Anyway how can the Met possibly investigate this now? Both Cressida and others have been photographed in public breaching the rules in force at the time. They'd have to investigate themselves too.
The obvious strategy way to avoid embarrassment would be to do the investigation really, really slowly.
Not even that. Open investigation, place files in filing cabinet job done
From hitch hikers
“But the notes were available…” “Available? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s filing.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notes, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on filed in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
Yes, best to draw a line under it all and pretend none of this happened. Which I am sure is what Priti, Bozza and the Dame Cressida have in mind.
Man, that can has been kicked so far down the road we can't see it.
Mm, could be - I'd missed the finer red lines in the photo actually.
I'd love to have a kilt and associated kit - I think I'd look quite dapper in one. But I've never bothered as my Scottish ancestry is five or six generations back (Orkney/Shetland, I believe) and it seems a little wrong to wear it. My name isn't even remotely Scottish.
For a country so often held up as a grown up example, they really are a bunch of childish fools - energy and foreign policy - completely off their rocker.
There's a beam in our collective eye if we want to talk in foreign policy terms. Just saying.
The idea that there is a personal BoJo vote that might be lost if he is ditched doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The reason that the Tories are still polling into the thirties and even recover a bit until the next revelation in a weird sort of rhythm is that there is a big reservoir of anti-labour sentiment. The Tories would be wise to act soon though as delay will weaken them long-term. Is there any exit path carrot to persuade the blighter to resign? There are plenty of sticks but it seems to need a big club.
Mm, could be - I'd missed the finer red lines in the photo actually.
I'd love to have a kilt and associated kit - I think I'd look quite dapper in one. But I've never bothered as my Scottish ancestry is five or six generations back (Orkney/Shetland, I believe) and it seems a little wrong to wear it. My name isn't even remotely Scottish.
Can't wait to chuck mine on. Been two years today.
Anyway how can the Met possibly investigate this now? Both Cressida and others have been photographed in public breaching the rules in force at the time. They'd have to investigate themselves too.
The obvious strategy way to avoid embarrassment would be to do the investigation really, really slowly.
Boris sending the same bloke as last time. He's supposed to be giving a Ukraine statement but I wonder if he will discover some urgent business and send Raab instead.
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
Yes, best to draw a line under it all and pretend none of this happened. Which I am sure is what Priti, Bozza and the Dame Cressida have in mind.
Man, that can has been kicked so far down the road we can't see it.
I have been saying for a while that the Gray report was not the "Boris Killer" that many on here thought it was. I wonder what timescale of the Met investigation is? Three years would be good.....
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
Not sure Cummings is going to be able to continue his stories while a police investigation is proceeding
What is the legal position? If you're accused of burglary and the police are investigating, is there a law that says I can't go round telling people that I saw you creeping around in a hoodie, jangling skeleton keys? It's a convenient excuse not to talk, of course, but unlike contempt of court for influencing ongoing proceedings, I don't think there's a "contempt of police" law?
But yes, its probably good for both Starmer and Johnson, and bad news for Sunak. The public weariness with the story will increase over time, though, so Starmer can't just keep asking questions on parties. I'd think the Labour line will be "Look at problem X (fuel prices, disruption, etc.), why is the Government so weak and preoccupied?"
Mm, could be - I'd missed the finer red lines in the photo actually.
I'd love to have a kilt and associated kit - I think I'd look quite dapper in one. But I've never bothered as my Scottish ancestry is five or six generations back (Orkney/Shetland, I believe) and it seems a little wrong to wear it. My name isn't even remotely Scottish.
Of course, Northern Islanders weren't Gaels at all - nor are Lowlanders such as me. Blame it on Walter Scott ... but equally because of him you can wear whatever you like.
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
The Tories have to act immediately. The rot has set in.
I'm sure some principled type will come out with some wank like "we can't set a precedent where we knife a PM over just allegations, wait for the Met to do their job".
Watch Hunt, Wallace, even Ross.
If Sunak wants to be PM rather than LOTO then he needs to act now.
I suspect he is another David Miliband.
Sunak's resignation is still a potential wildcard.
However, he seems to have been at the party himself, however briefly, which won't help him in that.
If some other big hitters were to come out against Boris, on the other hand..
Johnson won't go unless forced so we can boil this down to 2 questions. Will they trigger a VONC before the Locals? Will he lose the VONC? Unless it's a Yes to both, he'll be leading into the Locals and could be saved longer term by an ok performance.
So - for the betting - these 2 questions need a probability.
Eg, if we think there's a 66% chance of a VONC happening and a 50% chance he loses it, this means there's a 2 in 3 chance he leads the party into the May local elections.
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
The Tories have to act immediately. The rot has set in.
I'm sure some principled type will come out with some wank like "we can't set a precedent where we knife a PM over just allegations, wait for the Met to do their job".
Watch Hunt, Wallace, even Ross.
If Sunak wants to be PM rather than LOTO then he needs to act now.
I suspect he is another David Miliband.
Sunak's resignation is still a potential wildcard.
However, he seems to have been at the party himself, however briefly, which won't help him in that.
If some other big hitters were to come out against Boris, on the other hand..
Johnson won't go unless forced so we can boil this down to 2 questions. Will they trigger a VONC before the Locals? Will he lose the VONC? Unless it's a Yes to both, he'll be leading into the Locals and could be saved longer term by an ok performance.
So - for the betting - these 2 questions need a probability.
Eg, if we think there's a 66% chance of a VONC happening and a 50% chance he loses it, this means there's a 2 in 3 chance he leads the party into the May local elections.
Think your ok performance in May seems a long odds shot. I don't know anyone who would still bother to turn up and vote for them right now.
The idea that there is a personal BoJo vote that might be lost if he is ditched doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The reason that the Tories are still polling into the thirties and even recover a bit until the next revelation in a weird sort of rhythm is that there is a big reservoir of anti-labour sentiment. The Tories would be wise to act soon though as delay will weaken them long-term. Is there any exit path carrot to persuade the blighter to resign? There are plenty of sticks but it seems to need a big club.
It looks like removing Boris Johnson is now going to be left to the electorate.
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
Not sure Cummings is going to be able to continue his stories while a police investigation is proceeding
What is the legal position? If you're accused of burglary and the police are investigating, is there a law that says I can't go round telling people that I saw you creeping around in a hoodie, jangling skeleton keys? It's a convenient excuse not to talk, of course, but unlike contempt of court for influencing ongoing proceedings, I don't think there's a "contempt of police" law?
But yes, its probably good for both Starmer and Johnson, and bad news for Sunak. The public weariness with the story will increase over time, though, so Starmer can't just keep asking questions on parties. I'd think the Labour line will be "Look at problem X (fuel prices, disruption, etc.), why is the Government so weak and preoccupied?"
I agree and I expect Cummings himself will be part of the Met investigation
There is no doubt every question will be batted away that this now a police investigation
The key here, as it always has been, what are conservative mps going to do
George Monbiot wrote earlier this week about the dictatorial path he believes Boris Johnson is taking. He said that this week, Conservative MPs can halt the march. It seems like the road to totalitarianism is further along than he had assumed. I compared my undergraduate notes referencing Hannah Arendt's work and the signs are there, for the conspiratorial amongst us.
The use of the police to bolster the executive is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. In all fairness to Johnson he is a lot smarter than Trump. A revolution, and not a shot fired.
The 154,000 figure is probably just as inaccurate as the 17,000 figure. The correct figure will be somewhere in the middle. 154,000 will include people who mainly died of other things, and the 17,000 figure is people who only died of Covid. I wouldn't trust either of those.
The 154,000 figure will also miss those who died of covid but took longer than 28 days.
The death certificate figures only include those with covid on the death certificate. The vast majority of whom were specified as having died directly due to contracting covid.
The underlying cause of death versus cases where it was mentioned as a contributory cause go like this over time:
It's notable that the proportion of deaths directly caused by covid as the underlying cause are higher as a proportion in times when the number of covid deaths is highest (eg at the peaks of the waves; the lowest points are at times when there weren't many covid deaths anyway).
There have been 175,256 deaths with covid-19 on the death certificate. Overall, somewhere in excess of 80-85% of these were directly caused by covid; the remainder had covid as a contributory cause.
The entire "28 day" and "could have been run over by a bus" series of arguments solely refer to the rough-and-ready "Deaths within 28 days of positive test" figures which are solely used to provide an early approximation, as the death certificate data can take a month to come through. It was chosen because the number of incidental deaths (pushing the number higher than it should be) should approximately equal the number of missed covid deaths post-28-days (which pushed the number lower than it should be). For some reason, those criticising it rarely mention the missed deaths but fixate upon the incidental deaths.
As it turns out, it has tended to be a remarkably good early approximation:
Coincidental deaths within 28 days are likely between 5 and 15k for the whole of the pandemic. Death cert numbers are higher than the 28 day count too. It's not "somewhere between 17k and 150k", the true figure much much closer to 150k. Peak of coincidental deaths would be about 18th Jan, around 60 or so.
There seems to be a lot of lobby focus on process rather than big picture. Don't overspin this. Any gain from Met investigation is - at best - procedural, tactical, minor and short-lived. Politically, substantively, electorally and morally, this is bad. Very bad. https://twitter.com/theobertram/status/1485936651805339648
George Monbiot wrote earlier this week about the dictatorial path he believes Boris Johnson is taking. He said that this week, Conservative MPs can halt the march. It seems like the road to totalitarianism is further along than he had assumed. I compared my undergraduate notes referencing Hannah Arendt's work and the signs are there, for the conspiratorial amongst us.
The use of the police to bolster the executive is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. In all fairness to Johnson he is a lot smarter than Trump. A revolution, and not a shot fired.
Technically, that would be a coup rather than a revolution.
George Monbiot wrote earlier this week about the dictatorial path he believes Boris Johnson is taking. He said that this week, Conservative MPs can halt the march. It seems like the road to totalitarianism is further along than he had assumed. I compared my undergraduate notes referencing Hannah Arendt's work and the signs are there, for the conspiratorial amongst us.
The use of the police to bolster the executive is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. In all fairness to Johnson he is a lot smarter than Trump. A revolution, and not a shot fired.
We have fair elections in our country and people can vote for whoever they like.
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
Not sure Cummings is going to be able to continue his stories while a police investigation is proceeding
What is the legal position? If you're accused of burglary and the police are investigating, is there a law that says I can't go round telling people that I saw you creeping around in a hoodie, jangling skeleton keys? It's a convenient excuse not to talk, of course, but unlike contempt of court for influencing ongoing proceedings, I don't think there's a "contempt of police" law?
But yes, its probably good for both Starmer and Johnson, and bad news for Sunak. The public weariness with the story will increase over time, though, so Starmer can't just keep asking questions on parties. I'd think the Labour line will be "Look at problem X (fuel prices, disruption, etc.), why is the Government so weak and preoccupied?"
The cases that I'm familiar with (or was, OUAT) involved pharmacists improperly selling prescription only medicines, or selling large quantities of abusable medicines. The individual pharmacist might (not would) be suspended if the accused pharmacist was an employee but the 'shop' itself would remain open. If the accused was an owner-manager the business would be highly unlikely to be closed during the investigation, and indeed, if the pharmacist were to be struck off, he or she would quite possibly be given a couple of weeks to get their affairs in order.
The odds on a Jan-Mar (22) departure for the PM was 2.6 on Betfair earlier this morning. Now 4.2.
How very helpful.
Excellent news. We need Johnson in place for the May elections. If he were to be replaced before the May locals, there would be a honeymoon period for the incomer. "Give him/her a chance."
There seems to be a lot of lobby focus on process rather than big picture. Don't overspin this. Any gain from Met investigation is - at best - procedural, tactical, minor and short-lived. Politically, substantively, electorally and morally, this is bad. Very bad. https://twitter.com/theobertram/status/1485936651805339648
Yes.
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
I’m not sure how anyone thinks a met investigation into Boris let’s him off the hook.
The whole thing rumbles on, in the background. A funny outcome would be double whammy of Grays report and Met investigation published near May elections
George Monbiot wrote earlier this week about the dictatorial path he believes Boris Johnson is taking. He said that this week, Conservative MPs can halt the march. It seems like the road to totalitarianism is further along than he had assumed. I compared my undergraduate notes referencing Hannah Arendt's work and the signs are there, for the conspiratorial amongst us.
The use of the police to bolster the executive is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. In all fairness to Johnson he is a lot smarter than Trump. A revolution, and not a shot fired.
LOL! Lefties thought Thatch was a dictator, right-wingers though the same about Blair. Whenever a PM has a big majority the opposition always think they are becoming dictatorial.
For a country so often held up as a grown up example, they really are a bunch of childish fools - energy and foreign policy - completely off their rocker.
Ironic since Germany had a leading role in the design of the Pebble bed reactor which can use Thorium and produces waste that is less hazardous.
There is lots of Thorium in the Earth's crust. Its biggest downside (for the military) is that it cannot be used to produce weapons grade material. If Iran really wanted a civilian nuclear programme then a Pebble-bed would have been the way to go...
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
This *may* be what happened: The Sue Gray report was about unequivocally to tear Johnson a new one, so his only option was to interrupt it with a criminal investigation, for which the thresholds which need to be met and the burden of proof are much higher. 1/2
This, of course, carries huge peril - his MPs will try to unseat him. But if he's seen a draft of the Sue Gray report and judged it would absolutely force him to resign, shifting a certain loss to a dirty leadership contest, at least gives him a small fighting chance. 2/2
Mm, could be - I'd missed the finer red lines in the photo actually.
I'd love to have a kilt and associated kit - I think I'd look quite dapper in one. But I've never bothered as my Scottish ancestry is five or six generations back (Orkney/Shetland, I believe) and it seems a little wrong to wear it. My name isn't even remotely Scottish.
Just go ahead! I was born and mostly brought up in Scotland but my parents are English and my ancestral connection to Scotland is fairly minimal. It didn't stop me - you can usually find some kind of (probably tenuous) link to a clan. The whole thing was basically made up in the nineteenth century anyway. It's a great outfit that lasts for ever so is a good investment - I got mine for my wedding 20 years ago and it's still going strong. I wore it to a Burns supper with friends on Saturday night, and I wear it to any event requiring black tie.
This sad, sorry saga is reinforcing my belief that the Conservatives in general and Sunak in particular have shat the bed on this. They've had weeks to do this, and it keeps getting worse. If you are trying to defenestrate someone, do it. Don't pussyfoot around and don't do it on their timetable. The last couple of weeks have given a clear sign that the Conservatives have no self confidence, no moral compass, and no direction.
George Monbiot wrote earlier this week about the dictatorial path he believes Boris Johnson is taking. He said that this week, Conservative MPs can halt the march. It seems like the road to totalitarianism is further along than he had assumed. I compared my undergraduate notes referencing Hannah Arendt's work and the signs are there, for the conspiratorial amongst us.
The use of the police to bolster the executive is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. In all fairness to Johnson he is a lot smarter than Trump. A revolution, and not a shot fired.
We have fair elections in our country and people can vote for whoever they like.
There seems to be a lot of lobby focus on process rather than big picture. Don't overspin this. Any gain from Met investigation is - at best - procedural, tactical, minor and short-lived. Politically, substantively, electorally and morally, this is bad. Very bad. https://twitter.com/theobertram/status/1485936651805339648
Yes.
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
It means that conclusions will drawn on the facts, rather than opinion, spin and smear.
And last year they announced two other new plants in Arizona, for about the same cost. The Ohio complex might eventually cost them $100 billion.
I find these sorts of figures mind-boggling.
Biden created a huge subsidy for them to bring back semi-conductor manufacturing to the US and to accelerate advanced process nodes to free up older ones for key sectors like cars and planes.
It's an area where non-intervention by competition authorities sometimes works in the US's favour because it creates gigantic world beating champions that get cut down to size in the UK or Europe or halted from growth by M&A. That plus ruthless pursuit of profit in the US is why they dominate the tech industry and their tech companies are able to buy up swathes of UK start ups for relative pennies.
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
The Tories have to act immediately. The rot has set in.
I'm sure some principled type will come out with some wank like "we can't set a precedent where we knife a PM over just allegations, wait for the Met to do their job".
Watch Hunt, Wallace, even Ross.
If Sunak wants to be PM rather than LOTO then he needs to act now.
I suspect he is another David Miliband.
Sunak's resignation is still a potential wildcard.
However, he seems to have been at the party himself, however briefly, which won't help him in that.
If some other big hitters were to come out against Boris, on the other hand..
Johnson won't go unless forced so we can boil this down to 2 questions. Will they trigger a VONC before the Locals? Will he lose the VONC? Unless it's a Yes to both, he'll be leading into the Locals and could be saved longer term by an ok performance.
So - for the betting - these 2 questions need a probability.
Eg, if we think there's a 66% chance of a VONC happening and a 50% chance he loses it, this means there's a 2 in 3 chance he leads the party into the May local elections.
I think the value bet is Johnson surviving until 2023 (or certainly December of this year bearing in mind May's VONC was in December) . It's not difficult to envisage an OK/non catastrophic local election performance for the Tories seats wise, at least in London and Scotland plus they don't have that many seats to lose in northern metropolitan boroughs.
I don't support the Tories but it seems to me like a lot of PB commentators are smugly predicting what they want to happen and the criticism of HYUFD's analysis seems unfair.
This sad, sorry saga is reinforcing my belief that the Conservatives in general and Sunak in particular have shat the bed on this. They've had weeks to do this, and it keeps getting worse. If you are trying to defenestrate someone, do it. Don't pussyfoot around and don't do it on their timetable. The last couple of weeks have given a clear sign that the Conservatives have no self confidence, no moral compass, and no direction.
I would be very wary of putting any money on Sunak for next leader now. Tax and spend Rishi, about to slap job destroying taxes on hard pressed Brits? I don't think so.
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
This *may* be what happened: The Sue Gray report was about unequivocally to tear Johnson a new one, so his only option was to interrupt it with a criminal investigation, for which the thresholds which need to be met and the burden of proof are much higher. 1/2
This, of course, carries huge peril - his MPs will try to unseat him. But if he's seen a draft of the Sue Gray report and judged it would absolutely force him to resign, shifting a certain loss to a dirty leadership contest, at least gives him a small fighting chance. 2/2
The 154,000 figure is probably just as inaccurate as the 17,000 figure. The correct figure will be somewhere in the middle. 154,000 will include people who mainly died of other things, and the 17,000 figure is people who only died of Covid. I wouldn't trust either of those.
No. That completely misunderstands how Death Certificates record death:
But what does it mean to die with both COVID and a pre-existing condition on the death certificate?
Death certificates list an "underlying cause" and can list several "contributory causes".
When it comes to COVID, we already know that the vast majority of deaths where COVID is mentioned on the death certificate list COVID itself as the underlying cause….
Once you get past your mid-50s, chances are you have a long-term health condition. By the time you reach your 70s, you have to be extremely lucky not to.
So that is a *lot* of people with pre-existing conditions. If any of them were unlucky enough to have caught COVID, get severely ill and die, all it takes is for these conditions to have *some* impact for it to end up as a contributory cause on the death certificate.
Excess deaths will include people who died as an indirect result of COVID. I am aware the NHS' own approximations suggest this is low, but common sense must prevail. You can't have hospitals on the brink without care suffering.
Okay; I've grabbed the data from the ONS website here for "deaths directly caused by covid" versus "deaths where covid was a contributory factor" for deaths with covid recorded on death certificates for England as a proportion by month.
Cross-referred that to the totals on the coronavirus dashboards for deaths with covid recorded on death certificates by month.
From the start of March 2020 to the end of December 2021, there were 150,397 deaths with covid recorded on the death certificate.
Of these, 133,790 had covid as the direct cause of death (88.96%) and 16,607 had covid recorded as a contributory cause.
If that proportion is similar across all countries, then of the 176,428 deaths recorded with covid on the death certificate, about 156,944 will have been directly due to covid (with the remainder having covid as a contributory factor)
George Monbiot wrote earlier this week about the dictatorial path he believes Boris Johnson is taking. He said that this week, Conservative MPs can halt the march. It seems like the road to totalitarianism is further along than he had assumed. I compared my undergraduate notes referencing Hannah Arendt's work and the signs are there, for the conspiratorial amongst us.
The use of the police to bolster the executive is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. In all fairness to Johnson he is a lot smarter than Trump. A revolution, and not a shot fired.
Unfortunately, whilst I loath The Clown more than most, I stopped paying attention after I saw the name George Monbiot and immediately the words sanctimonious twat popped into my head.
I’m not sure how anyone thinks a met investigation into Boris let’s him off the hook.
The whole thing rumbles on, in the background. A funny outcome would be double whammy of Grays report and Met investigation published near May elections
Boris's strategy seems to be "kick the problem into the lang grass and buy time. When it resurfaces deal with it then and buy more time. It never needs to be solved, just moved".
If you look back over the past couple of years it is problem after problem being kicked along to buy time. If he can keep it running for five years or until he chooses to stand down then he will have "survived".
The political system will be a shambles when he is finished, but I do not expect that that will bother him in the slightest...
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
This *may* be what happened: The Sue Gray report was about unequivocally to tear Johnson a new one, so his only option was to interrupt it with a criminal investigation, for which the thresholds which need to be met and the burden of proof are much higher. 1/2
This, of course, carries huge peril - his MPs will try to unseat him. But if he's seen a draft of the Sue Gray report and judged it would absolutely force him to resign, shifting a certain loss to a dirty leadership contest, at least gives him a small fighting chance. 2/2
The Met police say they have reacted on the referral directly from Sue Gray
Ms Gray would not have been able to refer it to them, without management approval. Basic Civil Service procedure on anything sensitive. And what is her line of management upwards?
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
The Tories have to act immediately. The rot has set in.
I'm sure some principled type will come out with some wank like "we can't set a precedent where we knife a PM over just allegations, wait for the Met to do their job".
Watch Hunt, Wallace, even Ross.
If Sunak wants to be PM rather than LOTO then he needs to act now.
I suspect he is another David Miliband.
Sunak's resignation is still a potential wildcard.
However, he seems to have been at the party himself, however briefly, which won't help him in that.
If some other big hitters were to come out against Boris, on the other hand..
Johnson won't go unless forced so we can boil this down to 2 questions. Will they trigger a VONC before the Locals? Will he lose the VONC? Unless it's a Yes to both, he'll be leading into the Locals and could be saved longer term by an ok performance.
So - for the betting - these 2 questions need a probability.
Eg, if we think there's a 66% chance of a VONC happening and a 50% chance he loses it, this means there's a 2 in 3 chance he leads the party into the May local elections.
Think your ok performance in May seems a long odds shot. I don't know anyone who would still bother to turn up and vote for them right now.
You'd have thought so, and hoped so, but the electorate can surprise. May is a long way off.
And last year they announced two other new plants in Arizona, for about the same cost. The Ohio complex might eventually cost them $100 billion.
I find these sorts of figures mind-boggling.
Biden created a huge subsidy for them to bring back semi-conductor manufacturing to the US and to accelerate advanced process nodes to free up older ones for key sectors like cars and planes.
It's an area where non-intervention by competition authorities sometimes works in the US's favour because it creates gigantic world beating champions that get cut down to size in the UK or Europe or halted from growth by M&A. That plus ruthless pursuit of profit in the US is why they dominate the tech industry and their tech companies are able to buy up swathes of UK start ups for relative pennies.
I'm going to go ahead and say that the UK would ultimately benefit from this investment. It certainly seems sensible that some of the world's semiconductor supply is not routed through Taiwan or South Korea, given their proximity to Chinese aggression.
George Monbiot wrote earlier this week about the dictatorial path he believes Boris Johnson is taking. He said that this week, Conservative MPs can halt the march. It seems like the road to totalitarianism is further along than he had assumed. I compared my undergraduate notes referencing Hannah Arendt's work and the signs are there, for the conspiratorial amongst us.
The use of the police to bolster the executive is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. In all fairness to Johnson he is a lot smarter than Trump. A revolution, and not a shot fired.
Unfortunately, whilst I loath The Clown more than most, I stopped paying attention after I saw the name George Monbiot and immediately the words sanctimonious twat popped into my head.
His recent pieces on the Policing bill have been very good, and probably generated the key political and media impetus against the most egregious parts of it.
That's another reason the Johnson-Patel axis is a danger to all our freedoms if he stays ; Patel even wants to re-introduce the parts the Lords recently struck out.
You know those people who told other people to delete (phone) records of the parties must be shitting bricks right now as the police have become involved.
Really shouldn't need any debunking to anyone with a passing acquaintance with reality, but didn't someone quote it on here the other day (along with the classic Covid merely "hastened" people's deaths) as evidence that they weren't a "loon"?
What I found most interesting was the widespread prevalence of “comorbidities” as age increases - the data presented was for Scotland but I doubt rUK is significantly different.
I'm not sure how much of the increased risk from covid with increasing age is due to the comorbidities, and how much is due to age itself - someone posted something here a while back about how much better a younger immune system is at fighting covid, so perhaps age itself is a bigger factor than many of these comorbidities.
Sure, the age and health of those affected is going to be a factor in calculating the costs and benefits of whatever measures might be taken.
But covid killing a much bigger proportion of (much) older people is already somewhat baked in to how we responded - we would surely all have reacted differently to a disease that was killing 10% of infected children, rather than 10% of over 80s (or whatever it was pre-vaccines).
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
Not sure Cummings is going to be able to continue his stories while a police investigation is proceeding
What is the legal position? If you're accused of burglary and the police are investigating, is there a law that says I can't go round telling people that I saw you creeping around in a hoodie, jangling skeleton keys? It's a convenient excuse not to talk, of course, but unlike contempt of court for influencing ongoing proceedings, I don't think there's a "contempt of police" law?
But yes, its probably good for both Starmer and Johnson, and bad news for Sunak. The public weariness with the story will increase over time, though, so Starmer can't just keep asking questions on parties. I'd think the Labour line will be "Look at problem X (fuel prices, disruption, etc.), why is the Government so weak and preoccupied?"
I agree and I expect Cummings himself will be part of the Met investigation
There is no doubt every question will be batted away that this now a police investigation
The key here, as it always has been, what are conservative mps going to do
They will do nothing. There is a Police investigation ongoing.
And last year they announced two other new plants in Arizona, for about the same cost. The Ohio complex might eventually cost them $100 billion.
I find these sorts of figures mind-boggling.
Expensive technology. The ASML machines alone (of which they might have 20 in a fab), cost about $300m a pop. Their website is fascinating reading if you're interested in tech. https://www.asml.com/en ...As each copy of the pattern is printed on the wafer, the reticle moves smoothly through a narrow slit of light, exposing only a small part of the pattern at a time. Meanwhile, the wafer moves smoothly in the opposite direction to capture the whole pattern. The motion of the reticle and wafer must be perfectly synchronized, but because the reticle pattern is larger than the pattern on the wafer, the reticle must move much farther and faster, up to 150 meters per second squared. That’s the equivalent of a car accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in just 0.1 seconds. The ability to synchronize the motion of wafer and reticle to the nanometer and nanosecond as they accelerate at 5 g and 15 g in opposite directions – all without causing a single vibration – is vital for producing functioning microchips....
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
Not sure Cummings is going to be able to continue his stories while a police investigation is proceeding
What is the legal position? If you're accused of burglary and the police are investigating, is there a law that says I can't go round telling people that I saw you creeping around in a hoodie, jangling skeleton keys? It's a convenient excuse not to talk, of course, but unlike contempt of court for influencing ongoing proceedings, I don't think there's a "contempt of police" law?
But yes, its probably good for both Starmer and Johnson, and bad news for Sunak. The public weariness with the story will increase over time, though, so Starmer can't just keep asking questions on parties. I'd think the Labour line will be "Look at problem X (fuel prices, disruption, etc.), why is the Government so weak and preoccupied?"
I agree and I expect Cummings himself will be part of the Met investigation
There is no doubt every question will be batted away that this now a police investigation
The key here, as it always has been, what are conservative mps going to do
Batting away every question with "there is a police investigation" is surely a more damaging response than "wait for Sue Gray"?
The problem is that every time that answer is given, it reminds people that this is a CRIMINAL matter as well as being hugely insensitive at a time when family occasions were missed, people couldn't say goodbye to loved ones, the Queen sat alone to grieve etc etc.
One bad aspect is that any time there is any news now about a law and order matter, it gives opponents a free hit.
If I were Number 10 at this stage, I'd be looking to 'fess up early, pay some fixed penalty notices, and end the police aspect sharp-ish. I don't buy the "well, this gives the PM some time" argument. Police crawling over it for any period is a horrible look (and the outcome of 'fessing up isn't actually people going into the dock in this case - the police issue a fine, and they write a cheque).
Mm, could be - I'd missed the finer red lines in the photo actually.
I'd love to have a kilt and associated kit - I think I'd look quite dapper in one.
It also makes it legal to carry a sgian-dubh (in your sock) if you need to stab somebody.
My dad when working in Saudi would usually come back to Edinburgh for his annual 6 weeks leave, get on the highland rig including a sgian-dubh and get ratted for that period. On one occasion he got on the return flight still en kilt and they refused to let him on because of the 'black knife', still probably pissed he kicked up a stink but eventually saw sense and surrendered his weapon. The incident even made the Scotsman.
This sad, sorry saga is reinforcing my belief that the Conservatives in general and Sunak in particular have shat the bed on this. They've had weeks to do this, and it keeps getting worse. If you are trying to defenestrate someone, do it. Don't pussyfoot around and don't do it on their timetable. The last couple of weeks have given a clear sign that the Conservatives have no self confidence, no moral compass, and no direction.
I would be very wary of putting any money on Sunak for next leader now. Tax and spend Rishi, about to slap job destroying taxes on hard pressed Brits? I don't think so.
I’d have more faith in Sunak being politically astute enough to ditch some of the prior tax rises / address the cost of living crisis
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
This *may* be what happened: The Sue Gray report was about unequivocally to tear Johnson a new one, so his only option was to interrupt it with a criminal investigation, for which the thresholds which need to be met and the burden of proof are much higher. 1/2
This, of course, carries huge peril - his MPs will try to unseat him. But if he's seen a draft of the Sue Gray report and judged it would absolutely force him to resign, shifting a certain loss to a dirty leadership contest, at least gives him a small fighting chance. 2/2
The Met police say they have reacted on the referral directly from Sue Gray
Ms Gray would not have been able to refer it to them, without management approval. Basic Civil Service procedure on anything sensitive. And what is her line of management upwards?
The terms of reference (PDF) require her to refer to the police: As with all internal investigations, if during the course of the work any evidence emerges of behaviour that is potentially a criminal offence, the matter will be referred to the police and the Cabinet Office’s work may be paused.
George Monbiot wrote earlier this week about the dictatorial path he believes Boris Johnson is taking. He said that this week, Conservative MPs can halt the march. It seems like the road to totalitarianism is further along than he had assumed. I compared my undergraduate notes referencing Hannah Arendt's work and the signs are there, for the conspiratorial amongst us.
The use of the police to bolster the executive is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. In all fairness to Johnson he is a lot smarter than Trump. A revolution, and not a shot fired.
Unfortunately, whilst I loath The Clown more than most, I stopped paying attention after I saw the name George Monbiot and immediately the words sanctimonious twat popped into my head.
His recent pieces on the policing bill have been very good, and probably generated the key political and media impetus against the most egregious parts of it.
That's another reason the Johnson-Patel axis is a danger to all our freedoms if he stays ; Patel even wants to re-introduce the parts the Lord recently struck out.
Maybe, but he is still a sanctimonious twat. One of those journos who likes to come across as an expert on "things" and then when you dig, you realise he is an expert on nothing. If he were about twenty years younger he would be a Youtuber or an Instagram "influencer"
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
Not sure Cummings is going to be able to continue his stories while a police investigation is proceeding
What is the legal position? If you're accused of burglary and the police are investigating, is there a law that says I can't go round telling people that I saw you creeping around in a hoodie, jangling skeleton keys? It's a convenient excuse not to talk, of course, but unlike contempt of court for influencing ongoing proceedings, I don't think there's a "contempt of police" law?
But yes, its probably good for both Starmer and Johnson, and bad news for Sunak. The public weariness with the story will increase over time, though, so Starmer can't just keep asking questions on parties. I'd think the Labour line will be "Look at problem X (fuel prices, disruption, etc.), why is the Government so weak and preoccupied?"
I agree and I expect Cummings himself will be part of the Met investigation
There is no doubt every question will be batted away that this now a police investigation
The key here, as it always has been, what are conservative mps going to do
Batting away every question with "there is a police investigation" is surely a more damaging response than "wait for Sue Gray"?
The problem is that every time that answer is given, it reminds people that this is a CRIMINAL matter as well as being hugely insensitive at a time when family occasions were missed, people couldn't say goodbye to loved ones, the Queen sat alone to grieve etc etc.
If I were Number 10 at this stage, I'd be looking to 'fess up early, pay some fixed penalty notices, and end the police aspect sharp-ish. I don't buy the "well, this gives the PM some time" argument. Police crawling over it for any period is a horrible look (and the outcome of 'fessing up isn't actually people going into the dock in this case - the police issue a fine, and they write a cheque).
And last year they announced two other new plants in Arizona, for about the same cost. The Ohio complex might eventually cost them $100 billion.
I find these sorts of figures mind-boggling.
Biden created a huge subsidy for them to bring back semi-conductor manufacturing to the US and to accelerate advanced process nodes to free up older ones for key sectors like cars and planes.
It's an area where non-intervention by competition authorities sometimes works in the US's favour because it creates gigantic world beating champions that get cut down to size in the UK or Europe or halted from growth by M&A. That plus ruthless pursuit of profit in the US is why they dominate the tech industry and their tech companies are able to buy up swathes of UK start ups for relative pennies.
At some point in the next decade or two, there might be enough PS5s and RTX3090s for everyone who wants one!
Really shouldn't need any debunking to anyone with a passing acquaintance with reality, but didn't someone quote it on here the other day (along with the classic Covid merely "hastened" people's deaths) as evidence that they weren't a "loon"?
What I found most interesting was the widespread prevalence of “comorbidities” as age increases - the data presented was for Scotland but I doubt rUK is significantly different.
I'm not sure how much of the increased risk from covid with increasing age is due to the comorbidities, and how much is due to age itself.
Yes, given so many older people (a majority over 50, virtually everyone over 70) have comorbidities we don’t yet know whether it’s a cause or a coincidence. Some will obviously not help but others may be coincidental
I’m not sure how anyone thinks a met investigation into Boris let’s him off the hook.
The whole thing rumbles on, in the background. A funny outcome would be double whammy of Grays report and Met investigation published near May elections
Boris's strategy seems to be "kick the problem into the lang grass and buy time. When it resurfaces deal with it then and buy more time. It never needs to be solved, just moved".
If you look back over the past couple of years it is problem after problem being kicked along to buy time. If he can keep it running for five years or until he chooses to stand down then he will have "survived".
The political system will be a shambles when he is finished, but I do not expect that that will bother him in the slightest...
As I suggested earlier, Starmer's line is now that the PM and partygate are a "national distraction" from the cost of living issue and to some extent Ukraine (on which the Labour line was set out here: https://labourlist.org/2022/01/international-unity-against-russian-aggression-is-crucial-and-must-continue/). One can't fairly say the Government hasn't acted on Ukraine, but the impression of only flickering attention to general public issues while they fight partygate fires is probably justified.
This sad, sorry saga is reinforcing my belief that the Conservatives in general and Sunak in particular have shat the bed on this. They've had weeks to do this, and it keeps getting worse. If you are trying to defenestrate someone, do it. Don't pussyfoot around and don't do it on their timetable. The last couple of weeks have given a clear sign that the Conservatives have no self confidence, no moral compass, and no direction.
I would be very wary of putting any money on Sunak for next leader now. Tax and spend Rishi, about to slap job destroying taxes on hard pressed Brits? I don't think so.
I’d have more faith in Sunak being politically astute enough to ditch some of the prior tax rises / address the cost of living crisis
I expect that to happen in the next few weeks, even as late as the march budget
There seems to be a lot of lobby focus on process rather than big picture. Don't overspin this. Any gain from Met investigation is - at best - procedural, tactical, minor and short-lived. Politically, substantively, electorally and morally, this is bad. Very bad. https://twitter.com/theobertram/status/1485936651805339648
Yes.
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
It means that conclusions will drawn on the facts, rather than opinion, spin and smear.
You know those people who told other people to delete (phone) records of the parties must be shitting bricks right now as the police have become involved.
Destroying evidence is a crime.
As I’m not a lawyer would you or Cyclefree clarify if that’s relevant here? I’m clear that destroying evidence during a police investigation is a crime however does the Gray investigation have the same legal status as a police investigation?
I suppose what I’m asking is, would destroying evidence/clearing embarrassing photos, be a legal offence in the parameter’s of the Gray investigation rather than just something that can be remarked upon and if the evidence was removed before the police investigation was announced can they be in legal trouble for destroying evidence?
Does a burglar get in more legal trouble, if he burnt the swag bag he used for the burglary, if he did it straight after the burglary as opposed to after being subject to a police investigation it’s a separate crime if he sneaks out at night and destroys this evidence?
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
This *may* be what happened: The Sue Gray report was about unequivocally to tear Johnson a new one, so his only option was to interrupt it with a criminal investigation, for which the thresholds which need to be met and the burden of proof are much higher. 1/2
This, of course, carries huge peril - his MPs will try to unseat him. But if he's seen a draft of the Sue Gray report and judged it would absolutely force him to resign, shifting a certain loss to a dirty leadership contest, at least gives him a small fighting chance. 2/2
The Met police say they have reacted on the referral directly from Sue Gray
Ms Gray would not have been able to refer it to them, without management approval. Basic Civil Service procedure on anything sensitive. And what is her line of management upwards?
Really? If she has discovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing then she should report it to the police. Line management chains are irrelevant. It's her duty as a citizen.
This sad, sorry saga is reinforcing my belief that the Conservatives in general and Sunak in particular have shat the bed on this. They've had weeks to do this, and it keeps getting worse. If you are trying to defenestrate someone, do it. Don't pussyfoot around and don't do it on their timetable. The last couple of weeks have given a clear sign that the Conservatives have no self confidence, no moral compass, and no direction.
I would be very wary of putting any money on Sunak for next leader now. Tax and spend Rishi, about to slap job destroying taxes on hard pressed Brits? I don't think so.
I’d have more faith in Sunak being politically astute enough to ditch some of the prior tax rises / address the cost of living crisis
I expect that to happen in the next few weeks, even as late as the march budget
We are back to Autumn budgets and March / April spending reviews / updates.
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
This *may* be what happened: The Sue Gray report was about unequivocally to tear Johnson a new one, so his only option was to interrupt it with a criminal investigation, for which the thresholds which need to be met and the burden of proof are much higher. 1/2
This, of course, carries huge peril - his MPs will try to unseat him. But if he's seen a draft of the Sue Gray report and judged it would absolutely force him to resign, shifting a certain loss to a dirty leadership contest, at least gives him a small fighting chance. 2/2
The Met police say they have reacted on the referral directly from Sue Gray
Ms Gray would not have been able to refer it to them, without management approval. Basic Civil Service procedure on anything sensitive. And what is her line of management upwards?
Really? If she has discovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing then she should report it to the police. Line management chains are irrelevant. It's her duty as a citizen.
It doesn't always work that way. For example my (as an accountant) might have proof of money laundering from my work. I have to refer it to my money laundering reporting officer who decides if the firm reports it. I don't do it direct.
Personally I'm waiting for the revelation that Senior Met officers attended some of these parties and that the Met therefore can no longer investigate and will have to be investigated by someone else and so it goes on until some poor farmer on the Isle of Mull who hasn't seen a living soul for 3 years finds himself having to investigate everyone else in the country as he's the only one left who hasn't done anything wrong.
He puts in his report only to find the Russians have taken over.
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
Not sure Cummings is going to be able to continue his stories while a police investigation is proceeding
What is the legal position? If you're accused of burglary and the police are investigating, is there a law that says I can't go round telling people that I saw you creeping around in a hoodie, jangling skeleton keys? It's a convenient excuse not to talk, of course, but unlike contempt of court for influencing ongoing proceedings, I don't think there's a "contempt of police" law?
But yes, its probably good for both Starmer and Johnson, and bad news for Sunak. The public weariness with the story will increase over time, though, so Starmer can't just keep asking questions on parties. I'd think the Labour line will be "Look at problem X (fuel prices, disruption, etc.), why is the Government so weak and preoccupied?"
I agree and I expect Cummings himself will be part of the Met investigation
There is no doubt every question will be batted away that this now a police investigation
The key here, as it always has been, what are conservative mps going to do
Batting away every question with "there is a police investigation" is surely a more damaging response than "wait for Sue Gray"?
The problem is that every time that answer is given, it reminds people that this is a CRIMINAL matter as well as being hugely insensitive at a time when family occasions were missed, people couldn't say goodbye to loved ones, the Queen sat alone to grieve etc etc.
If I were Number 10 at this stage, I'd be looking to 'fess up early, pay some fixed penalty notices, and end the police aspect sharp-ish. I don't buy the "well, this gives the PM some time" argument. Police crawling over it for any period is a horrible look (and the outcome of 'fessing up isn't actually people going into the dock in this case - the police issue a fine, and they write a cheque).
I agree
I think you've got confused. Saying "I can't comment pending the police investigation" is more damning for the Conservative Party. It is, however, Boris' best hope of making it out of February personally. And we know which one Boris cares more about.
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
This *may* be what happened: The Sue Gray report was about unequivocally to tear Johnson a new one, so his only option was to interrupt it with a criminal investigation, for which the thresholds which need to be met and the burden of proof are much higher. 1/2
This, of course, carries huge peril - his MPs will try to unseat him. But if he's seen a draft of the Sue Gray report and judged it would absolutely force him to resign, shifting a certain loss to a dirty leadership contest, at least gives him a small fighting chance. 2/2
The Met police say they have reacted on the referral directly from Sue Gray
Ms Gray would not have been able to refer it to them, without management approval. Basic Civil Service procedure on anything sensitive. And what is her line of management upwards?
The terms of reference (PDF) require her to refer to the police: As with all internal investigations, if during the course of the work any evidence emerges of behaviour that is potentially a criminal offence, the matter will be referred to the police and the Cabinet Office’s work may be paused.
Doesn't say she does it, though, does it? And when I worked in a quango the absolute rule was to refer anything politically sensitive upwards for discussion even if I was the one doing the actual work/action in question.
Personally I'm waiting for the revelation that Senior Met officers attended some of these parties and that the Met therefore can no longer investigate and will have to be investigated by someone else and so it goes on until some poor farmer on the Isle of Mull who hasn't seen a living soul for 3 years finds himself having to investigate everyone else in the country as he's the only one left who hasn't done anything wrong.
He puts in his report only to find the Russians have taken over.
Something like this anyway.
Not sure about Mull. Over 2,000 folk there, and the island is notorious for its party culture. Them crofters can be wild.
I'd suggest Foula - truly remote island to the west of the Shetland archipelago.
Robert Peston @Peston BREAKING: Sue Gray will not publish her partygate report while the Met police investigate. So it will not be published this week and probably not for many weeks. This is some kind of reprieve for the prime minister. She will continue her investigation though
FFS this is in no ones interest.
There's an argument that this is very much in Starmer's interest. The story keeps rumbling on while the Government is holed beneath the waterline, every week or two Dom feeds another scrap to the ravenous newspapers, and the Conservatives retain their lame duck leader.
Not sure Cummings is going to be able to continue his stories while a police investigation is proceeding
What is the legal position? If you're accused of burglary and the police are investigating, is there a law that says I can't go round telling people that I saw you creeping around in a hoodie, jangling skeleton keys? It's a convenient excuse not to talk, of course, but unlike contempt of court for influencing ongoing proceedings, I don't think there's a "contempt of police" law?
But yes, its probably good for both Starmer and Johnson, and bad news for Sunak. The public weariness with the story will increase over time, though, so Starmer can't just keep asking questions on parties. I'd think the Labour line will be "Look at problem X (fuel prices, disruption, etc.), why is the Government so weak and preoccupied?"
I agree and I expect Cummings himself will be part of the Met investigation
There is no doubt every question will be batted away that this now a police investigation
The key here, as it always has been, what are conservative mps going to do
Batting away every question with "there is a police investigation" is surely a more damaging response than "wait for Sue Gray"?
The problem is that every time that answer is given, it reminds people that this is a CRIMINAL matter as well as being hugely insensitive at a time when family occasions were missed, people couldn't say goodbye to loved ones, the Queen sat alone to grieve etc etc.
One bad aspect is that any time there is any news now about a law and order matter, it gives opponents a free hit.
If I were Number 10 at this stage, I'd be looking to 'fess up early, pay some fixed penalty notices, and end the police aspect sharp-ish. I don't buy the "well, this gives the PM some time" argument. Police crawling over it for any period is a horrible look (and the outcome of 'fessing up isn't actually people going into the dock in this case - the police issue a fine, and they write a cheque).
Yes, that's a point. "Police now involved" lends a kind of fake gravity to things. The offences are serious but only morally and politically. As criminal offences they are trivial. Akin to a traffic violation.
But I'm not sure I agree it doesn't buy time - assuming Tory MPs wimp out - and my sense is that time is the best and only thing Johnson can hope for right now.
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
This *may* be what happened: The Sue Gray report was about unequivocally to tear Johnson a new one, so his only option was to interrupt it with a criminal investigation, for which the thresholds which need to be met and the burden of proof are much higher. 1/2
This, of course, carries huge peril - his MPs will try to unseat him. But if he's seen a draft of the Sue Gray report and judged it would absolutely force him to resign, shifting a certain loss to a dirty leadership contest, at least gives him a small fighting chance. 2/2
The Met police say they have reacted on the referral directly from Sue Gray
Ms Gray would not have been able to refer it to them, without management approval. Basic Civil Service procedure on anything sensitive. And what is her line of management upwards?
Really? If she has discovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing then she should report it to the police. Line management chains are irrelevant. It's her duty as a citizen.
I would presume so. But it is a major conflict right there.
Really shouldn't need any debunking to anyone with a passing acquaintance with reality, but didn't someone quote it on here the other day (along with the classic Covid merely "hastened" people's deaths) as evidence that they weren't a "loon"?
What I found most interesting was the widespread prevalence of “comorbidities” as age increases - the data presented was for Scotland but I doubt rUK is significantly different.
I'm not sure how much of the increased risk from covid with increasing age is due to the comorbidities, and how much is due to age itself.
Yes, given so many older people (a majority over 50, virtually everyone over 70) have comorbidities we don’t yet know whether it’s a cause or a coincidence. Some will obviously not help but others may be coincidental
It is just a coincidence that the excess death rate is 150,000? Nothing to do with Covid of course and definitely nothing to do with the govt.....
Comments
From hitch hikers
“But the notes were available…”
“Available? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s filing.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notes, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on filed in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash-for-Honours_scandal#Criminal_investigation
Starts April 2006
CPS decided not to pursue July 2007
So well over a year, say 15 months or so.
Man, that can has been kicked so far down the road we can't see it.
How very helpful.
It only came out at 5.00pm last night
The bad news for the government with the Met investigating them is that a lot of them are about to get unnecessarily tasered.
https://twitter.com/RupertMyers/status/1485934006969544710?s=20
But yes, its probably good for both Starmer and Johnson, and bad news for Sunak. The public weariness with the story will increase over time, though, so Starmer can't just keep asking questions on parties. I'd think the Labour line will be "Look at problem X (fuel prices, disruption, etc.), why is the Government so weak and preoccupied?"
https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails?ref=3785
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otmWE2AYYek
https://www.military1st.co.uk/tr128-bk-highlander-combat-kilt-black.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIx8XMp-TM9QIVV41oCR2H1gL2EAQYBSABEgIBTfD_BwE
So - for the betting - these 2 questions need a probability.
Eg, if we think there's a 66% chance of a VONC happening and a 50% chance he loses it, this means there's a 2 in 3 chance he leads the party into the May local elections.
There is no doubt every question will be batted away that this now a police investigation
The key here, as it always has been, what are conservative mps going to do
The use of the police to bolster the executive is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. In all fairness to Johnson he is a lot smarter than Trump. A revolution, and not a shot fired.
Death cert numbers are higher than the 28 day count too.
It's not "somewhere between 17k and 150k", the true figure much much closer to 150k.
Peak of coincidental deaths would be about 18th Jan, around 60 or so.
https://twitter.com/theobertram/status/1485936651805339648
Intel has announced that it is spending $20 billion on two new microprocessor fabrication plants in Ohio.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/17221/intel-announces-ohio-fab-complex-2-new-fabs-for-20b-and-space-for-more
And last year they announced two other new plants in Arizona, for about the same cost. The Ohio complex might eventually cost them $100 billion.
I find these sorts of figures mind-boggling.
We have fair elections in our country and people can vote for whoever they like.
If he were to be replaced before the May locals, there would be a honeymoon period for the incomer. "Give him/her a chance."
It's a measure of how low we've sunk that we're even considering "No 10 is being investigated by the police" as "actually this might be good for the PM".
The whole thing rumbles on, in the background. A funny outcome would be double whammy of Grays report and Met investigation published near May elections
Oh and Monbiot is an idiot!
There is lots of Thorium in the Earth's crust. Its biggest downside (for the military) is that it cannot be used to produce weapons grade material. If Iran really wanted a civilian nuclear programme then a Pebble-bed would have been the way to go...
I am not sure if it as quick and easy as that
This, of course, carries huge peril - his MPs will try to unseat him. But if he's seen a draft of the Sue Gray report and judged it would absolutely force him to resign, shifting a certain loss to a dirty leadership contest, at least gives him a small fighting chance. 2/2
https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1485936354739503105
It's a great outfit that lasts for ever so is a good investment - I got mine for my wedding 20 years ago and it's still going strong. I wore it to a Burns supper with friends on Saturday night, and I wear it to any event requiring black tie.
If you are trying to defenestrate someone, do it. Don't pussyfoot around and don't do it on their timetable. The last couple of weeks have given a clear sign that the Conservatives have no self confidence, no moral compass, and no direction.
Not at the party, not a supporter of Boris, but the leading plausible alternative candidate to the relative insiders of Truss and Sunak.
It's an area where non-intervention by competition authorities sometimes works in the US's favour because it creates gigantic world beating champions that get cut down to size in the UK or Europe or halted from growth by M&A. That plus ruthless pursuit of profit in the US is why they dominate the tech industry and their tech companies are able to buy up swathes of UK start ups for relative pennies.
I don't support the Tories but it seems to me like a lot of PB commentators are smugly predicting what they want to happen and the criticism of HYUFD's analysis seems unfair.
Cross-referred that to the totals on the coronavirus dashboards for deaths with covid recorded on death certificates by month.
From the start of March 2020 to the end of December 2021, there were 150,397 deaths with covid recorded on the death certificate.
Of these, 133,790 had covid as the direct cause of death (88.96%) and 16,607 had covid recorded as a contributory cause.
If that proportion is similar across all countries, then of the 176,428 deaths recorded with covid on the death certificate, about 156,944 will have been directly due to covid (with the remainder having covid as a contributory factor)
If you look back over the past couple of years it is problem after problem being kicked along to buy time. If he can keep it running for five years or until he chooses to stand down then he will have "survived".
The political system will be a shambles when he is finished, but I do not expect that that will bother him in the slightest...
https://twitter.com/JohnJCrace/status/1485938857254264837
That's another reason the Johnson-Patel axis is a danger to all our freedoms if he stays ; Patel even wants to re-introduce the parts the Lords recently struck out.
Destroying evidence is a crime.
Sure, the age and health of those affected is going to be a factor in calculating the costs and benefits of whatever measures might be taken.
But covid killing a much bigger proportion of (much) older people is already somewhat baked in to how we responded - we would surely all have reacted differently to a disease that was killing 10% of infected children, rather than 10% of over 80s (or whatever it was pre-vaccines).
about the police incorrectly issuing Fixed Penalty Notices.
The ASML machines alone (of which they might have 20 in a fab), cost about $300m a pop.
Their website is fascinating reading if you're interested in tech.
https://www.asml.com/en
...As each copy of the pattern is printed on the wafer, the reticle moves smoothly through a narrow slit of light, exposing only a small part of the pattern at a time. Meanwhile, the wafer moves smoothly in the opposite direction to capture the whole pattern. The motion of the reticle and wafer must be perfectly synchronized, but because the reticle pattern is larger than the pattern on the wafer, the reticle must move much farther and faster, up to 150 meters per second squared. That’s the equivalent of a car accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in just 0.1 seconds. The ability to synchronize the motion of wafer and reticle to the nanometer and nanosecond as they accelerate at 5 g and 15 g in opposite directions – all without causing a single vibration – is vital for producing functioning microchips....
The problem is that every time that answer is given, it reminds people that this is a CRIMINAL matter as well as being hugely insensitive at a time when family occasions were missed, people couldn't say goodbye to loved ones, the Queen sat alone to grieve etc etc.
One bad aspect is that any time there is any news now about a law and order matter, it gives opponents a free hit.
If I were Number 10 at this stage, I'd be looking to 'fess up early, pay some fixed penalty notices, and end the police aspect sharp-ish. I don't buy the "well, this gives the PM some time" argument. Police crawling over it for any period is a horrible look (and the outcome of 'fessing up isn't actually people going into the dock in this case - the police issue a fine, and they write a cheque).
I suppose what I’m asking is, would destroying evidence/clearing embarrassing photos, be a legal offence in the parameter’s of the Gray investigation rather than just something that can be remarked upon and if the evidence was removed before the police investigation was announced can they be in legal trouble for destroying evidence?
Does a burglar get in more legal trouble, if he burnt the swag bag he used for the burglary, if he did it straight after the burglary as opposed to after being subject to a police investigation it’s a separate crime if he sneaks out at night and destroys this evidence?
Not a great bargain.
Personally I'm waiting for the revelation that Senior Met officers attended some of these parties and that the Met therefore can no longer investigate and will have to be investigated by someone else and so it goes on until some poor farmer on the Isle of Mull who hasn't seen a living soul for 3 years finds himself having to investigate everyone else in the country as he's the only one left who hasn't done anything wrong.
He puts in his report only to find the Russians have taken over.
Something like this anyway.
Boris is going nowhere.
I'd suggest Foula - truly remote island to the west of the Shetland archipelago.
But I'm not sure I agree it doesn't buy time - assuming Tory MPs wimp out - and my sense is that time is the best and only thing Johnson can hope for right now.
FFS!