It has definitely reduced a lot now, with a quarter of youngsters being teetotal and many of the rest not wanting to make an arse of themselves on social media big factors.
I've noticed that increasing numbers of my A-level students view conspicuous alcohol consumption as something done by chavs and degenerate boomers. Tobacco is utterly beyond the pale for them and at least half are vegetarian. There is hope...
I've never smoked, never drank, and I've been a veggie sine I was 16, over 30 years ago.
Thirty years ago they were called something quite different.....
It has definitely reduced a lot now, with a quarter of youngsters being teetotal and many of the rest not wanting to make an arse of themselves on social media big factors.
I've noticed that increasing numbers of my A-level students view conspicuous alcohol consumption as something done by chavs and degenerate boomers. Tobacco is utterly beyond the pale for them and at least half are vegetarian. There is hope...
ALso, frankly, I don't know how people afford to have smoking or drinking habits.
Vaguely on topic, we'll get a better sense of the "mood" among Conservative MPs once they have taken the weekend to "listen" to their constituents and the members of their Associations etc.
If the word on the street(s)is hostile to Johnson, that will translate into a greater likelihood for letters to go to Brady.
Those expecting some bombshell "in the Sundays" were always going to be disappointed - the drip feed of stories during the week leading to a difficult weekend for MPs in their constituencies is more effective. The question is whether we will see or hear any more damaging revelations early next week before the publication of any report.
The MPs line might be to wait for the result of the trial - the public, if we are to believe the polls, have already found Johnson guilty.
I'm not share returning to Plan A restrictions will be any kind of game or vote changer - certainly in my part of the world, such restrictions as exist are already more honoured in the breach than the observance and those who continue to be risk averse will continue to be risk averse irrespective of what Boris Johnson tells them.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
Only if you believe the spin that animals took capacity from humans (they didn't) or that they kept soldiers from escorting people (unlikely).
I am not believing the spin. I have read the evidence given to the FAC. You haven't.
The Foreign Affairs Committee heard that the whole process was a right mess (with the FS sipping cocktails by a pool somewhere). Evidence that Britain would have rescued more people were it not for the animals is pretty thin. It's not like Rover and Fido were sitting on airline seats.
Sorry, just wrong and point-missing. There is a lot of evidence on this which you plainly haven't read.
” Our economy is surging commensurately: new figures show we regained our pre-pandemic GDP in November, before the eurozone. The phasing out of furlough payments has not stopped us having, to all intents and purposes, full employment.
“We did not stumble into this happy situation by luck. We got here because ministers made hard decisions in the teeth of resistance from opposition politicians, public health doomsters and panicky journalists. … “ We led the world with our vaccine roll-out – not once, but twice. That in turn was possible because we had left the EU and stayed out of its common procurement scheme.
“At the same time, the PM defied the Eeyores to lift restrictions. When he ended the lockdown in July, epidemiologists called it a dangerous and unethical experiment and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) predicted that hospital admissions would rise to between 2,000 and 7,000 a day…
“That, in my book, matters vastly more than whether he wandered into his garden while officials were drinking alcohol.”
If Boris Johnson had repeatedly "defied the Eeyores" because his scientific understanding of the pandemic was superior to that of the expert advisers, there might be some point to that.
But if it just reflected a reckless willingness to hope blindly for the best, ignore the best advice available and risk other people's lives for his own political advantage? After all, he tried to do much the same thing in March and December 2020 but was forced to reverse the policy by looming catastrophe. Does the fact that he (and we) got lucky this time make him a second Solomon?
He took risk based decisions….
the new term for not doing something under threat from your backbenchers that you would be risking your job?
The reason that Johnson didn't back restrictions was because he knew they were not tenable in light of the partying that had already emerged.
There were chaotic changes to travel rules, and while no formal ban on hospitality, encouragement for people to cancel and stay away. It wasn't just @Cyclefree Jr that had multiple cancellations. In practice was there much real difference in how busy things were on the other side of borders? And as nothing official, no compensation for those businesses.
I also note an earlier comment from @Cookie decrying Plan B as unnecessary and the situations in Scotland and Wales, disastrous. Surely that is a false premise if a) the whole point of Plan B was to prevent the NHS from falling under a bus. As it stands the NHS appears to be teetering precariously on the kerbside. Would it have fallen over without Plan B? and b) Omicron was an unknown, so better to be safe than sorry. As it turned out Johnson's "wait and see" gamble worked for him, but the scientific evidence, now ridiculed on here was it could have gone the other way.
As you suggest, the key was planning, certainty and authority from the politicians, and none were present because of circumstances they themselves had inadvertently engineered through their parties.
Paramedic who came to treat my mum yesterday was single-handed because staff are "dropping like flies" with Omicron. The hospitals only just coping with the deluge of patients - in the earlier waves it was the elderly and vulnerable, now its younger otherwise healthy people. Most unvaccinated - she described how sorry they all are as they get hooked up to the machines trying to save their lives.
So yes, the "unnecessary" restrictions were necessary. The massive number of cases = too many in ICU because maths scenario played out, and some trusts are more overwhelmed now than they were the first time. That it isn't so nationwide is a combination of the booster program just about getting done fast enough, people staying away from super-spreader events over the festive period and sheer luck.
It has definitely reduced a lot now, with a quarter of youngsters being teetotal and many of the rest not wanting to make an arse of themselves on social media big factors.
I've noticed that increasing numbers of my A-level students view conspicuous alcohol consumption as something done by chavs and degenerate boomers. Tobacco is utterly beyond the pale for them and at least half are vegetarian. There is hope...
Weed?
Dunno. If they are doing it they are not telling me about it. This is a group of high academic achievers with well heeled parents though so probably not entirely typical.
100% of them are into video games. That medium matters more to them than film, TV or music.
They almost never express any political opinions (beyond hating Boris and JRM) but a few of the boys (and it's just the boys) are alarmingly enthralled by the marathon podcasts of that far right enabling, steroid laden grifter with a head like a big toe Joe Rogan. I am deprogramming them and redirecting them to Chapo Trap House.
The problem with the Hodges article is that he says no coup to remove the "democratically elected PM". But we don't elect the PM. So removing someone who is not elected is not a coup.
It is generally accepted I think that while most people do not actually get to vote for a PM, a lot of votes are cast by people in constituencies on the basis they want it to be 'for Boris' or whomever, so while not a presidential system many MPs will succeed or fail on the basis of people seeking to vote 'for' the preferred PM.
None of which has anything to do with removal of said PM by MPs. If you don't command confidence of the House you will be replaced, and you could not command confidence in several ways for several reasons. Unless every PM change without an election is a coup the word is a nonsense.
Exactly. Many people think they are voting for a PM or a government. So I can understand their concern when "their vote" gets threatened like this. Its one of the reasons why I keep saying we need a complete overhaul of the whole system - the constitution, voting, federalism, the "lords", the whole smash.
But whilst people may *think* they voted for Boris, they almost certainly didn't. So removing a sitting PM because he no longer has the confidence of the Commons in a system where the PM is appointed by the Queen solely because they hold the confidence of the Commons is hardly a coup. If they were removing the PM and the government to impose a military junta led by Earl Mountbatten a la 1974 then that would be a coup. This is not.
My take on it, so many of the “he’s going nowhere” posts are coming from Labour leaning posters, are they not? in utter despair now PM Sunak changing the whole government for something more competent, and reshaping the last 9 month drift to Labour is just around the corner now.
I’m a Libdem, but getting rid of Boris and his choice of government is my goodness! in the national interest!
But if he does this week, what about your credibility? Surely there is so much uncertainty this weekend, none of us can be so sure what happens next couple of days?
The only thing we can be sure about is wether or not the letters are in tomorrow, the Assailant will still release something to keep up momentum Tuesday evening.
What does nowhere mean anyway, you reckon he is in for 10 years? What is your take on exit date?
I’m making a prediction that he’ll not go in the near term. I could be wrong. I often am.
But it doesn’t appear that the Tory Party have the cojones to get rid of him.
My take on it, so many of the “he’s going nowhere” posts are coming from Labour leaning posters, are they not? in utter despair now PM Sunak changing the whole government for something more competent, and reshaping the last 9 month drift to Labour is just around the corner now.
I’m a Libdem, but getting rid of Boris and his choice of government is my goodness! in the national interest!
Agree last sentence - but he won't resign, the 54 letters is the thing. I had this as 70% certain a few days ago. Now down to 40% (heading towards 30%).
Labour have a lead of 43% - 33% in "All seats Labour has lost since 2005" in this Opinium poll.
Given that would include 40 seats in Scotland where they are now pretty much nowhere, that must mean a huge lead in England.
Spot on.
The details in these polls are much, much worse for the Conservatives than the headline figures.
I’ve seen it suggested - including here - that it is middle class voters in the south who are the most upset with the PM’s goings on.
The polling detail suggests the opposite. Perhaps those who have had the tougher lockdown experience are more angry than the middle class office workers sipping their Chardonnay from their home offices?
Agreed. Con VI in the SE (outwith London) has been tremendous. They are building up support where they really don’t need it. The North is totally gone. The key is the Midlands: Labour have a clear lead for now, but swingback still feasible.
Labour seem to be so far ahead in the North of England that a large number of Redwall Mps look doomed. There'd need to be an enormous swing back for the Tories to have a hope of holding Blyth Valley or Leigh, for instance.
In the absence of proper, full-sample regional and/or redwall polling (there have been very few) then our only option is to keep a very close eye on the North and the Midlands subsamples. In this respect YouGov is by far the market leader, as they are the only polling firm to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples.
But if he does this week, what about your credibility? Surely there is so much uncertainty this weekend, none of us can be so sure what happens next couple of days?
The only thing we can be sure about is wether or not the letters are in tomorrow, the Assailant will still release something to keep up momentum Tuesday evening.
What does nowhere mean anyway, you reckon he is in for 10 years? What is your take on exit date?
I’m making a prediction that he’ll not go in the near term. I could be wrong. I often am.
But it doesn’t appear that the Tory Party have the cojones to get rid of him.
You can still lay him at 3/1 (4.0) with BF to go before 1 April.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
Only if you believe the spin that animals took capacity from humans (they didn't) or that they kept soldiers from escorting people (unlikely).
I am not believing the spin. I have read the evidence given to the FAC. You haven't.
The Foreign Affairs Committee heard that the whole process was a right mess (with the FS sipping cocktails by a pool somewhere). Evidence that Britain would have rescued more people were it not for the animals is pretty thin. It's not like Rover and Fido were sitting on airline seats.
I bow to nobody in my love for dogs however whilst Rover and Fido weren’t taking up seats on planes it’s clear that the issue would have been a huge distraction to those trying to organise the evacuation.
From the military side they would have been sitting there thinking “do we have to stay longer to ensure these animals get out? If so how many men do we need and what’s the plan to get them here - are we going to have to go and pick them up?”
From the flight organisers view “do we have to find a flight slot for a plane to get these animals out and will it take a vital slot for humans?”.
From Ben Wallace and civil servants view “is this coming from Carrie - if so what happens if we just say NO. Is there going to be a backlash behind the scenes?”.
So really whilst we might or might not have got another plane load of people out the fact is this was something that no doubt distracted and wasted time and resources that could have been directed elsewhere. I am yet to see stories about domestic animals being tried and thrown off buildings and hanged from cranes by the Taliban and if that has happened then I’m happen to withdraw.
Let's hope all of the Covid restrictions are lifted on 26th January, if not sooner. Is that the government plan? That everything goes on that date, or is just some of the restrictions?
Who cares. No one is listening to these liars anymore.
Nobody respects the Government, but that doesn't mean that a decision to dump the rules isn't of value. In my case, I'll be delighted to get rid of nuisance masks in shop, on trains, and walking through the corridors at the gym (yes, mine's gold-plated the regulations and brought the bloody things back, even though you only have to put them on for about 0.5% of the time you are in the building, which is profoundly pointless.) Secondly, my paranoid employer is basically still stuck in a January 2021 time warp full of masks and social distancing and obsessional surface cleaning everywhere: if all the rules go in the rest of the country then there's at least some hope that they might also get rid of them at some point before the heat death of the universe.
I'm very much in the camp that's happy to see targeted measures like the PCR tests and emergency anti-virals for the most vulnerable, but the petty, nit-picking regulation of everybody's day-to-day life needs to go. Anything that helps to hurry that along can only be a positive development.
If it's any consolation, feathered friend, I went to two small (6-10 people) meetings of OAP's last week. In one nearly everyone was masked; in the other only one person was. In the 'mostly masked' one there were, to be fair, two people who could reasonably be regarded as 'vulnerable' on general health grounds, as well as age. I think it's wearing off, although I do do an LFT every three or four days.
As I posted yesterday, I think most people are being pragmatic - "wfh if you can" and "wear a mask in a shop or on a train" are widely seen as no big deal, and most people (outside London at least) are mostly willing to carry on with those for the forseeable. They get that Omicron is mostly no worse than a bad bout of flu, but who wants to get flu merely so they can shop without a mask? My office (100 people) remains closed except for special requirements, and the (mostly young) staff are solidly opposed to early reopening since we can do our particular work from home without problems.
In social life, though, restrictions are disappearing fast. Many people are still cautious about larger parties, but meeting a few vaccinated/boosted people for a meal without masks, they think it's worth the residual risk.
That's because they actually care about meeting people, and they don't care (much) about what they wear to shop, nor are they in a hurry to resume commuting. With infections still around 100K/day, it's not obviously stupid, and I suspect that Plan B limits still have majority support.
The problem with the Hodges article is that he says no coup to remove the "democratically elected PM". But we don't elect the PM. So removing someone who is not elected is not a coup.
It is generally accepted I think that while most people do not actually get to vote for a PM, a lot of votes are cast by people in constituencies on the basis they want it to be 'for Boris' or whomever, so while not a presidential system many MPs will succeed or fail on the basis of people seeking to vote 'for' the preferred PM.
None of which has anything to do with removal of said PM by MPs. If you don't command confidence of the House you will be replaced, and you could not command confidence in several ways for several reasons. Unless every PM change without an election is a coup the word is a nonsense.
Exactly. Many people think they are voting for a PM or a government. So I can understand their concern when "their vote" gets threatened like this. Its one of the reasons why I keep saying we need a complete overhaul of the whole system - the constitution, voting, federalism, the "lords", the whole smash.
But whilst people may *think* they voted for Boris, they almost certainly didn't. So removing a sitting PM because he no longer has the confidence of the Commons in a system where the PM is appointed by the Queen solely because they hold the confidence of the Commons is hardly a coup. If they were removing the PM and the government to impose a military junta led by Earl Mountbatten a la 1974 then that would be a coup. This is not.
Besides, given the events of 2017-9, it's a bit rich to call plotting against Bozza a coup.
And talking of Mountbatten, this is an amusing romp through a version of that what if;
I think there is a large body of people who think Johnson is still in credit for Brexit, the vaccines, and not locking down.
The parties might come to be seen, by the next GE, as part of the overall Covid madness that gripped the country.
Agree with the first 2, but even die hard Tory friends think he was late to lock down. There's a big divide between libertarian Tory columnists and their readers. The readers love the authoritarianism.
Vaguely on topic, we'll get a better sense of the "mood" among Conservative MPs once they have taken the weekend to "listen" to their constituents and the members of their Associations etc.
If the word on the street(s)is hostile to Johnson, that will translate into a greater likelihood for letters to go to Brady.
Those expecting some bombshell "in the Sundays" were always going to be disappointed - the drip feed of stories during the week leading to a difficult weekend for MPs in their constituencies is more effective. The question is whether we will see or hear any more damaging revelations early next week before the publication of any report.
The MPs line might be to wait for the result of the trial - the public, if we are to believe the polls, have already found Johnson guilty.
I'm not share returning to Plan A restrictions will be any kind of game or vote changer - certainly in my part of the world, such restrictions as exist are already more honoured in the breach than the observance and those who continue to be risk averse will continue to be risk averse irrespective of what Boris Johnson tells them.
If there is more to come out, the best approach now is to wait for the report and then release something that has been withheld from or that contradicts it, if there is such.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
Only if you believe the spin that animals took capacity from humans (they didn't) or that they kept soldiers from escorting people (unlikely).
I am not believing the spin. I have read the evidence given to the FAC. You haven't.
The Foreign Affairs Committee heard that the whole process was a right mess (with the FS sipping cocktails by a pool somewhere). Evidence that Britain would have rescued more people were it not for the animals is pretty thin. It's not like Rover and Fido were sitting on airline seats.
Sorry, just wrong and point-missing. There is a lot of evidence on this which you plainly haven't read.
Yes there is. The evidence I have read points to a complete shambles at the FCO with junior staff doing their best with no political direction. The animals were a sideshow.
Labour have a lead of 43% - 33% in "All seats Labour has lost since 2005" in this Opinium poll.
Given that would include 40 seats in Scotland where they are now pretty much nowhere, that must mean a huge lead in England.
Spot on.
The details in these polls are much, much worse for the Conservatives than the headline figures.
I’ve seen it suggested - including here - that it is middle class voters in the south who are the most upset with the PM’s goings on.
The polling detail suggests the opposite. Perhaps those who have had the tougher lockdown experience are more angry than the middle class office workers sipping their Chardonnay from their home offices?
Agreed. Con VI in the SE (outwith London) has been tremendous. They are building up support where they really don’t need it. The North is totally gone. The key is the Midlands: Labour have a clear lead for now, but swingback still feasible.
Labour seem to be so far ahead in the North of England that a large number of Redwall Mps look doomed. There'd need to be an enormous swing back for the Tories to have a hope of holding Blyth Valley or Leigh, for instance.
In the absence of proper, full-sample regional and/or redwall polling (there have been very few) then our only option is to keep a very close eye on the North and the Midlands sun-samples. In this respect YouGov is by far the market leader, as they are the only polling firm to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples.
What you can pick up on looking at the latest poll is complete apathy
For the North 15% won't vote, 22% don't know Tories on 17%, labour 30%
For the midlands 12% won't vote, 17% don't know Tories on 23% Labour 28%
What you can see is that Tories votes are going down and won't vote is going up, but there is a distinct move to Labour from the Lib Dems / Greens in winnable Labour seats.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
But if he does this week, what about your credibility? Surely there is so much uncertainty this weekend, none of us can be so sure what happens next couple of days?
The only thing we can be sure about is wether or not the letters are in tomorrow, the Assailant will still release something to keep up momentum Tuesday evening.
What does nowhere mean anyway, you reckon he is in for 10 years? What is your take on exit date?
I’m making a prediction that he’ll not go in the near term. I could be wrong. I often am.
But it doesn’t appear that the Tory Party have the cojones to get rid of him.
Made difficult by the trend to publicise (Bridgen, Loughton, Ross) what you have done. I thought the letters were supposed to be confidential.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
Only if you believe the spin that animals took capacity from humans (they didn't) or that they kept soldiers from escorting people (unlikely).
I am not believing the spin. I have read the evidence given to the FAC. You haven't.
The Foreign Affairs Committee heard that the whole process was a right mess (with the FS sipping cocktails by a pool somewhere). Evidence that Britain would have rescued more people were it not for the animals is pretty thin. It's not like Rover and Fido were sitting on airline seats.
Sorry, just wrong and point-missing. There is a lot of evidence on this which you plainly haven't read.
Yes there is. The evidence I have read points to a complete shambles at the FCO with junior staff doing their best with no political direction. The animals were a sideshow.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
Only if you believe the spin that animals took capacity from humans (they didn't) or that they kept soldiers from escorting people (unlikely).
I am not believing the spin. I have read the evidence given to the FAC. You haven't.
The Foreign Affairs Committee heard that the whole process was a right mess (with the FS sipping cocktails by a pool somewhere). Evidence that Britain would have rescued more people were it not for the animals is pretty thin. It's not like Rover and Fido were sitting on airline seats.
I bow to nobody in my love for dogs however whilst Rover and Fido weren’t taking up seats on planes it’s clear that the issue would have been a huge distraction to those trying to organise the evacuation.
From the military side they would have been sitting there thinking “do we have to stay longer to ensure these animals get out? If so how many men do we need and what’s the plan to get them here - are we going to have to go and pick them up?”
From the flight organisers view “do we have to find a flight slot for a plane to get these animals out and will it take a vital slot for humans?”.
None of that was a British concern though as security and ATC were managed by the US so it probably made no difference to the British evacuation effort.
I'm glad they saved the dogs instead of people but I'm not giving Johnson or NutNut any credit for it.
A radio station that is normally choc full of tory MPs was saying last night they could not get anybody at all except Andrew Bridgen who is on record as a Boris out supporter.
The rest? no comment.
Its almost as if the whole system has frozen and is being rebooted.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
I think your counter is a bit bizarre. It is not that criticising or being hostile to Carrie is itself automatically mysogynist - I don't think anyone would suggest people cannot criticise a woman. It's that I find the level of authority and influence ascribed to her to be improbable, and therefore the level of criticism (which often includes pejorative nicknames based on her appearance) over the top, and it does seem reminiscient of various 'evil advisor' tropes.
My take on it, so many of the “he’s going nowhere” posts are coming from Labour leaning posters, are they not? in utter despair now PM Sunak changing the whole government for something more competent, and reshaping the last 9 month drift to Labour is just around the corner now.
I’m a Libdem, but getting rid of Boris and his choice of government is my goodness! in the national interest!
Oh absolutely, I agree. I’d much rather have someone competent in charge than this embarrassing clown. I’m merely saying what I think will happen, not what I want to happen.
Let's hope all of the Covid restrictions are lifted on 26th January, if not sooner. Is that the government plan? That everything goes on that date, or is just some of the restrictions?
Who cares. No one is listening to these liars anymore.
Nobody respects the Government, but that doesn't mean that a decision to dump the rules isn't of value. In my case, I'll be delighted to get rid of nuisance masks in shop, on trains, and walking through the corridors at the gym (yes, mine's gold-plated the regulations and brought the bloody things back, even though you only have to put them on for about 0.5% of the time you are in the building, which is profoundly pointless.) Secondly, my paranoid employer is basically still stuck in a January 2021 time warp full of masks and social distancing and obsessional surface cleaning everywhere: if all the rules go in the rest of the country then there's at least some hope that they might also get rid of them at some point before the heat death of the universe.
I'm very much in the camp that's happy to see targeted measures like the PCR tests and emergency anti-virals for the most vulnerable, but the petty, nit-picking regulation of everybody's day-to-day life needs to go. Anything that helps to hurry that along can only be a positive development.
If it's any consolation, feathered friend, I went to two small (6-10 people) meetings of OAP's last week. In one nearly everyone was masked; in the other only one person was. In the 'mostly masked' one there were, to be fair, two people who could reasonably be regarded as 'vulnerable' on general health grounds, as well as age. I think it's wearing off, although I do do an LFT every three or four days.
As I posted yesterday, I think most people are being pragmatic - "wfh if you can" and "wear a mask in a shop or on a train" are widely seen as no big deal, and most people (outside London at least) are mostly willing to carry on with those for the forseeable. They get that Omicron is mostly no worse than a bad bout of flu, but who wants to get flu merely so they can shop without a mask? My office (100 people) remains closed except for special requirements, and the (mostly young) staff are solidly opposed to early reopening since we can do our particular work from home without problems.
In social life, though, restrictions are disappearing fast. Many people are still cautious about larger parties, but meeting a few vaccinated/boosted people for a meal without masks, they think it's worth the residual risk.
That's because they actually care about meeting people, and they don't care (much) about what they wear to shop, nor are they in a hurry to resume commuting. With infections still around 100K/day, it's not obviously stupid, and I suspect that Plan B limits still have majority support.
That's more or less the view of the u3a Groups to which I belong, with the caveat that, as you posted, we expect people to be vaccinated. One member of one u3a refuses to be vaccinated and there are, I'm told, problems about running meetings which that member might attend; others are refusing to associate with the anti-vaxer.
On the first point: yes, but 1) Plan B restrictions were pointless, stupid and damaging (not as pointless, stupid and damaging as those brought in by the Scots and Welsh, but pointless stupid and damaging nonetheless), and 2) Do we believe that avoiding further restrictions in the run-up to Christmas - that very odd day when the nature of the restrictions we would have was leaked to the press, the presser was set up, only for everyone to be marched back down the hill again - was down to Boris? Someone can take credit for that - the Cabinet, or certain people in it, some of the backbenchers, Fraser Nelson perhaps -but I'm not sure Boris can.
That also raises the question of the motives. It certainly wasn't coherently or rationally planned.
Morning Carnyx, hope you enjoyed the herring last night. Blue sky and sunshine here today on west coast.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
I think your counter is a bit bizarre. It is not that criticising or being hostile to Carrie is itself automatically mysogynist - I don't think anyone would suggest people cannot criticise a woman. It's that I find the level of authority and influence ascribed to her to be improbable, and therefore the level of criticism (which often includes pejorative nicknames based on her appearance) over the top, and it does seem reminiscient of various 'evil advisor' tropes.
Tropes become tropes for a reason. Wicked stepmother for instance - check out the stats. I cannot believe that Kabul dogs would have been an issue for Boris in her absence, and you have Dominic Lawson, who knows them, in the times today saying he is heavily dependent on her.
Not sure that is right. I think offices started to ban alcohol and reduce boozy nights out more like 2010 than 2000. Around the millennium the big drinkers in my office might have 2-3 pints most lunchtimes, more on Fridays, and Friday evenings was unlimited paid for booze at the pub, which most people took as a means of starting getting pissed cheaply at least once a month.
It has definitely reduced a lot now, with a quarter of youngsters being teetotal and many of the rest not wanting to make an arse of themselves on social media big factors.
Different company ethos, evidently. Drinking at lunch time in 1980 was seen as a sign of a problem.
Disagree , it was de riguer. Not having a drink was seen as having a problem, not quite as bad as 70's but was still very very normal.
Chief Justice James Allsop handed down orders that will see Djokovic on a flight back home.
“This is not an appeal against the decision of the executive government,” Allsop told the court. “It is an application to the court as a separate arm of government being the Commonwealth judicial branch to review a decision by a member of executive, the minister, for the lawfulness or legality of the decision on the three grounds put forward.
“These grounds focus on whether decision was for different reasons irrational or legally unreasonable. It is no part or function of the court to decide upon the merit or wisdom of the decision.”
The decision was unanimous and full reasons will be published at a later date. Djokovic was ordered to pay costs.
Djokovic now has a decision to make: is he going to get vaccinated, or retire. It’s one or the other.
Interesting to see this report. Cardiac lesions in football players "recovered" from covid, presumed Omicron. A reminder that covid is not just a respiratory disease. Going unvaxxed as young and in seeming good health may not be low risk for sportsmen.
Labour have a lead of 43% - 33% in "All seats Labour has lost since 2005" in this Opinium poll.
Given that would include 40 seats in Scotland where they are now pretty much nowhere, that must mean a huge lead in England.
Spot on.
The details in these polls are much, much worse for the Conservatives than the headline figures.
I’ve seen it suggested - including here - that it is middle class voters in the south who are the most upset with the PM’s goings on.
The polling detail suggests the opposite. Perhaps those who have had the tougher lockdown experience are more angry than the middle class office workers sipping their Chardonnay from their home offices?
Agreed. Con VI in the SE (outwith London) has been tremendous. They are building up support where they really don’t need it. The North is totally gone. The key is the Midlands: Labour have a clear lead for now, but swingback still feasible.
Labour seem to be so far ahead in the North of England that a large number of Redwall Mps look doomed. There'd need to be an enormous swing back for the Tories to have a hope of holding Blyth Valley or Leigh, for instance.
In the absence of proper, full-sample regional and/or redwall polling (there have been very few) then our only option is to keep a very close eye on the North and the Midlands sun-samples. In this respect YouGov is by far the market leader, as they are the only polling firm to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples.
What you can pick up on looking at the latest poll is complete apathy
For the North 15% won't vote, 22% don't know Tories on 17%, labour 30%
For the midlands 12% won't vote, 17% don't know Tories on 23% Labour 28%
What you can see is that Tories votes are going down and won't vote is going up, but there is a distinct move to Labour from the Lib Dems / Greens in winnable Labour seats.
I don't think 'Don't Know' = Apathy. I think it means what it says. Such as 'I voted Tory last time but I don't know if I will again."
I actually do feel for him. He's been mistreated here. I'm still a fan and I hope he goes on to smash all the records and end the GOAT conversation. But it's a reasonable decision by Australia. The error was granting him a visa in the first place.
This is the Boris Johnson that Keir Starmer gave more unchecked and unanswerable power to than any Prime Minister in history, right?
That Boris Johnson?
That was parliamentary assent. Here he's essentially "charging" him retrospectively on rules. Extraordinarily fateful, somehow, whatever the result is.
Let's hope all of the Covid restrictions are lifted on 26th January, if not sooner. Is that the government plan? That everything goes on that date, or is just some of the restrictions?
Who cares. No one is listening to these liars anymore.
Nobody respects the Government, but that doesn't mean that a decision to dump the rules isn't of value. In my case, I'll be delighted to get rid of nuisance masks in shop, on trains, and walking through the corridors at the gym (yes, mine's gold-plated the regulations and brought the bloody things back, even though you only have to put them on for about 0.5% of the time you are in the building, which is profoundly pointless.) Secondly, my paranoid employer is basically still stuck in a January 2021 time warp full of masks and social distancing and obsessional surface cleaning everywhere: if all the rules go in the rest of the country then there's at least some hope that they might also get rid of them at some point before the heat death of the universe.
I'm very much in the camp that's happy to see targeted measures like the PCR tests and emergency anti-virals for the most vulnerable, but the petty, nit-picking regulation of everybody's day-to-day life needs to go. Anything that helps to hurry that along can only be a positive development.
If it's any consolation, feathered friend, I went to two small (6-10 people) meetings of OAP's last week. In one nearly everyone was masked; in the other only one person was. In the 'mostly masked' one there were, to be fair, two people who could reasonably be regarded as 'vulnerable' on general health grounds, as well as age. I think it's wearing off, although I do do an LFT every three or four days.
As I posted yesterday, I think most people are being pragmatic - "wfh if you can" and "wear a mask in a shop or on a train" are widely seen as no big deal, and most people (outside London at least) are mostly willing to carry on with those for the forseeable. They get that Omicron is mostly no worse than a bad bout of flu, but who wants to get flu merely so they can shop without a mask? My office (100 people) remains closed except for special requirements, and the (mostly young) staff are solidly opposed to early reopening since we can do our particular work from home without problems.
In social life, though, restrictions are disappearing fast. Many people are still cautious about larger parties, but meeting a few vaccinated/boosted people for a meal without masks, they think it's worth the residual risk.
That's because they actually care about meeting people, and they don't care (much) about what they wear to shop, nor are they in a hurry to resume commuting. With infections still around 100K/day, it's not obviously stupid, and I suspect that Plan B limits still have majority support.
Are the (mostly young) staff who are solidly opposed to early reopening saying that because they are scared of catching the virus (even though vaccinated I presume) or has this now moved on to "I prefer working from home and want to prolong this as long as I can"? If the former then I assume they are not going into shops, pubs, restaurants, cafes either?
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
On reflection, the hatred of Carrie is a bit disturbing. It does have a whiff of misogyny about it. But that shouldn't make her immune from criticism or comment.
Fundamentally, it seems that the problem is that she is a poor political advisor. This can be measured against objective criteria - the decline in opinion poll ratings. Johnson and the tories have been in a sharp decline on this front since the Patterson debacle, which was only 2 months ago, to the point where the crisis is now existential. But there is no corrective action, and things keep getting worse. There cannot be any 'shake up' to arrest the decline in No.10, because Carrie is his wife and he is seemingly unable to curb her power.
It seems like they are just going down together, and there is nothing that we can do but watch the tragedy unfold.
I doubt that Carrie was the least bit interested in Paterson.
Remember that Bozo flew back from the climate conference for a boozy lunch with Charles Moore and others from the Spectator, and they told him to save Paterson.
There was an interesting piece in the Oldie by Stephen Glover this month. Glover organised the Garrick dinner and at the end of the article commented "I might add that Boris Johnson is the only guest who has not paid his share and that three of his police bodyguards wolfed sirloin steaks at my expense". Doesn't that snipped just sum up our PM.
Still not a great week for the self entitled and arrogant - Johnson, Andrew and Djokovic all on the ropes!
I much prefer the other side of the headline bet. Surely Tory MPs have learned from the May experience that dealing with a PM who is a liability should be done as quickly and thoroughly as possible. I don't expect BJ to get the benefit of the doubt/loyalty when the VOC comes.
My take on it, so many of the “he’s going nowhere” posts are coming from Labour leaning posters, are they not? in utter despair now PM Sunak changing the whole government for something more competent, and reshaping the last 9 month drift to Labour is just around the corner now.
I’m a Libdem, but getting rid of Boris and his choice of government is my goodness! in the national interest!
Agree last sentence - but he won't resign, the 54 letters is the thing. I had this as 70% certain a few days ago. Now down to 40% (heading towards 30%).
I'm not so sure.
Right now on BBC Politics South the MP for Gosport was just asked the straight question "Do you have confidence in the PM?".
Her answer: ...pause... "it's been a very very difficult few weeks, it really has, and I really feel that those who set the rules must abide by the rules. So I heard the PM's apology this week in Parliament and I think I am very much looking forward to hearing the facts when Sue Gray reports. It's a very difficult time".
I actually do feel for him. He's been mistreated here. I'm still a fan and I hope he goes on to smash all the records and end the GOAT conversation. But it's a reasonable decision by Australia. The error was granting him a visa in the first place.
His errors are being a consistently anti-vax @sshat, not getting vaccinated, going around spreading the virus after he's got a positive result, and lying on immigration forms.
Given that, how do you think he's been 'mistreated'?
I feel zero sympathy for him. Like Johnson, his mistakes are all his own and unforced.
Not sure that is right. I think offices started to ban alcohol and reduce boozy nights out more like 2010 than 2000. Around the millennium the big drinkers in my office might have 2-3 pints most lunchtimes, more on Fridays, and Friday evenings was unlimited paid for booze at the pub, which most people took as a means of starting getting pissed cheaply at least once a month.
It has definitely reduced a lot now, with a quarter of youngsters being teetotal and many of the rest not wanting to make an arse of themselves on social media big factors.
Different company ethos, evidently. Drinking at lunch time in 1980 was seen as a sign of a problem.
Disagree , it was de riguer. Not having a drink was seen as having a problem, not quite as bad as 70's but was still very very normal.
As I wrote, different company ethos, mine was an American multi-national based out of the mid-west (and still very much in business).
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
On reflection, the hatred of Carrie is a bit disturbing. It does have a whiff of misogyny about it. But that shouldn't make her immune from criticism or comment.
Fundamentally, it seems that the problem is that she is a poor political advisor. This can be measured against objective criteria - the decline in opinion poll ratings. Johnson and the tories have been in a sharp decline on this front since the Patterson debacle, which was only 2 months ago, to the point where the crisis is now existential. But there is no corrective action, and things keep getting worse. There cannot be any 'shake up' to arrest the decline in No.10, because Carrie is his wife and he is seemingly unable to curb her power.
It seems like they are just going down together, and there is nothing that we can do but watch the tragedy unfold.
I doubt that Carrie was the least bit interested in Paterson.
Remember that Bozo flew back from the climate conference for a boozy lunch with Charles Moore and others from the Spectator, and they told him to save Paterson.
There was an interesting piece in the Oldie by Stephen Glover this month. Glover organised the Garrick dinner and at the end of the article commented "I might add that Boris Johnson is the only guest who has not paid his share and that three of his police bodyguards wolfed sirloin steaks at my expense". Doesn't that snipped just sum up our PM.
I expect he thought he was expected to pay in some other way?
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
I think your counter is a bit bizarre. It is not that criticising or being hostile to Carrie is itself automatically mysogynist - I don't think anyone would suggest people cannot criticise a woman. It's that I find the level of authority and influence ascribed to her to be improbable, and therefore the level of criticism (which often includes pejorative nicknames based on her appearance) over the top, and it does seem reminiscient of various 'evil advisor' tropes.
Tropes become tropes for a reason. Wicked stepmother for instance - check out the stats. I cannot believe that Kabul dogs would have been an issue for Boris in her absence, and you have Dominic Lawson, who knows them, in the times today saying he is heavily dependent on her.
‘Man, you sure have a wicked stepmom’ is probably now another separate trope.
Let's hope all of the Covid restrictions are lifted on 26th January, if not sooner. Is that the government plan? That everything goes on that date, or is just some of the restrictions?
Who cares. No one is listening to these liars anymore.
Nobody respects the Government, but that doesn't mean that a decision to dump the rules isn't of value. In my case, I'll be delighted to get rid of nuisance masks in shop, on trains, and walking through the corridors at the gym (yes, mine's gold-plated the regulations and brought the bloody things back, even though you only have to put them on for about 0.5% of the time you are in the building, which is profoundly pointless.) Secondly, my paranoid employer is basically still stuck in a January 2021 time warp full of masks and social distancing and obsessional surface cleaning everywhere: if all the rules go in the rest of the country then there's at least some hope that they might also get rid of them at some point before the heat death of the universe.
I'm very much in the camp that's happy to see targeted measures like the PCR tests and emergency anti-virals for the most vulnerable, but the petty, nit-picking regulation of everybody's day-to-day life needs to go. Anything that helps to hurry that along can only be a positive development.
If it's any consolation, feathered friend, I went to two small (6-10 people) meetings of OAP's last week. In one nearly everyone was masked; in the other only one person was. In the 'mostly masked' one there were, to be fair, two people who could reasonably be regarded as 'vulnerable' on general health grounds, as well as age. I think it's wearing off, although I do do an LFT every three or four days.
As I posted yesterday, I think most people are being pragmatic - "wfh if you can" and "wear a mask in a shop or on a train" are widely seen as no big deal, and most people (outside London at least) are mostly willing to carry on with those for the forseeable. They get that Omicron is mostly no worse than a bad bout of flu, but who wants to get flu merely so they can shop without a mask? My office (100 people) remains closed except for special requirements, and the (mostly young) staff are solidly opposed to early reopening since we can do our particular work from home without problems.
In social life, though, restrictions are disappearing fast. Many people are still cautious about larger parties, but meeting a few vaccinated/boosted people for a meal without masks, they think it's worth the residual risk.
That's because they actually care about meeting people, and they don't care (much) about what they wear to shop, nor are they in a hurry to resume commuting. With infections still around 100K/day, it's not obviously stupid, and I suspect that Plan B limits still have majority support.
Hmm. Another airy dismissal of what are still significant impositions on people’s lives.
The current rules dictate that you have to wear a mask in the theatre: a social and leisure activity and indeed a romantic one. Who on Earth wants to wear a mask on a date?
Re: the WFH guidance. People can and should WFH when convenient, covid or none. Yet the existence of the guidance means many staff are banned from meeting clients/colleagues/suppliers in person.
That is an egregious imposition, and a barrier to contact building and developing new business.
Does anyone sensible believe Plan B should continue? On what justification?
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
Only if you believe the spin that animals took capacity from humans (they didn't) or that they kept soldiers from escorting people (unlikely).
I am not believing the spin. I have read the evidence given to the FAC. You haven't.
The Foreign Affairs Committee heard that the whole process was a right mess (with the FS sipping cocktails by a pool somewhere). Evidence that Britain would have rescued more people were it not for the animals is pretty thin. It's not like Rover and Fido were sitting on airline seats.
Sorry, just wrong and point-missing. There is a lot of evidence on this which you plainly haven't read.
Yes there is. The evidence I have read points to a complete shambles at the FCO with junior staff doing their best with no political direction. The animals were a sideshow.
Yes, that matches what I heard from my friend there. The complete collapse of the puppet regime caught the UK, US and even the Taliban unaware.
To blame any failings on Pen Farthings dogs is just a distraction tactic, as indeed are crocodile tears for Aghan refugees who are now back to being the demons of the tabloids.
Cheap wine? The horror of it. Surely it's all over for Johnson now...
Another Etonite, son of former chancellor and married to daughter of a viscount. Hooray for social mobility!
Sunak may become our first British Asian PM. However more importantly he also dragged himself up by his bootstraps as the son of a doctor and pharmacist through prep school to the sink school of Winchester College, where he would be only the first Wykehamist PM since Henry Addison and while Oxford educated the first PM ever educated at Lincoln College and Stanford California too. He then worked at the coal face of hard labour at Goldman Sachs.
We would also be replacing a mere millionaire PM with a multi millionaire son in law of a billionaire PM. Who says Tories do not believe in social mobility!
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
On reflection, the hatred of Carrie is a bit disturbing. It does have a whiff of misogyny about it. But that shouldn't make her immune from criticism or comment.
Fundamentally, it seems that the problem is that she is a poor political advisor. This can be measured against objective criteria - the decline in opinion poll ratings. Johnson and the tories have been in a sharp decline on this front since the Patterson debacle, which was only 2 months ago, to the point where the crisis is now existential. But there is no corrective action, and things keep getting worse. There cannot be any 'shake up' to arrest the decline in No.10, because Carrie is his wife and he is seemingly unable to curb her power.
It seems like they are just going down together, and there is nothing that we can do but watch the tragedy unfold.
I doubt that Carrie was the least bit interested in Paterson.
Remember that Bozo flew back from the climate conference for a boozy lunch with Charles Moore and others from the Spectator, and they told him to save Paterson.
There was an interesting piece in the Oldie by Stephen Glover this month. Glover organised the Garrick dinner and at the end of the article commented "I might add that Boris Johnson is the only guest who has not paid his share and that three of his police bodyguards wolfed sirloin steaks at my expense". Doesn't that snipped just sum up our PM.
Still not a great week for the self entitled and arrogant - Johnson, Andrew and Djokovic all on the ropes!
I think that says a lot about Stephen Glover : you invite someone to a dinner - not a friends’ night out but effectively a business/networking dinner - because ultimately you want something out of him, either inside info, agreement to do something you want, gossip for your paper, influence - whatever it is he was invited for your benefit so it’s pretty normal that you pay. And you know he has protection officers who have to be there so why should they pay (and should they have been given ham sandwiches and a packet of crisps?).
It’s a bit of a cheap shot to cry about that - they didn’t have to invite him and so really their job to pick up the tab.
Disclaimer - I think Johnson is a knob only outdone by JRM but give him shit for the right things not just anything…..
” Our economy is surging commensurately: new figures show we regained our pre-pandemic GDP in November, before the eurozone. The phasing out of furlough payments has not stopped us having, to all intents and purposes, full employment.
“We did not stumble into this happy situation by luck. We got here because ministers made hard decisions in the teeth of resistance from opposition politicians, public health doomsters and panicky journalists. … “ We led the world with our vaccine roll-out – not once, but twice. That in turn was possible because we had left the EU and stayed out of its common procurement scheme.
“At the same time, the PM defied the Eeyores to lift restrictions. When he ended the lockdown in July, epidemiologists called it a dangerous and unethical experiment and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) predicted that hospital admissions would rise to between 2,000 and 7,000 a day…
“That, in my book, matters vastly more than whether he wandered into his garden while officials were drinking alcohol.”
If Boris Johnson had repeatedly "defied the Eeyores" because his scientific understanding of the pandemic was superior to that of the expert advisers, there might be some point to that.
But if it just reflected a reckless willingness to hope blindly for the best, ignore the best advice available and risk other people's lives for his own political advantage? After all, he tried to do much the same thing in March and December 2020 but was forced to reverse the policy by looming catastrophe. Does the fact that he (and we) got lucky this time make him a second Solomon?
He took risk based decisions….
the new term for not doing something under threat from your backbenchers that you would be risking your job?
The reason that Johnson didn't back restrictions was because he knew they were not tenable in light of the partying that had already emerged.
There were chaotic changes to travel rules, and while no formal ban on hospitality, encouragement for people to cancel and stay away. It wasn't just @Cyclefree Jr that had multiple cancellations. In practice was there much real difference in how busy things were on the other side of borders? And as nothing official, no compensation for those businesses.
I also note an earlier comment from @Cookie decrying Plan B as unnecessary and the situations in Scotland and Wales, disastrous. Surely that is a false premise if a) the whole point of Plan B was to prevent the NHS from falling under a bus. As it stands the NHS appears to be teetering precariously on the kerbside. Would it have fallen over without Plan B? and b) Omicron was an unknown, so better to be safe than sorry. As it turned out Johnson's "wait and see" gamble worked for him, but the scientific evidence, now ridiculed on here was it could have gone the other way.
As you suggest, the key was planning, certainty and authority from the politicians, and none were present because of circumstances they themselves had inadvertently engineered through their parties.
The "better safe than sorry" line would be much more convincing if the NHS didn't tetter on the brink at this time every year, if Plan Bs or lockdowns were only about being safe, rather than having lots of undesirable effects which outweigh any good they do, and if the scientific evidence (or rather pseudo-scientific modelling) hadn't been so consistently wrong for the last year.
The Government was right, I just wish they'd had the same nerve in March 2020. The evidence as to whether the decisive voice this time was Boris, the Cabinet or pressure from backbench Conservative MPs is confusing. Success has many fathers ...
I see several PB posters are now claiming Plan B was the right thing to do.
Can these posters explain how the numbers would have been materially different without going to Plan B?
My analysis is that it has had precious little effect on the numbers at significant socioeconomic cost.
As for @Stodge’s characteristically airy claim that people will behave similarly be it Plan A or Plan B.
That’s rubbish for one major reason: while ever Plan B is in place, lots of companies prevent their staff from meeting in person.
That’s a huge barrier to trade.
If I prescribe hot broth to a patient with unstable angina and he survives that doesn't make it the right decision. It just means that I got away with it.
This is the Boris Johnson that Keir Starmer gave more unchecked and unanswerable power to than any Prime Minister in history, right?
That Boris Johnson?
That was parliamentary assent. Here he's essentially "charging" him retrospectively on rules. Extraordinarily fateful, somehow, whatever the result is.
Yes I see, but I still wonder whether going hard at Johnson could backfire on Starmer over time given that, in some senses, Johnson is Starmer's creation. Labour under Starmer gave Johnson a blank cheque.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
I think your counter is a bit bizarre. It is not that criticising or being hostile to Carrie is itself automatically mysogynist - I don't think anyone would suggest people cannot criticise a woman. It's that I find the level of authority and influence ascribed to her to be improbable, and therefore the level of criticism (which often includes pejorative nicknames based on her appearance) over the top, and it does seem reminiscient of various 'evil advisor' tropes.
Absolutely agreed.
Several PBers have shamelessly referenced Lady Macbeth, a sexist trope so cliched I’m amazed that they can show their face.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
Only if you believe the spin that animals took capacity from humans (they didn't) or that they kept soldiers from escorting people (unlikely).
I am not believing the spin. I have read the evidence given to the FAC. You haven't.
The Foreign Affairs Committee heard that the whole process was a right mess (with the FS sipping cocktails by a pool somewhere). Evidence that Britain would have rescued more people were it not for the animals is pretty thin. It's not like Rover and Fido were sitting on airline seats.
Sorry, just wrong and point-missing. There is a lot of evidence on this which you plainly haven't read.
Yes there is. The evidence I have read points to a complete shambles at the FCO with junior staff doing their best with no political direction. The animals were a sideshow.
Yes, that matches what I heard from my friend there. The complete collapse of the puppet regime caught the UK, US and even the Taliban unaware.
To blame any failings on Pen Farthings dogs is just a distraction tactic, as indeed are crocodile tears for Aghan refugees who are now back to being the demons of the tabloids.
An unusually obtuse take on this. Distraction from what? And are we not allowed to think about more than one thing at once? Here was a clear interference in the business of government which at its lowest had the potential to put at increased risk the lives of allies of this country. It may be a bagatelle to you, probably not to them.
I see several PB posters are now claiming Plan B was the right thing to do.
Can these posters explain how the numbers would have been materially different without going to Plan B?
My analysis is that it has had precious little effect on the numbers at significant socioeconomic cost.
As for @Stodge’s characteristically airy claim that people will behave similarly be it Plan A or Plan B.
That’s rubbish for one major reason: while ever Plan B is in place, lots of companies prevent their staff from meeting in person.
That’s a huge barrier to trade.
I'm a bit reluctant to go back into the argument on its merits, since none of us will affect the outcome and we've debated it to death. Mostly I was just reporting my impression of what most people in my area think. But since you ask, I would think that wfh does reduce transmission, which is already ridiculously high, and that's helping to flatten the curve. Masks in shops? Probably, a bit. Is it a big deal?
As for wfh being a huge barrier to trade, that depends on the business. There isn't an instruction to wfh regardless, merely to wfh if it's reasonably practical. I spend my days writing submissions to the Government, studying current research, giving remote interviews and leading work by colleagues to plan future campaigns. I could do all that just as well from anywhere, so I'm happy to comply with the instruction to do it from home. If I was running a shop, it would clearly be impractical and I wouldn't do it. It seems a reasonable rule for now though when the infection level comes down it should be replaced by merely a recommendation.
I see several PB posters are now claiming Plan B was the right thing to do.
Can these posters explain how the numbers would have been materially different without going to Plan B?
My analysis is that it has had precious little effect on the numbers at significant socioeconomic cost.
As for @Stodge’s characteristically airy claim that people will behave similarly be it Plan A or Plan B.
That’s rubbish for one major reason: while ever Plan B is in place, lots of companies prevent their staff from meeting in person.
That’s a huge barrier to trade.
If I prescribe hot broth to a patient with unstable angina and he survives that doesn't make it the right decision. It just means that I got away with it.
Okay, fine. Very good. So can you now answer my question? How would the numbers have been materially different under Plan A?
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
I think your counter is a bit bizarre. It is not that criticising or being hostile to Carrie is itself automatically mysogynist - I don't think anyone would suggest people cannot criticise a woman. It's that I find the level of authority and influence ascribed to her to be improbable, and therefore the level of criticism (which often includes pejorative nicknames based on her appearance) over the top, and it does seem reminiscient of various 'evil advisor' tropes.
Tropes become tropes for a reason. Wicked stepmother for instance - check out the stats. I cannot believe that Kabul dogs would have been an issue for Boris in her absence, and you have Dominic Lawson, who knows them, in the times today saying he is heavily dependent on her.
‘Man, you sure have a wicked stepmom’ is probably now another separate trope.
This is the Boris Johnson that Keir Starmer gave more unchecked and unanswerable power to than any Prime Minister in history, right?
That Boris Johnson?
That was parliamentary assent. Here he's essentially "charging" him retrospectively on rules. Extraordinarily fateful, somehow, whatever the result is.
Yes I see, but I still wonder whether going hard at Johnson could backfire on Starmer over time given that, in some senses, Johnson is Starmer's creation. Labour under Starmer gave Johnson a blank cheque.
But Starmer can always maintain or imply that up this was on the basis, like some other case that he might not have prosecuted earlier as DPP, that the system and due process had been giving him the benefit of the doubt, up until clear limits were unmistakeably overstepped.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
I think your counter is a bit bizarre. It is not that criticising or being hostile to Carrie is itself automatically mysogynist - I don't think anyone would suggest people cannot criticise a woman. It's that I find the level of authority and influence ascribed to her to be improbable, and therefore the level of criticism (which often includes pejorative nicknames based on her appearance) over the top, and it does seem reminiscient of various 'evil advisor' tropes.
Absolutely agreed.
Several PBers have shamelessly referenced Lady Macbeth, a sexist trope so cliched I’m amazed that they can show their face.
There's certainly some sexism at play in the way people try to blame the wife for all of Johnson's sins. But I think it's more down to a desire on the part of Johnson's former supporters to find a way of disowning him without making themselves look stupid for supporting him in the first place.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
I think your counter is a bit bizarre. It is not that criticising or being hostile to Carrie is itself automatically mysogynist - I don't think anyone would suggest people cannot criticise a woman. It's that I find the level of authority and influence ascribed to her to be improbable, and therefore the level of criticism (which often includes pejorative nicknames based on her appearance) over the top, and it does seem reminiscient of various 'evil advisor' tropes.
Absolutely agreed.
Several PBers have shamelessly referenced Lady Macbeth, a sexist trope so cliched I’m amazed that they can show their face.
There's certainly some sexism at play in the way people try to blame the wife for all of Johnson's sins. But I think it's more down to a desire on the part of Johnson's former supporters to find a way of disowning him without making themselves look stupid for supporting him in the first place.
The ones calling her “nut nut” or whatever bollocks were certainly not former supporters.
I see several PB posters are now claiming Plan B was the right thing to do.
Can these posters explain how the numbers would have been materially different without going to Plan B?
My analysis is that it has had precious little effect on the numbers at significant socioeconomic cost.
As for @Stodge’s characteristically airy claim that people will behave similarly be it Plan A or Plan B.
That’s rubbish for one major reason: while ever Plan B is in place, lots of companies prevent their staff from meeting in person.
That’s a huge barrier to trade.
Your analysis is worth the same as my analysis - not a lot. Easy to sit here with the power of not knowing much about anything and guess.
We had Plan A and a half. We appear to got away with only parts of the NHS buckling rather than all of it. "what buckling" say the naysayers even as doctors and nurses and trust CEOs point directly to buckling.
Who knows how bad it would have been had we gone full steam ahead into Christmas and new Year. We just don't know either way.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
I think your counter is a bit bizarre. It is not that criticising or being hostile to Carrie is itself automatically mysogynist - I don't think anyone would suggest people cannot criticise a woman. It's that I find the level of authority and influence ascribed to her to be improbable, and therefore the level of criticism (which often includes pejorative nicknames based on her appearance) over the top, and it does seem reminiscient of various 'evil advisor' tropes.
Tropes become tropes for a reason. Wicked stepmother for instance - check out the stats. I cannot believe that Kabul dogs would have been an issue for Boris in her absence, and you have Dominic Lawson, who knows them, in the times today saying he is heavily dependent on her.
‘Man, you sure have a wicked stepmom’ is probably now another separate trope.
Depends on the context of course, and the definition 'wicked'..... OED or slang!
I see several PB posters are now claiming Plan B was the right thing to do.
Can these posters explain how the numbers would have been materially different without going to Plan B?
My analysis is that it has had precious little effect on the numbers at significant socioeconomic cost.
As for @Stodge’s characteristically airy claim that people will behave similarly be it Plan A or Plan B.
That’s rubbish for one major reason: while ever Plan B is in place, lots of companies prevent their staff from meeting in person.
That’s a huge barrier to trade.
I'm a bit reluctant to go back into the argument on its merits, since none of us will affect the outcome and we've debated it to death. Mostly I was just reporting my impression of what most people in my area think. But since you ask, I would think that wfh does reduce transmission, which is already ridiculously high, and that's helping to flatten the curve. Masks in shops? Probably, a bit. Is it a big deal?
As for wfh being a huge barrier to trade, that depends on the business. There isn't an instruction to wfh regardless, merely to wfh if it's reasonably practical. I spend my days writing submissions to the Government, studying current research, giving remote interviews and leading work by colleagues to plan future campaigns. I could do all that just as well from anywhere, so I'm happy to comply with the instruction to do it from home. If I was running a shop, it would clearly be impractical and I wouldn't do it. It seems a reasonable rule for now though when the infection level comes down it should be replaced by merely a recommendation.
But I'll leave it there.
Masks in shops is a big deal. I can't be the only one keeping shopping to subsistence purchases only until the horrible things are no longer required. That surely has an economic impact.
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
I think your counter is a bit bizarre. It is not that criticising or being hostile to Carrie is itself automatically mysogynist - I don't think anyone would suggest people cannot criticise a woman. It's that I find the level of authority and influence ascribed to her to be improbable, and therefore the level of criticism (which often includes pejorative nicknames based on her appearance) over the top, and it does seem reminiscient of various 'evil advisor' tropes.
Absolutely agreed.
Several PBers have shamelessly referenced Lady Macbeth, a sexist trope so cliched I’m amazed that they can show their face.
"Oooh a trope" is up there with "He said Jehovah" in life of Brian. If I said Johnson was a Coriolanus figure you wouldn't denounce that as sexist. Your problem is a rather 1950s disinclination to speak ill of the laydeez.
Let's hope all of the Covid restrictions are lifted on 26th January, if not sooner. Is that the government plan? That everything goes on that date, or is just some of the restrictions?
Who cares. No one is listening to these liars anymore.
Nobody respects the Government, but that doesn't mean that a decision to dump the rules isn't of value. In my case, I'll be delighted to get rid of nuisance masks in shop, on trains, and walking through the corridors at the gym (yes, mine's gold-plated the regulations and brought the bloody things back, even though you only have to put them on for about 0.5% of the time you are in the building, which is profoundly pointless.) Secondly, my paranoid employer is basically still stuck in a January 2021 time warp full of masks and social distancing and obsessional surface cleaning everywhere: if all the rules go in the rest of the country then there's at least some hope that they might also get rid of them at some point before the heat death of the universe.
I'm very much in the camp that's happy to see targeted measures like the PCR tests and emergency anti-virals for the most vulnerable, but the petty, nit-picking regulation of everybody's day-to-day life needs to go. Anything that helps to hurry that along can only be a positive development.
If it's any consolation, feathered friend, I went to two small (6-10 people) meetings of OAP's last week. In one nearly everyone was masked; in the other only one person was. In the 'mostly masked' one there were, to be fair, two people who could reasonably be regarded as 'vulnerable' on general health grounds, as well as age. I think it's wearing off, although I do do an LFT every three or four days.
As I posted yesterday, I think most people are being pragmatic - "wfh if you can" and "wear a mask in a shop or on a train" are widely seen as no big deal, and most people (outside London at least) are mostly willing to carry on with those for the forseeable. They get that Omicron is mostly no worse than a bad bout of flu, but who wants to get flu merely so they can shop without a mask? My office (100 people) remains closed except for special requirements, and the (mostly young) staff are solidly opposed to early reopening since we can do our particular work from home without problems.
In social life, though, restrictions are disappearing fast. Many people are still cautious about larger parties, but meeting a few vaccinated/boosted people for a meal without masks, they think it's worth the residual risk.
That's because they actually care about meeting people, and they don't care (much) about what they wear to shop, nor are they in a hurry to resume commuting. With infections still around 100K/day, it's not obviously stupid, and I suspect that Plan B limits still have majority support.
Are the (mostly young) staff who are solidly opposed to early reopening saying that because they are scared of catching the virus (even though vaccinated I presume) or has this now moved on to "I prefer working from home and want to prolong this as long as I can"? If the former then I assume they are not going into shops, pubs, restaurants, cafes either?
There absolutely are people who much enjoy hybrid working or full wfh. People who used to have to suffer a grinding commute have had their eyes opened to how much better life is not doing that 5 days a week - and companies to a small dip in productivity for a bigger dip in expenditure.
My question with regards to shops, pubs, restaurants, cafes is how many of those exist only to serve people doing a commute and how much of the money pumped through them was done out of routine or boredom. Yes, I have form attacking the "twatty coffee" culture where people spend sizeable amounts of money gifting vast profit margins to tax-dodging scumsters like Starbucks. But now that we've got past the government pressure to go back to normal and spend £200 a month on £20-worth of coffee, do the majority actually miss it?
That isn't to call the end to shops, pubs, restaurants, cafes - they're evolving to be in different places serving different needs.
It has definitely reduced a lot now, with a quarter of youngsters being teetotal and many of the rest not wanting to make an arse of themselves on social media big factors.
I've noticed that increasing numbers of my A-level students view conspicuous alcohol consumption as something done by chavs and degenerate boomers. Tobacco is utterly beyond the pale for them and at least half are vegetarian. There is hope...
ALso, frankly, I don't know how people afford to have smoking or drinking habits.
It has definitely reduced a lot now, with a quarter of youngsters being teetotal and many of the rest not wanting to make an arse of themselves on social media big factors.
I've noticed that increasing numbers of my A-level students view conspicuous alcohol consumption as something done by chavs and degenerate boomers. Tobacco is utterly beyond the pale for them and at least half are vegetarian. There is hope...
ALso, frankly, I don't know how people afford to have smoking or drinking habits.
I see several PB posters are now claiming Plan B was the right thing to do.
Can these posters explain how the numbers would have been materially different without going to Plan B?
My analysis is that it has had precious little effect on the numbers at significant socioeconomic cost.
As for @Stodge’s characteristically airy claim that people will behave similarly be it Plan A or Plan B.
That’s rubbish for one major reason: while ever Plan B is in place, lots of companies prevent their staff from meeting in person.
That’s a huge barrier to trade.
I'm a bit reluctant to go back into the argument on its merits, since none of us will affect the outcome and we've debated it to death. Mostly I was just reporting my impression of what most people in my area think. But since you ask, I would think that wfh does reduce transmission, which is already ridiculously high, and that's helping to flatten the curve. Masks in shops? Probably, a bit. Is it a big deal?
As for wfh being a huge barrier to trade, that depends on the business. There isn't an instruction to wfh regardless, merely to wfh if it's reasonably practical. I spend my days writing submissions to the Government, studying current research, giving remote interviews and leading work by colleagues to plan future campaigns. I could do all that just as well from anywhere, so I'm happy to comply with the instruction to do it from home. If I was running a shop, it would clearly be impractical and I wouldn't do it. It seems a reasonable rule for now though when the infection level comes down it should be replaced by merely a recommendation.
But I'll leave it there.
Leave it there if you wish. You still haven’t addressed my key point: that the government’s counselling against in-person working means that many companies prevent their staff from meeting in person. That is a huge barrier to trade. Is it justifiable? On what basis?
What to make of the Telegraph Carrie story, replete with photo of scissors legs.
They’ll know it’s not dynamite with the reading public. But one gets the impression that the reading public are not the target. There is one reader this story is targeted at and his name is Boris Johnson.
It’s gloves off stuff. “Unless you exit stage left, we are coming after your personal life and this is a mere amuse bouche to the 12 course tasting menu we have lined up”.
Let us not forget that this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life. To the extent that until very recently his wikipedia entry had to caveat his many children he has.
Quite something for the Boris Bible to take this approach. I am not tempted by TSE’s bet. Far too much uncertainty.
‘this is a man who for all his faults, has always done his best to retain a certain mystery about his family life’
Well, that’s one way of putting it. I’d put that in his faults ledger myself.
Good morning. Early morning sky appears to be thick cloud. However, just perhaps on the political horizon a new dawn IS breaking.
On thread topic I've always thought it noteworthy that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Johnson children have sought to capitalise on their ancestry. They may, of course, be ashamed of it, but I am surprised that, again to my knowledge, no gentleman (or lady) of the press has asked them ..... been prepared to pay them ..... for "My Dad, Boris Johnson'. Or similar.
Even with many children and ex-wives, and his terrible management of money, each of them will still be expecting him to die as a rich man.
Actually, it’s one of the few things the British press generally do right, is to leave the children of politicians alone, unless they have done something particularly newsworthy.
Carrie is totally fair game though, she’s a political animal in her own right, and is unofficially the PM’s top advisor.
I'm unconvinced that Carrie is fair game, at least to the extent she seems to be vilified.
Indeed. People consult their spouses on things, that's a given, but is there really evidence she is the powerful puppet master who has her own cabal running the show as seems to get alleged? Most of the testimony as to her influence seems to come back to Cummings, who is somewhat unreliable when he's clearly got a personal vendetta against his old boss.
She's fair game for criticism if Boris is taking her advice on things. But the extent of that criticism seems disproportionate as to her probable influence.
Kabul air lift seems pretty clear, and an act of great evil.
It seems destined to perhaps be a historical mystery as to the extent of her true influence. But the circumstantial evidence cannot be ignored. The Kabul Air lift, and the fact that Johnson is unwilling to get any other advisors in - no one seems to want to go near the place. People will just select the narrative that reinforces their political views - if you are on the left/woke, it is almost certainly Boris's fault and criticism of Carrie is evidence of sexism; if you are sympathetic to the tories, then the problem is likely to be with Carrie and not Boris. As I said, it just seems to me like they are acting out a tragedy, going down together.
Most of the people on here complaining about sexism against Carrie are Tories.
It is a bizarre claim. tim of questionably blessed memory was clearly a misogynist but you could only tell that by running the numbers. Denouncing hostility to one person who happens to be a woman as misogyny is I think old fashioned gammonry masquerading as right on ness. A feeling that one doesn't say that sort of thing about the memsahibs, old boy
I think your counter is a bit bizarre. It is not that criticising or being hostile to Carrie is itself automatically mysogynist - I don't think anyone would suggest people cannot criticise a woman. It's that I find the level of authority and influence ascribed to her to be improbable, and therefore the level of criticism (which often includes pejorative nicknames based on her appearance) over the top, and it does seem reminiscient of various 'evil advisor' tropes.
Absolutely agreed.
Several PBers have shamelessly referenced Lady Macbeth, a sexist trope so cliched I’m amazed that they can show their face.
The issue is entirely with Johnson - of course politicians talk to their spouses and weigh up advice appropriately - no criticism of Carrie, whose advice may be good bad or indifferent, the issue is with Johnson and the weight he gives such advice.
Comments
Vaguely on topic, we'll get a better sense of the "mood" among Conservative MPs once they have taken the weekend to "listen" to their constituents and the members of their Associations etc.
If the word on the street(s)is hostile to Johnson, that will translate into a greater likelihood for letters to go to Brady.
Those expecting some bombshell "in the Sundays" were always going to be disappointed - the drip feed of stories during the week leading to a difficult weekend for MPs in their constituencies is more effective. The question is whether we will see or hear any more damaging revelations early next week before the publication of any report.
The MPs line might be to wait for the result of the trial - the public, if we are to believe the polls, have already found Johnson guilty.
I'm not share returning to Plan A restrictions will be any kind of game or vote changer - certainly in my part of the world, such restrictions as exist are already more honoured in the breach than the observance and those who continue to be risk averse will continue to be risk averse irrespective of what Boris Johnson tells them.
So yes, the "unnecessary" restrictions were necessary. The massive number of cases = too many in ICU because maths scenario played out, and some trusts are more overwhelmed now than they were the first time. That it isn't so nationwide is a combination of the booster program just about getting done fast enough, people staying away from super-spreader events over the festive period and sheer luck.
How shall we measure that bounce, and how long it lasts for in bigger picture of current direction of travel?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2022_Australian_federal_election
100% of them are into video games. That medium matters more to them than film, TV or music.
They almost never express any political opinions (beyond hating Boris and JRM) but a few of the boys (and it's just the boys) are alarmingly enthralled by the marathon podcasts of that far right enabling, steroid laden grifter with a head like a big toe Joe Rogan. I am deprogramming them and redirecting them to Chapo Trap House.
But whilst people may *think* they voted for Boris, they almost certainly didn't. So removing a sitting PM because he no longer has the confidence of the Commons in a system where the PM is appointed by the Queen solely because they hold the confidence of the Commons is hardly a coup. If they were removing the PM and the government to impose a military junta led by Earl Mountbatten a la 1974 then that would be a coup. This is not.
I’m a Libdem, but getting rid of Boris and his choice of government is my goodness! in the national interest!
But it doesn’t appear that the Tory Party have the cojones to get rid of him.
From the military side they would have been sitting there thinking “do we have to stay longer to ensure these animals get out? If so how many men do we need and what’s the plan to get them here - are we going to have to go and pick them up?”
From the flight organisers view “do we have to find a flight slot for a plane to get these animals out and will it take a vital slot for humans?”.
From Ben Wallace and civil servants view “is this coming from Carrie - if so what happens if we just say NO. Is there going to be a backlash behind the scenes?”.
So really whilst we might or might not have got another plane load of people out the fact is this was something that no doubt distracted and wasted time and resources that could have been directed elsewhere. I am yet to see stories about domestic animals being tried and thrown off buildings and hanged from cranes by the Taliban and if that has happened then I’m happen to withdraw.
Also Jan Australia is like August back in the UK. Nobody is really paying attention to politics, they're largely on holiday.
In social life, though, restrictions are disappearing fast. Many people are still cautious about larger parties, but meeting a few vaccinated/boosted people for a meal without masks, they think it's worth the residual risk.
That's because they actually care about meeting people, and they don't care (much) about what they wear to shop, nor are they in a hurry to resume commuting. With infections still around 100K/day, it's not obviously stupid, and I suspect that Plan B limits still have majority support.
And talking of Mountbatten, this is an amusing romp through a version of that what if;
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Agent_Lavender.html?id=xHEhMQAACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
Accuses No10 of "industrial scale partying"
https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1482650990268534788
For the North 15% won't vote, 22% don't know Tories on 17%, labour 30%
For the midlands 12% won't vote, 17% don't know Tories on 23% Labour 28%
From https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/48dfh8v55q/TheTimes_VI_220113_W.pdf
What you can see is that Tories votes are going down and won't vote is going up, but there is a distinct move to Labour from the Lib Dems / Greens in winnable Labour seats.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f44a1c7e-761c-11ec-b318-3e3a5d689572?shareToken=ab77d8f02f250601b729f434eaeab2f7 https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1482650480740376579/photo/1
I'm glad they saved the dogs instead of people but I'm not giving Johnson or NutNut any credit for it.
The rest? no comment.
Its almost as if the whole system has frozen and is being rebooted.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1482652221330370560
Keir Starmer is now explicitly accusing Boris Johnson of breaking the law by attending Downing Street garden party on May 20, 2020
'I'm clear in my own mind that he has broken the rules, broken the law'
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1482652741952487427
That Boris Johnson?
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/jan/14/pierre-emerick-aubameyang-diagnosed-cardiac-lesions-afcon-gabon-arsenal
Can these posters explain how the numbers would have been materially different without going to Plan B?
My analysis is that it has had precious little effect on the numbers at significant socioeconomic cost.
As for @Stodge’s characteristically airy claim that people will behave similarly be it Plan A or Plan B.
That’s rubbish for one major reason: while ever Plan B is in place, lots of companies prevent their staff from meeting in person.
That’s a huge barrier to trade.
But for now, confirmed deaths are still 4 times lower than in early 2021.
[From my daily-updated post on key COVID-19 metrics compared to previous waves: ourworldindata.org/covid-metrics-…]
https://twitter.com/redouad/status/1482652558804107264?s=21
Still not a great week for the self entitled and arrogant - Johnson, Andrew and Djokovic all on the ropes!
You couldn't navigate your way around the site for adoring posts from Isam Philip Thompson DavidL Sandpit RobD Felix the Two Bigs Carlotta etc
Now we seem to have just the lonesome voice of HYUFD. What's happened to the famous Blue Rosette loyalty?
Right now on BBC Politics South the MP for Gosport was just asked the straight question "Do you have confidence in the PM?".
Her answer: ...pause... "it's been a very very difficult few weeks, it really has, and I really feel that those who set the rules must abide by the rules. So I heard the PM's apology this week in Parliament and I think I am very much looking forward to hearing the facts when Sue Gray reports. It's a very difficult time".
Given that, how do you think he's been 'mistreated'?
I feel zero sympathy for him. Like Johnson, his mistakes are all his own and unforced.
https://fortune.com/2022/01/13/china-omicron-covid-zero-port-shutdown-lockdown-supply-chain/
The current rules dictate that you have to wear a mask in the theatre: a social and leisure activity and indeed a romantic one. Who on Earth wants to wear a mask on a date?
Re: the WFH guidance. People can and should WFH when convenient, covid or none. Yet the existence of the guidance means many staff are banned from meeting clients/colleagues/suppliers in person.
That is an egregious imposition, and a barrier to contact building and developing new business.
Does anyone sensible believe Plan B should continue? On what justification?
To blame any failings on Pen Farthings dogs is just a distraction tactic, as indeed are crocodile tears for Aghan refugees who are now back to being the demons of the tabloids.
We would also be replacing a mere millionaire PM with a multi millionaire son in law of a billionaire PM. Who says Tories do not believe in social mobility!
It’s a bit of a cheap shot to cry about that - they didn’t have to invite him and so really their job to pick up the tab.
Disclaimer - I think Johnson is a knob only outdone by JRM but give him shit for the right things not just anything…..
The Government was right, I just wish they'd had the same nerve in March 2020. The evidence as to whether the decisive voice this time was Boris, the Cabinet or pressure from backbench Conservative MPs is confusing. Success has many fathers ...
The BBC's Chris Mason explains what we know so far
#SundayMorning http://bbc.in/3nrAJQQ
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1482656949669871619?s=20
Several PBers have shamelessly referenced Lady Macbeth, a sexist trope so cliched I’m amazed that they can show their face.
As for wfh being a huge barrier to trade, that depends on the business. There isn't an instruction to wfh regardless, merely to wfh if it's reasonably practical. I spend my days writing submissions to the Government, studying current research, giving remote interviews and leading work by colleagues to plan future campaigns. I could do all that just as well from anywhere, so I'm happy to comply with the instruction to do it from home. If I was running a shop, it would clearly be impractical and I wouldn't do it. It seems a reasonable rule for now though when the infection level comes down it should be replaced by merely a recommendation.
But I'll leave it there.
I look forward to his unswerving loyalty to his new leader, whether Sunak or Hunt in the style of a true Tankie.
We had Plan A and a half. We appear to got away with only parts of the NHS buckling rather than all of it. "what buckling" say the naysayers even as doctors and nurses and trust CEOs point directly to buckling.
Who knows how bad it would have been had we gone full steam ahead into Christmas and new Year. We just don't know either way.
@CarlottaVance
Anything further was a bonus
My question with regards to shops, pubs, restaurants, cafes is how many of those exist only to serve people doing a commute and how much of the money pumped through them was done out of routine or boredom. Yes, I have form attacking the "twatty coffee" culture where people spend sizeable amounts of money gifting vast profit margins to tax-dodging scumsters like Starbucks. But now that we've got past the government pressure to go back to normal and spend £200 a month on £20-worth of coffee, do the majority actually miss it?
That isn't to call the end to shops, pubs, restaurants, cafes - they're evolving to be in different places serving different needs.