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The story that won’t go away for Johnson – politicalbetting.com
The story that won’t go away for Johnson – politicalbetting.com
As has been widely speculated whatever the Metropolitan Police decide to do about Johnson then it will be bad for the Prime Minister.
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She's doing great in Marr's slot.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/20/world/ukraine-russia-putin-biden#us-intelligence-russia-military
Jack Detsch @JackDetsch
NEW: Russia is deploying more armored equipment and troops near Belgorod, Soloti, Valuyki as close as 10 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Most of the combat units at Soloti are now departing, per satellite images, heading south in the direction of Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1495532423395913733
It shows that when chair blockers like Marr and Jon Snow are out the way, others can step in and reveal how good they can be.
Hashtag exciting 🙂
- Biden held 4 hr NSC mtg
- Biden rescheduled then canceled trip to Delaware tonight
- Macron 📞 Biden: 15 min
- US embassy in Russia warning of attacks in Moscow & St Petersburg
- Situation continues to be tense in/around Ukraine
https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam
Parliament’s Justice Committee concluded that the oversight of the process is inadequate:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmjust/497/49703.htm
The courts are effectively the regulators of private prosecutions, but for obvious reasons that regulation is not systematic.
The CPS has powers to intervene in private prosecutions in particular circumstances, but has no overall regulatory role at all….
There are good arguments in favour of having a system of private prosecutions, but it does seem extraordinary that we recognised as far back as the mid 80s that there were dangerous conflicts of interest in having those who investigated a crime also bring prosecutions. As a result the CPS was set up to take over that role from the police.
And yet in the intervening three and a half decades we’ve never done anything about setting up a system to regulate decisions to prosecute still taken by those who do the investigation - ie for pretty well all private prosecutions.
https://www.flightradar24.com/FORTE11/2ae24bf7
Though the state of BBC management at the moment they will probably announce that Amol Rajan has been awarded the Sunday Show tomorrow.
Hope Spring arrives soon. This week's weather has wrecked the plans I'd made for half-term.
I’m sticking to that. My analysis agrees with Mike’s header, it’s not going away. I disagree with header, that an apology from Boris saves him, in fact he’s remained in post a few weeks longer on the basis he’s avoided making such an apology. Such an apology is an admission of guilt - and that moment, either through apology or some other means, finishes him. The penny dropped weeks ago, even in number ten, he can’t survive this. It’s not a simple law that has been broken - through the messaging of the law, that law was Boris own policy what we all needed to do, the whole sense of British fair play is built into it, the prime ministers own leadership, to lead by example built into it. He broke that law. He told whoppers to Parliament and media to avoid being found out. There’s no coming back from that.
It’s just a question of when. And my countdown till Tuesday is based on two things I have learned from all this and hold to be true. Firstly, there is no clever manoeuvring how the letters go in, a vonc can happen any second based on MPs deciding in their own mind at their own speed they want a change. Secondly, Boris has had a degree of control over delay and filibuster up till now. Last Friday he lost control. What he has stated to police can become public knowledge any moment now.
It’s also noticeable he has very little support inside his own tent now, just the same old loyalists in the media defending him, and contorting themselves to manage that like Cleverly did today
We are seeing a planned, premeditated escalation by Russia. No matter the outcome, the message could not be clearer: nothing uttered by the Russian state can unfortunately be trusted. The path for a free, European Ukraine is clear and Estonia supports if fully #WeStandWithUkraine
https://twitter.com/AlarKaris/status/1495509829691006978
a bit of Brexit on front tomorrows papers again. 🤔
Telegraph covering IDS saying “time running out to benefit from Brexit” I didn’t realise there was a ticking clock on being able to benefit, how is that explained?
“Brexit let down - the promised fruits are hard to find” top of the FT.
I had a chat with my Dad on Face Time today. He said although Blair won majorities, there was still a customary lot of table banging mid term asking where the deliver on the promises were. It got me thinking, the more covid becomes thing of the past in peoples minds the more this electoral cycle slips into demanding delivery on promises, partly hidden from view by Ukraine Crisis. And also it’s different this time because this is the Brexit delivery parliament, normal elections promises woven in with finally delivering Brexit benefits.
If we get back to a more standard news narrative, can we expect to be hearing a lot more about delivery of Brexit benefits?
https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1495541262572740608
President Macron just had a second (!) phone conversation today with President Putin which lasted one hour. This conversation follows calls of the 🇫🇷 President with his 🇺🇦, 🇺🇸, 🇩🇪 and 🇬🇧 counterparts. Intense diplomatic activity from Paris.
Only if he is fined, the Labour lead expands to double digits again or the Tories see massive losses in the local elections will he be under threat again
Anyone with any common sense would have quickly figured that the PO was going over the top and that its campaign against the postmasters was based on flawed assumptions and faulty evidence.
@GerardAraud
Second phone call of the day between pres.
@EmmanuelMacron
et Pres. Putin.
https://twitter.com/GerardAraud/status/1495538474992209923
@Reuters
·
1m
Russia could lose financial markets access, advanced goods if it invades Ukraine -EU chief http://reut.rs/34Y5VRD
https://twitter.com/Reuters
==
I'm not liking the 'could' word there.
@markmackinnon
·
2h
Heartbreaking. Leaving a restaurant in Kyiv tonight, and the waitress grabs my arm. “Are you leaving Ukraine? My husband thinks we should leave. But we have two cats and we can’t leave them.” I wouldn’t call it panic, but it feels like previously chill Kyiv is now very nervous…
https://twitter.com/olliecarroll
And with that - I head to bed. Night all.
IG ftse trading at ~-0.4%
And don't forget that companies like Shell have lots of Russian exposure (Sakhalin-II) which would be negatively impact by sanctions.
One person's horrific conflict is someone else's business opportunity.
However, I would suggest that the major losers (economically) will be the EU, which - like it or not - is going to end up being tougher on gas exports from Russia.
And the UK.
Because we are the most dependent country in the world on spot LNG imports. If the Europeans start bidding on a limited number of cargoes, the it just means we're both going to be paying a lot more. (I put a great deal of blame on UK generators, who looked to save a few bucks by not entering into long term supply contracts.)
Reading between the lines, what Biden said implies that US SigInt is reading Russian military communications.
first 91.4%
second 85.0%
booster 66.1%
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk
http://www.chinamission.be/eng/mhs/202202/t20220220_10643724.htm
Andrew Neil is to to host a new Sunday night political show on Channel 4, his first major return to broadcasting after an acrimonious departure from GB News, where he was the rightwing network’s lead presenter.
It marks something of a leftwards lurch by Neil – a former BBC broadcaster known for his conservative views – to a channel whose news programme he once described as the “broadcasting arm of the Guardian”.
The live 10-part series will air in May and has a working title of Sunday Politics with Andrew Neil, according to Channel 4, which said it would feature “set-piece interviews with the highest profile politicians and newsmakers”.
[Neil said]: “Sunday night is a pivotal point in the political week – we can sweep up what’s happened in the previous week, mop up what’s been in the Sunday papers and talkshows and throw forward to the upcoming week. We’ll aim to do all of that and more.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/20/tories-death-misery-spending-cuts-covid-labour
… after two years of sacrifice, bereavement and hurt, there is no sign of any political payback for what people have suffered. Through 2020 and 2021, the government endlessly employed a slogan that had been in sporadic circulation for at least 15 years, and was soon adopted by Joe Biden: “Build back better”. Now, at the very point you might have thought those three words would be more ubiquitous than ever, they are nowhere to be seen.
[Meanwhile] Starmer talks about what we have all been through, but there is still no real sense of a centre-left party confidently speaking to a country reeling from the loss of 180,000 people, and the experience of every aspect of its collective life being upended.
The tabloid knee jerk antipathy to France that fed directly into Brexit has delivered France a huge opportunity.
Britain has been Europe's leading pro-Ukraine principle power since this began.
The reason Macron is the one doing these phone calls is because to his eternal shame, he's not been supporting Ukraine in the same way.
Ask any concerned democratic nation in Eastern Europe who the principle power has been in this crisis and they won't say France or Germany.
Its France's shame that they're reduced to that role, not an opportunity to them. Thank goodness we've not been neutral in this crisis.
I'll get my coat.
Having said that, though I no longer support him, credit where its due: he's doing a good job with Ukraine, and Covid in lifting all remaining restrictions.
But it doesn't matter how good a PM is. Introducing laws you don't follow yourself is gross misconduct.
One of Johnson's first acts was to clear out anyone who questioned him.
Even if it was necessary, the side effect is that there's nobody in Cabinet, and hardly anyone in the Parliamentary party, with the backbone to tell Boris he's wrong.
If you select a bunch of cheerleaders, you can't complain that they don't play football.
That doesn't make every Cabinet minister a cheerleader, it just means they were [initially at least] on board with the government's agenda, as you'd expect. As other PMs throughout time have found, there's no reason an initial alignment needs to last indefinitely.
Someone was becoming very negative indeed about their work situation and several people rallied round to give support and, I thought anyway, very good advice.
The sad truth is that today's Conservative Party is amoral, incompetent and corrupt. They do - and then deny - literally anything. Which is why HY only talks about polling and not the issue. When standards do not matter they can be ignored.
The arrogance is thinking the general public have the same lack of morality, standards, decency. If Covid has taught us anything it is that most people give a shit about each other...
Franklin certainly seems the wettest of the lot !
Mr. Pulpstar, similar here. And the winds are the highest they've been during the run of storms.
Fortunately, though, not in the main structure.
Even if it were necessary it has the side effect of reducing the ability of the Cabinet to stand up to the PM when it has to be done. And sometimes, it really has to be done.
Consider also the pattern of sackings at Boris's reshuffles or the cringe of that post election Cabinet; "How many new hospitals?" "Forty, Prime Minister".
Definitely not cheerleaders.
Still very strong wind here (50-60mph). Last night and much of yesterday had torrential rain, at times the wind blowing it closer to horizontal than vertical.
"Forty Hospitals Prime Minister" is instructive. They are not building new hospitals but claiming they are anyway. A new fag shelter in the car park branded a new hospital. From the coverage I have seen this isn't well received in places where a new hospital is needed, a lick of paint and a new lean to goes up and "its a new hospital" is announced. The gamble from the Tories being that people really are that stupid.
And its the same on other measures. This week its likely that an axe will be taken to public transport (especially buses and light rail) as the government slashes subsidy - at the same time they are trumpeting expansions in public transport with its champion Boris "I love buses me" likely to still say how much money is going in even as services as slashed. Same with the towns fund where the same money is being promised three or four times over and amazingly enough not actually being spent.
This will be instructive as to how the post-Brexit era works in comparison to the post-Thatcher era. In the past when you lie to voters they tend to punish you. As Nick Clegg found out. Now we have a long list of lies and more to follow. Will people say "what hospital?" or will the need to keep going to secure that Brexit unicorn persuade people to look at the new fag shelter and say "nice hospital"?
I am starting to think of our Cabinet Ministers in the way Brabbins and Fife thought about foreigners:
https://youtu.be/kL1zs4OKYAU
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60366088
As mentioned, it was the leading cold front behind which Franklin came in, on which the sharp 10 minute rain band formed in GB across the Southern Uplands and Northumberland and travelled as that rain band down almost the entirety of England and Wales. Hit me in Huddersfield just before 3pm (no leaks this time) and Elland Road about the same time.
https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1495670847935332354?s=20&t=g7jwWX_MtW90Y2v9qY4pLw
Hint: it’s the Ukrainians that the Russians killed in 2014, last time they invaded.
I hope this post ages well!
Even by the standards of government projects......