Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
Sky News have picked up the Mail's leader that Downing St police have given "extremely damning" evidence to Sue Gray.
Well I'm happy if that's true but how the blazers does anyone know this? How would that have leaked? Serious question.
Not only how did it leak, but if there was such damning evidence from the police, what was their excuse for not acting on it at the time?
Memories of “Plebgate” ,nearly a decade ago now, when the police kept lying about what was said, unaware of there being a recording of the conversation.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
"there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required"
You are wrong about that.
Despite being asked repeatedly @Chris refused to say what he would do in the then situation. We made him Prime Minister and King of the World and still answer/plan came there none. .
I thought he was repeatedly saying we needed to do "whatever it takes" and that the Government wasn't doing so?
From my recollection he wouldn't define "whatever it takes" other than it being more than what was already in place. He certainly wasn't giving the impression we'd already done "whatever it takes".
Won't come as any surprise but La Sturgeon is at it again. IndyRef in '23 apparently. Ho ho. My feeling is that Scots are pretty scunnered with Covid, Brexit, etc, and not really up for this. Misstep? Or more aimed at shoring up position in SNP - although she seems pretty secure to me.
Sturgeon knows she needs to stick to indyref2 plans in 2023 to avoid leakage to Alba.
She also knows the UK government will refuse indyref2 anyway (unless and until we get a Labour minority government needing SNP support) so it is a no risk strategy from her point of view given she has ruled out UDI.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Won't come as any surprise but La Sturgeon is at it again. IndyRef in '23 apparently. Ho ho. My feeling is that Scots are pretty scunnered with Covid, Brexit, etc, and not really up for this. Misstep? Or more aimed at shoring up position in SNP - although she seems pretty secure to me.
Pretty simple this one. Scotland in total control of Scotland is the heart of everything the SNP stand for. And there are council elections this May. So restate your purpose and get rebuffed by the Tories who are your big opponents in some places. Easy win for no real pain - the people who think the government should forget about indyref2 aren't voting SNP anyway.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
It is embarrassing, partygate is paralysing Boris and HMG and this report is desperately needed now ...
The report is not needed. We know the rules were broken. We have pictures, statements, etc. Those at the top, including the PM, should be falling on their political swords by now.
The report is a classic Boris tactic. Buy some time, something may turn up. The report has already bought him several extra weeks whilst we all sit around like lemons and think the report will resolve this...
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
Sky News have picked up the Mail's leader that Downing St police have given "extremely damning" evidence to Sue Gray.
Well I'm happy if that's true but how the blazers does anyone know this? How would that have leaked? Serious question.
Indeed. As has been noted as well a lot of the comments about what Grays findings may be are either made up expectations management or implicit accusation she is corrupt and leaking details.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
"there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required"
You are wrong about that.
Despite being asked repeatedly @Chris refused to say what he would do in the then situation. We made him Prime Minister and King of the World and still answer/plan came there none. .
I thought he was repeatedly saying we needed to do "whatever it takes" and that the Government wasn't doing so?
From my recollection he wouldn't define "whatever it takes" other than it being more than what was already in place. He certainly wasn't giving the impression we'd already done "whatever it takes".
That is true. We could only guess about the details of "whatever it takes" as he did indeed refuse to spell it out for us.
But as we, by his acute assessment, are morons and idiots then perhaps he felt it beneath him so to explain.
Won't come as any surprise but La Sturgeon is at it again. IndyRef in '23 apparently. Ho ho. My feeling is that Scots are pretty scunnered with Covid, Brexit, etc, and not really up for this. Misstep? Or more aimed at shoring up position in SNP - although she seems pretty secure to me.
Won't come as any surprise but La Sturgeon is at it again. IndyRef in '23 apparently. Ho ho. My feeling is that Scots are pretty scunnered with Covid, Brexit, etc, and not really up for this. Misstep? Or more aimed at shoring up position in SNP - although she seems pretty secure to me.
Sky News have picked up the Mail's leader that Downing St police have given "extremely damning" evidence to Sue Gray.
Well I'm happy if that's true but how the blazers does anyone know this? How would that have leaked? Serious question.
The rozzers themselves?
Of course the rozzers themselves. (a) they're culturally wired to leak juicy stuff to the press (b) they're under the cosh because Dick (c) its entirely possible Downing Street dibble have long been disgusted by the stuff they have stood there silently watching.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
Oh really? Who did we lag on boosters and when?
If we were bloody awful on those, who was better in your eyes?
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
We could have done it faster. It wasn't perfect. But how much faster would have been sensible? Too much faster and you end up boosting people who already retain a signficant level of immunity from the first two doses.
Sky News have picked up the Mail's leader that Downing St police have given "extremely damning" evidence to Sue Gray.
Well I'm happy if that's true but how the blazers does anyone know this? How would that have leaked? Serious question.
The rozzers themselves?
Getting themselves off the hook ...... can a junior (assumed) member of staff really lug a heavy suitcase into either No's 10 or 11 without the duty copper asking something like 'what's all this 'ere, then?'
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
German exports and energy dependency
If the EU wants to placate Russia, a policy so reckless it barely bears thinking about, then why are the EU foreign ministers condemning that country's aggression? why are they supporting Ukraine's self determination?
It is embarrassing, partygate is paralysing Boris and HMG and this report is desperately needed now ...
The report is not needed. We know the rules were broken. We have pictures, statements, etc. Those at the top, including the PM, should be falling on their political swords by now.
The report is a classic Boris tactic. Buy some time, something may turn up. The report has already bought him several extra weeks whilst we all sit around like lemons and think the report will resolve this...
It is conservative mps who hold the key and acting after Sue Gray's report is the correct process
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
We could have done it faster. It wasn't perfect. But how much faster would have been sensible? Too much faster and you end up boosting people who already retain a signficant level of immunity from the first two doses.
Yes, we did do well. But how much of that 'well' was because everything was being done through the NHS.
Won't come as any surprise but La Sturgeon is at it again. IndyRef in '23 apparently. Ho ho. My feeling is that Scots are pretty scunnered with Covid, Brexit, etc, and not really up for this. Misstep? Or more aimed at shoring up position in SNP - although she seems pretty secure to me.
Pretty simple this one. Scotland in total control of Scotland is the heart of everything the SNP stand for. And there are council elections this May. So restate your purpose and get rebuffed by the Tories who are your big opponents in some places. Easy win for no real pain - the people who think the government should forget about indyref2 aren't voting SNP anyway.
I think you're right. The SNP are rightly (from their POV) wanting the constitution to be well up there so as to stymie a SLAB revival. "Standing up for Scotland" will always resonate with their core support who they need to turn out in May. They have definite problems in SNP-run Glasgow (turned into a rat-infested midden according to press reports) and will be worried about Labour making progress there. Control of Glasgow is hugely symbolic and home territory of both Nicola and Anas Sarwar.
Sky News have picked up the Mail's leader that Downing St police have given "extremely damning" evidence to Sue Gray.
Well I'm happy if that's true but how the blazers does anyone know this? How would that have leaked? Serious question.
The rozzers themselves?
Getting themselves off the hook ...... can a junior (assumed) member of staff really lug a heavy suitcase into either No's 10 or 11 without the duty copper asking something like 'what's all this 'ere, then?'
Not so sure. Those black leather ER briefcases are about as heavy filled with files as they are filled with bottles. The key is to ensure no chinking.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
who was better in your eyes?
Israel. All the way and on every step.
UAE and Singapore too.
We were also piss-poor on child vaccinations but that's more of a debatable point i.e. whether you believe they should be jabbed.
Because a child is also a vector ('kill your granny') the measurement that matters is % vaccinated of the whole population. We've done not badly at all on that but still lagged on boosters and children.
Even now we should be pulling our finger out and preparing for 4th jabs.
Cookie's point doesn't hold up. If we'd 3rd jabbed three months sooner we could have avoided the recent Plan B and ridden out the storm
For all the "didn't he do well!" comments on BJ and vaccines / the boosters is there any evidence that he is this visionary leader of people who can cut through the noise and chaos and get straight to not only the solution but how we do so at record speed?
We know that Mancock was the cabinet minister banging the cabinet table for vaccines in the early days. So the vaccine programme as an idea can't be attributed to Boris, nor can the actual amazing work done in developing it. He *authorised* it. Having been badgered by his Health Secretary and the actual scientists. "Oh cripes, ok then" is more his style than "I HAVE A VISION" leadership.
Same with boosters. He pulled the trigger on a seemingly impossible December booster program and thanks to herculean work by medics and volunteers we just about got away with it.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
German exports and energy dependency
If the EU wants to placate Russia, a policy so reckless it barely bears thinking about, then why are the EU foreign ministers condemning that country's aggression? why are they supporting Ukraine's self determination?
They are the football club chairman, expressing full confidence in the manager after yet another defeat.
They’re going through the motions, because they know what they *should* be saying, even if their actions don’t match their words. Politicians, eh?
Entertaining and accurate lead - thank you Cyclefree. I especially enjoyed "rewilding of personal behaviour" - a lovely phrase.
Replying to The Valiant last thread - IIRC Alastair Meeks got fed up with being harassed over his pro-EU views. It'd be great if he could be encouraged back, as his excellent pieces are I think only reaching a small audience,
Replying to MoonRabbit - VONCs that fail are possible, simply because MPs are - how shall we put it - not always reliable in their assertions of what they will do in a secret ballot.
In reply to Nick Palmer - first thanks for the reply. But it became clear about a week and a half ago there wasn’t going to be a VONC because not enough of the people who matter regard Boris leadership and his project as failed yet, and they still think he can recover and retain his majority at GE, and they regard this as largely media storm provoked by bitter former employee.
There’s a problem with PB, perhaps because a lot of partial voices influence the herd, but it struggles to quickly accept the truth sometimes, hence MoonRabbit has been doing much of the blogs heavy lifting so far this year - first when it was totally quiet pointing out it’s about to kick off as they are still going to try for a putsch in new year, and then not just pointing out that it has failed, but the reason why.
Won't come as any surprise but La Sturgeon is at it again. IndyRef in '23 apparently. Ho ho. My feeling is that Scots are pretty scunnered with Covid, Brexit, etc, and not really up for this. Misstep? Or more aimed at shoring up position in SNP - although she seems pretty secure to me.
Sturgeon knows she needs to stick to indyref2 plans in 2023 to avoid leakage to Alba.
She also knows the UK government will refuse indyref2 anyway (unless and until we get a Labour minority government needing SNP support) so it is a no risk strategy from her point of view given she has ruled out UDI.
The other thing she knows is that 2023 is too near GE 24 for something as complex as this, and refusing it will in her thought as she hopes it will increase support for it post GE24
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
National efforts need leadership. In this case, bringing together many different groups to do different things, from the NHS to procurement. From advertising to logistics.
That went well with boosters IMO.
Think of it this way: if you see fighting Covid as a national effort, and that credit for any successes do not belong with the government, then surely any failures should also not belong to them? Or are failures always their fault, but successes are not?
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
Oh really? Who did we lag on boosters and when?
If we were bloody awful on those, who was better in your eyes?
By the way, you've been under Boris' spell too long. That's a very selective chart you've posted. Redraw the map to fully vaccinated and you'll see the UK has done alright. Not too bad. But certainly outstripped by other faster-moving and more with it countries.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
who was better in your eyes?
Israel. All the way and on every step.
UAE and Singapore too.
We were also piss-poor on child vaccinations but that's more of a debatable point i.e. whether you believe they should be jabbed.
Because a child is also a vector ('kill your granny') the measurement that matters is % vaccinated of the whole population. We've done not badly at all on that but still lagged on boosters and children.
Even now we should be pulling our finger out and preparing for 4th jabs.
Cookie's point doesn't hold up. If we'd 3rd jabbed three months sooner we could have avoided the recent Plan B and ridden out the storm
I am not sure this amounts to the damning criticism you seem to think it does.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
Spot on. The government, in its hour of need, is trying to spin it that we have had a world-beating Covid crisis, and is getting some support on this, both here and in the press.
But the sad reality is that it's been a mixed bag, with a poor record on deaths, and a very poor record on the huge amount of money wasted (test and trace, dodgy contracts, fraud with loans and furlough) through ineffective targeting. Good on vaccines, though.
We also, even now, need a PM who is much more on the ball and in control of the facts. Covid isn't over yet and we need to be very sharp for further waves and variants.
Dropping masks is utterly ridiculous. But I shall bow out here because debating that with ultra libertarians on the far right who believe in freedom at all costs even if it kills the vulnerable is a lost cause.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
The reason it dropped is fairly evident in the data such as the following - rates are highest in the younger groups. Who are unvaccinated/less likely to be fully vaccinated.
The boosters massively reduced the infectiousness, the risk of hospitalisation and of serious medical consequences in general.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
It terrifies me that the same 'who cares - let it rip just because we might possibly be right' philosophy might prevail when the next virus comes along.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
National efforts need leadership. In this case, bringing together many different groups to do different things, from the NHS to procurement. From advertising to logistics.
That went well with boosters IMO.
Think of it this way: if you see fighting Covid as a national effort, and that credit for any successes do not belong with the government, then surely any failures should also not belong to them? Or are failures always their fault, but successes are not?
Yes. Of course individual politicians and parties will try to claim too much, but they cannot escape at least some credit.
Naturally they do seek to avoid any blame, but we can be fair and acknowledge credit and blame.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Sky News have picked up the Mail's leader that Downing St police have given "extremely damning" evidence to Sue Gray.
Well I'm happy if that's true but how the blazers does anyone know this? How would that have leaked? Serious question.
The rozzers themselves?
Getting themselves off the hook ...... can a junior (assumed) member of staff really lug a heavy suitcase into either No's 10 or 11 without the duty copper asking something like 'what's all this 'ere, then?'
Yes, this has been repeatedly confirmed. If you have a pass your bags are not checked
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
We could have done it faster. It wasn't perfect. But how much faster would have been sensible? Too much faster and you end up boosting people who already retain a signficant level of immunity from the first two doses.
Yes, we did do well. But how much of that 'well' was because everything was being done through the NHS.
"When it goes well, praise the NHS. When it goes badly, blame the government".
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
who was better in your eyes?
Israel. All the way and on every step.
UAE and Singapore too.
We were also piss-poor on child vaccinations but that's more of a debatable point i.e. whether you believe they should be jabbed.
Because a child is also a vector ('kill your granny') the measurement that matters is % vaccinated of the whole population. We've done not badly at all on that but still lagged on boosters and children.
Even now we should be pulling our finger out and preparing for 4th jabs.
Cookie's point doesn't hold up. If we'd 3rd jabbed three months sooner we could have avoided the recent Plan B and ridden out the storm
So three fairly small nations then? Child vaccination is almost exclusively the fault of the JCVI who very clearly have members who think that we should vaccinate other nations adults first. There is a decent logic to that if you think that covid poses no threat to your kids and when doses are limited. I think there is enough evidence to suggest that the former is no longer tenable - the benefits to children of vaccination, when taken in the round of avoiding school closures etc, and the perils of passing covid on to more viulnerable people, outweigh the risks (which are minimal, but not zero, of the vaccination. For the second, we have ample doses.
There is also a question of the most appropriate time to boost. nAB's do wane, and you probably want the highest protection at the time of most risk, so the winter months. Timing is crucial. Its why the flu vaccination program runs in the autumn, and why annual covid boosters will too. And the reason for a delay in boosting? Oh yes, it was our old friends the JCVI AGAIN.
Semi serious question. Is it still hurting the Union if 4 in 5 English also agree that he should resign? Seems to me there might be a meeting of minds on this particular issue across the border quite soon.
Depends on how much self reflection is involved. Scots voters will with some justification tell themselves that they’ve had a total **** inflicted on them by English voters. Will English voters take any modicum of blame for said total **** being where he is?
This is a key point for me.
There's a certain element "I hate to say we told you so, but we told you so" about this. One of the the things that would gladden the unionist part of my heart would be some kind of sign that English politics had somehow learned a lesson. But no, alongside the "everyone thinks Boris should go" is fully one in three people saying they will vote Conservative. As in "if there were an election tomorrow..."
I humbly suggest that anyone who says Boris must go, but states Conservative would be who they would vote for with Boris in charge, need not be taken at their word.
It's an age-old canard of unionism that surveys on issues show a meeting of minds between England and Scotland. It's a tempting argument, but it raises the question of why Scotland and England constantly vote in quite different ways. And the lack of engagement with that question from the unionist side quickens the nationalist part of my heart.
If you vote for the SNP at Westminster (which only stands in 59 out of 650 constituencies), then it's by default impossible for you to get the government you want.
How many GEs is it now that if Scotland had voted Lab in every single Westminster seat we would still not have got the government we wanted?
I think Labour could have done well enough in 2015 to get a hung parliament if they'd retained their Scottish seats and Cameron wasn't able to use the 'Ed Miliband will be in Alex Salmond's pocket' attack line. Also considering SCONS rise in fortunes was a response to the SNP's dominance, they probably wouldn't have won thirteen seats in 2017. Take about ten of those away and add another 30 or Scottish seats onto what Corbyn won back then and he could have probably formed a minority government.
Lotta coulda probly there.
As the VIth form Biology master at my old school used to say in such circumstances 'If your aunt had balls, she'd be your uncle!'
I was tempted by a cheap trans issues line there, but resisted rather than open up that whole wearying debate you'll be glad to hear.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Actually I did rightly predict that the growth rate would drop - because ultimately the virus runs out of people to infect. I kept ridiculing you and the other histrionics by comparing your arguments to that of Buzz Lightyear having infections exponentially growing "to infinity and beyond".
Considering we'd already had our exit wave in the summer when we'd left restrictions, and had double-vaccinated everyone who wanted it, and had boosters, even with some reinfections with Omicron the Paper Tiger there were only so many people who could be reinfected before the virus would start to run out of people.
Everything was fine and I was right and you were wrong. That's not a reckless gamble though, imposing restrictions when the case for it hasn't been proven beyond all reasonable doubt is reckless. The burden of proof lies with those want to strip others of their civil liberties, not the other way around.
Won't come as any surprise but La Sturgeon is at it again. IndyRef in '23 apparently. Ho ho. My feeling is that Scots are pretty scunnered with Covid, Brexit, etc, and not really up for this. Misstep? Or more aimed at shoring up position in SNP - although she seems pretty secure to me.
Pretty simple this one. Scotland in total control of Scotland is the heart of everything the SNP stand for. And there are council elections this May. So restate your purpose and get rebuffed by the Tories who are your big opponents in some places. Easy win for no real pain - the people who think the government should forget about indyref2 aren't voting SNP anyway.
I think you're right. The SNP are rightly (from their POV) wanting the constitution to be well up there so as to stymie a SLAB revival. "Standing up for Scotland" will always resonate with their core support who they need to turn out in May. They have definite problems in SNP-run Glasgow (turned into a rat-infested midden according to press reports) and will be worried about Labour making progress there. Control of Glasgow is hugely symbolic and home territory of both Nicola and Anas Sarwar.
I think SNP will undershoot expectations at the local elections (they will not get more than 35-38% tops) and we will see surprisingly little seats change overall between SNP, Con and Lab. I would also expect the Greens to do unambiguously well
Labour largest party in Glasgow is quite possible (and would be a boost to Sarwar) but SLab shouldn't read too much beyond that given local issues.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
who was better in your eyes?
Israel. All the way and on every step.
UAE and Singapore too.
We were also piss-poor on child vaccinations but that's more of a debatable point i.e. whether you believe they should be jabbed.
Because a child is also a vector ('kill your granny') the measurement that matters is % vaccinated of the whole population. We've done not badly at all on that but still lagged on boosters and children.
Even now we should be pulling our finger out and preparing for 4th jabs.
Cookie's point doesn't hold up. If we'd 3rd jabbed three months sooner we could have avoided the recent Plan B and ridden out the storm
I’m in UAE. We are still wearing masks outside the house, restaurants are not at full capacity, large events have vaccine passports, as do malls and restaurants in some areas. There are internal borders checking tests and vaccinations, some schools are still running on Teams and Zoom.
England is up there with Florida and Texas, at being the first places actually getting rid of the vast majority of the pandemic restrictions, and accepting that the virus is now endemic.
Sky News have picked up the Mail's leader that Downing St police have given "extremely damning" evidence to Sue Gray.
Well I'm happy if that's true but how the blazers does anyone know this? How would that have leaked? Serious question.
The rozzers themselves?
Of course the rozzers themselves. (a) they're culturally wired to leak juicy stuff to the press (b) they're under the cosh because Dick (c) its entirely possible Downing Street dibble have long been disgusted by the stuff they have stood there silently watching.
It will be interesting if it emerges that they expressed concerns and were told by their "higher ups" to ignore it.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
“ Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you? “
What a rubbish debater putting hypothetical words in other peoples mouths to defect from your own short Cummings. 🙂
What’s gone right is in no small part to the British people, presenting their arms for the jabs and complying with the measures that produced good outcomes.
Tories trying to call it overall a success and claim credit for that will not sit well with the British electorate I assure you.
Entertaining and accurate lead - thank you Cyclefree. I especially enjoyed "rewilding of personal behaviour" - a lovely phrase.
Replying to The Valiant last thread - IIRC Alastair Meeks got fed up with being harassed over his pro-EU views. It'd be great if he could be encouraged back, as his excellent pieces are I think only reaching a small audience,
Replying to MoonRabbit - VONCs that fail are possible, simply because MPs are - how shall we put it - not always reliable in their assertions of what they will do in a secret ballot.
In reply to Nick Palmer - first thanks for the reply. But it became clear about a week and a half ago there wasn’t going to be a VONC because not enough of the people who matter regard Boris leadership and his project as failed yet, and they still think he can recover and retain his majority at GE, and they regard this as largely media storm provoked by bitter former employee.
There’s a problem with PB, perhaps because a lot of partial voices influence the herd, but it struggles to quickly accept the truth sometimes, hence MoonRabbit has been doing much of the blogs heavy lifting so far this year - first when it was totally quiet pointing out it’s about to kick off as they are still going to try for a putsch in new year, and then not just pointing out that it has failed, but the reason why.
How confident can we be that the storm has passed, and that this is not its eye?
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Boris absolutely should go. He's still the second-greatest PM of my lifetime even though he should go, I'm not calling for him to go and bring back prior failures like Brown or Major.
We also, even now, need a PM who is much more on the ball and in control of the facts. Covid isn't over yet and we need to be very sharp for further waves and variants.
Dropping masks is utterly ridiculous. But I shall bow out here because debating that with ultra libertarians on the far right who believe in freedom at all costs even if it kills the vulnerable is a lost cause.
I hope you don't include me as an 'ultra libertarian on the far right'? Have you thought back on your predictions of doom back in the autumn at all?
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
Even the Rector of Stiffkey found a showbiz niche after his disgrace
Perhaps a showbizzy Swimming With Orcas thing could be arranged. BJ has something of the look of an overfed albino seal..
On checking the rev's bio I see he spent a year as a naval chaplain in Shetland during WWI so may have rubbed shoulders with my great grandad. I'm sure as a good Lewisman my gg would have deplored such CoE decadence.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
We could have done it faster. It wasn't perfect. But how much faster would have been sensible? Too much faster and you end up boosting people who already retain a signficant level of immunity from the first two doses.
Yes, we did do well. But how much of that 'well' was because everything was being done through the NHS.
"When it goes well, praise the NHS. When it goes badly, blame the government".
The NHS is the only bureaucracy in the whole world that an entire population has been convinced and conditioned to think is completely unquestionable in its virtue.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Boris absolutely should go. He's still the second-greatest PM of my lifetime even though he should go, I'm not calling for him to go and bring back prior failures like Brown or Major.
Hang on, so you think he is great, but he should resign? Why should he resign exactly? Particularly if he is "great"? Go on, tell us, I need a good laugh at the moment.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
Yes, it does make it harder. It feels like a corner has been turned (not least by shocking turnarounds for Tories in Midlands etc, albeit most often thats sub samples) by which some of his former strengths - irreverence etc - are now hurting him.
He doesn't have a cohesive ideology, so once personal appeal goes someone else is no worse. But he has surprised often.
My Boris fan relative is still all for him.
- “… shocking turnarounds for Tories in Midlands etc, albeit most often that’s sub samples.”
*Always* sub samples I’m afraid.
Unless you count the JL Partners/ Channel 4 News poll last week? (Poll of forty-five seats the Conservative Party gained from the Labour Party across northern England, the Midlands and Wales.)
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
Oh really? Who did we lag on boosters and when?
If we were bloody awful on those, who was better in your eyes?
By the way, you've been under Boris' spell too long. That's a very selective chart you've posted. Redraw the map to fully vaccinated and you'll see the UK has done alright. Not too bad. But certainly outstripped by other faster-moving and more with it countries.
That's a classic argument made by the zero Covid crowd that's been regularly debunked on here.
You're right that we're not the best in terms of proportion of 12+ population who have had two jabs, but the highest rates of vaccination are in the older and most vulnerable members of the population unlike many other European countries.
Getting the older groups and vulnerable members of the population vaccinated has a higher added value than giving two jabs to a group of healthy 20 year olds, although both are beneficial.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
It terrifies me that the same 'who cares - let it rip just because we might possibly be right' philosophy might prevail when the next virus comes along.
I think there is zero danger of that being the attitude in the early stage of any new pandemic. Lessons of the most recent war will be applied. And our experience of COVID-19 of Spring 2020 will be what is foremost in mind for a new pandemic, not the omicron wave. Clearly, the let it rip approach was not the right approach for the first wave of COVID.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Boris absolutely should go. He's still the second-greatest PM of my lifetime even though he should go, I'm not calling for him to go and bring back prior failures like Brown or Major.
Hang on, so you think he is great, but he should resign? Why should he resign exactly? Particularly if he is "great"? Go on, tell us, I need a good laugh at the moment.
Yes.
He should resign because lawmakers can't be lawbreakers.
Even though he's got the big calls right, the fact that he broke his own laws is terminal and he has to go. That point of principle is absolute and no matter how many credits are on his ledger he has to go.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘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.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
German exports and energy dependency
If the EU wants to placate Russia, a policy so reckless it barely bears thinking about, then why are the EU foreign ministers condemning that country's aggression? why are they supporting Ukraine's self determination?
They are the football club chairman, expressing full confidence in the manager after yet another defeat.
They’re going through the motions, because they know what they *should* be saying, even if their actions don’t match their words. Politicians, eh?
I do get that impression too. The EU overall, doesn't really care. Some member states are probably very worried (Baltic states and Poland), whilst others simply don't want to do anything (Germany.... probably France). However, it isn't done to be seen to SAY nothing, so they'll say something but do nothing.
I recall TSE saying he thought the UK should leave the EU after some of the eastern European states leave. I always thought they might leave because they didn't like the look of democracy (or be thrown out). Imagine if they leave because of the EUs response (or lack thereof) to a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
But you are cherry picking!
Any fool could do likewise either for or against. I'm trying to take a broad, balanced perspective, but I see I am wasting my time with you.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
who was better in your eyes?
Israel. All the way and on every step.
UAE and Singapore too.
We were also piss-poor on child vaccinations but that's more of a debatable point i.e. whether you believe they should be jabbed.
Because a child is also a vector ('kill your granny') the measurement that matters is % vaccinated of the whole population. We've done not badly at all on that but still lagged on boosters and children.
Even now we should be pulling our finger out and preparing for 4th jabs.
Cookie's point doesn't hold up. If we'd 3rd jabbed three months sooner we could have avoided the recent Plan B and ridden out the storm
So three fairly small nations then? Child vaccination is almost exclusively the fault of the JCVI who very clearly have members who think that we should vaccinate other nations adults first. There is a decent logic to that if you think that covid poses no threat to your kids and when doses are limited. I think there is enough evidence to suggest that the former is no longer tenable - the benefits to children of vaccination, when taken in the round of avoiding school closures etc, and the perils of passing covid on to more viulnerable people, outweigh the risks (which are minimal, but not zero, of the vaccination. For the second, we have ample doses.
There is also a question of the most appropriate time to boost. nAB's do wane, and you probably want the highest protection at the time of most risk, so the winter months. Timing is crucial. Its why the flu vaccination program runs in the autumn, and why annual covid boosters will too. And the reason for a delay in boosting? Oh yes, it was our old friends the JCVI AGAIN.
In fairness, there were at least 2 good reasons for a delay in boosting. Firstly, there was the real risk that the next variant would have found a way around the existing vaccines so that the public needed to be boosted with something different. Secondly, the tail off in effectiveness after vaccine 2 is quite slow and it made sense to get a benefit from that before starting again by, for example, working harder on those not vaccinated at all.
There is quite a long list of things that could have been done better. I am personally not convinced that the timing of the booster campaign is on it.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Boris absolutely should go. He's still the second-greatest PM of my lifetime even though he should go, I'm not calling for him to go and bring back prior failures like Brown or Major.
Hang on, so you think he is great, but he should resign? Why should he resign exactly? Particularly if he is "great"? Go on, tell us, I need a good laugh at the moment.
Yes.
He should resign because lawmakers can't be lawbreakers.
Even though he's got the big calls right, the fact that he broke his own laws is terminal and he has to go. That point of principle is absolute and no matter how many credits are on his ledger he has to go.
But you think it was OK to have someone who was clearly unfit for office in our most important position in the land just because he claimed (and was almost certainly lying) that he believed in Brexit?
Ask Me Anything on Sue Gray, parties, trolleys... And expect the parties story to roll on AFTER SG report cos photos etc will not be given to the Cabinet Office. MPs must scrap the 🛒 if they want the nightmare to end...
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
Israel and UAE have done a very good job of virus management, as has New Zealand.
The difficult bit is the transition to the endemic phase, and accepting that there’s a trade-off between imposing restrictions, keeping the health system from being overwhelmed, and the maintainance of economic activity.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
Oh really? Who did we lag on boosters and when?
If we were bloody awful on those, who was better in your eyes?
By the way, you've been under Boris' spell too long. That's a very selective chart you've posted. Redraw the map to fully vaccinated and you'll see the UK has done alright. Not too bad. But certainly outstripped by other faster-moving and more with it countries.
That's a classic argument made by the zero Covid crowd that's been regularly debunked on here.
You're right that were not the best in terms of proportion of 12+ population who have had two jabs, but the highest rates of vaccination are in the older and most vulnerable members of the population unlike many other European countries.
Getting the older groups and vulnerable members of the population vaccinated has a higher added value than giving two jabs to a group of healthy 20 year olds, although both are beneficial.
Indeed. "Fully vaccinated" really should mean 3 doses anyway which the UK is leading on in major nations anyway.
But France has more "fully vaccinated" than the UK if you define as no doubt Heathener is for their agenda fully vaccinated as 2, not 3, doses for some twisted reason. But age stratification charts show that France's vaccine rollout is much worse than Britain's.
Yes needing to show your vaccine passport to go to a nightclub might convince more 18 year olds to get jabbed, but the age stratification charts show that there is a much greater unvaccinated and unboosted elderly population in France and that matters much, much more.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
We have had a mix of successes and also terrible terrible failures during the pandemic. You only want to focus on the ones that suit your narrative that the UK is exceptional even though you are in no position to judge. Rose tinted indeed.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
One of few things about which Donald Trump was correct. US and UK aside, and possibly France, the NATO and EU countries need to pull their weight militarily.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Boris absolutely should go. He's still the second-greatest PM of my lifetime even though he should go, I'm not calling for him to go and bring back prior failures like Brown or Major.
Hang on, so you think he is great, but he should resign? Why should he resign exactly? Particularly if he is "great"? Go on, tell us, I need a good laugh at the moment.
Yes.
He should resign because lawmakers can't be lawbreakers.
Even though he's got the big calls right, the fact that he broke his own laws is terminal and he has to go. That point of principle is absolute and no matter how many credits are on his ledger he has to go.
And that single point demolishes all of the things you say sit as a credit on his account. Its like being a fantastic employee hitting every KPI in sight until you punch out the boss in the office after drinking 5 pints with a client over lunch.
The credits, the sterling appraisals all go in the bin as you get immediately dismissed for gross misconduct.
Even if you consider Brexit, Vaccines and general policy to have been excellent its no defence against breaking the law, lying to parliament, breaking the ministerial code. Repeatedly.
Our politics either stands for something or it doesn't.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Germany was neutered by the 4 occupying powers (Soviet empire, British empire, French empire and American empire).
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
who was better in your eyes?
Israel. All the way and on every step.
UAE and Singapore too.
We were also piss-poor on child vaccinations but that's more of a debatable point i.e. whether you believe they should be jabbed.
Because a child is also a vector ('kill your granny') the measurement that matters is % vaccinated of the whole population. We've done not badly at all on that but still lagged on boosters and children.
Even now we should be pulling our finger out and preparing for 4th jabs.
Cookie's point doesn't hold up. If we'd 3rd jabbed three months sooner we could have avoided the recent Plan B and ridden out the storm
So three fairly small nations then? Child vaccination is almost exclusively the fault of the JCVI who very clearly have members who think that we should vaccinate other nations adults first. There is a decent logic to that if you think that covid poses no threat to your kids and when doses are limited. I think there is enough evidence to suggest that the former is no longer tenable - the benefits to children of vaccination, when taken in the round of avoiding school closures etc, and the perils of passing covid on to more viulnerable people, outweigh the risks (which are minimal, but not zero, of the vaccination. For the second, we have ample doses.
There is also a question of the most appropriate time to boost. nAB's do wane, and you probably want the highest protection at the time of most risk, so the winter months. Timing is crucial. Its why the flu vaccination program runs in the autumn, and why annual covid boosters will too. And the reason for a delay in boosting? Oh yes, it was our old friends the JCVI AGAIN.
In fairness, there were at least 2 good reasons for a delay in boosting. Firstly, there was the real risk that the next variant would have found a way around the existing vaccines so that the public needed to be boosted with something different. Secondly, the tail off in effectiveness after vaccine 2 is quite slow and it made sense to get a benefit from that before starting again by, for example, working harder on those not vaccinated at all.
There is quite a long list of things that could have been done better. I am personally not convinced that the timing of the booster campaign is on it.
On the child vaccinations. Despite all the data from countries that had vaccinated children and the trials etc. JCVI blocked them. In part by claiming that the number of children who were likely to end up catching COVID was a ludicrously low number.
If you put a sensible number into the risk/reward models, the evidence was clearly in favour of child vaccination. And is....
Entertaining and accurate lead - thank you Cyclefree. I especially enjoyed "rewilding of personal behaviour" - a lovely phrase.
Replying to The Valiant last thread - IIRC Alastair Meeks got fed up with being harassed over his pro-EU views. It'd be great if he could be encouraged back, as his excellent pieces are I think only reaching a small audience,
Replying to MoonRabbit - VONCs that fail are possible, simply because MPs are - how shall we put it - not always reliable in their assertions of what they will do in a secret ballot.
In reply to Nick Palmer - first thanks for the reply. But it became clear about a week and a half ago there wasn’t going to be a VONC because not enough of the people who matter regard Boris leadership and his project as failed yet, and they still think he can recover and retain his majority at GE, and they regard this as largely media storm provoked by bitter former employee.
There’s a problem with PB, perhaps because a lot of partial voices influence the herd, but it struggles to quickly accept the truth sometimes, hence MoonRabbit has been doing much of the blogs heavy lifting so far this year - first when it was totally quiet pointing out it’s about to kick off as they are still going to try for a putsch in new year, and then not just pointing out that it has failed, but the reason why.
How confident can we be that the storm has passed, and that this is not its eye?
“ clear about a week and a half ago there wasn’t going to be a VONC because not enough of the people who matter regard Boris leadership and his project as failed yet, and they still think he can recover and retain his majority at GE, and they regard this as largely media storm provoked by bitter former employee.” They genuinely think, make no change, get couple of months largely favourable media narrative and Boris will have Conservatives back ahead in polls.
Confident enough to post that.
Lots of headlines generated right now from back benches, but only from a small group of rebels giving impression its larger to audience that wants to believe it’s larger. They are genuine angry rebels though, but in politics you only call votes you can win, you only vote with winning sides. Example, David Davis hasn’t put a letter in yet.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
So, the United States of Europe was another Leave lie?
Nope that was and still is the aim. The fact that they are fighting like rats in a sack over their own vested interests doesn't change the ultimate aim of the EU.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘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.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
One of few things about which Donald Trump was correct. US and UK aside, and possibly France, the NATO and EU countries need to pull their weight militarily.
The Poles have been seriously investing in their military in recent years but from a very poor starting point. Can't think why. 😉
Ask Me Anything on Sue Gray, parties, trolleys... And expect the parties story to roll on AFTER SG report cos photos etc will not be given to the Cabinet Office. MPs must scrap the 🛒 if they want the nightmare to end...
Overplaying his hand. First this pisses off MPs who don't want Dom telling them what to do secondly it creates a can kicking opportunity-ok I have heard Gray but I'll wait to see what dom comes up with before making a final judgement
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
But you are cherry picking!
Any fool could do likewise either for or against. I'm trying to take a broad, balanced perspective, but I see I am wasting my time with you.
Right this minute, which country would you prefer to be in Covid-wise (restrictions, level of infections/deaths, etc)?
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
One of few things about which Donald Trump was correct. US and UK aside, and possibly France, the NATO and EU countries need to pull their weight militarily.
One of my favourite Churcill quotes applies here (and also to the occasions when Johnson makes the right call): “The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
Nonsense - I live in Spain where they are only now offering boosters to those over 50! Most younger than that are 3-5 weeks away!
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
So, the United States of Europe was another Leave lie?
Nope that was and still is the aim. The fact that they are fighting like rats in a sack over their own vested interests doesn't change the ultimate aim of the EU.
Will they ever get to that ultimate aim, in your opinion?
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Boris absolutely should go. He's still the second-greatest PM of my lifetime even though he should go, I'm not calling for him to go and bring back prior failures like Brown or Major.
Hang on, so you think he is great, but he should resign? Why should he resign exactly? Particularly if he is "great"? Go on, tell us, I need a good laugh at the moment.
Yes.
He should resign because lawmakers can't be lawbreakers.
Even though he's got the big calls right, the fact that he broke his own laws is terminal and he has to go. That point of principle is absolute and no matter how many credits are on his ledger he has to go.
And that single point demolishes all of the things you say sit as a credit on his account. Its like being a fantastic employee hitting every KPI in sight until you punch out the boss in the office after drinking 5 pints with a client over lunch.
The credits, the sterling appraisals all go in the bin as you get immediately dismissed for gross misconduct.
Even if you consider Brexit, Vaccines and general policy to have been excellent its no defence against breaking the law, lying to parliament, breaking the ministerial code. Repeatedly.
Our politics either stands for something or it doesn't.
Comments
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
Memories of “Plebgate” ,nearly a decade ago now, when the police kept lying about what was said, unaware of there being a recording of the conversation.
Idk, I totally buy Russia's position that Ukraine is a threat to it and that the might Russian army will steamroller them (paraphrase).
From my recollection he wouldn't define "whatever it takes" other than it being more than what was already in place. He certainly wasn't giving the impression we'd already done "whatever it takes".
She also knows the UK government will refuse indyref2 anyway (unless and until we get a Labour minority government needing SNP support) so it is a no risk strategy from her point of view given she has ruled out UDI.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_191040.htm
Putin has Germany by the goolies, since Mrs Merkel decided to close the nuclear power stations and make themselves utterly dependent on imported gas.
The report is not needed. We know the rules were broken. We have pictures, statements, etc. Those at the top, including the PM, should be falling on their political swords by now.
The report is a classic Boris tactic. Buy some time, something may turn up. The report has already bought him several extra weeks whilst we all sit around like lemons and think the report will resolve this...
Yep the new NI increase is a problem, but its designed to fix a different problem (the need for money) and you haven't an answer on what to cut.
But as we, by his acute assessment, are morons and idiots then perhaps he felt it beneath him so to explain.
If we were bloody awful on those, who was better in your eyes?
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
We could have done it faster. It wasn't perfect. But how much faster would have been sensible? Too much faster and you end up boosting people who already retain a signficant level of immunity from the first two doses.
UAE and Singapore too.
We were also piss-poor on child vaccinations but that's more of a debatable point i.e. whether you believe they should be jabbed.
Because a child is also a vector ('kill your granny') the measurement that matters is % vaccinated of the whole population. We've done not badly at all on that but still lagged on boosters and children.
Even now we should be pulling our finger out and preparing for 4th jabs.
Cookie's point doesn't hold up. If we'd 3rd jabbed three months sooner we could have avoided the recent Plan B and ridden out the storm
We know that Mancock was the cabinet minister banging the cabinet table for vaccines in the early days. So the vaccine programme as an idea can't be attributed to Boris, nor can the actual amazing work done in developing it. He *authorised* it. Having been badgered by his Health Secretary and the actual scientists. "Oh cripes, ok then" is more his style than "I HAVE A VISION" leadership.
Same with boosters. He pulled the trigger on a seemingly impossible December booster program and thanks to herculean work by medics and volunteers we just about got away with it.
They’re going through the motions, because they know what they *should* be saying, even if their actions don’t match their words. Politicians, eh?
There’s a problem with PB, perhaps because a lot of partial voices influence the herd, but it struggles to quickly accept the truth sometimes, hence MoonRabbit has been doing much of the blogs heavy lifting so far this year - first when it was totally quiet pointing out it’s about to kick off as they are still going to try for a putsch in new year, and then not just pointing out that it has failed, but the reason why.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
That went well with boosters IMO.
Think of it this way: if you see fighting Covid as a national effort, and that credit for any successes do not belong with the government, then surely any failures should also not belong to them? Or are failures always their fault, but successes are not?
totally mixed messages.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
But the sad reality is that it's been a mixed bag, with a poor record on deaths, and a very poor record on the huge amount of money wasted (test and trace, dodgy contracts, fraud with loans and furlough) through ineffective targeting. Good on vaccines, though.
Dropping masks is utterly ridiculous. But I shall bow out here because debating that with ultra libertarians on the far right who believe in freedom at all costs even if it kills the vulnerable is a lost cause.
The boosters massively reduced the infectiousness, the risk of hospitalisation and of serious medical consequences in general.
See https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/01/unvaccinated-5x-more-likely-to-get-omicron-than-those-boosted-cdc-reports/
Naturally they do seek to avoid any blame, but we can be fair and acknowledge credit and blame.
For the second, we have ample doses.
There is also a question of the most appropriate time to boost. nAB's do wane, and you probably want the highest protection at the time of most risk, so the winter months. Timing is crucial. Its why the flu vaccination program runs in the autumn, and why annual covid boosters will too. And the reason for a delay in boosting? Oh yes, it was our old friends the JCVI AGAIN.
Considering we'd already had our exit wave in the summer when we'd left restrictions, and had double-vaccinated everyone who wanted it, and had boosters, even with some reinfections with Omicron the Paper Tiger there were only so many people who could be reinfected before the virus would start to run out of people.
Everything was fine and I was right and you were wrong. That's not a reckless gamble though, imposing restrictions when the case for it hasn't been proven beyond all reasonable doubt is reckless. The burden of proof lies with those want to strip others of their civil liberties, not the other way around.
Labour largest party in Glasgow is quite possible (and would be a boost to Sarwar) but SLab shouldn't read too much beyond that given local issues.
https://twitter.com/iainjwatson/status/1485594923273535491
https://twitter.com/dominic2306/status/1485592208657063938
England is up there with Florida and Texas, at being the first places actually getting rid of the vast majority of the pandemic restrictions, and accepting that the virus is now endemic.
What a rubbish debater putting hypothetical words in other peoples mouths to defect from your own short Cummings. 🙂
What’s gone right is in no small part to the British people, presenting their arms for the jabs and complying with the measures that produced good outcomes.
Tories trying to call it overall a success and claim credit for that will not sit well with the British electorate I assure you.
Boris absolutely should go. He's still the second-greatest PM of my lifetime even though he should go, I'm not calling for him to go and bring back prior failures like Brown or Major.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
*Always* sub samples I’m afraid.
Unless you count the JL Partners/ Channel 4 News poll last week? (Poll of forty-five seats the Conservative Party gained from the Labour Party across northern England, the Midlands and Wales.)
Lab 48%
Con 37%
LD 8%
oth 7%
You're right that we're not the best in terms of proportion of 12+ population who have had two jabs, but the highest rates of vaccination are in the older and most vulnerable members of the population unlike many other European countries.
Getting the older groups and vulnerable members of the population vaccinated has a higher added value than giving two jabs to a group of healthy 20 year olds, although both are beneficial.
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
He should resign because lawmakers can't be lawbreakers.
Even though he's got the big calls right, the fact that he broke his own laws is terminal and he has to go. That point of principle is absolute and no matter how many credits are on his ledger he has to go.
Huh?
‘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.
https://www.scotsman.com/health/coronavirus/nicola-sturgeon-backed-by-majority-of-scots-over-christmas-covid-rules-in-poll-3535948
The EU overall, doesn't really care. Some member states are probably very worried (Baltic states and Poland), whilst others simply don't want to do anything (Germany.... probably France). However, it isn't done to be seen to SAY nothing, so they'll say something but do nothing.
I recall TSE saying he thought the UK should leave the EU after some of the eastern European states leave. I always thought they might leave because they didn't like the look of democracy (or be thrown out). Imagine if they leave because of the EUs response (or lack thereof) to a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Any fool could do likewise either for or against. I'm trying to take a broad, balanced perspective, but I see I am wasting my time with you.
There is quite a long list of things that could have been done better. I am personally not convinced that the timing of the booster campaign is on it.
Its nuts.
https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1485592208657063938?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
Ask Me Anything on Sue Gray, parties, trolleys... And expect the parties story to roll on AFTER SG report cos photos etc will not be given to the Cabinet Office. MPs must scrap the 🛒 if they want the nightmare to end...
The difficult bit is the transition to the endemic phase, and accepting that there’s a trade-off between imposing restrictions, keeping the health system from being overwhelmed, and the maintainance of economic activity.
But France has more "fully vaccinated" than the UK if you define as no doubt Heathener is for their agenda fully vaccinated as 2, not 3, doses for some twisted reason. But age stratification charts show that France's vaccine rollout is much worse than Britain's.
Yes needing to show your vaccine passport to go to a nightclub might convince more 18 year olds to get jabbed, but the age stratification charts show that there is a much greater unvaccinated and unboosted elderly population in France and that matters much, much more.
The credits, the sterling appraisals all go in the bin as you get immediately dismissed for gross misconduct.
Even if you consider Brexit, Vaccines and general policy to have been excellent its no defence against breaking the law, lying to parliament, breaking the ministerial code. Repeatedly.
Our politics either stands for something or it doesn't.
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
If you put a sensible number into the risk/reward models, the evidence was clearly in favour of child vaccination. And is....
Confident enough to post that.
Lots of headlines generated right now from back benches, but only from a small group of rebels giving impression its larger to audience that wants to believe it’s larger. They are genuine angry rebels though, but in politics you only call votes you can win, you only vote with winning sides. Example, David Davis hasn’t put a letter in yet.
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
And don't say Somewherenesia (pop: 2,500).
I have to say that I am very glad I'm in England.
'We can safely rejoin because the EU can't organise a p8ss up in a brewery'