a rise in wages, but that's not what you're talking about, is it?
Further complicating this is the obvious pandemic effect. I've seen people trying to claim a partial rebound from pre-pandemic levels following lockdowns represents a Brexit dividend.
With such a poor-quality information ecosystem, anybody remaining unconvinced is probably reacting correctly at this stage.
TimT said: I can't believe how excited I am at the prospect of having eagles nesting on our property.
rcs1000 said: Just checking: do you own a small dog?
Bald Eagle update.
It's official, we have a pair of bald eagles now on our property at this very moment. One is perched on our roof, the other in the top of a tree across two pastures. They are active. Hoping this means they build a nest and hatch a brood in March.
Bald eagles grow to be about 15lbs. Our small dog is 22 lbs. Given physics, and two big Geman shepherds to help out, not so worried about Bernie. The free-range chickens, however ...
Eagles or chickens? What does PB think?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Conservative_Party_leadership_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_United_Kingdom_local_elections
FT
“ Financial fatalism fuels a gambling gold rush
We have never had so many things to bet on, nor so many companies urging us to take a punt”
https://www.google.com/search?q=https://www.ft.com/content/96af6536-6e5e-4a32-b08b-f6bf87aa4d5e
He’s also completely right about Lab Leak. He gets this stuff, where other, narrower minds are just unable
However I agree with the critique from @david_herdson and others that his punchy style is not suited to front line, everyday politics. He DOES annoy people, and enjoys it, just a bit too much
He should be a back room boffin. A kind of Bletchley Park scientist of politics. The fact his significant talents are now wasted on a sub stack blog is a damn shame for all of us, even if you despise him
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/asked-would-call-boris-johnson-22755313
https://twitter.com/HughRBrechin/status/1481978101659803655
If you want to be a puppet master, make sure you know where you know where you are going to be sticking your hand.
{frantically checks}
Hmmmmm
https://www.zoro.co.uk/shop/personal-protection-and-clothing/welding-helmets-and-shields/sentinel-a50-automatic-welding-helmet/p/ZT1174217X?utm_source=google&utm_campaign=pla+|+Personal Protection & Clothing&utm_term=ZT1174217X&utm_medium=shopping-pla&targetid=pla-293946777986&loc_physical_ms=9045943&dev=c&gclid=CjwKCAiA24SPBhB0EiwAjBgkhg84Tx92ZtquE_QAS6NYJjSpddFyarc7PbFnUfMdXBtr16RE6Sh8DhoC4kUQAvD_BwE
By 1940, it wasn't even accepted that a PM couldn't sit in the Lords. It was only 38 years then since it had last happened (the equivalent of 1984 from now), and Curzon had been seriously considered as a PM candidate in the early 1920s.
While it was certainly seen as unhelpful that a PM might sit in a House where the main opposition had barely any representation, it wasn't an absolute bar.
In any case, there were provisions that could have been made to ease the difficulty. One was to amend the HoC standing orders, to allow a non-MP PM to be able to address MPs from within the chamber; IIRC, another would have been for the king to put Halifax's peerage into abeyance.
Either way, you don't lose a world war for a point of minor constitutional principle which wasn't even convention at that stage. Had Halifax been the MP and Churchill the peer (far from impossible), it's very likely that the latter would still have become PM.
"You must feel bad about that. Bit of shame and all that. More wine?"
The mad posh Remainers confronted by Brexit are like hardcore Catholics confronted by “heresy”. They cannot understand how or why anyone would believe this, Brexit is evil and wrong and can never be right.
The fundamental issue here is complexity, and the multidimensionality of opinion making. People come to the same conclusions (e.g. Leave), for so many different reasons. Vote Leave understood this excellently and their microtargeting strategy was [chef's kiss]. Cummings understands this, unless he's had a debilitating stroke or a heavy blow to the head in the intervening years. So him saying the above is really just a case of provocation.
And that's ok, being provocative has its merits and can certainly be a lot of fun. But it's a mistake to look for deep philosophy when what you're seeing is a clown with a custard pie.
https://youtu.be/RTrSTJ5a_wo?t=41
Viruses have many ways if messing with your immune system in unexpected ways, and we're finding out (as recently with measles) how nasty that can be for some people.
Should add having read the article, and having been a PM myself, Cummings is a good project manager: focused on results and marshalling resources to achieve those results. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near policy however
Anyway, that's not a beard. This is a beard
It was a very interesting book with an absolutely startling lack of self-awareness.
"We are out of Sack! Varlet, get thee to Honest John the Vinteer on Old Jewry. No bag? Faith!.... take my saddle bags, wretch!"
He understands and values the skills needed to diagnose problems, and those needed to devise solutions. He doesn’t understand or value the skills needed to implement these solutions, in any discipline where people are involved (hence his reading list is almost entirely about non-people subjects like science, tech and crypto). Insofar as people figure in his worldview it is as the passive recipients of manipulative messages.
Hence he turned out to be pretty useless in practice, working in the political world of number ten, not least because he couldn’t get on with anyone.
For Cummo’s prescriptions to work, it would need a world where he and a few acolytes make almost every decision, with the rest of humanity doomed to try and scratch whatever fulfilment we could from simply following instructions. As commander of an army of obedient but versatile robots, he’d be really scary.
The idea that, in the real world, a sub-optimal technical solution might deliver better outcomes if some decentralisation is built into it such that its actors gain motivation and satisfaction from making their own decisions, even if some of these are not always for the best, wouldn’t compute for him.
Then again, there are a lot of politicians who are like that, as well. But that is more due to the lure of power than lack of understanding.
It’s also interesting to read Cummings contempt for Starmer and his team. Too lazy, intellectually lacking, not hungry enough. Sounds fair. They just got lucky with Boris being such a berk
However I’m very surprised that he rates Nandy. But given that The Dom is so insightful on other things I might reassess her. Given that I am, like you, NOT a closed-minded imbecile Remainer Guardianista
So you don't even need to go as far as relying on opponents to make mistakes. You make idiots make mistakes, and if it's the wrong idiots, just recast them as your opponents. It's been amazingly lucrative for several people. I just wish otherwise intelligent people would notice the trick and stop listening to those who play that game. Fundamentally, these people aren't any good for us.
Opening bit
“ Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses. “.
Absolutely spot on as the history as I know it. But does raise questions as, not without skills and merit was Halifax nonetheless not leadership material crucially in his own mind? And how history books would wrongly copy each other as the reason for the decision as something else?
One of the weaknesses of history books and historians is how so much of it just copies each other? Especially now in the internet age, it’s not so many sources as it appears if all says same thing with so few alternative perspectives.
Fixed that for you, no charge.
Everyone has their lack of self awareness. The only question is how much.
The least self aware proclaim they are totally self aware......
With apologies to The National (the band) and... er, Karl Rove.
The difference is Musk gets shit done (albeit over promises, as he believes just a few more days and whatever remaining issue will be solved), Cummings just does a shit.
Come to think of it, not just self-awareness, any kind of awareness.
A very good recent example was "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" which pointed out that much of the layers of scholarship on the battle was wrong. Among other things, the Japanese carriers had physical limitations which meant that various things couldn't be true. And a major Japanese source had been proved to be less than accurate y historians in Japan....
From my reading of the period, Halifax saw himself as the wrong man to be PM - in a World War*. I think he would have jumped at the job, if it had been a matter of managing the continuing recovery of the economy, dealing with social issues and a bit of diplomacy.
*I seem to recall a story, that one of the pacifist types in the Labour party asked Atlee why he was serving under that "ghastly warmonger and warlover, Churchill?". Atlee is supposed to have replied that the country needed a warmonger.
To answer your question, if Po can make that mistake, so can I.
Oddly, it doesn't change my point that liberalism's opponents are still lacking a credible alternative.
new thread
What is interesting about Remainers is - as Cummings notes - the more educated and ‘intelligent’ they are, the more clueless they become. At the extreme end, Remoaners with Strasbourg Syndrome, they actually go mad. A C Grayling is the paramount example.
And I don’t say that with relish or in attempt to troll. I met Grayling before Brexit and he was a very charming man. Witty, personable, affable, and obviously intelligent. Seeing him have a public, prolonged breakdown on Twitter post-2016, is genuinely sad
From my decidedly non-posh standpoint, I think what appals me most about Brexit is that Red Wall people have been promised that we will Take Back Control. And we will.
But I fear, and nothing has happened to disabuse me of this notion, in fact things like that Leeds leg of HS2 being cancelled reinforce it, is that Red Wallers have been persuaded to hand back control to a system that, more often than not, elects Conservative governments that, more often than not, screw the north, the people and communities I am part of.
The EU, or EEC as it was then, handed over big bucks through coalfield regeneration funding, which did help. Now I might be wrong, but I suspect a Conservative government wouldn’t have done such a thing.
Yes, we’re free to spend our own money now how we want. The point being the country very often chooses to elect a government that chooses to spend a disproportionate amount in the South East and London.
I suspect that Boris is now expendable. He got the Red Wallers vote, he sang the siren song on levelling up. Will it last or will the Tory Party revert to type? I suspect the latter.
Yes, wages have gone up for some unskilled people. Will it last? Will they be eaten up by inflation?
Red Wallers were convinced, I think, to vote to hand control from one remote bureaucracy, the EU, that at least had their interests at heart to some extent, though no doubt many will disagree, and give that control to another remote bureaucracy, in Westminster, that very often doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the north and the Midlands.
Thanks the con trick that really pisses me off.
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong. But I think Boris being flushed away will see levelling up go with him and the party return to type. Belt-tightening, inflation, post-pandemic austerity. Red Wallers will be no better off.
“ Halifax accepted that there was no constitutional bar on him being PM in the Lords; he turned the job down primarily because he didn't want to do it and recognised that Churchill would overshadow him, whatever their official statuses. “.
+
“ Halifax saw himself as the wrong man to be PM in a war “
= pretty much the true history of what happened. 👍🏻
Though still probably some questions around prevalence of “sign a truce rather than attempt a war” feeling? Like you said, go back to original sources, that would be a view of it from the other side of the war, without knowing that we won, without full or any awareness of the horrors of the concentration camps, and likely so many other ways where the view would be different, than the view of the same spot in history post war.
But at least as many Leavers have also gone bonkers over it, as we see every day both here and in the media. Unfortunately some of the most bonkers ones seem to be running the country.