Good on him. Half an hour with Andrew Neil should be considered compulsory for anyone wanting high office. The antidote to the rest of the clickbait media.
I presume Truss will take Johnson's lead and chicken out. I was impressed that Sturgeon took him on last election, went predictably badly for her.
Yep, really stuffed the EssEnnPee in that election.
Altenatively most voters don't give a toss about 'GB News' Brillo, and those that do are already very established in their views.
And? I don't really care whether it changes people's views, or even impacts on how people vote.
I think it's a good thing that Sturgeon/Sunak are still going for interviews like that anyway. The Children's hospital was a disaster and she was rightly called out on it.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Nevertheless, what Driver says is true. Never in my lifetime has such a major government decision been so little challenged by the media - indeed, the only pressure was to 'do more'.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
I believe there are a couple of Dundee Courier fans on here? Not sure if DC gave reasons for not wanting to publish this. I suspect most of us of whatever political persuasion will recognise some elements of 'the fear' and the strategies used to cope with it.
“I believe there are a couple of Dundee Courier fans on here?”
Is possibly the most poignantly forlorn sentence ever posted on PB. It is also a glimpse of the parochial tedium that would be www.scottishpoliticalbetting.com if ever Sindy won. I bet the PB Nats would be back on PB within hours. Probably moaning about England
Well, you (or the 49th username you'd chosen) would be on moaning about indy Scotland 24/7 for sure, if you hadn't suffered a massive breakdown over the dissolution of your beloved UK.
I believe Carlotta is certainly a big DC fan, you should take up the charge of parochialisn with her.
The rise of Britain as an industrial power took place post-abolitionism.
Medieval serfdom and slavery was about getting things done with as cheap labour as possible, the industrial revolution was about seeking to replace labour to be more productive.
I dunno BR: Seems to me that at least one of the major inputs to said industrial economy had an awful lot to do with slavery.
I also remember reading a paper that suggested that the large chunk of the capital that was invested in UK industry came from reparations paid to the slave owning middle classes by the UK government when they abolished slave ownership.
The industrial revolution took place in the 18th century.
Slavery in the British Empire was abolished in 1833.
Any compensation to slave owners would have been raised by taxation on other sectors - so in effect Birmingham factories paid to compensate Jamaican plantation owners.
And I doubt that many Jamaican plantation owners would have used such money to invest back into Birmingham factories. Buying a nice landed estate in this country would have been more their thing.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
Fair point, but some SAGE committee people used the wall to wall covid media coverage to further their own ends.
Could the government have insisted on a media blackout from SAGE people and insist all briefings were initially private?
We live in a democracy with free speech. I don't see a problem with people with expertise on a topic talking to the media about it!
Agreed, but I don't see why SAGE's advice could not have been published retrospectively in its entirety so people could judge for themselves after the event and in a much less febrile atmosphere.
Very early on, SAGE was slow to publish, but there was pressure from the public and the media for everything to be transparent. That included from the Right. Indeed, I think it was the lockdown-sceptical who were particularly vociferous in wanting everything to be made transparent.
SAGE was pretty quick to move to greater transparency (other parts of Govt lagged behind in terms of advice through other channels). I think both democracy and science work better out in the open.
There was a febrile atmosphere. A once-in-a-generation catastrophe will do that. But that makes it all the more valuable to be transparent, to make sure different voices can be heard.
The deal that needs to be done on asylum is between France and the UK and needs to:
(1) Include for British (or British crewed French flagged) boats to have the right to intercept in French waters and return every boat straight to Calais (2) Britain and France to agree to tighten the qualifying rules for asylum (3) UK to agree to take some applications from asylum seekers in France and process them whilst they stay in France, before ferrying the successful to the UK, with a bilateral arrangement to repatriate others who were refused (4) Some money to sweeten the deal (5) Help France with its own border security in the Med, probably with 2-3 RN cutters, and helping them deport unsuccessful migrants
We spend ever increasing sums on the NHS, and yet simultaneously end up with front line service provision being starved of funds and in some places for some care largely unavailable.
So it isn't how much money we are spending, its how we are spending it. Yes the population is getting older and that costs more. But we don't spend money on preventative medicine - the national obesity crisis being a prime example of how spending now could save far more in the future.
It's also desperately inefficient. The myriad providers all stacked on top of each other, all with separate management systems and contracts and people who are a cost to make the machine work as opposed to a cost of healthcare. There has to be a way to take an axe to much of this - having GPs running themselves as a CCG buying in healthcare contracts being one example of how to waste money.
It doesn't need more spending, it needs less spending on cakes. Why on earth does eating less and briskly walking more require spending?
Obesity is not caused by gluttony. It's caused by our lifestyles becoming more sedentary. Average calorie consumption is down in the UK. But our physically activity has declined by more.
If we spend money on our built environment differently we can encourage people to walk or cycle more and drive less, and therefore reduce obesity.
At best this is averages muddying the situation for the individual.
Last year I lost 16 Kilos and have kept that weight off. I'll spare you from the details, but I acchieved this using a calorie counting app which was really easy to use.
I was as surprised as maybe many of you will be reading this, that an increase in exercise made almost no contribution to the weight loss. The main reason for my sucessful weight loss was eating less (shock). And yes I have the data, analysis and graphs which can back this up.
When I worked for a company that was using Prudential as their private health care provider, we had their Vitality package. Big discounts on trainers, bikes, heart rate monitors, and lots of rewards based on how much activity you did - you signed up to upload data on exercise to their system, and you got rewards automatically.
The number of people who actually did stuff, in my office soared. I believe that this actually pays for itself for Prudential by reducing the number of claims.
A lot of people lost fat, if not weight. The numbers vary from individual to individual, but for some people getting your body into “build muscle” mode from “store energy in the time of plenty” mode can take a while.
Exercise is very good for your health. Exercise has a small role to play in weight reduction.
I found exercising essential to losing weight; not necessarily because of the part it played in the kcal deficit but more because feeling fit makes me less likely to eat badly.
It's linked to self-esteem too. Routine unhealthy diet is poor self-care, often as a symptom of low self-worth or self-esteem. Not helped by the sanctimonious 'just eat better, don't be lazy' chorus heard in *certain* areas.
I was trying to get AI to come up with some random rhymes for fun so started with "Everything must rhyme" and it came up with this that I quite like https://textsynth.com/playground.html
Everything must rhyme.'
But it's not a rhyme that's doing the job; it's more a _punctuation_ effect.
'You have to read with music.'
It's the punctuation that helps.
So I find this business of "reading aloud" to be totally misleading.
My idea, in fact, is that you should _play_ the whole piece of text – if you want to call it reading it – more or less as you would a tune on the piano or the violin.
You might think that this is an easy enough thing to do, but the trick is to get the _rhythms_ right. You'll need to get that right, because these, after all, are some of the _most important_ sounds you're likely to hear in a piece of text. You will know when you've got rhythm in a piece of music; you can hear the beat, the beat itself, the _beat-beat_ , in the mind. But in a piece of text, if you're not careful, you're more likely to hear an _interval_ between beats.
Think of it like this. Imagine a tune on the violin or on the piano, and that you take that tune – whatever it is – and put a little marker somewhere, somewhere else in the piece of music. You might put a little comma, or a little colon, or whatever. You might call it something like a _rest._ Now, you might not call it a rest, but that's what it is. It's a _rest_ , or pause in the _beat-beat_ , in the music.
And if you take that comma, or colon, or pause, or rest, and move it, and place it elsewhere, somewhere else, in the piece of music, then what you've done is changed the _rhythm_.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
There was lots of scrutiny. There were plenty in the media, plenty on social media, putting arguments against lockdown. There were plenty of stakeholders talking to Government putting those arguments. There were plenty in Government putting those arguments.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
Fair point, but some SAGE committee people used the wall to wall covid media coverage to further their own ends.
Could the government have insisted on a media blackout from SAGE people and insist all briefings were initially private?
We live in a democracy with free speech. I don't see a problem with people with expertise on a topic talking to the media about it!
Agreed, but I don't see why SAGE's advice could not have been published retrospectively in its entirety so people could judge for themselves after the event and in a much less febrile atmosphere.
Very early on, SAGE was slow to publish, but there was pressure from the public and the media for everything to be transparent. That included from the Right. Indeed, I think it was the lockdown-sceptical who were particularly vociferous in wanting everything to be made transparent.
SAGE was pretty quick to move to greater transparency (other parts of Govt lagged behind in terms of advice through other channels). I think both democracy and science work better out in the open.
There was a febrile atmosphere. A once-in-a-generation catastrophe will do that. But that makes it all the more valuable to be transparent, to make sure different voices can be heard.
Which never happened, as anyone remotely sceptical got virtually no airtime, and then only so they could be howled down as "deniers".
We spend ever increasing sums on the NHS, and yet simultaneously end up with front line service provision being starved of funds and in some places for some care largely unavailable.
So it isn't how much money we are spending, its how we are spending it. Yes the population is getting older and that costs more. But we don't spend money on preventative medicine - the national obesity crisis being a prime example of how spending now could save far more in the future.
It's also desperately inefficient. The myriad providers all stacked on top of each other, all with separate management systems and contracts and people who are a cost to make the machine work as opposed to a cost of healthcare. There has to be a way to take an axe to much of this - having GPs running themselves as a CCG buying in healthcare contracts being one example of how to waste money.
It doesn't need more spending, it needs less spending on cakes. Why on earth does eating less and briskly walking more require spending?
Obesity is not caused by gluttony. It's caused by our lifestyles becoming more sedentary. Average calorie consumption is down in the UK. But our physically activity has declined by more.
If we spend money on our built environment differently we can encourage people to walk or cycle more and drive less, and therefore reduce obesity.
At best this is averages muddying the situation for the individual.
Last year I lost 16 Kilos and have kept that weight off. I'll spare you from the details, but I acchieved this using a calorie counting app which was really easy to use.
I was as surprised as maybe many of you will be reading this, that an increase in exercise made almost no contribution to the weight loss. The main reason for my sucessful weight loss was eating less (shock). And yes I have the data, analysis and graphs which can back this up.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
If you don’t want personal insults stop suggesting that everyone who supported restrictions were deluded
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
As I said yesterday, I find flag-shagging to be baffling. If you want to use it as an emblem of the country and a marketing tool, that's great! We sell so much Chinese-made union jack covered tat to tourists and we could do a lot more. There have been waves of "Cool Britannia" style export bonanzas. Which are also great.
The problem is when the flag-shaggers take over. The flag ceases to be an emblem of identity and trade but instead a token of exclusion and hate and division.
Do you think the platinum jubilee was a festival of exclusion and hate and division?
Just listen to yourselves. Jesus.
This is why Labour has been out of power for over 12 years.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
If you don’t want personal insults stop suggesting that everyone who supported restrictions were deluded
Where did I say that everyone who supported restrictions was deluded?
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
Fair point, but some SAGE committee people used the wall to wall covid media coverage to further their own ends.
Could the government have insisted on a media blackout from SAGE people and insist all briefings were initially private?
We live in a democracy with free speech. I don't see a problem with people with expertise on a topic talking to the media about it!
Agreed, but I don't see why SAGE's advice could not have been published retrospectively in its entirety so people could judge for themselves after the event and in a much less febrile atmosphere.
Very early on, SAGE was slow to publish, but there was pressure from the public and the media for everything to be transparent. That included from the Right. Indeed, I think it was the lockdown-sceptical who were particularly vociferous in wanting everything to be made transparent.
SAGE was pretty quick to move to greater transparency (other parts of Govt lagged behind in terms of advice through other channels). I think both democracy and science work better out in the open.
There was a febrile atmosphere. A once-in-a-generation catastrophe will do that. But that makes it all the more valuable to be transparent, to make sure different voices can be heard.
Which never happened, as anyone remotely sceptical got virtually no airtime, and then only so they could be howled down as "deniers".
That is not remotely true.
I did some media. It was a common experience for the media to set up a pro/anti debate, because that's how the media do things. I had one experience were I was told I would just be asked about my position, but I log on to the interview and the radio station has clearly set me up, positioning me as "pro-lockdown" and another guest, a nightclub owner, as "anti-lockdown". I was swearing under my breath as the other guest starts talking until, thankfully, it turned out we entirely agreed that what was needed was more clarity and support from Govt!
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
Yes. Very true
Starmer obviously gets it, but his activists absolutely don’t. See also: Wokeness (part of the same problem)
This is THE reason Labour could lose again, despite everything being in their favour
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Delighted that your very close loved ones made it through.
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Delighted that your very close loved ones made it through.
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
Because those who wanted to party would have spread the disease to those who didn't want to.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
There was lots of scrutiny. There were plenty in the media, plenty on social media, putting arguments against lockdown. There were plenty of stakeholders talking to Government putting those arguments. There were plenty in Government putting those arguments.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
Lockdown sceptics losing that debate because those making their arguments were flawed and bad shouldn't be overlooked as a reason.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
There was lots of scrutiny. There were plenty in the media, plenty on social media, putting arguments against lockdown. There were plenty of stakeholders talking to Government putting those arguments. There were plenty in Government putting those arguments.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
They also need to remember that the information we had in 2020 was vastly different to what we now know...
But you can't use a post vaccination argument (that seems to be what many people are doing) for periods before everyone had a chance to be vaccinated.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
Fair point, but some SAGE committee people used the wall to wall covid media coverage to further their own ends.
Could the government have insisted on a media blackout from SAGE people and insist all briefings were initially private?
We live in a democracy with free speech. I don't see a problem with people with expertise on a topic talking to the media about it!
Agreed, but I don't see why SAGE's advice could not have been published retrospectively in its entirety so people could judge for themselves after the event and in a much less febrile atmosphere.
Very early on, SAGE was slow to publish, but there was pressure from the public and the media for everything to be transparent. That included from the Right. Indeed, I think it was the lockdown-sceptical who were particularly vociferous in wanting everything to be made transparent.
SAGE was pretty quick to move to greater transparency (other parts of Govt lagged behind in terms of advice through other channels). I think both democracy and science work better out in the open.
There was a febrile atmosphere. A once-in-a-generation catastrophe will do that. But that makes it all the more valuable to be transparent, to make sure different voices can be heard.
The point is well made that the public appeared to be in favour of (ever tougher) restrictions.
The question is how much they were scared by projections that painted a doomsday scenario. And of course, cf the millennium bug, whether or not the preventative action avoided those scenarios.
ITN Productions @ITNProductions · 53m In a special edition of the #AndrewNeilShow, @afneil will interview Conservative leadership candidate @RishiSunak live this Friday at 7:30pm on @channel4.
We spend ever increasing sums on the NHS, and yet simultaneously end up with front line service provision being starved of funds and in some places for some care largely unavailable.
So it isn't how much money we are spending, its how we are spending it. Yes the population is getting older and that costs more. But we don't spend money on preventative medicine - the national obesity crisis being a prime example of how spending now could save far more in the future.
It's also desperately inefficient. The myriad providers all stacked on top of each other, all with separate management systems and contracts and people who are a cost to make the machine work as opposed to a cost of healthcare. There has to be a way to take an axe to much of this - having GPs running themselves as a CCG buying in healthcare contracts being one example of how to waste money.
It doesn't need more spending, it needs less spending on cakes. Why on earth does eating less and briskly walking more require spending?
Obesity is not caused by gluttony. It's caused by our lifestyles becoming more sedentary. Average calorie consumption is down in the UK. But our physically activity has declined by more.
If we spend money on our built environment differently we can encourage people to walk or cycle more and drive less, and therefore reduce obesity.
In 2020 we had the same number of cycling miles as we did in the 1960s. Amazing what happened to our cities as cars became affordable.
Is that total cycling miles, or cycling miles per person?
Total miles I think? Which makes it even more extraordinary.
On the obesity thing, I'm quite sceptical that a lack of exercise is the reason for our obesity crisis. You need to do an awful lot of running to burn off a fish supper.
Perhaps manual labour (mining etc) meant that people could get away with eating more in the past, rather than recreational exercise? Would explain the average calorie difference.
It's not about recreational exercise, it's about physical effort as part of a normal day's business - hence the role of the car in reducing the amount of incidental physical exertion.
If you can replace all the car journeys of less than a few miles with walking and cycling then people will be doing a lot more exercise without having to decide to exercise.
I guess the other thing would be to ban office chairs, and force office workers to stand at their desks. Considered this way we can anticipate that home-working may make the obesity crisis worse. On the one hand less commuting time creates more time for recreational exercise, but not having to walk to the bus stop, or from the train station to the office, could reduce the amount of physical activity in many people's lives.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
Yes. Very true
Starmer obviously gets it, but his activists absolutely don’t. See also: Wokeness (part of the same problem)
This is THE reason Labour could lose again, despite everything being in their favour
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
Ah so you yearn for a more radical socialist offer then.
We should have a pint sometime.
This bloke seems to have something different to offer, committing to renationalisation of water, energy and rail. They should make him leader.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
There was lots of scrutiny. There were plenty in the media, plenty on social media, putting arguments against lockdown. There were plenty of stakeholders talking to Government putting those arguments. There were plenty in Government putting those arguments.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
Lockdown sceptics losing that debate because those making their arguments were flawed and bad shouldn't be overlooked as a reason.
And voila with "lockdown sceptics" the debate is framed as though those against lockdown are mad and deranged.
Disappointing that on challenging, don't believe anything, dare I say sceptical PB the orthodoxy has been embraced so comprehensively.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Delighted that your very close loved ones made it through.
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
Because those who wanted to party would have spread the disease to those who didn't want to.
I had to chuckle at Frankie Boyle claiming no such thing as cancel culture, from a bloke who was the #1 draw on tv panel shows to basically total wilderness for 10 years in terms of telly work, before finally getting regular work again now with much more "correct attitudes" to the same groups of people he used to slag off, freely admits he censors his output on twitter and spends a huge amount of blasting other comics for their wrong think.
The combination of support and opposition to the Foreign Secretary (favoured by the Ukrainian government and, apparently, most hard Brexiteers; opposed with fervour by EU and Irish diplomats, and with sneering fervour by Matthew Parris) could almost have been calculated to ensure a Truss win from the part membership. If the Sunday Times suddenly finds, say, footage from 2021 of Truss reenacting the finale of the 1989 film 'Society' with a comatose Hunter Biden while at an international summit in Prague, then this could change; even Conservative members who have already voted can send in new votes. Short of a revelation of this magnitude, however, it looks like Truss will win.
On slavery and the Industrial Revolution, referred to in comments: The key factors for why the Industrial Revolution happened here seem to be: cheap coal (relative to labour) and Britain generally becoming a safer investment since the Glorious Revolution. Britain being a unified island also meant that the construction of internal infrastructure, such as canals, could be led by private commercial interests rather than security (whereas in, for example, Prussia or the Netherlands, infrastructure was state-led, with a view to defending from a land invasion from France). Despite the enormous amount of money the slave trade must have brought in in the 18th Century, I don't think slavery was the deciding factor or cause - if it had been, Portugal and the Ottoman Empire would have industrialised long before Britain.
The deal that needs to be done on asylum is between France and the UK and needs to:
(1) Include for British (or British crewed French flagged) boats to have the right to intercept in French waters and return every boat straight to Calais (2) Britain and France to agree to tighten the qualifying rules for asylum (3) UK to agree to take some applications from asylum seekers in France and process them whilst they stay in France, before ferrying the successful to the UK, with a bilateral arrangement to repatriate others who were refused (4) Some money to sweeten the deal (5) Help France with its own border security in the Med, probably with 2-3 RN cutters, and helping them deport unsuccessful migrants
That sounds sensible, but one of the major problems is point (3), given that France received nearly twice as many asylum applications as the UK (89k vs 48k in 2021).
An agreement which leads to the British government agreeing to take more asylum seekers than the status quo would see that government crucified by the tabloids.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Delighted that your very close loved ones made it through.
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
Because those who wanted to party would have spread the disease to those who didn't want to.
How so?
You cannot separate society into two blocks, those who party and those who do not. Let's say someone has to go to work. Here comes the bus. Some of those people on the bus might be in the party camp, others not. You work in an essential industry where people have to be present. Again, the two groups mix.
The more COVID-19 there is in the population, the more it will spread. If those who wanted to party party, then COVID spreads among them, then COVID inevitably spreads more to the rest of the population.
The main thing I remember Government ignoring in terms of scientific advice on the pandemic was that we (the bit of SAGE I was on) were pushing for, to simplify, more carrot and less stick.
More generally, every lockdown was introduced later that the scientific advice. Advice was to introduce earlier, and then you can expect to come out of lockdown sooner.
I seem to recall a belief that you could only lock down for so long, so not doing it too soon was a challenge. In the event people mostly locked down as long as asked, so that belief was wrong, but understandable.
I think that we have seen a clash between those who want to save as many lives as possible, and those who had also to reckon with paying for it. If money was no issue then maximising restrictions etc makes sense. But it wasn’t. Lockdown was not cheap, at least if you want to preserve jobs.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
There was lots of scrutiny. There were plenty in the media, plenty on social media, putting arguments against lockdown. There were plenty of stakeholders talking to Government putting those arguments. There were plenty in Government putting those arguments.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
Lockdown sceptics losing that debate because those making their arguments were flawed and bad shouldn't be overlooked as a reason.
And voila with "lockdown sceptics" the debate is framed as though those against lockdown are mad and deranged.
Disappointing that on challenging, don't believe anything, dare I say sceptical PB the orthodoxy has been embraced so comprehensively.
The “orthodoxy” has NOT been embraced
In my immediate friends and fam I have people who question if any lockdown was worth it. And some of them were notably pro lockdown - at first
This tendency is especially noticeable in parents of school-age kids. They ALL wonder if it was worth the now-obvious damage
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Delighted that your very close loved ones made it through.
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
Because those who wanted to party would have spread the disease to those who didn't want to.
Exactly (also thanks Topping). Another reason is that a lot of people needed the cover of legislation to stop their employers behaving like dicks. My workplace at the time would never have allowed me to work from home unless they’d been forced to by law. As my mum’s only career she would have been screwed if I’d have caught it as a result of my enforced exposure. I get that for a lot of people the risk of COVID was small and the other consequences non existent. Restrictions to liberty should always be throughly scrutinised. What annoys me is people like Driver trying to tell me that I was deluded or brainwashed for taking COVID seriously.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
There was lots of scrutiny. There were plenty in the media, plenty on social media, putting arguments against lockdown. There were plenty of stakeholders talking to Government putting those arguments. There were plenty in Government putting those arguments.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
Lockdown sceptics losing that debate because those making their arguments were flawed and bad shouldn't be overlooked as a reason.
And voila with "lockdown sceptics" the debate is framed as though those against lockdown are mad and deranged.
Disappointing that on challenging, don't believe anything, dare I say sceptical PB the orthodoxy has been embraced so comprehensively.
Gawd, 'covid deniers' and now 'lockdown sceptics' are verboten as terms. It's a bleedin' minefield.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
As I said yesterday, I find flag-shagging to be baffling. If you want to use it as an emblem of the country and a marketing tool, that's great! We sell so much Chinese-made union jack covered tat to tourists and we could do a lot more. There have been waves of "Cool Britannia" style export bonanzas. Which are also great.
The problem is when the flag-shaggers take over. The flag ceases to be an emblem of identity and trade but instead a token of exclusion and hate and division.
Do you think the platinum jubilee was a festival of exclusion and hate and division?
Just listen to yourselves. Jesus.
This is why Labour has been out of power for over 12 years.
1. Who said anything about the Jubilee? No BTW 2. What do I have to do with Labour? 3. Who said I was exclusively talking about the union flag? I was posting in bemusement on here last night about the US flag shaggers, and in days before about how the most patriotic USA USA type chanters seem obsessed with the CSA flag.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
Are you including my response to that?
I try to make a more thoughtful point, engaging you in discussion, but you'd prefer to argue with those posters who embody your caricature of the left.
I believe there are a couple of Dundee Courier fans on here? Not sure if DC gave reasons for not wanting to publish this. I suspect most of us of whatever political persuasion will recognise some elements of 'the fear' and the strategies used to cope with it.
My wife was very sorry to hear this. She makes me look a bit equivocal about Unionism but she has greatly enjoyed his columns over the years and found him a genuinely interesting person who had led an interesting life. Misjudgment by the Courier I think who manage a series of columnists from different points of view.
It now takes between 5 minutes and 2 weeks to connect itself.
Good move - you can check daily energy consumption so can start to see what costs what. My smart meters are in the basement and I’m in an upper floor….but I do know I lose 27p worth of gas each day as my pipes wend their way up through the building….
Andy Burnham @AndyBurnhamGM · 1h Good news: we’ve seen off the last legal challenge to our plans to re-regulate buses.👍🏻
We’ll now power ahead with:
▪️capped fares from Sept 22 ▪️first regulated services Sept 23 ▪️all buses in GM under public control by Dec 24 ▪️new Bee Network fully operational start of 2025
Which means it's now possible for other cities / regions to insist on similar regulations and solve their public transport issues.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
Fair point, but some SAGE committee people used the wall to wall covid media coverage to further their own ends.
Could the government have insisted on a media blackout from SAGE people and insist all briefings were initially private?
We live in a democracy with free speech. I don't see a problem with people with expertise on a topic talking to the media about it!
Actually the media was much more culpable. Not enough expertise to challenge the experts. And then iSAGE muddied the waters hugely.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
Ah so you yearn for a more radical socialist offer then.
We should have a pint sometime.
This bloke seems to have something different to offer, committing to renationalisation of water, energy and rail. They should make him leader.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Delighted that your very close loved ones made it through.
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
Because those who wanted to party would have spread the disease to those who didn't want to.
Exactly (also thanks Topping). Another reason is that a lot of people needed the cover of legislation to stop their employers behaving like dicks. My workplace at the time would never have allowed me to work from home unless they’d been forced to by law. As my mum’s only career she would have been screwed if I’d have caught it as a result of my enforced exposure. I get that for a lot of people the risk of COVID was small and the other consequences non existent. Restrictions to liberty should always be throughly scrutinised. What annoys me is people like Driver trying to tell me that I was deluded or brainwashed for taking COVID seriously.
Andy Burnham @AndyBurnhamGM · 1h Good news: we’ve seen off the last legal challenge to our plans to re-regulate buses.👍🏻
We’ll now power ahead with:
▪️capped fares from Sept 22 ▪️first regulated services Sept 23 ▪️all buses in GM under public control by Dec 24 ▪️new Bee Network fully operational start of 2025
Which means it's now possible for other cities / regions to insist on similar regulations and solve their public transport issues.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
There was lots of scrutiny. There were plenty in the media, plenty on social media, putting arguments against lockdown. There were plenty of stakeholders talking to Government putting those arguments. There were plenty in Government putting those arguments.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
Lockdown sceptics losing that debate because those making their arguments were flawed and bad shouldn't be overlooked as a reason.
And voila with "lockdown sceptics" the debate is framed as though those against lockdown are mad and deranged.
Disappointing that on challenging, don't believe anything, dare I say sceptical PB the orthodoxy has been embraced so comprehensively.
The “orthodoxy” has NOT been embraced
In my immediate friends and fam I have people who question if any lockdown was worth it. And some of them were notably pro lockdown - at first
This tendency is especially noticeable in parents of school-age kids. They ALL wonder if it was worth the now-obvious damage
We also have a decent chunk of the other extreme, for whom they still are wed to the idea that this resumption of normal life is irresponsible and dangerous. I am regularly seeing people saying they just won't attend events unless a whole host of restrictions are front and centre, they won't meet in person, that WFH is the only safe thing to do, etc etc etc...when the reality is, it isn't if you get COVID, its when you get it.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
There was lots of scrutiny. There were plenty in the media, plenty on social media, putting arguments against lockdown. There were plenty of stakeholders talking to Government putting those arguments. There were plenty in Government putting those arguments.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
Lockdown sceptics losing that debate because those making their arguments were flawed and bad shouldn't be overlooked as a reason.
And voila with "lockdown sceptics" the debate is framed as though those against lockdown are mad and deranged.
Disappointing that on challenging, don't believe anything, dare I say sceptical PB the orthodoxy has been embraced so comprehensively.
Gawd, 'covid deniers' and now 'lockdown sceptics' are verboten as terms. It's a bleedin' minefield.
The problem with the term "lockdown sceptics" should be obvious - it implies that lockdown is the default which should have happened unless there were overwhelming arguments against it.
In a free country, lockdown should only have been introduced or extended if there were overwhelming arguments for it.
We spend ever increasing sums on the NHS, and yet simultaneously end up with front line service provision being starved of funds and in some places for some care largely unavailable.
So it isn't how much money we are spending, its how we are spending it. Yes the population is getting older and that costs more. But we don't spend money on preventative medicine - the national obesity crisis being a prime example of how spending now could save far more in the future.
It's also desperately inefficient. The myriad providers all stacked on top of each other, all with separate management systems and contracts and people who are a cost to make the machine work as opposed to a cost of healthcare. There has to be a way to take an axe to much of this - having GPs running themselves as a CCG buying in healthcare contracts being one example of how to waste money.
It doesn't need more spending, it needs less spending on cakes. Why on earth does eating less and briskly walking more require spending?
Obesity is not caused by gluttony. It's caused by our lifestyles becoming more sedentary. Average calorie consumption is down in the UK. But our physically activity has declined by more.
If we spend money on our built environment differently we can encourage people to walk or cycle more and drive less, and therefore reduce obesity.
At best this is averages muddying the situation for the individual.
Last year I lost 16 Kilos and have kept that weight off. I'll spare you from the details, but I acchieved this using a calorie counting app which was really easy to use.
I was as surprised as maybe many of you will be reading this, that an increase in exercise made almost no contribution to the weight loss. The main reason for my sucessful weight loss was eating less (shock). And yes I have the data, analysis and graphs which can back this up.
When I worked for a company that was using Prudential as their private health care provider, we had their Vitality package. Big discounts on trainers, bikes, heart rate monitors, and lots of rewards based on how much activity you did - you signed up to upload data on exercise to their system, and you got rewards automatically.
The number of people who actually did stuff, in my office soared. I believe that this actually pays for itself for Prudential by reducing the number of claims.
A lot of people lost fat, if not weight. The numbers vary from individual to individual, but for some people getting your body into “build muscle” mode from “store energy in the time of plenty” mode can take a while.
Exercise is very good for your health. Exercise has a small role to play in weight reduction.
Yep, we saw that with Johnson. All the running and cycling honed him, mentally and physically, but most of the weight stayed on.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
As I said yesterday, I find flag-shagging to be baffling. If you want to use it as an emblem of the country and a marketing tool, that's great! We sell so much Chinese-made union jack covered tat to tourists and we could do a lot more. There have been waves of "Cool Britannia" style export bonanzas. Which are also great.
The problem is when the flag-shaggers take over. The flag ceases to be an emblem of identity and trade but instead a token of exclusion and hate and division.
Do you think the platinum jubilee was a festival of exclusion and hate and division?
Just listen to yourselves. Jesus.
This is why Labour has been out of power for over 12 years.
1. Who said anything about the Jubilee? No BTW 2. What do I have to do with Labour? 3. Who said I was exclusively talking about the union flag? I was posting in bemusement on here last night about the US flag shaggers, and in days before about how the most patriotic USA USA type chanters seem obsessed with the CSA flag.
The CSA flag is - objectively - a better, sexier flag however
Old Glory is staid in comparison
And this is just aesthetics. It’s why the Union Jack is such a great design and why people wear it from Jakarta to Yerevan
What is the Italian flag?! I often forget. Green stripey thing. Amazing design failure by such a sexy country
ITN Productions @ITNProductions · 53m In a special edition of the #AndrewNeilShow, @afneil will interview Conservative leadership candidate @RishiSunak live this Friday at 7:30pm on @channel4.
The deal that needs to be done on asylum is between France and the UK and needs to:
(1) Include for British (or British crewed French flagged) boats to have the right to intercept in French waters and return every boat straight to Calais (2) Britain and France to agree to tighten the qualifying rules for asylum (3) UK to agree to take some applications from asylum seekers in France and process them whilst they stay in France, before ferrying the successful to the UK, with a bilateral arrangement to repatriate others who were refused (4) Some money to sweeten the deal (5) Help France with its own border security in the Med, probably with 2-3 RN cutters, and helping them deport unsuccessful migrants
That sounds sensible, but one of the major problems is point (3), given that France received nearly twice as many asylum applications as the UK (89k vs 48k in 2021).
An agreement which leads to the British government agreeing to take more asylum seekers than the status quo would see that government crucified by the tabloids.
I think the optics of landings in Kent are politically worse.
If we could "select" using our own criteria - just as we have with HK and Ukraine - then we'd have permission to take higher numbers.
I think 50k legit is better than 30k illegit and one thing that would wash is taking more women and children, and fewer young men with sharp elbows who barge their way to the front of the queue and then scarper into the night.
Andy Burnham @AndyBurnhamGM · 1h Good news: we’ve seen off the last legal challenge to our plans to re-regulate buses.👍🏻
We’ll now power ahead with:
▪️capped fares from Sept 22 ▪️first regulated services Sept 23 ▪️all buses in GM under public control by Dec 24 ▪️new Bee Network fully operational start of 2025
Which means it's now possible for other cities / regions to insist on similar regulations and solve their public transport issues.
Hmm, I’m started attracting some interesting followers on Twitter.
I just got a like for an rt of a thread about the My Lai massacre from an account with the bio below. Surprised that they have an interest in the Vietnam War tbh.
I believe there are a couple of Dundee Courier fans on here? Not sure if DC gave reasons for not wanting to publish this. I suspect most of us of whatever political persuasion will recognise some elements of 'the fear' and the strategies used to cope with it.
“I believe there are a couple of Dundee Courier fans on here?”
Is possibly the most poignantly forlorn sentence ever posted on PB. It is also a glimpse of the parochial tedium that would be www.scottishpoliticalbetting.com if ever Sindy won. I bet the PB Nats would be back on PB within hours. Probably moaning about England
I got through this tedium until the bit near the start where he speaks of "vast swathes of we civilians" and decided he was unpublishable.
We spend ever increasing sums on the NHS, and yet simultaneously end up with front line service provision being starved of funds and in some places for some care largely unavailable.
So it isn't how much money we are spending, its how we are spending it. Yes the population is getting older and that costs more. But we don't spend money on preventative medicine - the national obesity crisis being a prime example of how spending now could save far more in the future.
It's also desperately inefficient. The myriad providers all stacked on top of each other, all with separate management systems and contracts and people who are a cost to make the machine work as opposed to a cost of healthcare. There has to be a way to take an axe to much of this - having GPs running themselves as a CCG buying in healthcare contracts being one example of how to waste money.
It doesn't need more spending, it needs less spending on cakes. Why on earth does eating less and briskly walking more require spending?
Obesity is not caused by gluttony. It's caused by our lifestyles becoming more sedentary. Average calorie consumption is down in the UK. But our physically activity has declined by more.
If we spend money on our built environment differently we can encourage people to walk or cycle more and drive less, and therefore reduce obesity.
At best this is averages muddying the situation for the individual.
Last year I lost 16 Kilos and have kept that weight off. I'll spare you from the details, but I acchieved this using a calorie counting app which was really easy to use.
I was as surprised as maybe many of you will be reading this, that an increase in exercise made almost no contribution to the weight loss. The main reason for my sucessful weight loss was eating less (shock). And yes I have the data, analysis and graphs which can back this up.
When I worked for a company that was using Prudential as their private health care provider, we had their Vitality package. Big discounts on trainers, bikes, heart rate monitors, and lots of rewards based on how much activity you did - you signed up to upload data on exercise to their system, and you got rewards automatically.
The number of people who actually did stuff, in my office soared. I believe that this actually pays for itself for Prudential by reducing the number of claims.
A lot of people lost fat, if not weight. The numbers vary from individual to individual, but for some people getting your body into “build muscle” mode from “store energy in the time of plenty” mode can take a while.
Exercise is very good for your health. Exercise has a small role to play in weight reduction.
Yep, we saw that with Johnson. All the running and cycling honed him, mentally and physically, but most of the weight stayed on.
Don't forget the horizontal jogging....that burns a fair few calories as well...
I believe there are a couple of Dundee Courier fans on here? Not sure if DC gave reasons for not wanting to publish this. I suspect most of us of whatever political persuasion will recognise some elements of 'the fear' and the strategies used to cope with it.
“I believe there are a couple of Dundee Courier fans on here?”
Is possibly the most poignantly forlorn sentence ever posted on PB. It is also a glimpse of the parochial tedium that would be www.scottishpoliticalbetting.com if ever Sindy won. I bet the PB Nats would be back on PB within hours. Probably moaning about England
I believe Carlotta is certainly a big DC fan, you should take up the charge of parochialisn with her.
Well, it’s got at least three times the circulation of the Nat Anal - what’s not to like?
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Delighted that your very close loved ones made it through.
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
Because those who wanted to party would have spread the disease to those who didn't want to.
Exactly (also thanks Topping). Another reason is that a lot of people needed the cover of legislation to stop their employers behaving like dicks. My workplace at the time would never have allowed me to work from home unless they’d been forced to by law. As my mum’s only career she would have been screwed if I’d have caught it as a result of my enforced exposure. I get that for a lot of people the risk of COVID was small and the other consequences non existent. Restrictions to liberty should always be throughly scrutinised. What annoys me is people like Driver trying to tell me that I was deluded or brainwashed for taking COVID seriously.
Again, what's with inventing my views?
Sorry did I misinterpret “ The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.”
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Delighted that your very close loved ones made it through.
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
Because those who wanted to party would have spread the disease to those who didn't want to.
How so?
You cannot separate society into two blocks, those who party and those who do not. Let's say someone has to go to work. Here comes the bus. Some of those people on the bus might be in the party camp, others not. You work in an essential industry where people have to be present. Again, the two groups mix.
The more COVID-19 there is in the population, the more it will spread. If those who wanted to party party, then COVID spreads among them, then COVID inevitably spreads more to the rest of the population.
You are trying to manage the disease. You can create environments where these issues can be handled. Been in contact with anyone recently? Please don't use this bus, whatever.
We locked down the whole country, curtailed just about all economic activity, and built hospitals overnight. But didn't want to manage people's freedom.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
Are you including my response to that?
I try to make a more thoughtful point, engaging you in discussion, but you'd prefer to argue with those posters who embody your caricature of the left.
No, not you.
A quick scan of Sunday's thread will reveal who the culprits are.
Andy Burnham @AndyBurnhamGM · 1h Good news: we’ve seen off the last legal challenge to our plans to re-regulate buses.👍🏻
We’ll now power ahead with:
▪️capped fares from Sept 22 ▪️first regulated services Sept 23 ▪️all buses in GM under public control by Dec 24 ▪️new Bee Network fully operational start of 2025
Which means it's now possible for other cities / regions to insist on similar regulations and solve their public transport issues.
Great! Here’s hoping Tyne & Wear undo the damage done by the Thatcher government.
The main thing I remember Government ignoring in terms of scientific advice on the pandemic was that we (the bit of SAGE I was on) were pushing for, to simplify, more carrot and less stick.
More generally, every lockdown was introduced later that the scientific advice. Advice was to introduce earlier, and then you can expect to come out of lockdown sooner.
I seem to recall a belief that you could only lock down for so long, so not doing it too soon was a challenge. In the event people mostly locked down as long as asked, so that belief was wrong, but understandable.
I think that we have seen a clash between those who want to save as many lives as possible, and those who had also to reckon with paying for it. If money was no issue then maximising restrictions etc makes sense. But it wasn’t. Lockdown was not cheap, at least if you want to preserve jobs.
There was an argument, made by some scientists, that the population would only tolerate lockdown for so long, so you might want to delay starting. Other scientists argued against that and, longer term, it became apparent that this sort of "behavioural fatigue" doesn't really happen. We wrote about this here: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-12777-x
There is another argument that exponential growth means you want to stop a runaway process as soon as possible. Even if the public would only tolerate lockdown for a certain period, you want that period sooner rather than later to minimise cases.
The scientific advice was diverse and multiple. Different scientists argued different things. The same scientists argued different things at different times as the situation and evidence changed. But, generally, if I had to simplify it down, I'd say every lockdown was introduced later than bulk of the scientific advice advised. I'm not going to be overly critical about delaying the first lockdown, because it was such a fevered time with so many uncertainties, but the Govt should've known better with later lockdowns.
I don't think there was a clash between those who wanted to save as many live as possible and those who also reckoned with paying for it. That's just silly. Everyone knew that there were costs, financial and otherwise, to lockdowns or other measures. Of course, getting the balance right matters.
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1551504230183309313 Russia is withdrawing 2S7 howitzers from storage at the 94th arsenal located in the city of Omsk. In early April, 170 2S7s were visible in GE imagery. In Planet imagery of June 2, 135 were visible. In the last available images, dated July 18, 110 howitzers were still stored.
Stored outdoors for decades, where winter temperatures are around -25C; summer +25.
Possible result (though this could simply be overuse before replacing the barrel) ?
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Delighted that your very close loved ones made it through.
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
Because those who wanted to party would have spread the disease to those who didn't want to.
Exactly (also thanks Topping). Another reason is that a lot of people needed the cover of legislation to stop their employers behaving like dicks. My workplace at the time would never have allowed me to work from home unless they’d been forced to by law. As my mum’s only career she would have been screwed if I’d have caught it as a result of my enforced exposure. I get that for a lot of people the risk of COVID was small and the other consequences non existent. Restrictions to liberty should always be throughly scrutinised. What annoys me is people like Driver trying to tell me that I was deluded or brainwashed for taking COVID seriously.
Again, what's with inventing my views?
Sorry did I misinterpret “ The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.”
Given that I didn't mention delusion or brainwashing then yeah.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
I'm proud to be British; most of the time anyway. Must confess that the likes of Johnson make it difficult.
And I'm proud to be on the Left; most of the time anyway. Didn't like the mess the Labour Party got it itself into over antisemitism.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
There was lots of scrutiny. There were plenty in the media, plenty on social media, putting arguments against lockdown. There were plenty of stakeholders talking to Government putting those arguments. There were plenty in Government putting those arguments.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
Lockdown sceptics losing that debate because those making their arguments were flawed and bad shouldn't be overlooked as a reason.
And voila with "lockdown sceptics" the debate is framed as though those against lockdown are mad and deranged.
Disappointing that on challenging, don't believe anything, dare I say sceptical PB the orthodoxy has been embraced so comprehensively.
The “orthodoxy” has NOT been embraced
In my immediate friends and fam I have people who question if any lockdown was worth it. And some of them were notably pro lockdown - at first
This tendency is especially noticeable in parents of school-age kids. They ALL wonder if it was worth the now-obvious damage
I can imagine if you have children the past two years will have been horrendous. And I imagine the consequences will only play out over the next few years.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
Yes. Very true
Starmer obviously gets it, but his activists absolutely don’t. See also: Wokeness (part of the same problem)
This is THE reason Labour could lose again, despite everything being in their favour
How slightly true.
As I recall, the discussion had something to say about the difference between nationalism and patriotism.
And somehow I don't think Starmer's chances have much to do with attracting Casino's vote.
I had to chuckle at Frankie Boyle claiming no such thing as cancel culture, from a bloke who was the #1 draw on tv panel shows to basically total wilderness for 10 years in terms of telly work, before finally getting regular work again now with much more "correct attitudes" to the same groups of people he used to slag off, freely admits he censors his output on twitter and spends a huge amount of blasting other comics for their wrong think.
Frank Skinner has some thoughts on that.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/jul/25/frank-skinner-standup-comic-free-speech-poetry-comedy-laddish-image ...“I do wonder what all the fuss is about,” he says, dismissing the idea that modern comedians have their free speech stifled. “I don’t think there’s ever been a time when you could just say anything.” He recalls an early comedy show – this must have been in the late 80s – where the host apologised to the crowd after Skinner had performed some risque sexual material. “He said I’d never play at the venue again – and then he launched into a load of racist material and brought the house down. Everyone’s got their own standards and restraints. But I think it’s been good for me to keep questioning what I say. It’s made me think more.”...
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
Fair point, but some SAGE committee people used the wall to wall covid media coverage to further their own ends.
Could the government have insisted on a media blackout from SAGE people and insist all briefings were initially private?
We live in a democracy with free speech. I don't see a problem with people with expertise on a topic talking to the media about it!
Agreed, but I don't see why SAGE's advice could not have been published retrospectively in its entirety so people could judge for themselves after the event and in a much less febrile atmosphere.
Very early on, SAGE was slow to publish, but there was pressure from the public and the media for everything to be transparent. That included from the Right. Indeed, I think it was the lockdown-sceptical who were particularly vociferous in wanting everything to be made transparent.
SAGE was pretty quick to move to greater transparency (other parts of Govt lagged behind in terms of advice through other channels). I think both democracy and science work better out in the open.
There was a febrile atmosphere. A once-in-a-generation catastrophe will do that. But that makes it all the more valuable to be transparent, to make sure different voices can be heard.
Which never happened, as anyone remotely sceptical got virtually no airtime, and then only so they could be howled down as "deniers".
On the contrary. Deniers - ie 'Covid = Flu' softheads - got more of a hearing than they should have done.
Is this a result of people not really getting to know Truss yet? (Except for Tory members and PB posters)
The Corbynites hate Starmer with a passion, whereas despite the current ferrets-in-a-sack thing going on between Truss and Sunak I don't think a lot of Tory supporters really have it in for either of their candidates.
Andy Burnham @AndyBurnhamGM · 1h Good news: we’ve seen off the last legal challenge to our plans to re-regulate buses.👍🏻
We’ll now power ahead with:
▪️capped fares from Sept 22 ▪️first regulated services Sept 23 ▪️all buses in GM under public control by Dec 24 ▪️new Bee Network fully operational start of 2025
Which means it's now possible for other cities / regions to insist on similar regulations and solve their public transport issues.
Great! Here’s hoping Tyne & Wear undo the damage done by the Thatcher government.
Might provide an incentive for the councils to apply some common sense and appoint a single mayor...
Andy Burnham @AndyBurnhamGM · 1h Good news: we’ve seen off the last legal challenge to our plans to re-regulate buses.👍🏻
We’ll now power ahead with:
▪️capped fares from Sept 22 ▪️first regulated services Sept 23 ▪️all buses in GM under public control by Dec 24 ▪️new Bee Network fully operational start of 2025
Which means it's now possible for other cities / regions to insist on similar regulations and solve their public transport issues.
Great! Here’s hoping Tyne & Wear undo the damage done by the Thatcher government.
There’s no Tyne & Wear combined authority so good luck with that.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig. Your sainted Boris nearly died because he ignored COVID prevention advice. One of the most reprehensible things those around Boris did to try and save his arse was to pretend that the sacrifices everyone made during COVID weren’t needed. They were.
Delighted that your very close loved ones made it through.
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
Because those who wanted to party would have spread the disease to those who didn't want to.
Exactly (also thanks Topping). Another reason is that a lot of people needed the cover of legislation to stop their employers behaving like dicks. My workplace at the time would never have allowed me to work from home unless they’d been forced to by law. As my mum’s only career she would have been screwed if I’d have caught it as a result of my enforced exposure. I get that for a lot of people the risk of COVID was small and the other consequences non existent. Restrictions to liberty should always be throughly scrutinised. What annoys me is people like Driver trying to tell me that I was deluded or brainwashed for taking COVID seriously.
Again, what's with inventing my views?
Sorry did I misinterpret “ The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.”
Given that I didn't mention delusion or brainwashing then yeah.
But you’re saying that the only reason that the public supported restrictions was because they were being fed untruths by the media. I don’t think I’m wrong in finding it insulting to discount the notion that a lot of people supported the lockdowns for very rational reasons.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
Yes. Very true
Starmer obviously gets it, but his activists absolutely don’t. See also: Wokeness (part of the same problem)
This is THE reason Labour could lose again, despite everything being in their favour
How slightly true.
As I recall, the discussion had something to say about the difference between nationalism and patriotism.
And somehow I don't think Starmer's chances have much to do with attracting Casino's vote.
Much blustering on PB is about why does pol X for whom I'd never vote espouse these ghastly policies/not espouse these marvellous policies. It even stretches to polities where the blusterers don't even have a vote..
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
Yes. Very true
Starmer obviously gets it, but his activists absolutely don’t. See also: Wokeness (part of the same problem)
This is THE reason Labour could lose again, despite everything being in their favour
How slightly true.
As I recall, the discussion had something to say about the difference between nationalism and patriotism.
And somehow I don't think Starmer's chances have much to do with attracting Casino's vote.
Casino wants Labour to win by becoming the Tories.
No I said Keir was cleared because what he did was legal, but others doing the same thing was not legal because Keir and other lawmakers were saying legalising it for us was "reckless" - but it was legalised for themselves and they were doing it themselves while denying us our basic liberties.
I didn't gather inside with others in April 2021. I didn't have beer and korma inside with others in April 2021. I would have loved to, but it was illegal for me, and it was illegal because Keir and other politicians voted for it to be illegal for me and he was leading campaigns to keep it illegal for us, saying legalising it was reckless.
But it was legal for them. It wasn't too reckless for him to do it, just for us to do it.
I wanted lockdown lifted, it was screwing with my mental health, but I was kept in lockdown while he was having beer and korma with his colleagues inside while voting for us to stay lockdown and leading calls in Parliament that liftin it for us would be reckless. Legal for him, reckless for us.
We disagree, but never mind. Turning to the "hate-filled" nature of the curry, do you want to explain what you meant?
It seems simple to me
Having 10 people gathered for a curry is either dangerous for covid spread or its not.
If its dangerous and needs to be discouraged it doesn't matter why they are gathered. Surprisingly covid doesnt say "oh they are on a political campaign so will leave them alone".
This I think is the point bart is making. At the same time politicians of all stripes and colours were telling families they couldnt get together because its too dangerous for covid spread they were exempting themselves for reasons
Equally - restaurants were open and 10 people needed to be fed after working all day.
Bart really is clutching at straws
It’s arrant nonsense. Many laws and regulations allow some people to do things and not others. If I have a blue badge I can park on double yellow lines and if I don’t I can’t.
Rules written by politicians specifically to allow politicians to do things that everyone else can't deserve the greatest scrutiny.
So are you saying we should have suspended the by-election?
No, I'm saying those who argued for restrictions shouldn't have written exemptions for themselves into them.
But it was the Tories that introduced it
With the full support of Labour and Sir Keir who demanded stricter restrictions for longer and complained when the restrictions were lifter (even though that was months too late).
If Sir Keir had done his job and opposed the government, we wouldn't have had so many disastrous lockdowns for so long.
But why are you having a go at Keir and not the Tories then, it seems weird. Boris Johnson put this policy into position voted for it and campaigned. Why is Keir the issue?
Because even though it was many months too late, Boris and the Tories did eventually remove the restrictions when Sir Keir was demanding they be kept in place.
I also haven't seen any evidence of Boris going for a meal with a group of more than six people he didn't live with after a day of campaigning.
The law exempted any volunteer out campaigning in that election. It’s not just politicians it’s any activist. Unless you’re suggesting that absolutely no-one should have been able to eat together indoors in those circumstances then I can’t understand what your point is. It seems to me that you’re real point was that you hated the idea of there being any pandemic related restrictions.
(1) Activists are "them" in the "one rule for us, one rule for them"
(2) My point is that people who wanted restrictions - and who would go on to object to the removal of restrictions months later - shouldn't have been taking advantage of loopholes in the restrictions.
Surely though the Conservative Party wanted restrictions because they brought in restrictions. Which had various exemptions. Which they exploited as much as the Labour team did.
So I struggle to follow your logic - is there any? You are attacking the people who wanted the restrictions and then exploited "loopholes" as being hypocrites. Yet only mention red rosette hypocrites and not the blue rosette hypocrites who actually introduced both the restrictions and the loopholes.
I assume you have a logical reason for this rather obvious screaming hypocrisy?
Oh dear. Have you not been reading my comments? I've made it clear several times.
Boris and the Tories removed the restrictions. Many months too late, but they eventually did.
When they did, Sir Keir and Labour objected to the restrictions being removed.
And before they removed the restrictions, they *introduced* the restrictions.
Laws were written to stop you or I doing things but allowing political activists to do so.
Were those written by: (a) Boris Johnson, or (b) Kier Starmer?
I'll give you a clue. One of them was the Prime Minister, the other one wasn't. You are saying "well Starmer objected to the restrictions being removed. OK, but Johnson *wrote* the restrictions you are so upset about. Complete with the "loopholes" then exploited by one Boris Johnson amongst others.
Boris isn't going to be a candidate for PM at the next election, so he's irrelevant anyway.
Boris didn’t actually write the laws. The laws were written by civil servants under the instructions of the Conservative government. The next general election will be a choice over whether to continue that Conservative government or not.
That's true, but the instructions in this case effectively came from the doommongering modellers because the government was too weak to stand up to them, not least because Labour under Sir Keir and the media were all on their side.
I was a SAGE participant, a “doommongering modeller” (I wasn’t doing modelling, but I was doing other mongering of doom). It is utterly ludicrous to suggest the Government did everything we wanted or was “too weak to stand up to them”. The Govt ignored lots of scientific advice, the Govt followed other scientific advice, the Govt drew on a range of advice from multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, what was done was the choice of our political leaders.
If the government was intimidated by anything it was the overwhelming public support for tougher restrictions, and the impact going against that would have had on their poll ratings. I think that is a far more realistic explanation why the instincts of some, but not all or even a clear majority, of the cabinet were rejected rather than them being scared of a few experts.
The public support for restrictions was a direct consequence of the doommongering being regurgitated uncritically by TV news.
My support for restrictions was because some very close loved ones would have died had they caught COVID before being vaccinated you arrogant pig.
My wife is CEV so leave out the personal insults.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
There was lots of scrutiny. There were plenty in the media, plenty on social media, putting arguments against lockdown. There were plenty of stakeholders talking to Government putting those arguments. There were plenty in Government putting those arguments.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
Lockdown sceptics losing that debate because those making their arguments were flawed and bad shouldn't be overlooked as a reason.
And voila with "lockdown sceptics" the debate is framed as though those against lockdown are mad and deranged.
Disappointing that on challenging, don't believe anything, dare I say sceptical PB the orthodoxy has been embraced so comprehensively.
The “orthodoxy” has NOT been embraced
In my immediate friends and fam I have people who question if any lockdown was worth it. And some of them were notably pro lockdown - at first
This tendency is especially noticeable in parents of school-age kids. They ALL wonder if it was worth the now-obvious damage
I can imagine if you have children the past two years will have been horrendous. And I imagine the consequences will only play out over the next few years.
I have two school age kids and the lockdowns were miserably crap - and clearly pernicious - for both of them
Indeed I can’t imagine how any parent could say otherwise. So that’s a huge bank of “lockdown skepticism” right there
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
Yes. Very true
Starmer obviously gets it, but his activists absolutely don’t. See also: Wokeness (part of the same problem)
This is THE reason Labour could lose again, despite everything being in their favour
How slightly true.
As I recall, the discussion had something to say about the difference between nationalism and patriotism.
And somehow I don't think Starmer's chances have much to do with attracting Casino's vote.
Casino wants Labour to win by becoming the Tories.
What’s the point in that?
If that's your position you're basically saying that Labour can never be patriotic.
Andy Burnham @AndyBurnhamGM · 1h Good news: we’ve seen off the last legal challenge to our plans to re-regulate buses.👍🏻
We’ll now power ahead with:
▪️capped fares from Sept 22 ▪️first regulated services Sept 23 ▪️all buses in GM under public control by Dec 24 ▪️new Bee Network fully operational start of 2025
Which means it's now possible for other cities / regions to insist on similar regulations and solve their public transport issues.
Great! Here’s hoping Tyne & Wear undo the damage done by the Thatcher government.
There’s no Tyne & Wear combined authority so good luck with that.
Not necessary. Lothian Buses is operated by a consortium of unitary local authorities.
The main thing I remember Government ignoring in terms of scientific advice on the pandemic was that we (the bit of SAGE I was on) were pushing for, to simplify, more carrot and less stick.
More generally, every lockdown was introduced later that the scientific advice. Advice was to introduce earlier, and then you can expect to come out of lockdown sooner.
I seem to recall a belief that you could only lock down for so long, so not doing it too soon was a challenge. In the event people mostly locked down as long as asked, so that belief was wrong, but understandable.
I think that we have seen a clash between those who want to save as many lives as possible, and those who had also to reckon with paying for it. If money was no issue then maximising restrictions etc makes sense. But it wasn’t. Lockdown was not cheap, at least if you want to preserve jobs.
There was an argument, made by some scientists, that the population would only tolerate lockdown for so long, so you might want to delay starting. Other scientists argued against that and, longer term, it became apparent that this sort of "behavioural fatigue" doesn't really happen. We wrote about this here: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-12777-x
There is another argument that exponential growth means you want to stop a runaway process as soon as possible. Even if the public would only tolerate lockdown for a certain period, you want that period sooner rather than later to minimise cases.
The scientific advice was diverse and multiple. Different scientists argued different things. The same scientists argued different things at different times as the situation and evidence changed. But, generally, if I had to simplify it down, I'd say every lockdown was introduced later than bulk of the scientific advice advised. I'm not going to be overly critical about delaying the first lockdown, because it was such a fevered time with so many uncertainties, but the Govt should've known better with later lockdowns.
I don't think there was a clash between those who wanted to save as many live as possible and those who also reckoned with paying for it. That's just silly. Everyone knew that there were costs, financial and otherwise, to lockdowns or other measures. Of course, getting the balance right matters.
I believe there was such a clash, mainly the scientists on the one side and the government on the other. However it’s probably the case that minimising Covid better probably results in a cheaper outcome too. I have great sympathy for the government not wanting to lockdown again. They tried living with it with different restrictions in different places, and it kind of worked until alpha came along. The biggest mistake, for me, was not locking down as soon as the vaccine efficacy became apparent, in order to give space to vaccinate. But none of it was easy. I hope critics remember that.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
As I said yesterday, I find flag-shagging to be baffling. If you want to use it as an emblem of the country and a marketing tool, that's great! We sell so much Chinese-made union jack covered tat to tourists and we could do a lot more. There have been waves of "Cool Britannia" style export bonanzas. Which are also great.
The problem is when the flag-shaggers take over. The flag ceases to be an emblem of identity and trade but instead a token of exclusion and hate and division.
Do you think the platinum jubilee was a festival of exclusion and hate and division?
Just listen to yourselves. Jesus.
This is why Labour has been out of power for over 12 years.
1. Who said anything about the Jubilee? No BTW 2. What do I have to do with Labour? 3. Who said I was exclusively talking about the union flag? I was posting in bemusement on here last night about the US flag shaggers, and in days before about how the most patriotic USA USA type chanters seem obsessed with the CSA flag.
The CSA flag is - objectively - a better, sexier flag however
Old Glory is staid in comparison
And this is just aesthetics. It’s why the Union Jack is such a great design and why people wear it from Jakarta to Yerevan
What is the Italian flag?! I often forget. Green stripey thing. Amazing design failure by such a sexy country
There would be a lot more interesting flags if there weren't so many nondescript tricolours.
It's been suggested that the Republic of Ireland could adopt a new flag as a symbol to help British Unionists in Northern Ireland find reunification of the island of Ireland a bit less unacceptable. I quite like the four-province flag.
The state of UK politics. This is Starmer’s new economic philosophy
“Starmer sets out 5 economic principles of a Labour government
- Financially responsible - Distinctively British - Partnership with business - Help mothers bake apple pie - Re-energise communities - Invest to boost productivity”
Only one of those was added by me
You needn't have made it too obvious. We all know that Labour aren't interested in re-energising communities.
Distinctively British is more than a bit ho hum.
And why are we not building microprocessor factories so we don't mind so much about Taiwan? Duodecimal if necessary.
“Distinctively British” is plain weird
“Like South Korea but in tweed” makes as much sense
And yet, here’s a thing: by incessantly banging on about his patriotism, by standing in front of 3000 floodlit Union Jacks, etc etc, Starmer IS making me warm to him, faintly, inasmuch as I now trust him to stand up for the Union, be nice about our Queen and country, not be a Corbyn style traitor
I guess his focus groups have told him that, post Corbyn, he has to be this blunt and basic. “I’m British, too, and I love Britain too, despite its flaws, let’s make it better”
Not a bad message, for a would-be Labour PM, in the context of Corbyn
The problem is that it's not backed up by his followers.
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
Yes. Very true
Starmer obviously gets it, but his activists absolutely don’t. See also: Wokeness (part of the same problem)
This is THE reason Labour could lose again, despite everything being in their favour
How slightly true.
As I recall, the discussion had something to say about the difference between nationalism and patriotism.
And somehow I don't think Starmer's chances have much to do with attracting Casino's vote.
Casino wants Labour to win by becoming the Tories.
What’s the point in that?
If that's your position you're basically saying that Labour can never be patriotic.
Fine by me, but you'll keep losing elections.
“We” can be patriotic without becoming “anti woke” and all manner of other things.
Comments
I think it's a good thing that Sturgeon/Sunak are still going for interviews like that anyway. The Children's hospital was a disaster and she was rightly called out on it.
Never in my lifetime has such a major government decision been so little challenged by the media - indeed, the only pressure was to 'do more'.
The need to protect the vulnerable shouldn't have required a total shutting down of society. It certainly shouldn't have been allowed to pass without scrutiny, as if the number of Covid deaths was the only thing which mattered.
I believe Carlotta is certainly a big DC fan, you should take up the charge of parochialisn with her.
Slavery in the British Empire was abolished in 1833.
Any compensation to slave owners would have been raised by taxation on other sectors - so in effect Birmingham factories paid to compensate Jamaican plantation owners.
And I doubt that many Jamaican plantation owners would have used such money to invest back into Birmingham factories. Buying a nice landed estate in this country would have been more their thing.
SAGE was pretty quick to move to greater transparency (other parts of Govt lagged behind in terms of advice through other channels). I think both democracy and science work better out in the open.
There was a febrile atmosphere. A once-in-a-generation catastrophe will do that. But that makes it all the more valuable to be transparent, to make sure different voices can be heard.
(1) Include for British (or British crewed French flagged) boats to have the right to intercept in French waters and return every boat straight to Calais
(2) Britain and France to agree to tighten the qualifying rules for asylum
(3) UK to agree to take some applications from asylum seekers in France and process them whilst they stay in France, before ferrying the successful to the UK, with a bilateral arrangement to repatriate others who were refused
(4) Some money to sweeten the deal
(5) Help France with its own border security in the Med, probably with 2-3 RN cutters, and helping them deport unsuccessful migrants
It's linked to self-esteem too. Routine unhealthy diet is poor self-care, often as a symptom of low self-worth or self-esteem. Not helped by the sanctimonious 'just eat better, don't be lazy' chorus heard in *certain* areas.
https://textsynth.com/playground.html
Everything must rhyme.'
But it's not a rhyme that's doing the job; it's more a _punctuation_ effect.
'You have to read with music.'
It's the punctuation that helps.
So I find this business of "reading aloud" to be totally misleading.
My idea, in fact, is that you should _play_ the whole piece of text – if you want to call it reading it – more or less as you would a tune on the piano or the violin.
You might think that this is an easy enough thing to do, but the trick is to get the _rhythms_ right. You'll need to get that right, because these, after all, are some of the _most important_ sounds you're likely to hear in a piece of text. You will know when you've got rhythm in a piece of music; you can hear the beat, the beat itself, the _beat-beat_ , in the mind. But in a piece of text, if you're not careful, you're more likely to hear an _interval_ between beats.
Think of it like this. Imagine a tune on the violin or on the piano, and that you take that tune – whatever it is – and put a little marker somewhere, somewhere else in the piece of music. You might put a little comma, or a little colon, or whatever. You might call it something like a _rest._ Now, you might not call it a rest, but that's what it is. It's a _rest_ , or pause in the _beat-beat_ , in the music.
And if you take that comma, or colon, or pause, or rest, and move it, and place it elsewhere, somewhere else, in the piece of music, then what you've done is changed the _rhythm_.
There was a (hasty and fluid) debate. Lockdown sceptics should stop pretending they lost that debate for any other reason than because their arguments were flawed and bad.
Ouch
🗳️ Which of the following would you prefer as PM?
🔵 Liz Truss 38% (+12)*
🔴 Keir Starmer 37% (-4)
*Compared to Johnson's final poll on 15-17 July
Via @SavantaComRes, 21 July
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-labour-forde-inquiry-corbyn-factional-war-devastating
I posted something on how strongly I feel about this at the weekend and got about 15 members of the pb Lefty herd all liking each other's posts saying being patriotic was racist and stupid.
Just listen to yourselves. Jesus.
This is why Labour has been out of power for over 12 years.
I did some media. It was a common experience for the media to set up a pro/anti debate, because that's how the media do things. I had one experience were I was told I would just be asked about my position, but I log on to the interview and the radio station has clearly set me up, positioning me as "pro-lockdown" and another guest, a nightclub owner, as "anti-lockdown". I was swearing under my breath as the other guest starts talking until, thankfully, it turned out we entirely agreed that what was needed was more clarity and support from Govt!
Starmer obviously gets it, but his activists absolutely don’t. See also: Wokeness (part of the same problem)
This is THE reason Labour could lose again, despite everything being in their favour
Why not have made the restrictions voluntary?
Let those who wanted to party party and those who didn't could self-lockdown.
The Smart Meter is now IN.
It now takes between 5 minutes and 2 weeks to connect itself.
But you can't use a post vaccination argument (that seems to be what many people are doing) for periods before everyone had a chance to be vaccinated.
The question is how much they were scared by projections that painted a doomsday scenario. And of course, cf the millennium bug, whether or not the preventative action avoided those scenarios.
ITN Productions @ITNProductions · 53m
In a special edition of the #AndrewNeilShow, @afneil will interview Conservative leadership candidate @RishiSunak live this Friday at 7:30pm on @channel4.
https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1551543449475862530
If you can replace all the car journeys of less than a few miles with walking and cycling then people will be doing a lot more exercise without having to decide to exercise.
I guess the other thing would be to ban office chairs, and force office workers to stand at their desks. Considered this way we can anticipate that home-working may make the obesity crisis worse. On the one hand less commuting time creates more time for recreational exercise, but not having to walk to the bus stop, or from the train station to the office, could reduce the amount of physical activity in many people's lives.
🗳️ Which of the following would you prefer as PM?
🔴 Keir Starmer 40% (-1)
🔵 Rishi Sunak 36% (+10)*
*Compared to Johnson's final poll on 15-17 July
Via @SavantaComRes, 21 July
Disappointing that on challenging, don't believe anything, dare I say sceptical PB the orthodoxy has been embraced so comprehensively.
On slavery and the Industrial Revolution, referred to in comments: The key factors for why the Industrial Revolution happened here seem to be: cheap coal (relative to labour) and Britain generally becoming a safer investment since the Glorious Revolution. Britain being a unified island also meant that the construction of internal infrastructure, such as canals, could be led by private commercial interests rather than security (whereas in, for example, Prussia or the Netherlands, infrastructure was state-led, with a view to defending from a land invasion from France). Despite the enormous amount of money the slave trade must have brought in in the 18th Century, I don't think slavery was the deciding factor or cause - if it had been, Portugal and the Ottoman Empire would have industrialised long before Britain.
An agreement which leads to the British government agreeing to take more asylum seekers than the status quo would see that government crucified by the tabloids.
The more COVID-19 there is in the population, the more it will spread. If those who wanted to party party, then COVID spreads among them, then COVID inevitably spreads more to the rest of the population.
I think that we have seen a clash between those who want to save as many lives as possible, and those who had also to reckon with paying for it. If money was no issue then maximising restrictions etc makes sense. But it wasn’t. Lockdown was not cheap, at least if you want to preserve jobs.
In my immediate friends and fam I have people who question if any lockdown was worth it. And some of them were notably pro lockdown - at first
This tendency is especially noticeable in parents of school-age kids. They ALL wonder if it was worth the now-obvious damage
2. What do I have to do with Labour?
3. Who said I was exclusively talking about the union flag? I was posting in bemusement on here last night about the US flag shaggers, and in days before about how the most patriotic USA USA type chanters seem obsessed with the CSA flag.
I try to make a more thoughtful point, engaging you in discussion, but you'd prefer to argue with those posters who embody your caricature of the left.
Andy Burnham
@AndyBurnhamGM
·
1h
Good news: we’ve seen off the last legal challenge to our plans to re-regulate buses.👍🏻
We’ll now power ahead with:
▪️capped fares from Sept 22
▪️first regulated services Sept 23
▪️all buses in GM under public control by Dec 24
▪️new Bee Network fully operational start of 2025
Which means it's now possible for other cities / regions to insist on similar regulations and solve their public transport issues.
Is this a result of people not really getting to know Truss yet? (Except for Tory members and PB posters)
In a free country, lockdown should only have been introduced or extended if there were overwhelming arguments for it.
Old Glory is staid in comparison
And this is just aesthetics. It’s why the Union Jack is such a great design and why people wear it from Jakarta to Yerevan
What is the Italian flag?! I often forget. Green stripey thing. Amazing design failure by such a sexy country
I expect she'll refuse. Neil would make I think the optics of landings in Kent are politically worse.
If we could "select" using our own criteria - just as we have with HK and Ukraine - then we'd have permission to take higher numbers.
I think 50k legit is better than 30k illegit and one thing that would wash is taking more women and children, and fewer young men with sharp elbows who barge their way to the front of the queue and then scarper into the night.
We locked down the whole country, curtailed just about all economic activity, and built hospitals overnight. But didn't want to manage people's freedom.
A quick scan of Sunday's thread will reveal who the culprits are.
There is another argument that exponential growth means you want to stop a runaway process as soon as possible. Even if the public would only tolerate lockdown for a certain period, you want that period sooner rather than later to minimise cases.
The scientific advice was diverse and multiple. Different scientists argued different things. The same scientists argued different things at different times as the situation and evidence changed. But, generally, if I had to simplify it down, I'd say every lockdown was introduced later than bulk of the scientific advice advised. I'm not going to be overly critical about delaying the first lockdown, because it was such a fevered time with so many uncertainties, but the Govt should've known better with later lockdowns.
I don't think there was a clash between those who wanted to save as many live as possible and those who also reckoned with paying for it. That's just silly. Everyone knew that there were costs, financial and otherwise, to lockdowns or other measures. Of course, getting the balance right matters.
And I'm proud to be on the Left; most of the time anyway. Didn't like the mess the Labour Party got it itself into over antisemitism.
As I recall, the discussion had something to say about the difference between nationalism and patriotism.
And somehow I don't think Starmer's chances have much to do with attracting Casino's vote.
Frank Skinner has some thoughts on that.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/jul/25/frank-skinner-standup-comic-free-speech-poetry-comedy-laddish-image
...“I do wonder what all the fuss is about,” he says, dismissing the idea that modern comedians have their free speech stifled. “I don’t think there’s ever been a time when you could just say anything.” He recalls an early comedy show – this must have been in the late 80s – where the host apologised to the crowd after Skinner had performed some risque sexual material. “He said I’d never play at the venue again – and then he launched into a load of racist material and brought the house down. Everyone’s got their own standards and restraints. But I think it’s been good for me to keep questioning what I say. It’s made me think more.”...
What’s the point in that?
Indeed I can’t imagine how any parent could say otherwise. So that’s a huge bank of “lockdown skepticism” right there
That she gets a name recognition boost during the process it to be expected. Tories will probably have a few weeks ahead in the polls.
Then the autumn fuel bills will start landing and the Tories are truly f*cked. Nothing in Truss's history suggests she will be able to change that.
Fine by me, but you'll keep losing elections.
I have great sympathy for the government not wanting to lockdown again. They tried living with it with different restrictions in different places, and it kind of worked until alpha came along. The biggest mistake, for me, was not locking down as soon as the vaccine efficacy became apparent, in order to give space to vaccinate.
But none of it was easy. I hope critics remember that.
It's been suggested that the Republic of Ireland could adopt a new flag as a symbol to help British Unionists in Northern Ireland find reunification of the island of Ireland a bit less unacceptable. I quite like the four-province flag.
https://www.theflagshop.co.uk/ireland-4-province-flag.html