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It looks as though the lockdown bandits think they can tough it out – politicalbetting.com
It looks as though the lockdown bandits think they can tough it out – politicalbetting.com
The PM and Chancellor are going to brazen it out. That much is clear. An apology, a reference to all the other much more important work that needs to be done, Ukraine, a hope that MPs and voters are weary of it all, the happy coincidence that Parliament is not sitting, and so on. It is likely to work for now, even if opinion polls show a certain amount of buyer’s remorse. The May elections may bring a change of heart. But even if they are bad, expect Tory MPs to blame the cost of living, energy prices, tax increases and “every day concerns“.
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But it is not enough to counter the lost millions saying "I won't vote for a liar." That reality will seep into the consciousness of Tory MPs. And into that of Boris too.
Boris wants to be remembered for winning an 80 seat majority. He does NOT want to be remembered as the PM who lost an 80 seat majority - to someone who is a bit rubbish. Those who think Boris will plough on regardless are reading the man all wrong.
He'll be gone next year.
My best hunch is Javid, who has weathered the storm. But he’s a long shot.
The idea that we could fund a UK based immigration inspection team to go and check the immigration status of workers in businesses for £120m is laughable. That's a £2-3bn per year cost of expanding the border agency with thousands of agents needing to be recruited in a very tight labour market.
Just in case RP is looking for the costs.
However, in the case the the 'parties' I can genuinely see how he became convinced that it was within guidelines. Take the one he has already been fined for. For a start it was in the cabinet room where he was working. Secondly the people there were also working in No 10 too. And it was for a very short amount of time (under the mythical, and forgotten 15 minutes). In no sense was this a party, yet the name has been attached to it. If thats the only type of parties you ever attend then you have lived a dull life.
We don't yet know the other occasions he is likely to be fined for. It may be the infamous garden one - where the photo clearly shows people outside and socially distanced. Again, he may have been convinced this was within the guidelines.
So did he lie in the house? If he genuinely believed the events as described above were in the guideines then no. The Met have chosen to interpret the law otherwise. I note it is unlikely to be challenged in court, even though those receiving the FPNs have the right to contest it. We have seen consistently that many many challenged fines were revoked, usually because the police didn't understand what they were enforcing.
While its tempting to blame the police, I actually blame those who created the laws. They were always a nonsense. And the messaging was also confused. Most people seem to think it was the law that you could leave the house once a day for exercise and for not more than 1 hour. That was never the law - it was a suggested sensible approach.
And so at heart, the reasons Johnson should go are many and various, but I am happy to believe he did not knowingly lie in the house.
Think of Brown - it was utterly clear that the job made him miserable. In a perfectly rational world, he would have arranged a leadership election in the Labour Party, anointed his successor and walked out of the door to a happier life. Instead he hung on and on.
Politicians are utterly driven to hang on until the bitter end. By the time they get to the top, they've fought endless elections/votes - selection for councils, councils, selections for MP, elections as MP etc etc.
That’s not my legs btw, that’s Charlotte, my thighs are fat!
& What happens if there is a boat full of self identified young girls*
* Just because they have a beard doesn't mean...
With more time, I could do a better job, but in the meantime...
To take over in those circumstances you would have to either be mad, have a sense of duty that is indistinguishable from madness, or know that a Hail Mary pass is your only chance at the top job.
Who goes for it?
(I can imagine Boris dining out on the idea that he would have won in 2024, unlike whatstheirname.)
“Everything that we’ve seen during our visit to Vostochny, all successes in space exploration achieved in recent years prove that our country retains its leadership in space industry, is one of the leaders in this area,” President Vladimir Putin said.
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2022/04/13/putin-celebrates-gagarin-flight-anniversary-vows-russia-will-remain-a-leader-in-space-amid-sanctions/
They were a leader in the space industry, decades ago. Since then, they have relied on old rocket designs that were reliable. They have very little that is *new*. Their commercial launches came because they were cheap and reliable - even Arianespace used a Soyuz for some launches.
But their offerings are being left behind. Not just with SpaceX in the US, but companies like RocketLab and others. And other states who might once have booked rides have their own space programs.
The real killer for their program is the invasion. Few commercial companies will continue to go with a Russian launcher after the problems OneWeb and others have been caused.
I fully expect Russia's 'leadership' in space to vanish, and for them to be left with one or two military launches of their own each year. So much for 'leadership'.
100K fine per undocumented worker.
50% goes to the undocumented worker. Providing they give evidence and there is a conviction that is upheld on appeal.
I am sure there will be some flannel about welfare being observed and monitored. It will be bollocks.
You fail to appreciate that Boris's conduct is driven by a huge sense of entitlement. Many of those who surround him feel the same. Laws are for me and thee, not for them. Once you understand that, you understand how behaviour which to normal people would be regarded as unacceptable is brushed aside.
It's not complicated, really. He was entirely sincere in his pleadings. He just didn't think the rules applied to him, or his mates.
If you have any doubt about this, don't just look at partygate; look at his whole career, his whole life.
For the unmanned stuff - no-one is going to fly Russian rockets anymore. The question is how ESA pivots. The block buy from Bezos has given some life to Ariane 6 - is that enough to kill off the planned move of the "cheap" launches away from the Russians (contracted through ESA) to a reusable European rocket?
An interesting point within this was that OneWeb got SpaceX rides very rapidly - negotiations took 72 hours, according to OneWeb.
https://www.ft.com/content/647eb171-1cf3-4561-b85d-55d499300367
“It’s not entirely clear the basis of his non-domicile status,” said Dan Neidle, former head of tax at Clifford Chance, the law firm. “On the face of it, it seems a bit racier than Mrs Sunak’s claim.”
Nimesh Shah, chief executive at Blick Rothenberg, an accountancy firm, added there was “a question mark” over Javid’s non-dom status. “He was born here, he’s lived here most of his life. Whilst legally, there is a question mark here, this whole law is all very subjective . . . But his claim is not as strong.”
Javid held non-dom status for an unspecified period during the two decades when he was a wealthy globe-trotting banker.
HOWEVER - given the nauseating approach of the French and Germans to Ukraine, there is still a very real bit of me that wants Boris to stay at least for a bit because he, at least, has given unstinting support to Zelinskyy. I really think it would be a body-blow for Ukraine if Boris was kicked out now. It would give too much satisfaction to Putin and his appeasers.
So, for now, Boris should stay.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/frence-president-emmanuel-macrons-refusal-to-talk-of-genocide-in-ukraine-painful-ukraine-president-volodymyr-zelensky-2886723
The laws were probably impossible to draft. You have two extremes - either strong recommendation to people how to behave to minimise risks (WFH, no indoor contacts etc) or complete legally enforced with the army on the street lockdown. The economy needed some stuff kept going - food, energy etc. So the mistake was to prepare laws to try to set out what was and wasn't allowed, because Barrack Room Lawyer country we are, twats everywhere will immediately start looking for loopholes and edge cases. As indeed happened.
See for example 'substantial meal'.
Clearly the intention was that socialising stopped. Yet if people were working together in an office all day, its not much of a leap to see how a coffee break at 3 becomes a glass of wine at 7. They were undoubtedly working under high stress and pressure.*
It wasn't right, they should not have done it. The laws were difficult, and not well set out or explained.
But the vase majority of the country did their best. Those in No 10 did not, and the price is being extracted now. I hope for the Grey report next week. That may be the moment. Or it may be after the locals as the Tory MP's in the marginal seats realise that there is only two years to go to turn things around.
*A lot of people were working under high stress and pressure, not least in hospitals. Some of the stories were amazing - people living away from home to avoid bringing covid home. Many staff changing cloths in porches before going into their homes. And if some of them shared a drink after a shift I couldn't give a shit.
He's a shit and the sooner he is gone the better.
It isn't. It's just about policy and presentation; it is not possible to implement, has not been legislated, drafting its laws without direct or indirect discrimination will be impossible, the courts will block it, and it will be impossible to do it without it backfiring.
The Americans got the cash for the launches, as well as a good defence against accusations of monopoly for Starlink. The Brits got their satellites launched cheaply and quickly, and managed to get away from having to rely on the Russians.
The big remaining issue is the ISS, and the hope that Russia doesn’t bring the project to an early end. It’s been one of the best things humans have ever done, certainly one of the most expensive, and has survived more than three decades of political trouble up to now.
Churchill, Lloyd George, Disraeli, etc. (the predecessors that most appeal to BJ) all led fairly rackety lives, were pretty cynical in many respects, and rode out crises which would have felled other politicians. And yet, looking back, we all forget that stuff, and remember them as consequential figures. I suspect Boris thinks like that. If so, it explains a lot.
Until a tax case is tested in tribunals and the such we can;t really judge. We can draw inference from other cases, and what an interpretation of the rules are, but there's always a subjectiveness there,
It would still have angered a lot of people, but an apology might have been believed by many, too.
As it is, it's valiantly obvious he's taking the piss, and doesn't give a damn about laws if he thinks he can get away something. That is simply not someone you want as PM, and to your great credit you are one of his supporters who recognises that.
https://twitter.com/RwandaMFA/status/1389630931254890500
What has Boris got left to achieve? Levelling up? He can make a start but that is a thirty year project.
"PM" is already on his CV. Continuing as PM doesn't add anything. It also detracts from opportunities to make some serious money.
No, he'll be gone next year.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/12/spacex-pushes-spaceflight-inc-out-the-airlock/
Apparently SpaceX gave them the same price per launch as the last couple of launches they booked for other customers. And sent engineers to help adapting the payload dispenser.
Ariane 6 may have won some orders from Bezos, but it is very much the best 1990s rocket.
ISS is nearly past it's sell buy date. Thermal cycling twice each orbit and all that.
The future is NASA as anchor tenant for a mixed public/private station - see Axiom and their plans.
There wouldn't be an undocumented employee in the country within 20 minutes of the law going into force, though.
And since you'd have to make the prosecution start point the implementation of the law (otherwise a lot of businesses sued out of existence), probably no prosecutions, either.
Of course I said it would never last. And I was right.
And they're both pretty Tonto at the moment.
The real question is whether SpaceX's SH/SS combination works. The jury is very much out on that. I'd give it an 90% chance of being made to work, but only 10% chance of meeting the performance objectives Musk has set it.
But those figures have been plucked out of my backside.
The next generation satellites are already beginning production, I believe.
The French insist on solid boosters to support the solid rocket industry, and so on...
The design of Ariane 6 was about making all the owners of the pieces of the space industrial complex in Europe happy, rather than reducing costs.
As Stéphane Israël commented - if he made his rockets reusable, what would all the engineers do for the rest of the year?
Do you have any more info re. IJN "Zuma Class" cruisers?
Not least because the deal was just smoke to distract from passing off their refugee obligations on their immediate neighbours.
https://ecre.org/denmark-meps-confront-danish-minister-on-rogue-asylum-policies-as-syrians-flee-to-other-member-states/
The African Union took a pretty dim view, too.
https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20210802/press-statement-denmarks-alien-act-provision-externalize-asylum-procedures
When the project was run by government, whether in the US or Europe, all the people with the money - the politicians - cared about, was that the project supported jobs local to themselves. This being irrespective of whether the actual mission ever got flown, in fact there were bonus points for running late and over budget, as the politicians could support the local jobs for longer and argue about sunk costs.
The original suggestion for this was that people trying to enter without documents would be sent to an overseas processing centre, IIRC.
Bear in mind most people know very little about Rwanda (nowadays an economically fairly successful and stable country but with an authoritarian government) but what they do know is that a. it had a genocide, b. it's a long way away in an exotic country. So I'd have thought the public reaction is going to be:
- That sounds dangerous
- That sounds expensive
- That sounds like it's depending on another unreliable country
Not sure anyone, even the most gullible, is going to believe this will only cost £120 million.
Unit Director Meg Russell on @thetimes letters page:
"The prime minister & chancellor have broken the ministerial code on two counts [law breaking & misleading parliament]... Both are resigning matters, but the keeper of the code is the PM himself"
https://twitter.com/ConUnit_UCL/status/1514365548435550210
The international small sat launchers have some chance - but the rideshare price from SpaceX undercuts them on raw price. For specialist services they do have some market, though.
Sue Origin needs to make orbit. Unless Bezos simply swallows the development costs, their prices won't be competitive.
SH/SS with an expendable user stage (Starship) would still be cheaper than F9 per ton. There is no doubt, in my mind, that they can make SH reusable - it's just a bigger version of what they are already doing with the F9 first stage.
It should be noted that (most/many?) of SpaceX launches are 'internal' ones for Starlink.
Incidentally, von Braun also did a study into reusing Saturn V via a winged-flyback iC stage. From memory, they would need over 100 launches to make it pay. Leaving that to one side, imagine what we could have done with over 100 Saturn V launches...