It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
I’m centre-right, and indeed have served as a councillor for a centre-right party. Go on, just as a wee exercise, try to persuade me to vote Scottish Conservative and Unionist.
People in hospital *for* COVID decreasing, people in hospital *with* COVID still going up. Almost 50% of all patients in hospital wrt COVID are now there for something else.
Next week we might even see incidental admissions overtake non-incidentals. The ONS death certificate stats have decoupled from the dashboard because of very high incidence over the last 28 days as well. The dashboard might be overstating daily hospitalisations as much as 50% and daily deaths by as much as 30% at the moment.
I think there will be news on this soon - trailed last night by Javid.
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
I agree with HY on this one. Conservative Party leadership is a party matter at the end of the day, the view of us non Conservative voters at present or non party members is pretty meaningless?
The views of people who might vote Conservative at the next election are surely relevant. I paid my £3 to vote against Corbyn because I knew that with him as leader I couldn't possibly vote for Labour but with another leader I could.
How easy would it be to join and stay in all 3 main parties to get an enhanced vote? Unethical of course and breaking parties t&cs but seems fair by the standard of the countries leadership nowadays.
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
Then you have not read his posts and the nuance of his comments
You are an embarrassment to the conservative party
Is there any sense in the position Big G where rebels say, we got him where we want him now, we will ease off for the time being?
I mean the Malmesbury quote “only if you succeed it’s not treason” is heavily influencing the media backers of Boris, like the Mail, Express, Sun who are presenting plotters as figures to hate the longer this goes on. And of course, Team Boris have all the power to retaliate
The quote on here “we’ve got him where we want him, it’s all planned out, waiting till after May elections” it’s like a suicide note 😟
I hope not
I hope next week sees the 54 letters delivered
Not. Going. To. Happen.
The PCP is weak, weak, weak.
I am of the opinion you hope it won't happen because a new leader of the conservative party, especially Rishi, would make the prospect of a Labour government in 24 less likely
Wrong.
I very much hope it will happen, as having this mendacious oaf in charge brings shame and embarrassment on our country.
Unlike many PBers, I put country first – I'm not particularly party political.
I just fear that I will be proved right, and he'll stay.
President Macron, why? Western unity is the most important asset we have against Russian aggression. - Macron floats EU security pact with Russia in split from US calls for ‘unity’
France and Germany competing to see who can kiss Putin’s arse the most, just as he rollls the tanks towards Kiev. I’m not sure most of the Eastern European countries are too happy with that.
Those wanting peace, if this come to war, will get
- A split in NATO. - The Eastern Europeans will either cuddle up to Moscow or try and get an alliance of those who will back them. - Everyone will assume Ukraine is not the "last territorial demand". So those not wanting to be ruled by Moscow will arm themselves. And how - Ukraine was promised that if they gave up nuclear weapons, they would be guaranteed their territorial integrity by Russia, NATO - everyone. - So the message will go out. Very loud and very clear. Get nuclear weapons. Keep them. Worldwide. - Ukraine has multiple nuclear reactors and a lot of burned up fuel. Yes, civil "grade" plutonium. But that can be processed, fairly simply, if it is old enough. That would make a nice present for someone.
So if Russia takes some more chunks out of Ukraine, we are looking at a world where nuclear proliferation switches into high gear. Where NATO/EU splits. Where a chunk of Eastern Europe gears up ready for the next war. And maybe start thinking that they should get themselves some really, really Big Sticks.
Oh, and a whole bunch of legless teenagers begging on the streets of St Petersburg. Again.
France and Germany need to think hard about the consequences of what is essentially appeasement - a term which is bandied about far too often, but which fits here. Except that in this case, Ukraine will fight regardless - and their stance makes war more, not less likely, I think.
I read that this morning, it's a really good and fairly neutral take on the situation. The French proposal for an EU-Russia pact is actually appeasement. It's a proposal to let the Russians do what they want and suffer no consequences from Europe.
The EU is very quickly proving that it is not to be trusted without the UK in it. Something a lot of us said would happen and was denied by the more ardent EUphiles who have idealised the EU as some bastion of liberal democracy when the reality is very different.
Looks like a disastrous strategic mistake for us to have lost our influence from within the EU then.
Alternatively it's shown the rest of the world exactly the kind of shit we had to deal with time and again when it came to putting up sanctions on markets to which Germany had significant exports. The view in the UK has always understood that Germany doesn't give a fuck about anyone else's freedoms as long as they can sell dishwashers but the rest of the world didn't realise this until now. What they project to the world as being peaceful is actually appeasement. I think it's a net good that we've got that out in the open.
Maybe the Germans agree with Margaret Thatcher that sanctions don't work and should never be used however odious the regime. Even an apartheid one?
It's a good job the UK government cracked down so hard on Russians laundering money in London.
While subsidising the Russian space program through OneWeb/British Leyland In Space.
15-20% and a Golden Share iirc. And £2.3 billion of investment if reports are correct.
No idea if UK Gov have further call options, or guarantees of part of the capacity.
Yes - lots of stuff about classes of shares etc.
The European angle is that various players are angry at Eutelsat for investing in a non-European constellation. They were trying to get momentum for all EU one - like Galileo.
Instead it is looking likely that the market will be
- Starlink - OneWeb
for a fair amount of time to come. Amazon/Bezos keep talking about their constellation, but it seems to be slower than Sue Origin for actually doing physical stuff.
Mrs DA just asked if I had put 'car stuff' in the oven while sniffing the air suspiciously. I had - Porsche 924 front hubs for bearing installation. I said that I took the allegations very seriously but the appropriate thing to was to let Sue Gray finish the investigation before commenting. She went fucking mad. IT DOESN'T WORK!
Happy days. Before my partner moved in I had a 748 in the living room and a 900ss engine in its frame in a spare bedroom. Can't even clean an engine cover in the dishwasher now.
I get told off if I put the toothbrush-holder in the dishwasher.
I have to accept that there are dishwasher protocols that will forever be mysterious to me. 'But there weren't any dishes in with it' not an acceptable defence apparently.
The best thing about dishwashers is that they use so much less water and energy than doing dishes by hand.
I'm going for the two dishwashers system this year.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Gold plating.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
People in hospital *for* COVID decreasing, people in hospital *with* COVID still going up. Almost 50% of all patients in hospital wrt COVID are now there for something else.
Next week we might even see incidental admissions overtake non-incidentals. The ONS death certificate stats have decoupled from the dashboard because of very high incidence over the last 28 days as well. The dashboard might be overstating daily hospitalisations as much as 50% and daily deaths by as much as 30% at the moment.
I think there will be news on this soon - trailed last night by Javid.
Hopefully the dashboard or daily released stats will differentiate with and for COVID in hospitalisations as well as with/from COVID for deaths, even if it's just for England right now that would add a lot of clarity to the discussions around what's actually happening.
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
Then you have not read his posts and the nuance of his comments
You are an embarrassment to the conservative party
Is there any sense in the position Big G where rebels say, we got him where we want him now, we will ease off for the time being?
I mean the Malmesbury quote “only if you succeed it’s not treason” is heavily influencing the media backers of Boris, like the Mail, Express, Sun who are presenting plotters as figures to hate the longer this goes on. And of course, Team Boris have all the power to retaliate
The quote on here “we’ve got him where we want him, it’s all planned out, waiting till after May elections” it’s like a suicide note 😟
I hope not
I hope next week sees the 54 letters delivered
Not. Going. To. Happen.
The PCP is weak, weak, weak.
I am of the opinion you hope it won't happen because a new leader of the conservative party, especially Rishi, would make the prospect of a Labour government in 24 less likely
Wrong.
I very much hope it will happen, as having this mendacious oaf in charge brings shame and embarrassment on our country.
Unlike many PBers, I put country first – I'm not particularly party political.
I just fear that I will be proved right, and he'll stay.
We share the desire for Boris to go and I have little doubt we are in the end game for Boris
Finally this government does something train users approve of.
What's the problem? Don't people want to know that their train is arriving at Manc Piccadilly rather than Bristle Parkway?
I already know what train I'm on what the stops are.
Usually I'm sat in first class so I have at seat dining, I don't need them repeatedly telling the plebs that that there's trolley with drinks and light refreshments is on board and/or there's a cafe/restaurant in coach D.
Displays cover it for most use cases for those unfamiliar with the journey. Hard for the sight-impaired of course...
Do German intercity trains still have a print out of the stops and times left at each seat? That was handy if you didn't have a clue, you could simply get off by time (and the times were generally near correct).
I can really only see justification for two scheduled announcements per stop: on approach "we will shortly be arriving at X" and when the doors open at X "this is X, this train is for Y calling at A, B, C..." - the latter mostly for the benefit of people getting on.
Sure, commuters don't need the stop announcements, if you're in a hurry you're probably tracking it on RTT anyway. But even people who are taking a journey for the thousandth time once took it for the first time.
That said, announcements of the next stop, destination and so on can be better made on digital displays like they do in that there London.
Those can scroll continuously in transit (along with everything else they want to say), but the two in question are definitely helped by an audible confirmation.
When have station announcements been audible or intelligible?
The displays added to the outside of the trains themselves as well as inside are the best answer to the problem.
The recorded announcements on the trains I've been on have generally been pretty good. Live announcements, like announcements on stations, are much more variable - but I don't think the latter is what's under discussion by the government at the moment?
When I travel on trains I tend to read, and a "ping! we're now approaching X" announcement is useful because it means I don't have to look up every time the train decelerates to see where I am.
Now, I am all for "equal opportunities" but on my local line the announcer for the recorded announcements has a pronounced lisp.
We need to abolition the term 'blackmail' as it is clearly racist and I prefer the term 'incentive based decision making.'
"Mail of colour"?
It's odd, of course, how much of our language counts 'black' as bad, but I assume the origins are more in day and night than in ethnicity. Being 'blackballed' is one of my favourites.
It's an old Scottish Borders term - effectively black + mail, mail being rent. Definitely the black = bad equation here. Unlike the Black Bitch at Linlithgow or the Black Bull at Lauder.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Sadiq is doing the same with public transport in London.
I’m generally in favour of mask wearing, but not compulsion now we are all vaccinated, and with exceptions for places such as schools where verbal communication is important and masks cause confusion and distraction.
Indeed – why not just make it voluntary? Those who are worried can wear an FFP3 mask – that's a much more rational policy.
I fear that due to the endless appeals to people’s sense of altruism about how a mask is worn to protect others rather than yourself, that too many people don’t appreciate quite how much personal protection a good mask can give. If this was more widely understood then I think the whole debate about mask wearing would be very different and there would be far more tolerance of mask and non-mask wearers alike. And, frankly, less of a sense of blind terror of leaving the house that a not insignificant proportion of the population appear to currently experience.
As an aside, listening to some of the rebellious Red Wall MPs - well, they don't sound like your archetypal rebels. They are sincere in wanting what's best for their constituents and working hard to improve the lot of the people they represent. You could almost call them One Nation Conservatives.
That's what this is about though, isn't it - the battle for the Conservative soul. The ideologues around Johnson now realise those they helped get elected in 2019 aren't like them at all - instead, they are more like those who Johnson turfed out of the party after becoming leader.
No. They were Remainers. These are Leavers.
Isn't our old friend Tissue Price, now Aaron Bell MP, one of them?
President Macron, why? Western unity is the most important asset we have against Russian aggression. - Macron floats EU security pact with Russia in split from US calls for ‘unity’
France and Germany competing to see who can kiss Putin’s arse the most, just as he rollls the tanks towards Kiev. I’m not sure most of the Eastern European countries are too happy with that.
Those wanting peace, if this come to war, will get
- A split in NATO. - The Eastern Europeans will either cuddle up to Moscow or try and get an alliance of those who will back them. - Everyone will assume Ukraine is not the "last territorial demand". So those not wanting to be ruled by Moscow will arm themselves. And how - Ukraine was promised that if they gave up nuclear weapons, they would be guaranteed their territorial integrity by Russia, NATO - everyone. - So the message will go out. Very loud and very clear. Get nuclear weapons. Keep them. Worldwide. - Ukraine has multiple nuclear reactors and a lot of burned up fuel. Yes, civil "grade" plutonium. But that can be processed, fairly simply, if it is old enough. That would make a nice present for someone.
So if Russia takes some more chunks out of Ukraine, we are looking at a world where nuclear proliferation switches into high gear. Where NATO/EU splits. Where a chunk of Eastern Europe gears up ready for the next war. And maybe start thinking that they should get themselves some really, really Big Sticks.
Oh, and a whole bunch of legless teenagers begging on the streets of St Petersburg. Again.
France and Germany need to think hard about the consequences of what is essentially appeasement - a term which is bandied about far too often, but which fits here. Except that in this case, Ukraine will fight regardless - and their stance makes war more, not less likely, I think.
I read that this morning, it's a really good and fairly neutral take on the situation. The French proposal for an EU-Russia pact is actually appeasement. It's a proposal to let the Russians do what they want and suffer no consequences from Europe.
The EU is very quickly proving that it is not to be trusted without the UK in it. Something a lot of us said would happen and was denied by the more ardent EUphiles who have idealised the EU as some bastion of liberal democracy when the reality is very different.
Looks like a disastrous strategic mistake for us to have lost our influence from within the EU then.
Alternatively it's shown the rest of the world exactly the kind of shit we had to deal with time and again when it came to putting up sanctions on markets to which Germany had significant exports. The view in the UK has always understood that Germany doesn't give a fuck about anyone else's freedoms as long as they can sell dishwashers but the rest of the world didn't realise this until now. What they project to the world as being peaceful is actually appeasement. I think it's a net good that we've got that out in the open.
Maybe the Germans agree with Margaret Thatcher that sanctions don't work and should never be used however odious the regime. Even an apartheid one?
It's a good job the UK government cracked down so hard on Russians laundering money in London.
While subsidising the Russian space program through OneWeb/British Leyland In Space.
15-20% and a Golden Share iirc. And £2.3 billion of investment if reports are correct.
No idea if UK Gov have further call options, or guarantees of part of the capacity.
Yes - lots of stuff about classes of shares etc.
The European angle is that various players are angry at Eutelsat for investing in a non-European constellation. They were trying to get momentum for all EU one - like Galileo.
Instead it is looking likely that the market will be
- Starlink - OneWeb
for a fair amount of time to come. Amazon/Bezos keep talking about their constellation, but it seems to be slower than Sue Origin for actually doing physical stuff.
Yes, in the end our much derided investment into OneWeb might actually be a very good/lucky bit of foresight.
People in hospital *for* COVID decreasing, people in hospital *with* COVID still going up. Almost 50% of all patients in hospital wrt COVID are now there for something else.
Next week we might even see incidental admissions overtake non-incidentals. The ONS death certificate stats have decoupled from the dashboard because of very high incidence over the last 28 days as well. The dashboard might be overstating daily hospitalisations as much as 50% and daily deaths by as much as 30% at the moment.
I think there will be news on this soon - trailed last night by Javid.
Hopefully the dashboard or daily released stats will differentiate with and for COVID in hospitalisations as well as with/from COVID for deaths, even if it's just for England right now that would add a lot of clarity to the discussions around what's actually happening.
On R5 this morning a poo sniffer bio-medical scientist spouted off about why we should keep masks etc based on cases (surely pointless measure now) and deaths (she quote about 1700 a week). They did at least have Chris Smith (from the naked scientists) to redress the balance in the whole dying from and with covid. Sadly we NEED clarity on this as too many will either not understand or deliberately miss-use the dashboard numbers.
It's the UK government and the Indians calling the shots - Eutelsat is getting grief from certain quarters in the EU for "defecting" to a non-European constellation. Particularly now it is clear that they are not gong to use either European launchers or launchers provided via Europe (the Russian connection).
I love the way OneWeb has gone from a bad investment when the UK government bailed them out, to a good investment once other companies and countries jumped in but also now no longer anything to do with the UK government. It's almost as though the critics were basing the views on their opinion of the government rather than any merits of the technology and the financial investment.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Gold plating.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
Most people love a bit of delegating power to local areas until the local area chooses a policy which is both against the central governments and their own views, at which point it becomes a ludicrous inconsistent post code lottery.
In new @ONS stats published today, we show that the UK is about mid-pack in the G7 in terms of labour #productivity.
UK is more productive than Japan and Canada, similar to (probably more than) Italy, probably less than Germany, and definitely less than France and the US.
Ha ha, it is one of those statistics that drives English people mad, but the French are incredibly productive. They achieve this in part by less productive people not working, however.
Yes, that's the thing with productivity statistics. Cut the least productive (note: not necessarily least hard-working), and your productivity goes up.
Because of the cost of employment in France - direct and indirect (once you have an employee, getting rid of them is... complex) - *and* favourable taxation, investment in automation and productivity enhancing machinery is high.
Hence if you go to a French domestic building site, almost the first thing they put up is a mini-crane.
On the UK equivalent building site you see ridiculous things done by hand. Just add more Polish blokes....
There’s also huge unemployment in France, relative to the UK, which skews the productivity stats even further in their favour.
Yes, the way the UK improves productivity is to invest in capital rather than throwing cheap labour at the problem. Cranes on building sites, and more automation of minimum-wage jobs.
Let's the blunt that's the way the UK should improve productivity. We just haven't done that because minimum wage jobs were easily filled by Eastern Europeans so productivity improvements were avoided as they require actual capital.
When Sunak increased the incentives for investing in plant and machinery, the order books for labour saving machinery zoomed upward. Try buying a mini-digger from JCB..... Last I heard they were talking about working three shifts for the demand....
Let's see how the investment continues once the tax incentives are removed (and yes I know the tax incentives remain roughly the same once the corporation tax rates increase but I suspect the investment may dry up a bit / lot).
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Gold plating.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
Most people love a bit of delegating power to local areas until the local area chooses a policy which is both against the central governments and their own views, at which point it becomes a ludicrous inconsistent post code lottery.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
We received an email from my sons school last night saying that:
"From tomorrow, Thursday 20 January, face coverings are no longer recommended in classrooms and teaching spaces for staff, and pupils and students in Year 7 and above. They were introduced in classrooms at the start of the spring term as a temporary measure."
"From Thursday 27 January, face coverings are no longer recommended in communal areas for staff, and pupils and students in Year 7 and above."
Not for the first time, I am impressed with the pragmatic approach my son's school has been taking and also how proactive they are with the parents.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Gold plating.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
Most people love a bit of delegating power to local areas until the local area chooses a policy which is both against the central governments and their own views, at which point it becomes a ludicrous inconsistent post code lottery.
Calderdale have additional school isolation recommendations for household contacts to avoid school for a set number of days and not merely rely on daily LFTs.
People in hospital *for* COVID decreasing, people in hospital *with* COVID still going up. Almost 50% of all patients in hospital wrt COVID are now there for something else.
Next week we might even see incidental admissions overtake non-incidentals. The ONS death certificate stats have decoupled from the dashboard because of very high incidence over the last 28 days as well. The dashboard might be overstating daily hospitalisations as much as 50% and daily deaths by as much as 30% at the moment.
I think there will be news on this soon - trailed last night by Javid.
Hopefully the dashboard or daily released stats will differentiate with and for COVID in hospitalisations as well as with/from COVID for deaths, even if it's just for England right now that would add a lot of clarity to the discussions around what's actually happening.
On R5 this morning a poo sniffer bio-medical scientist spouted off about why we should keep masks etc based on cases (surely pointless measure now) and deaths (she quote about 1700 a week). They did at least have Chris Smith (from the naked scientists) to redress the balance in the whole dying from and with covid. Sadly we NEED clarity on this as too many will either not understand or deliberately miss-use the dashboard numbers.
Indeed, we saw it with hospitalisations at the beginning of the Omicron wave when the dashboard which includes all incidental admissions was being compared to the rubbish models which are specifically *for* COVID admissions despite at least 40% of real world being *with* COVID at the time.
It does seem as though the decision makers have wised up to this though, I don't think we'd have been able to stay out of lockdown if there wasn't a basic understanding of the with/for difference in December.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Gold plating.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
Yes, this is all too common. It's not that the whole public sector is wildly pro-mask - though you do sometimes get that impression - but almost by definition local authorities' public health teams are pro-mask; and they tend to get to call the shots in these cases.
People in hospital *for* COVID decreasing, people in hospital *with* COVID still going up. Almost 50% of all patients in hospital wrt COVID are now there for something else.
Next week we might even see incidental admissions overtake non-incidentals. The ONS death certificate stats have decoupled from the dashboard because of very high incidence over the last 28 days as well. The dashboard might be overstating daily hospitalisations as much as 50% and daily deaths by as much as 30% at the moment.
I think there will be news on this soon - trailed last night by Javid.
Hopefully the dashboard or daily released stats will differentiate with and for COVID in hospitalisations as well as with/from COVID for deaths, even if it's just for England right now that would add a lot of clarity to the discussions around what's actually happening.
On R5 this morning a poo sniffer bio-medical scientist spouted off about why we should keep masks etc based on cases (surely pointless measure now) and deaths (she quote about 1700 a week). They did at least have Chris Smith (from the naked scientists) to redress the balance in the whole dying from and with covid. Sadly we NEED clarity on this as too many will either not understand or deliberately miss-use the dashboard numbers.
Indeed, we saw it with hospitalisations at the beginning of the Omicron wave when the dashboard which includes all incidental admissions was being compared to the rubbish models which are specifically *for* COVID admissions despite at least 40% of real world being *with* COVID at the time.
It does seem as though the decision makers have wised up to this though, I don't think we'd have been able to stay out of lockdown if there wasn't a basic understanding of the with/for difference in December.
Given the number of things that CC has got wrong, the number of corrections of her stories, and the number of claims that have been withdrawn, I'm inclined to see the imbroglio as a cautionary tale for journos to get things right.
Just as the Katie Hopkins one was a cautionary tale about checking whom someone is before you insult them on twitter, then double down on your mistake.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
We received an email from my sons school last night saying that:
"From tomorrow, Thursday 20 January, face coverings are no longer recommended in classrooms and teaching spaces for staff, and pupils and students in Year 7 and above. They were introduced in classrooms at the start of the spring term as a temporary measure."
"From Thursday 27 January, face coverings are no longer recommended in communal areas for staff, and pupils and students in Year 7 and above."
Not for the first time, I am impressed with the pragmatic approach my son's school has been taking and also how proactive they are with the parents.
My Paris mole gives me to understand French schools are monitoring air quality and ventilation, though I was not paying attention so the details might be garbled.
It's the UK government and the Indians calling the shots - Eutelsat is getting grief from certain quarters in the EU for "defecting" to a non-European constellation. Particularly now it is clear that they are not gong to use either European launchers or launchers provided via Europe (the Russian connection).
I love the way OneWeb has gone from a bad investment when the UK government bailed them out, to a good investment once other companies and countries jumped in but also now no longer anything to do with the UK government. It's almost as though the critics were basing the views on their opinion of the government rather than any merits of the technology and the financial investment.
It's gone from a brave but potentially very valuable call by Sharma, to a likely big win.
The next thing needed is for BT to start using it to cover high speed internet gaps, which they are now at some stage of trialling.
There should (presumably) be the same opportunity for most of Europe, as Oneweb now have their northern hemisphere satellite constellation in place.
Albeit Russia is having a small quantity of kittens.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
We received an email from my sons school last night saying that:
"From tomorrow, Thursday 20 January, face coverings are no longer recommended in classrooms and teaching spaces for staff, and pupils and students in Year 7 and above. They were introduced in classrooms at the start of the spring term as a temporary measure."
"From Thursday 27 January, face coverings are no longer recommended in communal areas for staff, and pupils and students in Year 7 and above."
Not for the first time, I am impressed with the pragmatic approach my son's school has been taking and also how proactive they are with the parents.
My daughter's school:
"From 20/01/22 face masks will not be necessary in lessons and from 27/01/22 in communal spaces. I will write more on Friday but wanted to flag this to you. If anyone wishes to remain masked they may. "
Mrs DA just asked if I had put 'car stuff' in the oven while sniffing the air suspiciously. I had - Porsche 924 front hubs for bearing installation. I said that I took the allegations very seriously but the appropriate thing to was to let Sue Gray finish the investigation before commenting. She went fucking mad. IT DOESN'T WORK!
Happy days. Before my partner moved in I had a 748 in the living room and a 900ss engine in its frame in a spare bedroom. Can't even clean an engine cover in the dishwasher now.
I get told off if I put the toothbrush-holder in the dishwasher.
I have to accept that there are dishwasher protocols that will forever be mysterious to me. 'But there weren't any dishes in with it' not an acceptable defence apparently.
It’s the handbag protocols that I just can’t get my head around.
Why do 50% of the adult population have to go about their daily business with one and a half kilos of junk attached to their shoulder?
50%?
I'm a male and I prefer to use a bag than stuff my pockets full, and with a bag I can bring my knitting, and a few other things that might be useful.
Given the number of things that CC has got wrong, the number of corrections of her stories, and the number of claims that have been withdrawn, I'm inclined to see the imbroglio as a cautionary tale for journos to get things right.
Just as the Katie Hopkins one was a cautionary tale about checking whom someone is before you insult them on twitter, then double down on your mistake.
Rule 5 of the Really Important Rules
5. Never nail your trousers to the mast head. It makes climbing down nearly impossible.
Mrs DA just asked if I had put 'car stuff' in the oven while sniffing the air suspiciously. I had - Porsche 924 front hubs for bearing installation. I said that I took the allegations very seriously but the appropriate thing to was to let Sue Gray finish the investigation before commenting. She went fucking mad. IT DOESN'T WORK!
Happy days. Before my partner moved in I had a 748 in the living room and a 900ss engine in its frame in a spare bedroom. Can't even clean an engine cover in the dishwasher now.
I get told off if I put the toothbrush-holder in the dishwasher.
I have to accept that there are dishwasher protocols that will forever be mysterious to me. 'But there weren't any dishes in with it' not an acceptable defence apparently.
It’s the handbag protocols that I just can’t get my head around.
Why do 50% of the adult population have to go about their daily business with one and a half kilos of junk attached to their shoulder?
50%?
I'm a male and I prefer to use a bag than stuff my pockets full, and with a bag I can bring my knitting, and a few other things that might be useful.
As an aside, listening to some of the rebellious Red Wall MPs - well, they don't sound like your archetypal rebels. They are sincere in wanting what's best for their constituents and working hard to improve the lot of the people they represent. You could almost call them One Nation Conservatives.
That's what this is about though, isn't it - the battle for the Conservative soul. The ideologues around Johnson now realise those they helped get elected in 2019 aren't like them at all - instead, they are more like those who Johnson turfed out of the party after becoming leader.
No. They were Remainers. These are Leavers.
Isn't our old friend Tissue Price, now Aaron Bell MP, one of them?
I do not recall how he stood on Brexit.
iirc he backed May's Brexit then Boris's. Same as Boris, come to think of it.
Paul Brand @PaulBrandITV Eyes Hearing a senior MP is due to make a scathing intervention in the partygate scandal this morning… standby for potential sparks to fly. 9:16 am · 20 Jan 2022·Twitter for iPhone
Hope so but that sort of oooh look at me I know something you don't thing hardly ever comes good, and conversely stuff like Davis, wakeford, and anything from cummings is usually unheralded
My Johnson to go by x positions not looking healthy this morning
What was that time someone was hyped to defect or quit and it was some Pensions adviser or something?
Bridgen: "Call me old fashioned. I think when the PM stands at the dispatch box, the public should have the belief he's telling a modicum of the truth."
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
Then you have not read his posts and the nuance of his comments
You are an embarrassment to the conservative party
Is there any sense in the position Big G where rebels say, we got him where we want him now, we will ease off for the time being?
I mean the Malmesbury quote “only if you succeed it’s not treason” is heavily influencing the media backers of Boris, like the Mail, Express, Sun who are presenting plotters as figures to hate the longer this goes on. And of course, Team Boris have all the power to retaliate
The quote on here “we’ve got him where we want him, it’s all planned out, waiting till after May elections” it’s like a suicide note 😟
I hope not
I hope next week sees the 54 letters delivered
Not. Going. To. Happen.
The PCP is weak, weak, weak.
I am of the opinion you hope it won't happen because a new leader of the conservative party, especially Rishi, would make the prospect of a Labour government in 24 less likely
Wrong.
I very much hope it will happen, as having this mendacious oaf in charge brings shame and embarrassment on our country.
Unlike many PBers, I put country first – I'm not particularly party political.
I just fear that I will be proved right, and he'll stay.
It might be better for Boris to have a VONC now than in avoid it and face one in May when the Tories might see heavy losses on current polls, especially in London.
If a VONC is held now and he wins it he is safe for a year.
Portillo on GB news now says he thinks Boris is safer than yesterday. Davis looked pompous and Wakeford defecting has brought Tory unity
That 'year' is set in instant whip. The 1922 can change the rules, and will if they think it needed, as said several times by others on PB.
If Boris wins a VONC he also likely has a majority on the 1922
The 1922 Committee arranges the rules around votes of no confidence and the first stage of a Conservative leadership contest. These rules are not published in the public domain. They can also be changed at any time by the 1922’s Executive Committee, in consultation with the Conservative Party Board, which consists of representatives from each section – voluntary, political and professional – of the party. For example, this means that the rule stating a new vote of no confidence cannot be triggered for 12 months could be removed with little to no notice.
The rules on a VONC were set up under Hague though and can only be changed with the support of the party board as well as the 1922. If he wins a VONC, even narrowly, Boris almost certainly has a majority still on the 1922 too
I suspect that, unlike other leaders, if Johnson wins a VOC narrowly he would stay on even if just by one vote.
JRM would be in a tight spot given his petulant reaction to May winning hers and insisting she should quit as a matter of constitutional convention as she didn't win by enough.
As an aside, listening to some of the rebellious Red Wall MPs - well, they don't sound like your archetypal rebels. They are sincere in wanting what's best for their constituents and working hard to improve the lot of the people they represent. You could almost call them One Nation Conservatives.
That's what this is about though, isn't it - the battle for the Conservative soul. The ideologues around Johnson now realise those they helped get elected in 2019 aren't like them at all - instead, they are more like those who Johnson turfed out of the party after becoming leader.
No. They were Remainers. These are Leavers.
Isn't our old friend Tissue Price, now Aaron Bell MP, one of them?
I do not recall how he stood on Brexit.
He was a Leaver albeit a nice one!
PS and one of the first to rebel in the new intake against the Patterson outrage
People in hospital *for* COVID decreasing, people in hospital *with* COVID still going up. Almost 50% of all patients in hospital wrt COVID are now there for something else.
Next week we might even see incidental admissions overtake non-incidentals. The ONS death certificate stats have decoupled from the dashboard because of very high incidence over the last 28 days as well. The dashboard might be overstating daily hospitalisations as much as 50% and daily deaths by as much as 30% at the moment.
I think there will be news on this soon - trailed last night by Javid.
Hopefully the dashboard or daily released stats will differentiate with and for COVID in hospitalisations as well as with/from COVID for deaths, even if it's just for England right now that would add a lot of clarity to the discussions around what's actually happening.
On R5 this morning a poo sniffer bio-medical scientist spouted off about why we should keep masks etc based on cases (surely pointless measure now) and deaths (she quote about 1700 a week). They did at least have Chris Smith (from the naked scientists) to redress the balance in the whole dying from and with covid. Sadly we NEED clarity on this as too many will either not understand or deliberately miss-use the dashboard numbers.
Problem is that many people have their fixed ideas if Covid (whether it be deaths stats, risks of long Covid, whatever) which formed from information earlier in the pandemic. So the perceived wisdom that official 28 day figure understate (when compared to “more accurate” registrations, excess deaths etc). This may be true in the past but increasingly not now.
It might be better for Boris to have a VONC now than in avoid it and face one in May when the Tories might see heavy losses on current polls, especially in London.
If a VONC is held now and he wins it he is safe for a year.
Portillo on GB news now says he thinks Boris is safer than yesterday. Davis looked pompous and Wakeford defecting has brought Tory unity
That 'year' is set in instant whip. The 1922 can change the rules, and will if they think it needed, as said several times by others on PB.
If Boris wins a VONC he also likely has a majority on the 1922
The 1922 Committee arranges the rules around votes of no confidence and the first stage of a Conservative leadership contest. These rules are not published in the public domain. They can also be changed at any time by the 1922’s Executive Committee, in consultation with the Conservative Party Board, which consists of representatives from each section – voluntary, political and professional – of the party. For example, this means that the rule stating a new vote of no confidence cannot be triggered for 12 months could be removed with little to no notice.
The rules on a VONC were set up under Hague though and can only be changed with the support of the party board as well as the 1922. If he wins a VONC, even narrowly, Boris almost certainly has a majority still on the 1922 too
I suspect that, unlike other leaders, if Johnson wins a VOC narrowly he would stay on even if just by one vote.
JRM would be in a tight spot given his petulant reaction to May winning hers and insisting she should quit as a matter of constitutional convention as she didn't win by enough.
You think JRM has an ounce of shame? That's cute.
He'll say whatever suits his agenda and he'll say it as if it's the only thing that could possibly be right.
A bit like the GOP Senators who rushed through Amy Coney Barrett.
Given the number of things that CC has got wrong, the number of corrections of her stories, and the number of claims that have been withdrawn, I'm inclined to see the imbroglio as a cautionary tale for journos to get things right.
Just as the Katie Hopkins one was a cautionary tale about checking whom someone is before you insult them on twitter, then double down on your mistake.
Rule 5 of the Really Important Rules
5. Never nail your trousers to the mast head. It makes climbing down nearly impossible.
She seems to be a totemic figure for some, a great crusader. Oddly favoured by Pagel et al too. Probably a thesis in there somewhere...
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
Then you have not read his posts and the nuance of his comments
You are an embarrassment to the conservative party
Is there any sense in the position Big G where rebels say, we got him where we want him now, we will ease off for the time being?
I mean the Malmesbury quote “only if you succeed it’s not treason” is heavily influencing the media backers of Boris, like the Mail, Express, Sun who are presenting plotters as figures to hate the longer this goes on. And of course, Team Boris have all the power to retaliate
The quote on here “we’ve got him where we want him, it’s all planned out, waiting till after May elections” it’s like a suicide note 😟
I hope not
I hope next week sees the 54 letters delivered
Not. Going. To. Happen.
The PCP is weak, weak, weak.
I am of the opinion you hope it won't happen because a new leader of the conservative party, especially Rishi, would make the prospect of a Labour government in 24 less likely
Wrong.
I very much hope it will happen, as having this mendacious oaf in charge brings shame and embarrassment on our country.
Unlike many PBers, I put country first – I'm not particularly party political.
I just fear that I will be proved right, and he'll stay.
No amount of press furore will move Boris - he strikes me as way, way too self-centred for that. The "Conservative" party needs to oust him,
I wonder if he could stand as a candidate if the 54 letters went in? And I wonder if he has enough sycophants and hangers-on to put him back in office if he could stand?
Bridgen: "Call me old fashioned. I think when the PM stands at the dispatch box, the public should have the belief he's telling a modicum of the truth."
As if he did not Johnson would lie when he plotted against the previous PM to replace her with the liar.
Bridgen: "Call me old fashioned. I think when the PM stands at the dispatch box, the public should have the belief he's telling a modicum of the truth."
"There is a gaping hole in the governing of Britain where new ideas should be. We are living through three revolutionary changes simultaneously and are ill prepared for any of them. Each of them would require major changes to the way we work as a nation. All of them together pose a challenge which is unprecedented in recent history. The changes are: Brexit; the technology revolution; and a climate ambition which foresees a unique transition to being carbon neutral in the power sector in just over a decade and the whole country in 25 years."
Suspect he and Dom are not miles apart in their analysis.
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
Then you have not read his posts and the nuance of his comments
You are an embarrassment to the conservative party
Is there any sense in the position Big G where rebels say, we got him where we want him now, we will ease off for the time being?
I mean the Malmesbury quote “only if you succeed it’s not treason” is heavily influencing the media backers of Boris, like the Mail, Express, Sun who are presenting plotters as figures to hate the longer this goes on. And of course, Team Boris have all the power to retaliate
The quote on here “we’ve got him where we want him, it’s all planned out, waiting till after May elections” it’s like a suicide note 😟
I hope not
I hope next week sees the 54 letters delivered
Not. Going. To. Happen.
The PCP is weak, weak, weak.
I am of the opinion you hope it won't happen because a new leader of the conservative party, especially Rishi, would make the prospect of a Labour government in 24 less likely
Wrong.
I very much hope it will happen, as having this mendacious oaf in charge brings shame and embarrassment on our country.
Unlike many PBers, I put country first – I'm not particularly party political.
I just fear that I will be proved right, and he'll stay.
No amount of press furore will move Boris - he strikes me as way, way too self-centred for that. The "Conservative" party needs to oust him,
I wonder if he could stand as a candidate if the 54 letters went in? And I wonder if he has enough sycophants and hangers-on to put him back in office if he could stand?
People in hospital *for* COVID decreasing, people in hospital *with* COVID still going up. Almost 50% of all patients in hospital wrt COVID are now there for something else.
Next week we might even see incidental admissions overtake non-incidentals. The ONS death certificate stats have decoupled from the dashboard because of very high incidence over the last 28 days as well. The dashboard might be overstating daily hospitalisations as much as 50% and daily deaths by as much as 30% at the moment.
I think there will be news on this soon - trailed last night by Javid.
Hopefully the dashboard or daily released stats will differentiate with and for COVID in hospitalisations as well as with/from COVID for deaths, even if it's just for England right now that would add a lot of clarity to the discussions around what's actually happening.
On R5 this morning a poo sniffer bio-medical scientist spouted off about why we should keep masks etc based on cases (surely pointless measure now) and deaths (she quote about 1700 a week). They did at least have Chris Smith (from the naked scientists) to redress the balance in the whole dying from and with covid. Sadly we NEED clarity on this as too many will either not understand or deliberately miss-use the dashboard numbers.
Problem is that many people have their fixed ideas if Covid (whether it be deaths stats, risks of long Covid, whatever) which formed from information earlier in the pandemic. So the perceived wisdom that official 28 day figure understate (when compared to “more accurate” registrations, excess deaths etc). This may be true in the past but increasingly not now.
It purely correlates to testing.
The only time UK figures were understated was when we didn't have widely available testing in the very first wave.
Both 28 day deaths and death certificate deaths have exaggerated Covid deaths when compared to excess deaths for a very, very long time now. In the UK, not necessarily other nations without our level of testing.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Gold plating.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
Most people love a bit of delegating power to local areas until the local area chooses a policy which is both against the central governments and their own views, at which point it becomes a ludicrous inconsistent post code lottery.
Classic manifesto promise of pretty much every party yet either never happens or is a total mess (usually Whitehall style delegation but not really of funds).
I'd respect a party just arguing against localisation for a change, given centralised control is the default in practice.
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
Then you have not read his posts and the nuance of his comments
You are an embarrassment to the conservative party
Is there any sense in the position Big G where rebels say, we got him where we want him now, we will ease off for the time being?
I mean the Malmesbury quote “only if you succeed it’s not treason” is heavily influencing the media backers of Boris, like the Mail, Express, Sun who are presenting plotters as figures to hate the longer this goes on. And of course, Team Boris have all the power to retaliate
The quote on here “we’ve got him where we want him, it’s all planned out, waiting till after May elections” it’s like a suicide note 😟
I hope not
I hope next week sees the 54 letters delivered
Not. Going. To. Happen.
The PCP is weak, weak, weak.
I am of the opinion you hope it won't happen because a new leader of the conservative party, especially Rishi, would make the prospect of a Labour government in 24 less likely
Wrong.
I very much hope it will happen, as having this mendacious oaf in charge brings shame and embarrassment on our country.
Unlike many PBers, I put country first – I'm not particularly party political.
I just fear that I will be proved right, and he'll stay.
No amount of press furore will move Boris - he strikes me as way, way too self-centred for that. The "Conservative" party needs to oust him,
I wonder if he could stand as a candidate if the 54 letters went in? And I wonder if he has enough sycophants and hangers-on to put him back in office if he could stand?
The 54 letters are the start of the process. Once they’re received then there’s a ballot of the 360ish Tory MPs, and he needs 50% +1 to survive as leader. If he’s out, he can’t stand in the resulting contest.
"There is a gaping hole in the governing of Britain where new ideas should be. We are living through three revolutionary changes simultaneously and are ill prepared for any of them. Each of them would require major changes to the way we work as a nation. All of them together pose a challenge which is unprecedented in recent history. The changes are: Brexit; the technology revolution; and a climate ambition which foresees a unique transition to being carbon neutral in the power sector in just over a decade and the whole country in 25 years."
Suspect he and Dom are not miles apart in their analysis.
Spotting the issues and challenges is relatively easy. Finding the right solutions is very tough, as is implementing them.
Cummings and Blair are good at the first, both mixed on the second, and whilst Blair is good at the third, Cummings is a disaster at that as he can't work well with others.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Gold plating.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
Most people love a bit of delegating power to local areas until the local area chooses a policy which is both against the central governments and their own views, at which point it becomes a ludicrous inconsistent post code lottery.
The parents of the school in question can discuss the issue with each other and the governors and come to their own agreement on what they want to do.
Hopefully everyone will stay calm and polite, and the issue won't be blown out of proportion by interference from newspapers, ministers, etc.
If it were the school my child attended I'd be talking to her about it, and advocating on her behalf.
Given the number of things that CC has got wrong, the number of corrections of her stories, and the number of claims that have been withdrawn, I'm inclined to see the imbroglio as a cautionary tale for journos to get things right.
Just as the Katie Hopkins one was a cautionary tale about checking whom someone is before you insult them on twitter, then double down on your mistake.
I hope Banks wins big on this one. Cadwalladr should not be able to throw accusations around like that without proof.
Growing fears in Downing Street over how damaging the Gray report could be Sky's deputy political editor Sam Coates has been picking up a sense of nervousness in Number 10 over what could come out when the Sue Gray report is published next week.
According to his sources, some in Downing Street are worried the Sue Gray investigation has come across damaging evidence, and are now doubtful the report will be able to "clear" Boris Johnson.
Time for the rebels to consider what the talk is actually for. In the case of the ERG, it was to hold TMay's feet to the fire on the type of deal she got.
For Boris, what is the demand? Rearrange your office? Change your personality? Stop the drip of scandals already occurred? I don't see what there is to semsibly extract. No, don't collude, don't talk endlessly to your colleagues about it, just write and post your letter in private or don't. Job done. And then 54 will either be hit or not. I remain convinced at that point he would be comfortably vonc'ed.
As an aside, listening to some of the rebellious Red Wall MPs - well, they don't sound like your archetypal rebels. They are sincere in wanting what's best for their constituents and working hard to improve the lot of the people they represent. You could almost call them One Nation Conservatives.
That's what this is about though, isn't it - the battle for the Conservative soul. The ideologues around Johnson now realise those they helped get elected in 2019 aren't like them at all - instead, they are more like those who Johnson turfed out of the party after becoming leader.
No. They were Remainers. These are Leavers.
Isn't our old friend Tissue Price, now Aaron Bell MP, one of them?
I do not recall how he stood on Brexit.
iirc he backed May's Brexit then Boris's. Same as Boris, come to think of it.
I wasn't thinking of his voting record. As an MP he has to consider his Party loyalties, and we have to cut him plenty of slack for that. I was trying to recall what he posted before he was nominated to stand for Parliament, and was a popular and highly respected poster on here.
My guess is he was ambivalent about Brexit but I really don't recall.
Bridgen: "Call me old fashioned. I think when the PM stands at the dispatch box, the public should have the belief he's telling a modicum of the truth."
One argument that comes up occasionally is no one is perfect or squeaky clean.
Perhaps so, but that doesnt mean you just give up on standards. Integrity and competence should still be aimed for.
We are all a bit dirty, it doesnt mean we are required to slather ourselves in the muck.
"Christian WOKEford as we call him" slightly tells you where Lee Anderson (himself a defector apparently) is coming from
It's rather better than that ; he used to be Gloria's office manager when she was an MP.
My favourite story from Anderson's old Council Ward was when a fellow Labour Councillor Glenys Maxwell and he were being lobbied about mud on the roads from the builders of a car park at the local golf club. She lay down in front of a vehicle, and someone put down a tarpaulin first, like Sir Walter Raleigh for Queen Elizabeth I.
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
I’m centre-right, and indeed have served as a councillor for a centre-right party. Go on, just as a wee exercise, try to persuade me to vote Scottish Conservative and Unionist.
You are a Scottish Nationalist, obviously you are never going to vote for a Unionist party
If the 54 letters go in and Boris loses the vote does he need to be replaced as PM immediately?
If Raab is made interim leader and thus PM, before Sunak wins the leadership race, then presumably Raab and not Sunak would be paid out by the bookies as Next PM?
I'd be quite upset to lose £5000 due to a technicality like that.
Mrs DA just asked if I had put 'car stuff' in the oven while sniffing the air suspiciously. I had - Porsche 924 front hubs for bearing installation. I said that I took the allegations very seriously but the appropriate thing to was to let Sue Gray finish the investigation before commenting. She went fucking mad. IT DOESN'T WORK!
Happy days. Before my partner moved in I had a 748 in the living room and a 900ss engine in its frame in a spare bedroom. Can't even clean an engine cover in the dishwasher now.
I get told off if I put the toothbrush-holder in the dishwasher.
I have to accept that there are dishwasher protocols that will forever be mysterious to me. 'But there weren't any dishes in with it' not an acceptable defence apparently.
It’s the handbag protocols that I just can’t get my head around.
Why do 50% of the adult population have to go about their daily business with one and a half kilos of junk attached to their shoulder?
50%?
I'm a male and I prefer to use a bag than stuff my pockets full, and with a bag I can bring my knitting, and a few other things that might be useful.
My bag contains a small laptop, headphones, a couple of charging cables, a few pens and pencils, some painkillers, some alcohol wipes and a travel washbag and a change of pants in case I get caught away from home. I've been unexpectedly stuck at the other end of a cancelled train more than once and learned that this small addition to the bag is worth its weight in gold.
It might be better for Boris to have a VONC now than in avoid it and face one in May when the Tories might see heavy losses on current polls, especially in London.
If a VONC is held now and he wins it he is safe for a year.
Portillo on GB news now says he thinks Boris is safer than yesterday. Davis looked pompous and Wakeford defecting has brought Tory unity
That 'year' is set in instant whip. The 1922 can change the rules, and will if they think it needed, as said several times by others on PB.
If Boris wins a VONC he also likely has a majority on the 1922
The 1922 Committee arranges the rules around votes of no confidence and the first stage of a Conservative leadership contest. These rules are not published in the public domain. They can also be changed at any time by the 1922’s Executive Committee, in consultation with the Conservative Party Board, which consists of representatives from each section – voluntary, political and professional – of the party. For example, this means that the rule stating a new vote of no confidence cannot be triggered for 12 months could be removed with little to no notice.
The rules on a VONC were set up under Hague though and can only be changed with the support of the party board as well as the 1922. If he wins a VONC, even narrowly, Boris almost certainly has a majority still on the 1922 too
I suspect that, unlike other leaders, if Johnson wins a VOC narrowly he would stay on even if just by one vote.
JRM would be in a tight spot given his petulant reaction to May winning hers and insisting she should quit as a matter of constitutional convention as she didn't win by enough.
You think JRM has an ounce of shame? That's cute.
He'll say whatever suits his agenda and he'll say it as if it's the only thing that could possibly be right.
A bit like the GOP Senators who rushed through Amy Coney Barrett.
I said 'would' be. 'If he had any shame' was implicit:)
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
There's a good history of posts along the lines of "I'm a life long Tory but this particular scandal* is enough for me to permanently change my mind".
*scandals include Osborne once catching a train ...
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
Then you have not read his posts and the nuance of his comments
You are an embarrassment to the conservative party
Is there any sense in the position Big G where rebels say, we got him where we want him now, we will ease off for the time being?
I mean the Malmesbury quote “only if you succeed it’s not treason” is heavily influencing the media backers of Boris, like the Mail, Express, Sun who are presenting plotters as figures to hate the longer this goes on. And of course, Team Boris have all the power to retaliate
The quote on here “we’ve got him where we want him, it’s all planned out, waiting till after May elections” it’s like a suicide note 😟
I hope not
I hope next week sees the 54 letters delivered
Not. Going. To. Happen.
The PCP is weak, weak, weak.
I am of the opinion you hope it won't happen because a new leader of the conservative party, especially Rishi, would make the prospect of a Labour government in 24 less likely
Wrong.
I very much hope it will happen, as having this mendacious oaf in charge brings shame and embarrassment on our country.
Unlike many PBers, I put country first – I'm not particularly party political.
I just fear that I will be proved right, and he'll stay.
No amount of press furore will move Boris - he strikes me as way, way too self-centred for that. The "Conservative" party needs to oust him,
I wonder if he could stand as a candidate if the 54 letters went in? And I wonder if he has enough sycophants and hangers-on to put him back in office if he could stand?
My understanding is no, if the 54 letters trigger the VONC which he then loses, he's barred from standing in the ensuing leadership election.
If the 54 letters go in and Boris loses the vote does he need to be replaced as PM immediately?
If Raab is made interim leader and thus PM, before Sunak wins the leadership race, then presumably Raab and not Sunak would be paid out by the bookies as Next PM?
I'd be quite upset to lose £5000 due to a technicality like that.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Gold plating.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
Most people love a bit of delegating power to local areas until the local area chooses a policy which is both against the central governments and their own views, at which point it becomes a ludicrous inconsistent post code lottery.
The parents of the school in question can discuss the issue with each other and the governors and come to their own agreement on what they want to do.
Hopefully everyone will stay calm and polite, and the issue won't be blown out of proportion by interference from newspapers, ministers, etc.
If it were the school my child attended I'd be talking to her about it, and advocating on her behalf.
The reason I like the approach of my son's school - and Stocky's as he mentions below - is because although they are saying face masks are no longer compulsory, they are not preventing the kids from continuing to wear them if they want to. One of my son's friends is particularly vulnerable due to underlying conditions and after the email came out last night all his mates had a chat on social media and decided that they will continue to wear masks when they are around him to minimise any risk including sitting with him in class. I was very pleased and proud of them for that.
Sky's deputy political editor Sam Coates has been picking up a sense of nervousness in Number 10 over what could come out when the Sue Gray report is published next week.
According to his sources, some in Downing Street are worried the Sue Gray investigation has come across damaging evidence, and are now doubtful the report will be able to "clear" Boris Johnson.
Given the number of things that CC has got wrong, the number of corrections of her stories, and the number of claims that have been withdrawn, I'm inclined to see the imbroglio as a cautionary tale for journos to get things right.
Just as the Katie Hopkins one was a cautionary tale about checking whom someone is before you insult them on twitter, then double down on your mistake.
I hope Banks wins big on this one. Cadwalladr should not be able to throw accusations around like that without proof.
Very curious claim to make today of all days. You think it should be possible for me to be bankrupted for saying the FLSOJ knew about the party, went to it knowing it was a party,and lied his tits off to the HoC, if a High Cout judge hoping for a peerage decides there is insufficient evidence to support the claim?
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
There's a good history of posts along the lines of "I'm a life long Tory but this particular scandal* is enough for me to permanently change my mind".
*scandals include Osborne once catching a train ...
Deal with them as you see fit.
Unless you voted Conservative in 2019 or 2015 when the Conservatives won a majority and the country voted Tory, you are highly unlikely to ever vote Conservative.
So yes posters who do not come under the above category can be ignored if they say they will not be voting Tory as a result of this or that
Given the number of things that CC has got wrong, the number of corrections of her stories, and the number of claims that have been withdrawn, I'm inclined to see the imbroglio as a cautionary tale for journos to get things right.
Just as the Katie Hopkins one was a cautionary tale about checking whom someone is before you insult them on twitter, then double down on your mistake.
I hope Banks wins big on this one. Cadwalladr should not be able to throw accusations around like that without proof.
Her defence seems to be that she kept saying the same thing over and over again, and reported it to authorities who opened investigations (but found nothing wrong), so it can’t be defamatory - despite the fact that all sources for the allegations are herself, and she can’t back them up.
She’s just upset that Banks is suing her personally, and not the Observer.
Sky's deputy political editor Sam Coates has been picking up a sense of nervousness in Number 10 over what could come out when the Sue Gray report is published next week.
According to his sources, some in Downing Street are worried the Sue Gray investigation has come across damaging evidence, and are now doubtful the report will be able to "clear" Boris Johnson.
At last - deliverance may be at hand.
On the other hand, this could easily be expectation management.
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
There's a good history of posts along the lines of "I'm a life long Tory but this particular scandal* is enough for me to permanently change my mind".
*scandals include Osborne once catching a train ...
Deal with them as you see fit.
Unless you voted Conservative in 2019 or 2015 when the Conservatives won a majority and the country voted Tory, you are highly unlikely to ever vote Conservative.
So yes posters who do not come under the above category can be ignored if they say they will not be voting Tory as a result of this or that
I will vote Conservative again at some point. I don't expect it to be soon but hope to live for a lot more elections and there is not much choice. I don't understand why people say they will never vote for x or y again. Things change.
If the 54 letters go in and Boris loses the vote does he need to be replaced as PM immediately?
If Raab is made interim leader and thus PM, before Sunak wins the leadership race, then presumably Raab and not Sunak would be paid out by the bookies as Next PM?
I'd be quite upset to lose £5000 due to a technicality like that.
There’s no such thing as an interim PM, in the same way as there’s an interim party leader.
If someone kisses the Queen’s hand and has their name published in the Gazette, they are the PM.
Cheers. With a hefty gin and tonic from the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo, Sri Lanka
You lucky thing. I loved Sri Lanka - exciting place. My children have never forgotten that one of the first things we saw when leaving the airport was a live elephant in the back of a pick up truck.
It's the UK government and the Indians calling the shots - Eutelsat is getting grief from certain quarters in the EU for "defecting" to a non-European constellation. Particularly now it is clear that they are not gong to use either European launchers or launchers provided via Europe (the Russian connection).
I love the way OneWeb has gone from a bad investment when the UK government bailed them out, to a good investment once other companies and countries jumped in but also now no longer anything to do with the UK government. It's almost as though the critics were basing the views on their opinion of the government rather than any merits of the technology and the financial investment.
It's gone from a brave but potentially very valuable call by Sharma, to a likely big win.
The next thing needed is for BT to start using it to cover high speed internet gaps, which they are now at some stage of trialling.
There should (presumably) be the same opportunity for most of Europe, as Oneweb now have their northern hemisphere satellite constellation in place.
Albeit Russia is having a small quantity of kittens.
Is OneWeb a direct competitor to Elon Musks StareLink? and does it have any intrinsic advantage?
I'm no expert but it looks like a much smaller competitor where economy's of scale matter, is the risk that it terns in to the 'Betamax' of satellite communication?
President Macron, why? Western unity is the most important asset we have against Russian aggression. - Macron floats EU security pact with Russia in split from US calls for ‘unity’
France and Germany competing to see who can kiss Putin’s arse the most, just as he rollls the tanks towards Kiev. I’m not sure most of the Eastern European countries are too happy with that.
Those wanting peace, if this come to war, will get
- A split in NATO. - The Eastern Europeans will either cuddle up to Moscow or try and get an alliance of those who will back them. - Everyone will assume Ukraine is not the "last territorial demand". So those not wanting to be ruled by Moscow will arm themselves. And how - Ukraine was promised that if they gave up nuclear weapons, they would be guaranteed their territorial integrity by Russia, NATO - everyone. - So the message will go out. Very loud and very clear. Get nuclear weapons. Keep them. Worldwide. - Ukraine has multiple nuclear reactors and a lot of burned up fuel. Yes, civil "grade" plutonium. But that can be processed, fairly simply, if it is old enough. That would make a nice present for someone.
So if Russia takes some more chunks out of Ukraine, we are looking at a world where nuclear proliferation switches into high gear. Where NATO/EU splits. Where a chunk of Eastern Europe gears up ready for the next war. And maybe start thinking that they should get themselves some really, really Big Sticks.
Oh, and a whole bunch of legless teenagers begging on the streets of St Petersburg. Again.
France and Germany need to think hard about the consequences of what is essentially appeasement - a term which is bandied about far too often, but which fits here. Except that in this case, Ukraine will fight regardless - and their stance makes war more, not less likely, I think.
I read that this morning, it's a really good and fairly neutral take on the situation. The French proposal for an EU-Russia pact is actually appeasement. It's a proposal to let the Russians do what they want and suffer no consequences from Europe.
The EU is very quickly proving that it is not to be trusted without the UK in it. Something a lot of us said would happen and was denied by the more ardent EUphiles who have idealised the EU as some bastion of liberal democracy when the reality is very different.
Looks like a disastrous strategic mistake for us to have lost our influence from within the EU then.
Alternatively it's shown the rest of the world exactly the kind of shit we had to deal with time and again when it came to putting up sanctions on markets to which Germany had significant exports. The view in the UK has always understood that Germany doesn't give a fuck about anyone else's freedoms as long as they can sell dishwashers but the rest of the world didn't realise this until now. What they project to the world as being peaceful is actually appeasement. I think it's a net good that we've got that out in the open.
Maybe the Germans agree with Margaret Thatcher that sanctions don't work and should never be used however odious the regime. Even an apartheid one?
It's a good job the UK government cracked down so hard on Russians laundering money in London.
While subsidising the Russian space program through OneWeb/British Leyland In Space.
15-20% and a Golden Share iirc. And £2.3 billion of investment if reports are correct.
No idea if UK Gov have further call options, or guarantees of part of the capacity.
Yes, it's not easy to add up - though no doubt others have better sources of information. As far as I can see, the total funding is a bit under $2.9bn, with the investors being HMG $500m; Bharti Global $500+$450m; Hughes and Softbank $200m each; Eutelsat $550+165m; Hanwa $300m
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Gold plating.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
Most people love a bit of delegating power to local areas until the local area chooses a policy which is both against the central governments and their own views, at which point it becomes a ludicrous inconsistent post code lottery.
The parents of the school in question can discuss the issue with each other and the governors and come to their own agreement on what they want to do.
Hopefully everyone will stay calm and polite, and the issue won't be blown out of proportion by interference from newspapers, ministers, etc.
If it were the school my child attended I'd be talking to her about it, and advocating on her behalf.
The reason I like the approach of my son's school - and Stocky's as he mentions below - is because although they are saying face masks are no longer compulsory, they are not preventing the kids from continuing to wear them if they want to. One of my son's friends is particularly vulnerable due to underlying conditions and after the email came out last night all his mates had a chat on social media and decided that they will continue to wear masks when they are around him to minimise any risk including sitting with him in class. I was very pleased and proud of them for that.
If the 54 letters go in and Boris loses the vote does he need to be replaced as PM immediately?
If Raab is made interim leader and thus PM, before Sunak wins the leadership race, then presumably Raab and not Sunak would be paid out by the bookies as Next PM?
I'd be quite upset to lose £5000 due to a technicality like that.
There’s no such thing as an interim PM, in the same way as there’s an interim party leader.
If someone kisses the Queen’s hand and has their name published in the Gazette, they are the PM.
Exactly that's why I said interim leader and thus PM.
If Boris loses a VONC does that screw with next PM markets decoupling it from next permanent leader?
Mrs DA just asked if I had put 'car stuff' in the oven while sniffing the air suspiciously. I had - Porsche 924 front hubs for bearing installation. I said that I took the allegations very seriously but the appropriate thing to was to let Sue Gray finish the investigation before commenting. She went fucking mad. IT DOESN'T WORK!
Happy days. Before my partner moved in I had a 748 in the living room and a 900ss engine in its frame in a spare bedroom. Can't even clean an engine cover in the dishwasher now.
I get told off if I put the toothbrush-holder in the dishwasher.
I have to accept that there are dishwasher protocols that will forever be mysterious to me. 'But there weren't any dishes in with it' not an acceptable defence apparently.
The best thing about dishwashers is that they use so much less water and energy than doing dishes by hand.
I'm going for the two dishwashers system this year.
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
I love you HY. You are the ideal opponent. You really go the extra mile to make prospective supporters flee in the opposite direction. It is a pleasure to see you in action.
Farooq has never expressed a single conservative view on here as far as I can see, it would not be a Conservative party if he ever voted for it
I’m centre-right, and indeed have served as a councillor for a centre-right party. Go on, just as a wee exercise, try to persuade me to vote Scottish Conservative and Unionist.
You are a Scottish Nationalist, obviously you are never going to vote for a Unionist party
Bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy that.
HYUFD canvassing: "Piss off, you're not going to vote for us!"
Sky's deputy political editor Sam Coates has been picking up a sense of nervousness in Number 10 over what could come out when the Sue Gray report is published next week.
According to his sources, some in Downing Street are worried the Sue Gray investigation has come across damaging evidence, and are now doubtful the report will be able to "clear" Boris Johnson.
The aim of the report is surely not to clear him but to give some teensy bit of plausibility to his story? Clearing him would just make the report as silly as the PM himself.
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
There's a good history of posts along the lines of "I'm a life long Tory but this particular scandal* is enough for me to permanently change my mind".
*scandals include Osborne once catching a train ...
Deal with them as you see fit.
Unless you voted Conservative in 2019 or 2015 when the Conservatives won a majority and the country voted Tory, you are highly unlikely to ever vote Conservative.
So yes posters who do not come under the above category can be ignored if they say they will not be voting Tory as a result of this or that
I have voted Con in every election since 1979 except 2005 (LD because Iraq). As of Air Petacci I would never vote for a Johnson government again, and if he is still in place at next PMQs it is highly unlikely I will vote Con again, at all.
You are a Leutnant fighting a desultory minor skirmish at 10 in the morning, 11/11/18
"There is a gaping hole in the governing of Britain where new ideas should be. We are living through three revolutionary changes simultaneously and are ill prepared for any of them. Each of them would require major changes to the way we work as a nation. All of them together pose a challenge which is unprecedented in recent history. The changes are: Brexit; the technology revolution; and a climate ambition which foresees a unique transition to being carbon neutral in the power sector in just over a decade and the whole country in 25 years."
Suspect he and Dom are not miles apart in their analysis.
Spotting the issues and challenges is relatively easy. Finding the right solutions is very tough, as is implementing them.
Cummings and Blair are good at the first, both mixed on the second, and whilst Blair is good at the third, Cummings is a disaster at that as he can't work well with others.
Mrs DA just asked if I had put 'car stuff' in the oven while sniffing the air suspiciously. I had - Porsche 924 front hubs for bearing installation. I said that I took the allegations very seriously but the appropriate thing to was to let Sue Gray finish the investigation before commenting. She went fucking mad. IT DOESN'T WORK!
Happy days. Before my partner moved in I had a 748 in the living room and a 900ss engine in its frame in a spare bedroom. Can't even clean an engine cover in the dishwasher now.
I get told off if I put the toothbrush-holder in the dishwasher.
I have to accept that there are dishwasher protocols that will forever be mysterious to me. 'But there weren't any dishes in with it' not an acceptable defence apparently.
It’s the handbag protocols that I just can’t get my head around.
Why do 50% of the adult population have to go about their daily business with one and a half kilos of junk attached to their shoulder?
50%?
I'm a male and I prefer to use a bag than stuff my pockets full, and with a bag I can bring my knitting, and a few other things that might be useful.
Tescos or Aldi bag?
I'm currently mostly using a bag that I knitted for myself. It's the second one I've knitted. This one is in sturdy linen stitch, after my keys poked holes in the bag I used before that used the jacquard technique to include a cool lizard motif.
Given the number of things that CC has got wrong, the number of corrections of her stories, and the number of claims that have been withdrawn, I'm inclined to see the imbroglio as a cautionary tale for journos to get things right.
Just as the Katie Hopkins one was a cautionary tale about checking whom someone is before you insult them on twitter, then double down on your mistake.
I hope Banks wins big on this one. Cadwalladr should not be able to throw accusations around like that without proof.
Very curious claim to make today of all days. You think it should be possible for me to be bankrupted for saying the FLSOJ knew about the party, went to it knowing it was a party,and lied his tits off to the HoC, if a High Cout judge hoping for a peerage decides there is insufficient evidence to support the claim?
No because you have not been challenged on what you have said by your target nor asked to produce proof. Indeed your claims are in the process of being investigated by an officially recognised authority. CC's claims were widely publicised and challenged and she has provided no proof. They were also investigated and fund to be without merit but she persisted in making them. IANAL but I am pretty sure all those things make her actions malicious.
Regarding masking – my son's headmaster has just written to all parents saying that they are keeping the masks in classrooms due to local authority guidance. Is this commonplace? Seems ludicrous to me that the rule is dropped but schools keep it anyway!
Gold plating.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
Most people love a bit of delegating power to local areas until the local area chooses a policy which is both against the central governments and their own views, at which point it becomes a ludicrous inconsistent post code lottery.
The parents of the school in question can discuss the issue with each other and the governors and come to their own agreement on what they want to do.
Hopefully everyone will stay calm and polite, and the issue won't be blown out of proportion by interference from newspapers, ministers, etc.
If it were the school my child attended I'd be talking to her about it, and advocating on her behalf.
The reason I like the approach of my son's school - and Stocky's as he mentions below - is because although they are saying face masks are no longer compulsory, they are not preventing the kids from continuing to wear them if they want to. One of my son's friends is particularly vulnerable due to underlying conditions and after the email came out last night all his mates had a chat on social media and decided that they will continue to wear masks when they are around him to minimise any risk including sitting with him in class. I was very pleased and proud of them for that.
Growing fears in Downing Street over how damaging the Gray report could be Sky's deputy political editor Sam Coates has been picking up a sense of nervousness in Number 10 over what could come out when the Sue Gray report is published next week.
According to his sources, some in Downing Street are worried the Sue Gray investigation has come across damaging evidence, and are now doubtful the report will be able to "clear" Boris Johnson.
It's the UK government and the Indians calling the shots - Eutelsat is getting grief from certain quarters in the EU for "defecting" to a non-European constellation. Particularly now it is clear that they are not gong to use either European launchers or launchers provided via Europe (the Russian connection).
I love the way OneWeb has gone from a bad investment when the UK government bailed them out, to a good investment once other companies and countries jumped in but also now no longer anything to do with the UK government. It's almost as though the critics were basing the views on their opinion of the government rather than any merits of the technology and the financial investment.
It's gone from a brave but potentially very valuable call by Sharma, to a likely big win.
The next thing needed is for BT to start using it to cover high speed internet gaps, which they are now at some stage of trialling.
There should (presumably) be the same opportunity for most of Europe, as Oneweb now have their northern hemisphere satellite constellation in place.
Albeit Russia is having a small quantity of kittens.
Is OneWeb a direct competitor to Elon Musks StareLink? and does it have any intrinsic advantage?
I'm no expert but it looks like a much smaller competitor where economy's of scale matter, is the risk that it terns in to the 'Betamax' of satellite communication?
Higher orbits so it loses a bit on ping speed / network latency but it requires few satellites to provide total coverage and being in a higher orbit I believe it means the satellites will lost long.
Of course, Starlink has the advantage that Musk doesn't really pay for launches he can just throw the satellites up whenever there is some spare space / mass on a launch.
There’s enough Tory MP loonies who believe in Johnson to drag this out, I think.
However, the longer he stays there, the harder it’ll be to recover from the current polling lows I.e it’ll seep into the overall Tory “brand”.
What exactly is Johnsons vision or, for that matter, policy? It’s clear from recent reporting he wasn’t across his brief or interested in detail. Policies randomly appear I.e army using sonar devices to deter migrants, the whole Ghana thing, BBC license fee etc.
The only coherent and robust thing regarding policy is probably our position regarding Ukraine. I can’t think of much else.
If the 54 letters go in and Boris loses the vote does he need to be replaced as PM immediately?
If Raab is made interim leader and thus PM, before Sunak wins the leadership race, then presumably Raab and not Sunak would be paid out by the bookies as Next PM?
I'd be quite upset to lose £5000 due to a technicality like that.
Comments
I very much hope it will happen, as having this mendacious oaf in charge brings shame and embarrassment on our country.
Unlike many PBers, I put country first – I'm not particularly party political.
I just fear that I will be proved right, and he'll stay.
The European angle is that various players are angry at Eutelsat for investing in a non-European constellation. They were trying to get momentum for all EU one - like Galileo.
Instead it is looking likely that the market will be
- Starlink
- OneWeb
for a fair amount of time to come. Amazon/Bezos keep talking about their constellation, but it seems to be slower than Sue Origin for actually doing physical stuff.
I'm going for the two dishwashers system this year.
The law is the lowest common denominator. Councils can go above and beyond that, while individual schools can go above and beyond local authority rules.
Lancashire County Council have been doing this all along on the grounds that they have higher case rates in Lancashire, despite the fact high case rates were only in certain parts of Lancashire.
Will someone (54 of you) please put an end to this depressing moment for our country by disposing Boris Johnson now
I do not recall how he stood on Brexit.
poo snifferbio-medical scientist spouted off about why we should keep masks etc based on cases (surely pointless measure now) and deaths (she quote about 1700 a week). They did at least have Chris Smith (from the naked scientists) to redress the balance in the whole dying from and with covid. Sadly we NEED clarity on this as too many will either not understand or deliberately miss-use the dashboard numbers."From tomorrow, Thursday 20 January, face coverings are no longer recommended in classrooms and teaching spaces for staff, and pupils and students in Year 7 and above. They were introduced in classrooms at the start of the spring term as a temporary measure."
"From Thursday 27 January, face coverings are no longer recommended in communal areas for staff, and pupils and students in Year 7 and above."
Not for the first time, I am impressed with the pragmatic approach my son's school has been taking and also how proactive they are with the parents.
It does seem as though the decision makers have wised up to this though, I don't think we'd have been able to stay out of lockdown if there wasn't a basic understanding of the with/for difference in December.
It's not that the whole public sector is wildly pro-mask - though you do sometimes get that impression - but almost by definition local authorities' public health teams are pro-mask; and they tend to get to call the shots in these cases.
https://data.spectator.co.uk/category/sage-scenarios
Just as the Katie Hopkins one was a cautionary tale about checking whom someone is before you insult them on twitter, then double down on your mistake.
The next thing needed is for BT to start using it to cover high speed internet gaps, which they are now at some stage of trialling.
There should (presumably) be the same opportunity for most of Europe, as Oneweb now have their northern hemisphere satellite constellation in place.
Albeit Russia is having a small quantity of kittens.
"From 20/01/22 face masks will not be necessary in lessons and from 27/01/22 in communal spaces. I will write more on Friday but wanted to flag this to you. If anyone wishes to remain masked they may. "
I'm a male and I prefer to use a bag than stuff my pockets full, and with a bag I can bring my knitting, and a few other things that might be useful.
5. Never nail your trousers to the mast head. It makes climbing down nearly impossible.
PS and one of the first to rebel in the new intake against the Patterson outrage
He'll say whatever suits his agenda and he'll say it as if it's the only thing that could possibly be right.
A bit like the GOP Senators who rushed through Amy Coney Barrett.
I wonder if he could stand as a candidate if the 54 letters went in? And I wonder if he has enough sycophants and hangers-on to put him back in office if he could stand?
Mine's the one made from Woodford Reserve.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14JC3oIzxokhN4Cexjni_V_52KUuZG8Ch/edit
"There is a gaping hole in the governing of Britain where new ideas should be.
We are living through three revolutionary changes simultaneously and are ill prepared for any of them. Each of them would require major changes to the way we work as a nation. All of them together pose a challenge which is unprecedented in recent history.
The changes are: Brexit; the technology revolution; and a climate ambition which foresees a unique transition to being carbon neutral in the power sector in just over a decade and the whole country in 25 years."
Suspect he and Dom are not miles apart in their analysis.
The only time UK figures were understated was when we didn't have widely available testing in the very first wave.
Both 28 day deaths and death certificate deaths have exaggerated Covid deaths when compared to excess deaths for a very, very long time now. In the UK, not necessarily other nations without our level of testing.
I'd respect a party just arguing against localisation for a change, given centralised control is the default in practice.
Cummings and Blair are good at the first, both mixed on the second, and whilst Blair is good at the third, Cummings is a disaster at that as he can't work well with others.
Hopefully everyone will stay calm and polite, and the issue won't be blown out of proportion by interference from newspapers, ministers, etc.
If it were the school my child attended I'd be talking to her about it, and advocating on her behalf.
Sky's deputy political editor Sam Coates has been picking up a sense of nervousness in Number 10 over what could come out when the Sue Gray report is published next week.
According to his sources, some in Downing Street are worried the Sue Gray investigation has come across damaging evidence, and are now doubtful the report will be able to "clear" Boris Johnson.
https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-news-latest-live-watch-pmqs-partygate-downing-street-keir-starmer-12514080
Good stuff
For Boris, what is the demand? Rearrange your office? Change your personality? Stop the drip of scandals already occurred? I don't see what there is to semsibly extract. No, don't collude, don't talk endlessly to your colleagues about it, just write and post your letter in private or don't. Job done. And then 54 will either be hit or not. I remain convinced at that point he would be comfortably vonc'ed.
My guess is he was ambivalent about Brexit but I really don't recall.
Perhaps so, but that doesnt mean you just give up on standards. Integrity and competence should still be aimed for.
We are all a bit dirty, it doesnt mean we are required to slather ourselves in the muck.
My favourite story from Anderson's old Council Ward was when a fellow Labour Councillor Glenys Maxwell and he were being lobbied about mud on the roads from the builders of a car park at the local golf club. She lay down in front of a vehicle, and someone put down a tarpaulin first, like Sir Walter Raleigh for Queen Elizabeth I.
If Raab is made interim leader and thus PM, before Sunak wins the leadership race, then presumably Raab and not Sunak would be paid out by the bookies as Next PM?
I'd be quite upset to lose £5000 due to a technicality like that.
*scandals include Osborne once catching a train ...
Deal with them as you see fit.
Sky's deputy political editor Sam Coates has been picking up a sense of nervousness in Number 10 over what could come out when the Sue Gray report is published next week.
According to his sources, some in Downing Street are worried the Sue Gray investigation has come across damaging evidence, and are now doubtful the report will be able to "clear" Boris Johnson.
So yes posters who do not come under the above category can be ignored if they say they will not be voting Tory as a result of this or that
She’s just upset that Banks is suing her personally, and not the Observer.
They have their faults, these grand old colonial hotels, but they nearly always muster a decent G&T
On the other hand, this could easily be expectation management.
If someone kisses the Queen’s hand and has their name published in the Gazette, they are the PM.
I'm no expert but it looks like a much smaller competitor where economy's of scale matter, is the risk that it terns in to the 'Betamax' of satellite communication?
As far as I can see, the total funding is a bit under $2.9bn, with the investors being HMG $500m; Bharti Global $500+$450m; Hughes and Softbank $200m each; Eutelsat $550+165m; Hanwa $300m
If Boris loses a VONC does that screw with next PM markets decoupling it from next permanent leader?
HYUFD canvassing: "Piss off, you're not going to vote for us!"
You are a Leutnant fighting a desultory minor skirmish at 10 in the morning, 11/11/18
Of course, Starlink has the advantage that Musk doesn't really pay for launches he can just throw the satellites up whenever there is some spare space / mass on a launch.
However, the longer he stays there, the harder it’ll be to recover from the current polling lows I.e it’ll seep into the overall Tory “brand”.
What exactly is Johnsons vision or, for that matter, policy? It’s clear from recent reporting he wasn’t across his brief or interested in detail. Policies randomly appear I.e army using sonar devices to deter migrants, the whole Ghana thing, BBC license fee etc.
The only coherent and robust thing regarding policy is probably our position regarding Ukraine. I can’t think of much else.