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Defection watch – politicalbetting.com
Defection watch – politicalbetting.com
Following Christian Wakeford’s stunning act of tergiversation Smarkets have a market up on whether we’ll see more Tory defections by the end of the next month, based on the story below you can understand why.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/AlastairMeeks/status/1484631877528993794
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/22/partygate-inquiry-given-access-to-log-of-staff-movements-in-and-out-of-building
A similar aspect would be bonding with other Tory MPs - carousing in the tea rooms for example. If you were a new MP representing a previously Labour seat, how close would you feel to the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg? Would you feel any great loyalty towards them?
NZ was able to nail their pre-vaccine policy due to their isolation from the rest of the world; that they then didn't make a timely transition to a "live with it" strategy was mistake.
Read the comments on this article and despair:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/23/red-alert-new-zealand-prepares-for-thousands-of-omicron-cases-a-day-with-community-spread?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
"Many of my former colleagues have already reached the conclusion that he’s unfit to lead the Conservative party. Not just because he’s an electoral liability but because he’s actually unfit to run the country."
This is why, on balance, I still think he will be ousted. The electoral liability might be brushed off as mid-term blues and reference to Boris Johnson's stunning success in 2019 (neatly ignoring Corbyn) would be made.
That's not the issue and it's not what started all of this.
It's that Boris Johnson is not fit to be prime minister. He's terrible. He wanted to be world king but wasn't up to the job.
Will today be the day Conservative MPs discover a collective spine and oust the incompetent? Probably not.
We have witnessed 150,000 die with Covid.
When people suspect you have money they come at you with some brand new business which is always dodgy. There have been so many over the years, especially during the dotcom boom. It was just “You’ve got some money in the bank. I’ve got a great idea.” Bitcoin and, what do they call them, non-fungible tokens? They all look so dodgy to me.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/fame-fortune/polices-andy-summers-made-1m-night-played-150-times/ (£££)
I wonder if the next defection will be to 'an opposition party', as opposed to just resigning the whip and becoming an independent. What the 2019 red wall MPs could do, if they cannot oust Johnson, is just create an independent group against sleaze in politics, or something similar. They would have more credibility in Parliament than the last attempt at forming an Independent group.
Not all will be directly related to Covid, of course. But that's the raw increase in deaths relative to what you would expect for the last two years.
I’m really not sure what they are worried about. Yes, some people are going to die from COVID, but their health system should be fine.
Another aspect about the new intake is that they will all be familiar with employment in “normal” companies and organisations, where those in charge typically take great care to create a pleasant, constructive working environment. Or at least one that conforms with employment law and minimum standards, eg countering discrimination and bullying.
The Commons isn’t normal. It is a very abnormal working environment, where bullying, intimidation and discrimination are it’s daily meat.
Winnie Ewing blew the whistle on them in the 1960s, but over half a century later, they’re still at it.
If you are conditioned and trained for nasty environments, nasty people and psychological warfare (eg soldiers), then fair enough, you just have to cope. But these people weren’t. Some of them are not coping.
FPTP is at the root of the problem. Total hegemony on a minority of the vote.
Excess mortality has been sharply up.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/excessdeathsin20202021andintheeuropeanunion
I have a friend who tried all the way through this pandemic to debunk it. First he told me it spread through the eyes. Then he denied masks work. Then he dissed vaccines. He went down this 'they only die with it' line and said it was a 'casedemic' not a pandemic.
It has been quite sad to witness someone who was once middle of the road and quite sensible join the conspiracy loons. Please don't be one of them.
A significant number of red wall MPs also felt a greater loyalty to their constituents than to the Conservative Party itself.
On topic, I am at somewhat of a loss to understand how and why politicians such as Ghani and Wakeford are making claims which can easily be denied if there is not some modicum of truth behind them. I suspect that parliamentary whips have always used whatever means at hand to persuade MP's to follow the party line, and I would not be surprised if progress with some constituency development didn't sometimes get included in those means.
Politically, is it worse for the PM if another MP defects or if it becomes apparent that Sir Graham Brady now has 50 letters?
Besides which, this necessarily entails switching from a situation in which almost nobody dies of Covid to that in which we know some people must die of Covid. The previously heavily protected elderly and clinically vulnerable populations in New Zealand are all now being entered into a lottery, in which the prize for holding a winning ticket is death. This is obviously no small thing! Whilst much of the developed world is gradually clawing its way out of the horror and approaching the learning to live with it stage, this will be (at least for a large fraction of the population) the most frightening phase of the whole pandemic in New Zealand. It's small wonder if they're worried.
This is a failure of leadership.
This then gives very considerable power to the whips and the party machine.
Whilst SW1 obsesses and reels from scandal this has been a decisive week for post-Brexit Britain -- its actions to support Ukraine militarily and now in intelligence terms are making it loud and clear there is no European "strategic autonomy" without the UK.
https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1485035477363306500?s=20
German naval chief: "we need Russia because we need Russia against China...From my perspective, I’m a very radical Roman Catholic. I’m believing in God & I believe in Christianity. & there we have a Christian country; even Putin, he’s an atheist but it doesn't matter"
https://twitter.com/tanvi_madan/status/1484642943499649026?s=20
https://twitter.com/BDStanley/status/1484977489986428950?s=20
I quite like the STV system in Scottish local elections. If the SNP put up 3 candidates then electors are at liberty to rank them 1, 2 or 3; or mix n match with other prospective folk like the Green candidate. Not fault free, but a heck of a lot better than FPTP where you are occasionally forced to vote for a total plonker.
I think they worked wonders in the first phase of the pandemic, when we had no good drugs or vaccines, utilising their isolation to brilliant effect. I don't think this strategy was ever available to the UK.
They just haven't had the mental agility to transition from the zero-covid strategy to the endemic approach that inevitably follows.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/23/russian-ships-tanks-and-troops-on-the-move-to-ukraine-as-peace-talks-stall
PR isn't perfect - consensus systems have their drawbacks, as much as majoritarian ones do - but I've long since come to the conclusion that it's the lesser of two evils.
But equally, it’s highly pertinent info that it killed so few without a pre existing condition and does suggest that the risk segmentation approach to NPI proposed by many was dismissed too readily. Certainly it is completely counter to the psyops style campaign of fear waged on otherwise healthy people for the last two years.
There were some big errors around the behavioural management side. Talking down the prospects for the vaccine programme when anyone even once or twice removed from it knew it was going to be successful by at least a reasonable metric by summer 2020.
But also the messaging around the true risk for most people. If you mislead around that, truly vulnerable people can’t properly calibrate their understanding of the risk. Finally the legal compulsion around the extraordinary level of authoritarian restrictions undoubtedly fed the antivax movement as a direct counter to state intrusion into the lives of free people.
Insofar as I can see, Labour's entire motivation for introducing PR for the devolved assemblies was to ensure an endless succession of administrations run by it, on the basis that Labour was too strong to be supplanted by anyone else as the dominant pro-UK party, and there would never be anywhere close to a majority of votes cast for secessionist candidates.
It worked a treat in Wales. In the Scottish Parliament, not so much.
Different countries, different societies, different priorities. Somewhat arrogant to say another nation's different priorities are a "failure of leadership"
There are easily more than 54 Conservative MPs who think their leader is a busted flush, who appreciate the risk his attempts to hang on to the premiership will inflict lasting reputational damage on their party and who understand that Britain won’t return to anything resembling seemly and orderly government until he is gone. One senior Tory ended a conversation with me by quoting François Rabelais: “Bring down the curtain, the farce is over.”
More are agitated about what leaving Mr Johnson in place means for their electoral prospects. All can read the opinion polls.
Things would be much easier for Tories if their leader...walked away. That would spare everyone the spectacle of ministers tortuously trying to defend the indefensible. Mr Johnson’s friends have often heard him whingeing that he can’t live on the salary while moaning that being prime minister is not as much fun as he thought it would be. It never seems to have occurred to him that making money and having a laugh are not the top lines of the job description.
His remaining allies are busy briefing friendly journalists that he will fight to stay in Number 10 to the bitter end. They would say that, of course. Another sign of Mr Johnson’s desperation is “Operation Save Big Dog”, the puerile appellation apparently invented by himself to describe the effort to buy him more time.
The longer Tory MPs prevaricate, the more they become complicit in this scandal and the less the public will trust the lot of them.
Even before Ms Gray had completed her interviews, the prime minister’s propagandists were putting it about that her report would exonerate him from the most damning charges. That’s a dangerous game for Number 10 to be playing, not least because Ms Gray will have a strong regard for her own credibility. Someone who knows her well remarks: “She will be very pissed off by that.” Her findings, and the degree of severity with which she chooses to word them, can tip the scales for or against the prime minister with Tory MPs, but ultimately they will have to make the decision. Those who want rid of Boris Johnson will have to be as resolute about evicting him as he is frantic to cling on.
And in one massive wriggle the greased piglet twists free.
https://twitter.com/ridgeonsunday/status/1485173608481705985
I don’t understand NZ’s strategy anymore. Vaccination rates are high, it’s summer and these restrictions won’t be enough to stamp Omicron out, so what’s the point of them?
https://twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/1485170523344670722?s=20
In the short to medium term we are all moving to a situation where Covid needs to be managed but essentially is just one public health issue amongst many, and is a second order problem to a full pandemic. We will all do OK on that, I think.
Watch Dr John Campbell on the deaths of those in England and Wales with no other underlying causes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UHvwWWcjYw
A Freedom of Information request reveals for 2020 and first three quarter of 2021: 17,371 deaths with Covid alone on the death certificate.
Covid was present/hastened the deaths of those with comorbidities.
Average age of death from/with Covid was higher than the average life expectancy.
How the fuck does this data make me join the "conspiracy loons"? Spoiler: it doesn't.
https://www.ft.com/content/a45e028d-4b81-4bef-9546-970838ab963a
That is unless that Tory MP was a diehard hard Brexiteer, social conservative or economic Thatcherite and could never ideologically fit in Labour even if standing for Labour next time was the best way to keep their seat
@DoubleDownNews
"You know those documentaries you've seen about a dictator's rise to power & there's always a bit in the doc where you think 'why didn’t they stop him? They could have stopped him when there was still time?' That’s the bit we're at."
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@GeorgeMonbiot
https://mobile.twitter.com/DoubleDownNews/status/1483392113354194945
"The entire country is set to be placed under the highest level of Covid restrictions after an outbreak of the Omicron variant."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-60100369
Japan is in the same situation, I expect containment will fail but in the meantime it's not remotely as damaging as the damage the UK has already taken doing the opposite, and even if it fails there's something to be said for delaying down the failure for a month or so.
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1485176805870944259?s=20
A Turkish court has detained well-known journalist Sedef Kabas for allegedly insulting the country's president.
Ms Kabas was arrested on Saturday in Istanbul and a court ordered her to be jailed ahead of a trial.
She is accused of targeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a proverb which she quoted on live television on an opposition-linked TV channel. She denies the charge...
Thousands of people have been charged with insulting Mr Erdogan since he became president.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60099931
I guess having moved past the military coup phase they are in a spot of bother still.
I wonder if leaders recognise imposing lese majesty as a dictatorial move or if they are in denial?
God forbid people get targeted with proverbs. Scary.
This is becoming a problem for the Conservative Party as a whole. Just swapping out a dishonest and incompetent leader may not be enough.
Also vaccinate/boost, prepare hospital beds, work out what you're going to do about lots of medical staff going off sick, how you're going to run schools if lots of teachers go off sick, etc etc.
And that's all assuming containment doesn't work, it may also turn out that containment works if you do it right. I doubt it, but you never know.
Feeling comfortable with my gone in Q1 position this morning. Who would have thought partygate would expose racist bullying in such short order? I always thought Lord thing did nobody any favours inventing the term Institutionally racist to describe the Met, really just meaning there is a lot of it about. But if a government disciplines its own members vias racism, that's institutional all right.
I'm not sure how much good vaccinating young children would do; they may have a better point with the boosters. However, if it were feasible to keep stamping on Omicron indefinitely, there would always be another excuse for delaying opening up.
Fortunately for those New Zealanders who don't want their country turned into a hermit kingdom indefinitely - and especially for the poor sods stuck abroad who still can't get home - it would appear that their government has finally concluded that Omicron is unstoppable. Hence the fact that the red level restrictions they've brought in over there do not equate to yet more lockdown, but are really just for show.