Good morning everybody. We still have a frost here. However, the sky is clear and it looks as though it's going to be a bright but cold day.
On topic, Johnson's wiles and woes, I watched the beginning of QT last night, and there was absolutely no support for Johnson. It was from St Andrews, and as might have been expected, the SCon man distanced himself from the Dirty Dog.
Why though, given the local MP is LibDem, was there no LibDem on the panel?
And we were told there's to be a QT on vaccination soon, from London, with anti-vaxxers recruited for the audience. Why; unless the panel, when announced will include tough talkers like Sir JVT.
Edit, and yes, I know the opinions here about QT. Which I largely share. One question/discussion is usually enough for us.
OKC , it is BBC and the audiences are hand picked.
Are you suggesting that they could have found a lot of pro-Johnson people in St Andrews?
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Agree, and the 'clear-out of the Remainer faction' is surely part of the problem. It's UKIP-lite now, as others have said.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Absolutely, Boris Johnson is the epitome of loyalty to Tory party leaders, he is nearly as loyal as he is to his wives.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
I'd have to say, it's not really the backbenchers calling for Johnson's resignation that are making me question whether the party is fit to govern at all!
Good morning everybody. We still have a frost here. However, the sky is clear and it looks as though it's going to be a bright but cold day.
On topic, Johnson's wiles and woes, I watched the beginning of QT last night, and there was absolutely no support for Johnson. It was from St Andrews, and as might have been expected, the SCon man distanced himself from the Dirty Dog.
Why though, given the local MP is LibDem, was there no LibDem on the panel?
And we were told there's to be a QT on vaccination soon, from London, with anti-vaxxers recruited for the audience. Why; unless the panel, when announced will include tough talkers like Sir JVT.
Edit, and yes, I know the opinions here about QT. Which I largely share. One question/discussion is usually enough for us.
OKC , it is BBC and the audiences are hand picked.
Are you suggesting that they could have found a lot of pro-Johnson people in St Andrews?
There's almost certainly still a core of Johnson like people in St Andrews, even if there aren't any people who like Johnson.
Meanwhile in Germany hospitals are close to going down. Intensive care is OK, but lots of less severely ill patients are coming in. The biggest problem is staff absences. And the peak for hospitals is about a month away. Also, PCR testing has hit capacity which creates problems in hospitals when you have to wait for a negative PCR test. As usual, there is zero leadership from the federal government. Scholz is turning out to be as rubbish as the awful Merkel.
Germany had a great early pandemic which I found difficult to understand - why are things going wrong now? In all honesty it's increasingly difficult to distinguish between 'blaming the authorities' and accepting that Covid beat the whole lot of them in one way or another>
Germany early on did a lot of testing, which meant the early outbreaks were kind of contained (Feb 2020) until the first lockdown (March 2020). There's a few other factors, which the government also can't take credit for - extra hospital capacity, for example (in the previous waves local hospitals were taking in patients from Belgium and sometimes the Netherlands and France. In December they took in patients from Saxony). As long as numbers were low the contact tracing worked quite well, and the relatively generous sick pay (eg compared to some workers in the UK) maybe meant isolation was more rigorously followed (maybe cultural differences play a part here too?), though I haven't seen numbers on this. But the approach from the federal government throughout has been piecemeal.
At this point, we're in the unavoidable Omicron wave, and as others have pointed out ,Germany isn't in a great position because there are large numbers of older people unvaccinated, and also fewer people with immunity from prior infection.
On the plus side Omicron is not as bad as Delta, and in March the worst will be over. So probably we'll get through without the hospitals completely breaking down.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
I'd have to say, it's not really the backbenchers calling for Johnson's resignation that are making me question whether the party is fit to govern at all!
No, agreed.
DavidL's post was ridiculous and, indeed, reveals a far more fundamental problem with the current Conservative Party: a total failure to listen to the mood of the country and what matters to us. It's borne of utter arrogance because half of them won on Brexit and then had a thumping great win in 2019 against an unelectable communist.
DavidL's views tell me that the tories will be out of power for a generation. They forgot the people.
Dr. Foxy, I'd gently remind you that I did excoriate Conservative MPs when they made the foolish decision to make the jester PM, and May when she prematurely triggered Article 50.
Agree entirely on Boris Johnson's incompetence.
Anyone who voted Tory in 2019 is culpable for the farce of the Johnson administration. The papers were complicit, but ultimately it was the voters that put Big Dog in power.
btw Foxy wrt stadium names you said recently that the LCFC ground previously was Filbert Way. Wasn't it Filbert Street?
Dr. Foxy, a customs union would allow the EU to dictate our trade deals. There's no point leaving the EU only to let them retain the power they had and throwing away any say whatsoever in said decisions.
Of course there is. We wouldn’t be in the political bit, which was the bit leavers hated the most, nor paying the annual subscriptions.
No-one really got agitated about divergence of trade standards, and the benefits from diverging are largely a mirage, as subsequent events are proving.
The upsides of an independent trade policy are not being stuck with the next set of gold-plated EU regulations making us uncompetitive, and a seat at the top table of the WHO, CP-TPP and other organisations setting global standards.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Was it? There was not much loyalty to Peel from Protectionists in the 1840s. Churchill did not show much loyalty to Chamberlain in the 1930s over appeasement. Powell was not very loyal to Heath and Thatcher toppled Heath in 1975. There was not much loyalty to Thatcher when she was forced out in 1990 after the poll tax. Nor was there much loyalty to Major in 1995 although he stayed on as nobody else was any better. Nor much loyalty to IDS when he was toppled in 2003, nor to Cameron in 2016 in the EU referendum nor to May when she was toppled in 2019 after failing to deliver Brexit.
In fact the Tory party has very often been disloyal if it thinks the time had come for change or the leader has become an electoral liability. The Tories are generally far more disloyal than Labour who let hapless leaders like Foot or Corbyn or Gordon Brown lead them all the way to general election defeat quite frequently.
No Labour leader apart from Ramsay Macdonald has ever lost the leadership against their will, plenty of Tory leaders have however
Once again, Boris isn't gone when the morning comes
For some reason I'm beginning to imagine Sue Gray as a Dickensian solicitor under huge pressure in some case like Jarndyce versus Jarndyce, running for years. In darkened chambers by candelight, her fountain pen quivers over the document ; should she make herself a spot in history and go beyond what is expected, or is that to invite too much trouble ? She's never been a rebel before.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Alternately it raises questions as to whether the FLSOJ is fit to govern.
The issue isn't that Tory MPs are disloyal to the PM. The issue is that the PM isn't fit to hold the office.
Once again, Boris isn't gone when the morning comes
For some reason I'm beginning to imagine Sue Gray as a Dickensian solicitor under huge pressure in some case like Jarndyce versus Jarndyce, running for years. In darkened chambers by candelight, her fountain pen quivers over the document ; should she make herself a spot in history and go beyond what is expected, or is that to invite too much trouble ? She's never been a rebel before.
Although she wouldn't be called Gray in Dickens. Something like Sue Quiverspittle?
Mr. Pioneers, while the current PM does deserve criticism for this, it's also one of the reasons May was wrong to rush triggering Article 50. Not only did she not know what she wanted and threw away the time to consider it, it also made it more difficult when it came to getting systems in place to handle the new relationship.
Wrong to rush it? Cameron should have kept his promise and triggered A50 the day after the referendum. That would have snuffed out the remainers dreams of stopping Brexit and concentrated minds on a workable solution.
Of course, if you are in favour of both the UK leaving the EU and Scotland leaving the UK as for example @BartholomewRoberts is, there's no issue of logic. But favouring one without the other like certain Nationalists or Jacob Rees-Mogg do is just silly.
It's not a position that I hold, but if you're a nationalist of whatever stripe (British, Scottish or Indonesian) then you're believer in a shared community of people who together believe in the identity of that community and *in its geographical boundaries*. On that basis wanting to bring the boundaries of de-facto power into better alignment with those of this group construct is not silly at all (and that exact process of making nations into nation-states is well-established). Those of us outside that imagined community[*] merely fail to hold the same initial premises they do.
[*] yes, I have been reading Benedict Anderson :-)
There is almost a blanket ban on reporting. We have extensive queues on all routes to Dover with the traffic cameras largely turned off. We have 9 hour waits at Sevington for paperwork and nothing to see. The same on the French side. Hauliers increasingly fed of of losing so much time even if you can persuade them to make the trip in the first place.
Its as if the end of the GB as a fully-functioning trading nation isn't relevant to the Boris Liar scandal. But it is...
The death spiral of the UK under the twin curses of Brexit and Tory incompetence is sad to watch. Queues of trucks at the border, inflation heading for 7% next year, taxes going up, and a government headed by a malignant buffoon, lurching from crisis to crisis, out of ideas with no hand on the tiller. No need for the last to leave to turn out the lights, we won't be able to afford the electricity bill by then anyway.
Deepest condolences to the "When Scots see how free England was over the winter they will rush in adulation to the Conservatives and Boris as they decry Nippy's punitive restrictions" thought line
https://twitter.com/conor_matchett/status/1484435134497669120 "Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll" Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Once Upon a Time Tory PMs didn't break the laws they put in place. Your steadfast support for Boris is very, very strange.
The other issue is that loyalty is a two way street, Boris and the whips have used parliamentary gameplaying to force through votes without allowing MPs to actually scrutinise what it is they're voting for. Eventually that disrespect tells and you end up with a very, very unhappy flock. That's where we are and it's no surprise that Boris is friendless.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
I'd have to say, it's not really the backbenchers calling for Johnson's resignation that are making me question whether the party is fit to govern at all!
No, agreed.
DavidL's post was ridiculous and, indeed, reveals a far more fundamental problem with the current Conservative Party: a total failure to listen to the mood of the country and what matters to us. It's borne of utter arrogance because half of them won on Brexit and then had a thumping great win in 2019 against an unelectable communist.
DavidL's views tell me that the tories will be out of power for a generation. They forgot the people.
I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying. To try to be clearer the problem with the current Conservative party is not just that we have a dishonest PM. It is that it is a disorganised rabble who need a considerable time in opposition to clear out the various prats, popinjays and fools that they have accumulated over time. The party as a whole is not fit to govern. If Starmer can persuade people that his new Labour party is (big if) he will get a shot.
Dr. Foxy, a customs union would allow the EU to dictate our trade deals. There's no point leaving the EU only to let them retain the power they had and throwing away any say whatsoever in said decisions.
As and when there is any sign at all of this government going off signing new enhanced trade deals I would consider the point. There isn't. In Liz We Trust has copy pasted existing deals. The only "new" deal massively favours Australia in 15 years should it ever get implemented which it won't. Nor are there any prospects of major trading partners like Japan or America granting us new enhanced trade deals - we've openly been told to stick it.
The whole point about trade is that you form a block and negotiate en masse. The EU trade deals were better than anything we can realistically hope for because the EU is bigger than the GB. As we're now finding out.
Hard to believe there are still some idiots who have not got that point yet. Still delusional that the UK is some kind of world power instead of just your average two bit nation.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Alternately it raises questions as to whether the FLSOJ is fit to govern.
The issue isn't that Tory MPs are disloyal to the PM. The issue is that the PM isn't fit to hold the office.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Alternately it raises questions as to whether the FLSOJ is fit to govern.
The issue isn't that Tory MPs are disloyal to the PM. The issue is that the PM isn't fit to hold the office.
Quite. I was under the impression that Tories are quick on regicide, surprised at the lack of killer instinct this time round.
The only thing more disappointing has been how docile/complicit the press have been. It's a strength of the UK, compared with Scotland/EU, but they have been pathetic over the parties. Why didn't they report them in May 2020?!
I generally agree with (or at least appreciate) @DavidL posts. Does he think Douglas Ross is a gossiping popinjay?
There is almost a blanket ban on reporting. We have extensive queues on all routes to Dover with the traffic cameras largely turned off. We have 9 hour waits at Sevington for paperwork and nothing to see. The same on the French side. Hauliers increasingly fed of of losing so much time even if you can persuade them to make the trip in the first place.
Its as if the end of the GB as a fully-functioning trading nation isn't relevant to the Boris Liar scandal. But it is...
The death spiral of the UK under the twin curses of Brexit and Tory incompetence is sad to watch. Queues of trucks at the border, inflation heading for 7% next year, taxes going up, and a government headed by a malignant buffoon, lurching from crisis to crisis, out of ideas with no hand on the tiller. No need for the last to leave to turn out the lights, we won't be able to afford the electricity bill by then anyway.
@RochdalePioneers Silly question, but where exactly are the queues forming now in Kent and France?
Looked on Google maps, which doesn't rely on traffic cameras, and there's no sign.
His political life still hangs in the balance, as it has done for so much of his career. To the exhaustion and despair of his admirers, he has always specialised in near-death experiences and Lazarus-style recoveries. He might, yet, have one more left in him.
[Trevor] Phillips had arrived at the key point: which is that the much heralded investigation into the parties by Sue Gray, second permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, is intrinsically incapable of drawing a line under the whole scandal. Gray is famously thorough, fair, and rigorous. But it is not the business of a senior Whitehall official, however ethically impressive, to mend damage of this scale and character...the thunderous clash between two utterly incompatible psychologies: on the one hand, the collective distress of a country that has been, to varying degrees, through a horrendous experience for almost two years; and on the other, the cavalier sense of entitlement of a ruling elite, that really, truly does think itself special and different.
Precisely because something like normal life is slowly asserting itself, we are getting the full measure at last of all the anxiety, fear, constriction and sheer weirdness of the past two years. It is quite something to discover that even as we were all sticking to the rules, however inconvenient or distressing, the rule-makers themselves were more or less systematically ignoring them.
Even in his pseudo-apology to the Commons, Johnson sounded like a member of the Bullingdon Club, shabby and hungover in his tails, explaining wretchedly to the university proctors that he and his friends – or, more accurately, their parents – would pick up the tab for the damage caused to college property and the trauma suffered by the geese.
For all the horrendous coverage of the past few weeks, I am not sure that some senior Tories have yet fully grasped how great is the damage, and how long it will take to repair. The notion that a bit of Beeb-bashing, being mean to migrants and sacking a bunch of advisers will fix everything is beyond risible. Indeed, it only makes Johnson look weaker and more depleted.
As one potential successor put it to me: “I have no idea of the precise timing but a decision has definitely been taken by the party that he has to go. Boris’s time is over. What’s next? That’s the question.”
Meanwhile in Germany hospitals are close to going down. Intensive care is OK, but lots of less severely ill patients are coming in. The biggest problem is staff absences. And the peak for hospitals is about a month away. Also, PCR testing has hit capacity which creates problems in hospitals when you have to wait for a negative PCR test. As usual, there is zero leadership from the federal government. Scholz is turning out to be as rubbish as the awful Merkel.
Germany had a great early pandemic which I found difficult to understand - why are things going wrong now? In all honesty it's increasingly difficult to distinguish between 'blaming the authorities' and accepting that Covid beat the whole lot of them in one way or another>
Germany early on did a lot of testing, which meant the early outbreaks were kind of contained (Feb 2020) until the first lockdown (March 2020). There's a few other factors, which the government also can't take credit for - extra hospital capacity, for example (in the previous waves local hospitals were taking in patients from Belgium and sometimes the Netherlands and France. In December they took in patients from Saxony). As long as numbers were low the contact tracing worked quite well, and the relatively generous sick pay (eg compared to some workers in the UK) maybe meant isolation was more rigorously followed (maybe cultural differences play a part here too?), though I haven't seen numbers on this. But the approach from the federal government throughout has been piecemeal.
At this point, we're in the unavoidable Omicron wave, and as others have pointed out ,Germany isn't in a great position because there are large numbers of older people unvaccinated, and also fewer people with immunity from prior infection.
On the plus side Omicron is not as bad as Delta, and in March the worst will be over. So probably we'll get through without the hospitals completely breaking down.
I think that there will be some fascinating academic work done, at some point, on the way that personal level social structures work in an epidemic.
By this I mean the way that people socialise in groups - how stable those groups are, how much mixing, how much intersection between the groups.
Society doesn't consist of a even distributed grid of perfectly spherical people.
Since there is a large cultural component to such structures, they will vary by country (and region).
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Once Upon a Time Tory PMs didn't break the laws they put in place. Your steadfast support for Boris is very, very strange.
The other issue is that loyalty is a two way street, Boris and the whips have used parliamentary gameplaying to force through votes without allowing MPs to actually scrutinise what it is they're voting for. Eventually that disrespect tells and you end up with a very, very unhappy flock. That's where we are and it's no surprise that Boris is friendless.
I have been very clear that I regard Boris's lying as unacceptable. I think that the underlying stupidity was survivable had Boris been honest about it from the start but he lied and lied and sought to blame others. Some of his statements have been laughable. I take responsiblity, it was my staff's fault. My point this morning was that the problems of the Tory party as a party of government go much deeper and will not be solved by getting rid of the liar. As Cameron and May found before him the current Conservative party is ungovernable and unfit to govern as a result.
Mr. Pioneers, while the current PM does deserve criticism for this, it's also one of the reasons May was wrong to rush triggering Article 50. Not only did she not know what she wanted and threw away the time to consider it, it also made it more difficult when it came to getting systems in place to handle the new relationship.
Wrong to rush it? Cameron should have kept his promise and triggered A50 the day after the referendum. That would have snuffed out the remainers dreams of stopping Brexit and concentrated minds on a workable solution.
That's an obviously ludicrous point as May triggering Article 50 didn't "snuff out" anything.
I think we all knew, or soon came to know, that Boris was a wrong'un.
It's just surprising how quickly it unravelled. From December 2019 to now he has plunged from the heights to the depths. It was all there in plain sight for us to see before he was elected leader but some tories refused to look and hoped for the best. They were considerably aided by Remainer ineptitude and an unelectable anti-semitic communist at the Labour helm.
That this has taken 2 years rather than 10 years is a mercy for the nation but that's tempered by the fact that it was a vicious pandemic which unmasked Johnson for the knave he is.
He's hopeless and they know it. Will they remove him and have someone competent (Sunak) to staunch the wound before 2024? Or will they bottle it under delusion and pressure ... and so get a trouncing at the General Election?
As a leftie I hope the latter but for the sake of this country David Davis is right, for God's sake ... GO!
Dr. Foxy, I'd gently remind you that I did excoriate Conservative MPs when they made the foolish decision to make the jester PM, and May when she prematurely triggered Article 50.
Agree entirely on Boris Johnson's incompetence.
Anyone who voted Tory in 2019 is culpable for the farce of the Johnson administration. The papers were complicit, but ultimately it was the voters that put Big Dog in power.
btw Foxy wrt stadium names you said recently that the LCFC ground previously was Filbert Way. Wasn't it Filbert Street?
That was the old stadium
So what was Filbert Way?
Alternative name for King Power
I think they invented that street name to keep a connection with the old stadium address. They should have named it after its real address - Raw Dykes Road.
Dr. Foxy, I'd gently remind you that I did excoriate Conservative MPs when they made the foolish decision to make the jester PM, and May when she prematurely triggered Article 50.
Agree entirely on Boris Johnson's incompetence.
Anyone who voted Tory in 2019 is culpable for the farce of the Johnson administration. The papers were complicit, but ultimately it was the voters that put Big Dog in power.
btw Foxy wrt stadium names you said recently that the LCFC ground previously was Filbert Way. Wasn't it Filbert Street?
That was the old stadium
So what was Filbert Way?
Alternative name for King Power
I think they invented that street name to keep a connection with the old stadium address. They should have named it after its real address - Raw Dykes Road.
The Dykes are a thing, in fact - old Roman aqueduct IIRC from a visit many, many years ago.
There is almost a blanket ban on reporting. We have extensive queues on all routes to Dover with the traffic cameras largely turned off. We have 9 hour waits at Sevington for paperwork and nothing to see. The same on the French side. Hauliers increasingly fed of of losing so much time even if you can persuade them to make the trip in the first place.
Its as if the end of the GB as a fully-functioning trading nation isn't relevant to the Boris Liar scandal. But it is...
The death spiral of the UK under the twin curses of Brexit and Tory incompetence is sad to watch. Queues of trucks at the border, inflation heading for 7% next year, taxes going up, and a government headed by a malignant buffoon, lurching from crisis to crisis, out of ideas with no hand on the tiller. No need for the last to leave to turn out the lights, we won't be able to afford the electricity bill by then anyway.
@RochdalePioneers Silly question, but where exactly are the queues forming now in Kent and France?
Looked on Google maps, which doesn't rely on traffic cameras, and there's no sign.
Apparently Google maps doesn’t track phones in stationary lorries. Don’t ask me how or why. Essentially 1 lane of the M20 / A20 and A2 is filled with parked lorries. Car traffic at this time of day is fluid.
I’m due to take the Chunnel next Friday afternoon. I’ll report back.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Alternately it raises questions as to whether the FLSOJ is fit to govern.
The issue isn't that Tory MPs are disloyal to the PM. The issue is that the PM isn't fit to hold the office.
Quite. I was under the impression that Tories are quick on regicide, surprised at the lack of killer instinct this time round.
The only thing more disappointing has been how docile/complicit the press have been. It's a strength of the UK, compared with Scotland/EU, but they have been pathetic over the parties. Why didn't they report them in May 2020?!
I generally agree with (or at least appreciate) @DavidL posts. Does he think Douglas Ross is a gossiping popinjay?
The reason that the press wasn't reporting on drinking culture at work in politics was that journalism is another last bastion of drinking during work hours.
A question that applies to all Parliaments in the UK - why does each and every one of them have bars, which sell alcohol through the day?
Deepest condolences to the "When Scots see how free England was over the winter they will rush in adulation to the Conservatives and Boris as they decry Nippy's punitive restrictions" thought line
https://twitter.com/conor_matchett/status/1484435134497669120 "Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll" Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
From a personal perspective I found the eagerness to impose restrictions frustrating.
But I was never under the delusion that it would be unpopular. An indicator of that is the difference in tone between radio 4, radio 5 and radio Scotland - up here there is much less talk of the impact on education, freedoms etc.
I'm generally suspicious of uber popular politicians (Boris, Clegg etc) as they usually crash and burn, but Sturgeon has developed a Merkel-like aura and can do no wrong. Her tweets are followed by thousands of "thanks Nicola for keeping us safe" .
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Once Upon a Time Tory PMs didn't break the laws they put in place. Your steadfast support for Boris is very, very strange.
The other issue is that loyalty is a two way street, Boris and the whips have used parliamentary gameplaying to force through votes without allowing MPs to actually scrutinise what it is they're voting for. Eventually that disrespect tells and you end up with a very, very unhappy flock. That's where we are and it's no surprise that Boris is friendless.
I have been very clear that I regard Boris's lying as unacceptable. I think that the underlying stupidity was survivable had Boris been honest about it from the start but he lied and lied and sought to blame others. Some of his statements have been laughable. I take responsiblity, it was my staff's fault. My point this morning was that the problems of the Tory party as a party of government go much deeper and will not be solved by getting rid of the liar. As Cameron and May found before him the current Conservative party is ungovernable and unfit to govern as a result.
Well that's certainly an additionally subtle point but I think it's still a side issue. All parties have wings and factions and great leaders, including whips offices, know how to manage and massage their supporters.
Johnson doesn't. And I'm afraid for all your attempt to suggest otherwise, this comes from the top. Afterall, Cameron very successfully led his party without a majority. Johnson was never very popular among tory MPs from the start and for lots of very good reasons. He has since then steadily eroded all support. Throwing Paterson under the bus is just one example out of many of the man's total disloyalty and willingness to sacrifice anyone, anyone, to save his own revolting skin. He's loathed in the country and he's loathed by his MPs.
Read that brilliant Telegraph piece about the whips office.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Alternately it raises questions as to whether the FLSOJ is fit to govern.
The issue isn't that Tory MPs are disloyal to the PM. The issue is that the PM isn't fit to hold the office.
Quite. I was under the impression that Tories are quick on regicide, surprised at the lack of killer instinct this time round.
The only thing more disappointing has been how docile/complicit the press have been. It's a strength of the UK, compared with Scotland/EU, but they have been pathetic over the parties. Why didn't they report them in May 2020?!
I generally agree with (or at least appreciate) @DavidL posts. Does he think Douglas Ross is a gossiping popinjay?
PBTOries ad libitum, many, many times: Labour = factional = unfit to govern.
Quite impressed DavidL is having the guts to make the appropriate comparison, actually. (Though the "Scottish" media are not at all pro-SNP, certainly not in ownership).
Dr. Foxy, I'd gently remind you that I did excoriate Conservative MPs when they made the foolish decision to make the jester PM, and May when she prematurely triggered Article 50.
Agree entirely on Boris Johnson's incompetence.
Anyone who voted Tory in 2019 is culpable for the farce of the Johnson administration. The papers were complicit, but ultimately it was the voters that put Big Dog in power.
btw Foxy wrt stadium names you said recently that the LCFC ground previously was Filbert Way. Wasn't it Filbert Street?
That was the old stadium
So what was Filbert Way?
Alternative name for King Power
I think they invented that street name to keep a connection with the old stadium address. They should have named it after its real address - Raw Dykes Road.
The Dykes are a thing, in fact - old Roman aqueduct IIRC from a visit many, many years ago.
So the Council election in the ward next to me was close, Tories just got it - by 8 votes! Once again the non-Tory vote splits itself and lets them through the middle. Wonder what would've happened if the Yorkshire Party had stood.
Byram and Brotherton (Selby) council by-election result:
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
There is almost a blanket ban on reporting. We have extensive queues on all routes to Dover with the traffic cameras largely turned off. We have 9 hour waits at Sevington for paperwork and nothing to see. The same on the French side. Hauliers increasingly fed of of losing so much time even if you can persuade them to make the trip in the first place.
Its as if the end of the GB as a fully-functioning trading nation isn't relevant to the Boris Liar scandal. But it is...
The death spiral of the UK under the twin curses of Brexit and Tory incompetence is sad to watch. Queues of trucks at the border, inflation heading for 7% next year, taxes going up, and a government headed by a malignant buffoon, lurching from crisis to crisis, out of ideas with no hand on the tiller. No need for the last to leave to turn out the lights, we won't be able to afford the electricity bill by then anyway.
@RochdalePioneers Silly question, but where exactly are the queues forming now in Kent and France?
Looked on Google maps, which doesn't rely on traffic cameras, and there's no sign.
Apparently Google maps doesn’t track phones in stationary lorries. Don’t ask me how or why. Essentially 1 lane of the M20 / A20 and A2 is filled with parked lorries. Car traffic at this time of day is fluid.
I’m due to take the Chunnel next Friday afternoon. I’ll report back.
There is absolutely nothing on the Dover Port website about this, it just says traffic is free flowing into the port.
I saw Aaron Bell’s name pop up in a (I think) BBC article about how the PM had failed to hold one on ones with rebels to get them onside including him. Here here!
One wonders how many MPs have decided to play nicely nicely and wait for the Sue Gray report but have already made up their minds to pull the trigger.
What disturbs me and makes me think he’ll cling on is the extraordinary volte face from the Mail & Telegraph in recent days. Puzzling.
At this point I'd think all uncommitted Tory MPs will wait for the report - it'd be odd to come out on either side and have the findings point the other way 24 hours later.
Newspapers just like to ring the changes with dramatic stories on ups and downs - I wouldn't read too much into it. The Mail and Sun will back whoever emerges from the chaos.
There is almost a blanket ban on reporting. We have extensive queues on all routes to Dover with the traffic cameras largely turned off. We have 9 hour waits at Sevington for paperwork and nothing to see. The same on the French side. Hauliers increasingly fed of of losing so much time even if you can persuade them to make the trip in the first place.
Its as if the end of the GB as a fully-functioning trading nation isn't relevant to the Boris Liar scandal. But it is...
The death spiral of the UK under the twin curses of Brexit and Tory incompetence is sad to watch. Queues of trucks at the border, inflation heading for 7% next year, taxes going up, and a government headed by a malignant buffoon, lurching from crisis to crisis, out of ideas with no hand on the tiller. No need for the last to leave to turn out the lights, we won't be able to afford the electricity bill by then anyway.
@RochdalePioneers Silly question, but where exactly are the queues forming now in Kent and France?
Looked on Google maps, which doesn't rely on traffic cameras, and there's no sign.
Apparently Google maps doesn’t track phones in stationary lorries. Don’t ask me how or why. Essentially 1 lane of the M20 / A20 and A2 is filled with parked lorries. Car traffic at this time of day is fluid.
I’m due to take the Chunnel next Friday afternoon. I’ll report back.
OK, thanks. It was a genuine fact finding question rather than any outright scepticism. Actually, Mrs Rata spoke to my Kent based in-laws last night and I think lorries were mentioned in passing, so I'll ask her for the hearsay as well.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
That sounds very different from what was reported yesteday. "It won't be as good as people think."
Once again I'm imaging Ms Gray in her darkened chambers by candelight, exhausted and surrounded by sheets and sheets of paper, her pen quivering with all the pressure.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Following orders to go to a party?
You know, or at least I assume you know, that's not what was meant so cut the snide stuff. Ta.
There is almost a blanket ban on reporting. We have extensive queues on all routes to Dover with the traffic cameras largely turned off. We have 9 hour waits at Sevington for paperwork and nothing to see. The same on the French side. Hauliers increasingly fed of of losing so much time even if you can persuade them to make the trip in the first place.
Its as if the end of the GB as a fully-functioning trading nation isn't relevant to the Boris Liar scandal. But it is...
The death spiral of the UK under the twin curses of Brexit and Tory incompetence is sad to watch. Queues of trucks at the border, inflation heading for 7% next year, taxes going up, and a government headed by a malignant buffoon, lurching from crisis to crisis, out of ideas with no hand on the tiller. No need for the last to leave to turn out the lights, we won't be able to afford the electricity bill by then anyway.
@RochdalePioneers Silly question, but where exactly are the queues forming now in Kent and France?
Looked on Google maps, which doesn't rely on traffic cameras, and there's no sign.
Apparently Google maps doesn’t track phones in stationary lorries. Don’t ask me how or why. Essentially 1 lane of the M20 / A20 and A2 is filled with parked lorries. Car traffic at this time of day is fluid.
I’m due to take the Chunnel next Friday afternoon. I’ll report back.
OK, thanks. It was a genuine fact finding question rather than any outright scepticism. Actually, Mrs Rata spoke to my Kent based in-laws last night and I think lorries were mentioned in passing, so I'll ask her for the hearsay as well.
Interestingly the papers including The Mirror - usually a firmly anti-Brexit paper - whilst mentioning the new regulations, are reporting the queues as primarily being due to issues with shortages of Lateral Flow Tests. This seems to be the line of the Port of Dover authorities, the ferry companies and the Transport Associations.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Altdernatively, to avoid interfering with due process of dismissal or disciplining?
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Following orders to go to a party?
You know, or at least I assume you know, that's not what was meant so cut the snide stuff. Ta.
I wasn't being snide at all, I imagine everyone who went to these parties/events knew the rules and knew that they were breaking them.
Just think what the queues will be like at Gretna if you ever get your way...
As the status quo at the GB / EU border is unworkable and unsustainable, a solution will have to be found long before any theoretical border was thrown up at Gretna.
Isnt hoping a solution will just turn up to fix things because it 'will have to be' yet it just drags on the exact problem we've had with Brexit fallout?
If we get Sindy I hope it goes smoother in all things, but that seems pretty optimistic when there'll be just as much or even more bitter emotion involved.
There is almost a blanket ban on reporting. We have extensive queues on all routes to Dover with the traffic cameras largely turned off. We have 9 hour waits at Sevington for paperwork and nothing to see. The same on the French side. Hauliers increasingly fed of of losing so much time even if you can persuade them to make the trip in the first place.
Its as if the end of the GB as a fully-functioning trading nation isn't relevant to the Boris Liar scandal. But it is...
The death spiral of the UK under the twin curses of Brexit and Tory incompetence is sad to watch. Queues of trucks at the border, inflation heading for 7% next year, taxes going up, and a government headed by a malignant buffoon, lurching from crisis to crisis, out of ideas with no hand on the tiller. No need for the last to leave to turn out the lights, we won't be able to afford the electricity bill by then anyway.
@RochdalePioneers Silly question, but where exactly are the queues forming now in Kent and France?
Looked on Google maps, which doesn't rely on traffic cameras, and there's no sign.
Indeed, because the roads are still open and flowing. Miles and miles of stationary trucks, being passed by cars and vans and everyone else as normal. If you're a trucker the queues are painfully real. Plenty of reportage on Twitter and there is a border traffic app they keep screenshotting showing the length of queues and processing times at BCPs like Sevington.
So the Council election in the ward next to me was close, Tories just got it - by 8 votes! Once again the non-Tory vote splits itself and lets them through the middle. Wonder what would've happened if the Yorkshire Party had stood.
Byram and Brotherton (Selby) council by-election result:
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
He relied on factions to get the job in the first place. The ERG were the most egregious faction of all in terms of operating practically as their own party group.
That he cleared out one losing faction didn't change how he managed to win by exploiting factions, so developing yet more was inevitable.
There is almost a blanket ban on reporting. We have extensive queues on all routes to Dover with the traffic cameras largely turned off. We have 9 hour waits at Sevington for paperwork and nothing to see. The same on the French side. Hauliers increasingly fed of of losing so much time even if you can persuade them to make the trip in the first place.
Its as if the end of the GB as a fully-functioning trading nation isn't relevant to the Boris Liar scandal. But it is...
The death spiral of the UK under the twin curses of Brexit and Tory incompetence is sad to watch. Queues of trucks at the border, inflation heading for 7% next year, taxes going up, and a government headed by a malignant buffoon, lurching from crisis to crisis, out of ideas with no hand on the tiller. No need for the last to leave to turn out the lights, we won't be able to afford the electricity bill by then anyway.
@RochdalePioneers Silly question, but where exactly are the queues forming now in Kent and France?
Looked on Google maps, which doesn't rely on traffic cameras, and there's no sign.
Apparently Google maps doesn’t track phones in stationary lorries. Don’t ask me how or why. Essentially 1 lane of the M20 / A20 and A2 is filled with parked lorries. Car traffic at this time of day is fluid.
I’m due to take the Chunnel next Friday afternoon. I’ll report back.
There is absolutely nothing on the Dover Port website about this, it just says traffic is free flowing into the port.
Might be free-flowing right now. Check it again later. https://live.sixfold.com/ uses telematics data from the hauliers.
I saw Aaron Bell’s name pop up in a (I think) BBC article about how the PM had failed to hold one on ones with rebels to get them onside including him. Here here!
One wonders how many MPs have decided to play nicely nicely and wait for the Sue Gray report but have already made up their minds to pull the trigger.
What disturbs me and makes me think he’ll cling on is the extraordinary volte face from the Mail & Telegraph in recent days. Puzzling.
At this point I'd think all uncommitted Tory MPs will wait for the report - it'd be odd to come out on either side and have the findings point the other way 24 hours later.
Newspapers just like to ring the changes with dramatic stories on ups and downs - I wouldn't read too much into it. The Mail and Sun will back whoever emerges from the chaos.
Most people want to feel they had 'no choice' but to act because of a smoking gun (even though the smoke is in the eye of the beholder) since if it goes wrong they can suggest they felt forced by recent. Meaning theres always a reason to not act if they dont really want to.
Mr. Pioneers, while the current PM does deserve criticism for this, it's also one of the reasons May was wrong to rush triggering Article 50. Not only did she not know what she wanted and threw away the time to consider it, it also made it more difficult when it came to getting systems in place to handle the new relationship.
Wrong to rush it? Cameron should have kept his promise and triggered A50 the day after the referendum. That would have snuffed out the remainers dreams of stopping Brexit and concentrated minds on a workable solution.
Lol. Not starting until we had a plan would have been a better approach - and the waiting would have concentrated minds.
We don't have a plan even now, because reconciling the internal contradictions and false promises with reality is hard, difficult work, requiring some honesty and some compromises, which no-one in power is either able or willing to do (although with Truss there are at least the first glimmers that this might be dawning on her).
In future this whole episode from Cameron's referendum onwards will be a case study of how not to go about things.
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Following orders to go to a party?
You know, or at least I assume you know, that's not what was meant so cut the snide stuff. Ta.
I wasn't being snide at all, I imagine everyone who went to these parties/events knew the rules and knew that they were breaking them.
Except Boris. He has said he broke no rules.
So you are right that everyone knew the rules, but you are wrong that everyone knew they were breaking them, because Boris says he wasn't. If he is LYING, and the rules were being broken and he knew that, then he has to go.
Mr. Pioneers, while the current PM does deserve criticism for this, it's also one of the reasons May was wrong to rush triggering Article 50. Not only did she not know what she wanted and threw away the time to consider it, it also made it more difficult when it came to getting systems in place to handle the new relationship.
Wrong to rush it? Cameron should have kept his promise and triggered A50 the day after the referendum. That would have snuffed out the remainers dreams of stopping Brexit and concentrated minds on a workable solution.
I can’t have been the only one, that was genuinely surprised when Cameron walked away.
Although it was definitely a momentous day, when the PM resigning was the *third* story on the evening news!
Watch Liz fizz up the polls with this premiere hair cut.
I might need a before and after to really comment (this is after? it's a bit shorter, maybe?)
I guess we really need to worry when her hair looks like Johnson's?
It’s spot on. This is getting proper serious.
This is the beauty of PB. Expert analysts in all fields flag up the indicators and betting opportunities to the rest of us
Checking Smarkets, the market puports 89% chance of a non-Truss next PM and THAT IS A DISGRACE.
It’s more of a game changer than any sub sample or “with this that as leader” voodoo poll. That hairstyle says to me Sunak has a proper problem.
21st Jan. The moment “the inherent vice candidate” shifted from Liz to Sunak. That’s what the right haircut can do.
I’m not asking you to believe me today, I’m asking you to measure it as that proves me right. “with this that as leader” voodoo polls will now move to Liz. Surveys, like comhome, will now move to Liz, betting will move to Liz, all the “we are Brexit and we installed Boris” wing will move to Liz along with all the “fresh new start under fresh new hairdo” will move to Liz too. She might even out score Sunak on MPs.
Dr. Foxy, a customs union would allow the EU to dictate our trade deals. There's no point leaving the EU only to let them retain the power they had and throwing away any say whatsoever in said decisions.
Yes, and that is the essential stupidity of a soft Brexit. Either Remain, or accept true third nation status with respect to the EU with all the border paraphernalia that entails. Something that the Brexiteers still haven't got their heads around.
I was pointing out in 2016 that the first thing the UK needs to do is recruit customs and excise staff and build the physical and IT infrastructure. Instead Big Dog was asleep in his basket, dreaming of bones.
Pretty much agree there.
Mr Cameron prevented preparation, then walked away from his vow to see the process through.
Big Dog did not get power until the end of July 2019. Agree that he has been somewhat asleep however, even allowing for Covid.
Dr. Foxy, a customs union would allow the EU to dictate our trade deals. There's no point leaving the EU only to let them retain the power they had and throwing away any say whatsoever in said decisions.
As and when there is any sign at all of this government going off signing new enhanced trade deals I would consider the point. There isn't. In Liz We Trust has copy pasted existing deals. The only "new" deal massively favours Australia in 15 years should it ever get implemented which it won't. Nor are there any prospects of major trading partners like Japan or America granting us new enhanced trade deals - we've openly been told to stick it.
The whole point about trade is that you form a block and negotiate en masse. The EU trade deals were better than anything we can realistically hope for because the EU is bigger than the GB. As we're now finding out.
Our post Brexit trade policy is scarcely a policy. It’s purely tactical, across the board. Looking for little wins that will impress the voters (or backbenchers) rather than any long term strategic direction that will make the country fertile ground for investment, or have a noticeable impact on consumers.
In fact the whole Brexit realignment so far has been net bad news for consumers. Not disastrous, and outweighed by other problems caused by Covid, but not positive.
The trouble is the downsides are boring. Somewhat reduced choice in retail. Traffic jams of stationary lorries in Kent. Increased costs and back office paperwork for businesses. It’s bad, but boring. So almost completely absent from media. Downing st parties, a pandemic and Russian aggression are all much more exciting.
The impact analysis by the Government on the Australian trade deal is interesting. It concedes that British agriculture will be damaged, but estimates overall that the economy will benefit by a tiny amount (0.08%) - because farming is a small industry in Britain, selling more whisky and financial products outweighs selling less British beef. But it's an odd decision by a Tory government to encourage a drift further away from farming and food security. The report is here - you have to read the whole executive summary to spot the downsides for farming:
It is, I think, true that Liz Truss saw her sole KPI as "sign several trade deals", and any benefit is hard to spot. Most of them have been rollovers from the EU, with the Australian and NZ deals the first to have at least a little significant content. Next up is probably a deal with the GCC (Saudi etc.).
Back over again now. But the real problem remains that our market is about the same level as it was in 2008 whilst the US market has more than doubled. Our largest companies are not engines of growth, they are cashcows feeding our pension industry. It is a major structural problem that undermines essential capital investment in this country. We need to change the mindset.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Once Upon a Time Tory PMs didn't break the laws they put in place. Your steadfast support for Boris is very, very strange.
The other issue is that loyalty is a two way street, Boris and the whips have used parliamentary gameplaying to force through votes without allowing MPs to actually scrutinise what it is they're voting for. Eventually that disrespect tells and you end up with a very, very unhappy flock. That's where we are and it's no surprise that Boris is friendless.
I have been very clear that I regard Boris's lying as unacceptable. I think that the underlying stupidity was survivable had Boris been honest about it from the start but he lied and lied and sought to blame others. Some of his statements have been laughable. I take responsiblity, it was my staff's fault. My point this morning was that the problems of the Tory party as a party of government go much deeper and will not be solved by getting rid of the liar. As Cameron and May found before him the current Conservative party is ungovernable and unfit to govern as a result.
How would you vote if an election was tomorrow? Genuinely curious.
Devastated today that my rock hero Meatloaf has died. His songs were just magnificent and his dramatic gothic style performances of them just unbeatable. The west end musical "bat out of hell" is by far the best I have seen as well. My former CEO and me once had argument over who was best -Queen or Meatloaf and I just could comprehend how anyone can think Queen (decent enough ) is better than Meatloaf especially when most of the other Senior managers also agreed with him (maybe they were just brownnosing a bit but I think they genuinely believed what they said !)
‘Tory civil war could drag on to the summer’ - Whatever the Gray report says, the PM will not quit and the plotters won’t give up... making Labour the only winners
Funny how everything the Scottish government has done since 2007 is a total disaster, and will cause the SNP vote to imminently collapse. PB Scotch experts are a real boon to punters.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Once Upon a Time Tory PMs didn't break the laws they put in place. Your steadfast support for Boris is very, very strange.
The other issue is that loyalty is a two way street, Boris and the whips have used parliamentary gameplaying to force through votes without allowing MPs to actually scrutinise what it is they're voting for. Eventually that disrespect tells and you end up with a very, very unhappy flock. That's where we are and it's no surprise that Boris is friendless.
I have been very clear that I regard Boris's lying as unacceptable. I think that the underlying stupidity was survivable had Boris been honest about it from the start but he lied and lied and sought to blame others. Some of his statements have been laughable. I take responsiblity, it was my staff's fault. My point this morning was that the problems of the Tory party as a party of government go much deeper and will not be solved by getting rid of the liar. As Cameron and May found before him the current Conservative party is ungovernable and unfit to govern as a result.
Well that's certainly an additionally subtle point but I think it's still a side issue. All parties have wings and factions and great leaders, including whips offices, know how to manage and massage their supporters.
Johnson doesn't. And I'm afraid for all your attempt to suggest otherwise, this comes from the top. Afterall, Cameron very successfully led his party without a majority. Johnson was never very popular among tory MPs from the start and for lots of very good reasons. He has since then steadily eroded all support. Throwing Paterson under the bus is just one example out of many of the man's total disloyalty and willingness to sacrifice anyone, anyone, to save his own revolting skin. He's loathed in the country and he's loathed by his MPs.
Read that brilliant Telegraph piece about the whips office.
Well re Cameron, he led it in government in part thanks to being in coalition with the Lib Dems, who basically neutered the influence of some of the more right wing Tories when Cameron wanted it (I.e. gay marriage). Once he was leading a majority government, he was gone in a year or so….
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
No that's not because of whitewashing at all. It's because she doesn't want to name and shame in the public domain junior civil servants and officials who were following orders.
Following orders to go to a party?
You know, or at least I assume you know, that's not what was meant so cut the snide stuff. Ta.
I wasn't being snide at all, I imagine everyone who went to these parties/events knew the rules and knew that they were breaking them.
Except Boris. He has said he broke no rules.
So you are right that everyone knew the rules, but you are wrong that everyone knew they were breaking them, because Boris says he wasn't. If he is LYING, and the rules were being broken and he knew that, then he has to go.
Absolutely, but then so do all the other people who attended them as they are all equally as guilty.As far as I understand Boris is only accused of attending one party, the ones on the eve of Prince Phillips funeral he was at Chequers. These people knew what they were doing. no one forced them to attend, they should have to go as well.
Watch Liz fizz up the polls with this premiere hair cut.
I might need a before and after to really comment (this is after? it's a bit shorter, maybe?)
I guess we really need to worry when her hair looks like Johnson's?
It’s spot on. This is getting proper serious.
This is the beauty of PB. Expert analysts in all fields flag up the indicators and betting opportunities to the rest of us
Checking Smarkets, the market puports 89% chance of a non-Truss next PM and THAT IS A DISGRACE.
The Indy's resident psychic and medium says that the clown will go in the fifth month, or possibly on the fifth of a month, and the next PM will be Sunak. DYOR etc.
‘Tory civil war could drag on to the summer’ - Whatever the Gray report says, the PM will not quit and the plotters won’t give up... making Labour the only winners
Funny how everything the Scottish government has done since 2007 is a total disaster, and will cause the SNP vote to imminently collapse. PB Scotch experts are a real boon to punters.
I see that Messrs Johnson and Salmond are now neck and neck in the popularity stakes, currently immersed in Becher's Brook at minus 62.
Once upon a time the Tories' secret weapon was loyalty. Not because they were nice people, usually the opposite. Not because the leaders were deserving of loyalty, they usually weren't, It was cold, hard, plain self interest.
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
Once Upon a Time Tory PMs didn't break the laws they put in place. Your steadfast support for Boris is very, very strange.
The other issue is that loyalty is a two way street, Boris and the whips have used parliamentary gameplaying to force through votes without allowing MPs to actually scrutinise what it is they're voting for. Eventually that disrespect tells and you end up with a very, very unhappy flock. That's where we are and it's no surprise that Boris is friendless.
I have been very clear that I regard Boris's lying as unacceptable. I think that the underlying stupidity was survivable had Boris been honest about it from the start but he lied and lied and sought to blame others. Some of his statements have been laughable. I take responsiblity, it was my staff's fault. My point this morning was that the problems of the Tory party as a party of government go much deeper and will not be solved by getting rid of the liar. As Cameron and May found before him the current Conservative party is ungovernable and unfit to govern as a result.
How would you vote if an election was tomorrow? Genuinely curious.
If there was any chance of Labour being competitive in Dundee West I would vote for them and the Union. If there isn't, and the polling is not great, I would probably still vote Tory for the Union but I doubt I will be doing any leafleting or canvassing for them this time.
Comments
The modern Conservative party seems to have forgotten that. Silly little factions of pompous popinjays fill the papers every day with gossip and accusations damaging their own party. Even after Boris's clearout of the remainer faction at the last election that is so. It raises genuine issues of whether the party as a whole is fit to govern at all.
But not even his potential successors know what can be rescued from the wreckage.
Read more in @MatthewdAncona’s weekly column for @Tortoise on the now-inevitable removal of the Prime Minister.
https://torto.se/3qCO7U4
At this point, we're in the unavoidable Omicron wave, and as others have pointed out ,Germany isn't in a great position because there are large numbers of older people unvaccinated, and also fewer people with immunity from prior infection.
On the plus side Omicron is not as bad as Delta, and in March the worst will be over. So probably we'll get through without the hospitals completely breaking down.
DavidL's post was ridiculous and, indeed, reveals a far more fundamental problem with the current Conservative Party: a total failure to listen to the mood of the country and what matters to us. It's borne of utter arrogance because half of them won on Brexit and then had a thumping great win in 2019 against an unelectable communist.
DavidL's views tell me that the tories will be out of power for a generation. They forgot the people.
THATS HOW TO DO IT
Watch Liz fizz up the polls with this premiere hair cut.
In fact the Tory party has very often been disloyal if it thinks the time had come for change or the leader has become an electoral liability. The Tories are generally far more disloyal than Labour who let hapless leaders like Foot or Corbyn or Gordon Brown lead them all the way to general election defeat quite frequently.
No Labour leader apart from Ramsay Macdonald has ever lost the leadership against their will, plenty of Tory leaders have however
The issue isn't that Tory MPs are disloyal to the PM.
The issue is that the PM isn't fit to hold the office.
The government would be doing ok if it didn't keep hitting that self destruct button.
That would have snuffed out the remainers dreams of stopping Brexit and concentrated minds on a workable solution.
[*] yes, I have been reading Benedict Anderson :-)
https://twitter.com/conor_matchett/status/1484435134497669120
"Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll"
Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
The other issue is that loyalty is a two way street, Boris and the whips have used parliamentary gameplaying to force through votes without allowing MPs to actually scrutinise what it is they're voting for. Eventually that disrespect tells and you end up with a very, very unhappy flock. That's where we are and it's no surprise that Boris is friendless.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/20/inside-tory-whips-office-flailing-enforcers-pushing-mps-away/
The only thing more disappointing has been how docile/complicit the press have been. It's a strength of the UK, compared with Scotland/EU, but they have been pathetic over the parties. Why didn't they report them in May 2020?!
I generally agree with (or at least appreciate) @DavidL posts. Does he think Douglas Ross is a gossiping popinjay?
Looked on Google maps, which doesn't rely on traffic cameras, and there's no sign.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/20/boris-deserves-one-last-chance-may-incapable-now-taking/
Precisely because something like normal life is slowly asserting itself, we are getting the full measure at last of all the anxiety, fear, constriction and sheer weirdness of the past two years. It is quite something to discover that even as we were all sticking to the rules, however inconvenient or distressing, the rule-makers themselves were more or less systematically ignoring them.
Even in his pseudo-apology to the Commons, Johnson sounded like a member of the Bullingdon Club, shabby and hungover in his tails, explaining wretchedly to the university proctors that he and his friends – or, more accurately, their parents – would pick up the tab for the damage caused to college property and the trauma suffered by the geese.
For all the horrendous coverage of the past few weeks, I am not sure that some senior Tories have yet fully grasped how great is the damage, and how long it will take to repair. The notion that a bit of Beeb-bashing, being mean to migrants and sacking a bunch of advisers will fix everything is beyond risible. Indeed, it only makes Johnson look weaker and more depleted.
As one potential successor put it to me: “I have no idea of the precise timing but a decision has definitely been taken by the party that he has to go. Boris’s time is over. What’s next? That’s the question.”
By this I mean the way that people socialise in groups - how stable those groups are, how much mixing, how much intersection between the groups.
Society doesn't consist of a even distributed grid of perfectly spherical people.
Since there is a large cultural component to such structures, they will vary by country (and region).
It's just surprising how quickly it unravelled. From December 2019 to now he has plunged from the heights to the depths. It was all there in plain sight for us to see before he was elected leader but some tories refused to look and hoped for the best. They were considerably aided by Remainer ineptitude and an unelectable anti-semitic communist at the Labour helm.
That this has taken 2 years rather than 10 years is a mercy for the nation but that's tempered by the fact that it was a vicious pandemic which unmasked Johnson for the knave he is.
He's hopeless and they know it. Will they remove him and have someone competent (Sunak) to staunch the wound before 2024? Or will they bottle it under delusion and pressure ... and so get a trouncing at the General Election?
As a leftie I hope the latter but for the sake of this country David Davis is right, for God's sake ... GO!
I’m due to take the Chunnel next Friday afternoon. I’ll report back.
A question that applies to all Parliaments in the UK - why does each and every one of them have bars, which sell alcohol through the day?
But I was never under the delusion that it would be unpopular. An indicator of that is the difference in tone between radio 4, radio 5 and radio Scotland - up here there is much less talk of the impact on education, freedoms etc.
I'm generally suspicious of uber popular politicians (Boris, Clegg etc) as they usually crash and burn, but Sturgeon has developed a Merkel-like aura and can do no wrong. Her tweets are followed by thousands of "thanks Nicola for keeping us safe" .
I told her I would do anything for love but I wouldn't do that
She went with her sister in law
As I’ve been a’sayin’
The markets are a’turnin’
I guess we really need to worry when her hair looks like Johnson's?
Johnson doesn't. And I'm afraid for all your attempt to suggest otherwise, this comes from the top. Afterall, Cameron very successfully led his party without a majority. Johnson was never very popular among tory MPs from the start and for lots of very good reasons. He has since then steadily eroded all support. Throwing Paterson under the bus is just one example out of many of the man's total disloyalty and willingness to sacrifice anyone, anyone, to save his own revolting skin. He's loathed in the country and he's loathed by his MPs.
Read that brilliant Telegraph piece about the whips office.
Quite impressed DavidL is having the guts to make the appropriate comparison, actually. (Though the "Scottish" media are not at all pro-SNP, certainly not in ownership).
https://storyofleicester.info/a-place-to-live/the-raw-dykes/
Byram and Brotherton (Selby) council by-election result:
CON: 48.1% (+13.4)
LAB: 46.3% (+26.2)
GRN: 5.6% (+5.6)
Votes cast: 447
Conservative GAIN from Yorkshire Party.
Eight vote majority.
No Yorks (-45.3) as prev.
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1484304352881758211?s=20
Sue Gray is considering publishing a limited report detailing her findings on No 10 parties with names of some individuals subjected to disciplinary action removed
It will not be a "blow-by-blow account" of the different parties likely to be broad brush
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sue-gray-uncovers-email-warning-on-no-10-drinks-f23rn0fdc
Newspapers just like to ring the changes with dramatic stories on ups and downs - I wouldn't read too much into it. The Mail and Sun will back whoever emerges from the chaos.
Once again I'm imaging Ms Gray in her darkened chambers by candelight, exhausted and surrounded by sheets and sheets of paper, her pen quivering with all the pressure.
If we get Sindy I hope it goes smoother in all things, but that seems pretty optimistic when there'll be just as much or even more bitter emotion involved.
And this is the quietest month of the year.
Our wedding flowers came from a little florist in Brotherton.
https://twitter.com/larryandpaul/status/1484448535609233410?s=21
That he cleared out one losing faction didn't change how he managed to win by exploiting factions, so developing yet more was inevitable.
I think we're going to need a different Minister for the Union. https://twitter.com/TheScotsman/status/1484425288041697280
Checking Smarkets, the market puports 89% chance of a non-Truss next PM and THAT IS A DISGRACE.
We don't have a plan even now, because reconciling the internal contradictions and false promises with reality is hard, difficult work, requiring some honesty and some compromises, which no-one in power is either able or willing to do (although with Truss there are at least the first glimmers that this might be dawning on her).
In future this whole episode from Cameron's referendum onwards will be a case study of how not to go about things.
So you are right that everyone knew the rules, but you are wrong that everyone knew they were breaking them, because Boris says he wasn't. If he is LYING, and the rules were being broken and he knew that, then he has to go.
Although it was definitely a momentous day, when the PM resigning was the *third* story on the evening news!
21st Jan. The moment “the inherent vice candidate” shifted from Liz to Sunak. That’s what the right haircut can do.
I’m not asking you to believe me today, I’m asking you to measure it as that proves me right. “with this that as leader” voodoo polls will now move to Liz. Surveys, like comhome, will now move to Liz, betting will move to Liz, all the “we are Brexit and we installed Boris” wing will move to Liz along with all the “fresh new start under fresh new hairdo” will move to Liz too. She might even out score Sunak on MPs.
Just watch.
Mr Cameron prevented preparation, then walked away from his vow to see the process through.
Big Dog did not get power until the end of July 2019. Agree that he has been somewhat asleep however, even allowing for Covid.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-australia-fta-impact-assessment/impact-assessment-of-the-fta-between-the-uk-and-australia-executive-summary-web-version
It is, I think, true that Liz Truss saw her sole KPI as "sign several trade deals", and any benefit is hard to spot. Most of them have been rollovers from the EU, with the Australian and NZ deals the first to have at least a little significant content. Next up is probably a deal with the GCC (Saudi etc.).
My former CEO and me once had argument over who was best -Queen or Meatloaf and I just could comprehend how anyone can think Queen (decent enough ) is better than Meatloaf especially when most of the other Senior managers also agreed with him (maybe they were just brownnosing a bit but I think they genuinely believed what they said !)
- Whatever the Gray report says, the PM will not quit and the plotters won’t give up... making Labour the only winners
(James Forsyth, The Times; £) Funny how everything the Scottish government has done since 2007 is a total disaster, and will cause the SNP vote to imminently collapse. PB Scotch experts are a real boon to punters.