BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
But key in Bayes Theorem is the word probability and not certainty. These nutters are certain. Viruses mutate all the time so using the words 'mutant virus' is just emotional. Also there is history of these events from wet markets. So just as you should look at a lab leak equally you should look at a wet market.
Sensible people look at all the options and don't come down on one side until certain or near certain. These people should not be certain, but they are.
It didn’t just emerge in the same city as an important lab, this weird new bat coronavirus with alterations at the furin cleavage site making it nastier, emerged in the one city in the world with a weak biosecurity lab doing work on new bat coronaviruses by altering the furin cleavage site to make them nastier. And the weakest branch of all these labs was 300 yards from the wet market, which everyone accepts was a super spreader site
At this point, if you still don’t believe the lab leak hypothesis is by far the most likely you are a freaking idiot. Or a desperately embarrassed virologist
On the basis that people who are experts still admit they don't know I am more inclined to believe them than someone who isn't a scientist, let alone an expert and writes travel articles for a living.
Hence I keep an open mind. It is not as if you haven't got a track record of coming out with statements of absolute certainty and being completely wrong is it?
Both had covid and the effects of the Ukraine war .
I wonder why the UK is an outlier !
It isn't.
Hungary 24% Latvia 15.1% Lithuania 14.5% Slovakia 13.8 14.8% Estonia 13.5% Poland 13% Czech Republic 12.7% Sweden 10.5% Austria 8.8%
Notable that pretty much all of those are countries with the heaviest pre-war dependency on Russian gas, and (I think) the lowest nuclear and renewables share of energy excepting Sweden. Which stands to reason I suppose.
The UK wasn't a big Russian gas importer but is extremely dependent on gas vs than other fossil fuel sources, with renewables pricing tied tot he gas price. So us being up there doesn't surprise me. France's normally very expensive nuclear power mix is paying dividends during this time of war.
I expect the Brexit effect for the UK is present, but not the biggest source of the difference.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
See SARS, MERS etc.
A beautifully anti Bayesian comment. Like standing on a battlefield and saying "You say gunshot, but you do realise cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of death?"
Nonsense. See my other post. Bayes theorem deals with the increased probability, not certainty.
By deciding it must be from the lab because a lab is nearby when we know that there are other examples that have nothing to do with a lab is just as daft.
It would be equally as daft to ignore the lab theory.
The difference between the two groups of people is that some are open minded and others are certain it came for a lab.
Sure. Anyone with a 100% belief here, is an idiot. But your criticism doesn't touch anyone who thinks that lab escape is the most likely of the competing theories.
I'm only critical of those who are absolutely certain when it isn't. The discussion came out of a post by another who was commenting upon the anti evolutionists who can't accept something can evolve and therefore must be a lab leak i.e. nutters.
As @Miklosvar says, no one is 100% certain. That’s true of anything. We can’t be sure that Them Aliens didn’t come down and give some poor bat soup monger a coronavirus concocted on Uranus
But the balance of probabilities points very very firmly to a lab leak. That is now undeniable
In a criminal court I reckon you could now convict “beyond reasonable doubt”. You would certainly win a civil case
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The difference is the influx of professional politicians in the last couple of decades. People who study PPE or law, go straight from university to a SpAd or think tank role, and are looking around for a safe seat before they’re 30. They’ve never had a job in the real world, spend all day living online, and measure their success in clicks and likes.
Go back a couple of decades, and you saw mostly people with experience of actual jobs standing for office. Perhaps Blair (7 years of working in law, then elected as an MP aged 29 in 1983) was the turning point.
Neither PM not LOTO fit your caricature of professional politicians, indeed neither does Johnson.
I am not convinced that "professional politicians" have lower standards than those with previous careers. Indeed the opposite may be true, with the ambitious not wanting to have skeletons in their closets.
The concern is that you have a professional political class, increasingly disconnected from the reality of daily life.
This is a traditional criticism of politicians, but I think the issue is slightly different. My impression from 13 years in Parliament was that you encounter so many different types of real life that nobody could possibly hope to have relevant experience of all of them - you can't have experience of being a single parent and a military officer and a pensioner and a farmer and a refugee and a banker. The need is for MPs who recognise that and are keen to listen and learn.
For example, I had a constituent who had been in prison for credit card fraud, and was willing to discuss the experience, parts of which were not so much outrageous as puzzling (some of her sentence was very comfortable, some not at all, with no real effort to advise or train for return to civilian life). It was all news to me, and helpful for work on the Justice Committee.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
But key in Bayes Theorem is the word probability and not certainty. These nutters are certain. Viruses mutate all the time so using the words 'mutant virus' is just emotional. Also there is history of these events from wet markets. So just as you should look at a lab leak equally you should look at a wet market.
Sensible people look at all the options and don't come down on one side until certain or near certain. These people should not be certain, but they are.
It didn’t just emerge in the same city as an important lab, this weird new bat coronavirus with alterations at the furin cleavage site making it nastier, emerged in the one city in the world with a weak biosecurity lab doing work on new bat coronaviruses by altering the furin cleavage site to make them nastier. And the weakest branch of all these labs was 300 yards from the wet market, which everyone accepts was a super spreader site
At this point, if you still don’t believe the lab leak hypothesis is by far the most likely you are a freaking idiot. Or a desperately embarrassed virologist
On the basis that people who are experts still admit they don't know I am more inclined to believe them than someone who isn't a scientist, let alone an expert and writes travel articles for a living.
Hence I keep an open mind. It is not as if you haven't got a track record of coming out with statements of absolute certainty and being completely wrong is it?
We trust lay juries over "experts" to answer exactly this sort of question, though...
Both had covid and the effects of the Ukraine war .
I wonder why the UK is an outlier !
It isn't.
Hungary 24% Latvia 15.1% Lithuania 14.5% Slovakia 13.8 14.8% Estonia 13.5% Poland 13% Czech Republic 12.7% Sweden 10.5% Austria 8.8%
I see you omitted France , Germany , Italy and Spain . I thought the UK liked to be compared with larger economies . Ignoring the effects of Brexit on the UK economy is akin to believing the earth is flat !
I was disputing your use of the term “outlier”. Inflation is marginally higher than in the Eurozone but it’s not an outlier.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
But key in Bayes Theorem is the word probability and not certainty. These nutters are certain. Viruses mutate all the time so using the words 'mutant virus' is just emotional. Also there is history of these events from wet markets. So just as you should look at a lab leak equally you should look at a wet market.
Sensible people look at all the options and don't come down on one side until certain or near certain. These people should not be certain, but they are.
It didn’t just emerge in the same city as an important lab, this weird new bat coronavirus with alterations at the furin cleavage site making it nastier, emerged in the one city in the world with a weak biosecurity lab doing work on new bat coronaviruses by altering the furin cleavage site to make them nastier. And the weakest branch of all these labs was 300 yards from the wet market, which everyone accepts was a super spreader site
At this point, if you still don’t believe the lab leak hypothesis is by far the most likely you are a freaking idiot. Or a desperately embarrassed virologist
On the basis that people who are experts still admit they don't know I am more inclined to believe them than someone who isn't a scientist, let alone an expert and writes travel articles for a living.
Hence I keep an open mind. It is not as if you haven't got a track record of coming out with statements of absolute certainty and being completely wrong is it?
Trouble is, in this case “the experts” that you refer to wrote a letter to the Lancet in Feb 2020 discounting any idea of a lab leak as a racist conspiracy theory. They then spent a year suppressing all talk of it, and managed to get Facebook and Twitter to actually forbid debate
So in this case your need a sharper, more inquiring mind than normal, and yes, I see your problem
I wonder what people thought was a typical career path for an MP in yon olden days. My impression was Tories were farmers or barristers, or the younger sons of the aristocracy, or sons of the high local professions who went to Oxbridge and got spotted in the Conservative Union. Labour MPs often came up through political or organiser jobs in the unions or the socialist societies or were men who made their mark in the War, or indeed were spotted at Oxbridge like the Tories. Most of these aren't so different to today and most of the different ones aren't so promising.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
The swastika is a function of the “improved” pride flag which was originally just the rainbow - as that covered everybody.
But some decided to “improve” it by adding a black stripe for black people, brown stripe for brown people and baby blue and baby pink stripes for trans people, as they evidently didn’t fall under “everybody”.
There have been further iterations with a red umbrella for sex workers…and a pi symbol for “minor attracted persons” (paedophiles in old money). This has not been met with universal approval - and this push back is part of that.
I know you thought that what you were doing was
"CarlottaVance posted a swastika to demonstrate pushback against inclusion of trans/black/brown people in Pride and futher iterations"
It's gone beyond Mr Fox and it is now seen by some as a pushback against the authoritarian stance taken by TRA elements of the LGBT+ movement, and the idiocy of the police who believe its a criminal offence.
It would appear only some political commentary is permissible.
Lets see if the Chief Constable follows through on his threat of arrest.
See for example:
A LEADING feminist campaigner has been charged with a hate crime for posting allegedly homophobic and transphobic material on social media.
Marion Millar, from Airdrie, was charged under the Malicious Communications Act for tweets posted in 2019 and 2020, and could face two years in jail if convicted.
It is understood one tweet included a picture of a ribbon in the purple, white and green of the suffragette movement.
Has there ever been a time with as many suspended and "independent" MPs sitting than the present?
If so is this evidence of poor calibre MPs or of more exposure?
I don't think MPs are any poorer than they ever have been; there have always been a load of no-hopers, chancers, idiots and ner-do-wells in their ranks. I think it's a combination of acceptable behaviour being (thankfully) much more restrictive, much more encouragement for people to report poor behaviour, less ability for whips to cover things up, and greater publicity.
I don't think there's ever been a 'golden age' of MPs.
Edit: the wording of Labour's statement also seems rather definitive.
The difference is the influx of professional politicians in the last couple of decades. People who study PPE or law, go straight from university to a SpAd or think tank role, and are looking around for a safe seat before they’re 30. They’ve never had a job in the real world, spend all day living online, and measure their success in clicks and likes.
Go back a couple of decades, and you saw mostly people with experience of actual jobs standing for office. Perhaps Blair (7 years of working in law, then elected as an MP aged 29 in 1983) was the turning point.
Neither PM not LOTO fit your caricature of professional politicians, indeed neither does Johnson.
I am not convinced that "professional politicians" have lower standards than those with previous careers. Indeed the opposite may be true, with the ambitious not wanting to have skeletons in their closets.
The concern is that you have a professional political class, increasingly disconnected from the reality of daily life.
This is a traditional criticism of politicians, but I think the issue is slightly different. My impression from 13 years in Parliament was that you encounter so many different types of real life that nobody could possibly hope to have relevant experience of all of them - you can't have experience of being a single parent and a military officer and a pensioner and a farmer and a refugee and a banker. The need is for MPs who recognise that and are keen to listen and learn.
For example, I had a constituent who had been in prison for credit card fraud, and was willing to discuss the experience, parts of which were not so much outrageous as puzzling (some of her sentence was very comfortable, some not at all, with no real effort to advise or train for return to civilian life). It was all news to me, and helpful for work on the Justice Committee.
It helps to have actually lived in the non political world.
A range of experience is useful.
For example a relative has a PhD, coached a sport at national level, started his own building company from zero - so he's worked a range of jobs from literal spade work to high end research.
I'd say that level of knocking around the world and seeing things from different angles would be invaluable.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
The swastika is a function of the “improved” pride flag which was originally just the rainbow - as that covered everybody.
But some decided to “improve” it by adding a black stripe for black people, brown stripe for brown people and baby blue and baby pink stripes for trans people, as they evidently didn’t fall under “everybody”.
There have been further iterations with a red umbrella for sex workers…and a pi symbol for “minor attracted persons” (paedophiles in old money). This has not been met with universal approval - and this push back is part of that.
I know you thought that what you were doing was
"CarlottaVance posted a swastika to demonstrate pushback against inclusion of trans/black/brown people in Pride and futher iterations"
It's gone beyond Mr Fox and it is now seen by some as a pushback against the authoritarian stance taken by TRA elements of the LGBT+ movement, and the idiocy of the police who believe its a criminal offence.
It would appear only some political commentary is permissible.
Lets see if the Chief Constable follows through on his threat of arrest.
He’ll have to arrest an awful lot of people who have retweeted the image
Just a brief glance at the trans debate on Twitter shows that it has lost none of its ugliness and venom. What a horrible poisonous mess
I’m still bemused how we ended up here, when ten years ago trans people were generally accepted and everyone seemed to rub along
What happened? Who did this? Why?
Was it simply the Chinese and the Russians stirring it all up on Twitter?
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
Agreed. It’s offensive and more than a little juvenile, but, frankly, so what? Is it a crime? I hope not.
Yeah, that is pretty much my view. It is all infantile and provocative it should not be a crime. I although I am not a fanatical TRA that flag is a little embarrassing. The comment from Hants Police is pretty stupid too.
1. THREAT OF PROSECUTION! The Chief Constable of @HantsPolice has written to us stating that if we post this flag, and it causes anyone anxiety, we will have committed an offence contrary to Communications Act S127 part 2.
We post today in defiance. Arrest us. Charge us. Or shut up.
[4 images of the new-ish Pride flag that might cause anxiety or distress (sic) ]
I do think there are better ways to make one's case than putting a swastika over the symbol of a group selected for the concentration camps by the actual Nazis.
The swastika is a function of the “improved” pride flag which was originally just the rainbow - as that covered everybody.
But some decided to “improve” it by adding a black stripe for black people, brown stripe for brown people and baby blue and baby pink stripes for trans people, as they evidently didn’t fall under “everybody”.
There have been further iterations with a red umbrella for sex workers…and a pi symbol for “minor attracted persons” (paedophiles in old money). This has not been met with universal approval - and this push back is part of that.
I know you thought that what you were doing was
"CarlottaVance posted a swastika to demonstrate pushback against inclusion of trans/black/brown people in Pride and futher iterations"
It's gone beyond Mr Fox and it is now seen by some as a pushback against the authoritarian stance taken by TRA elements of the LGBT+ movement, and the idiocy of the police who believe its a criminal offence.
It would appear only some political commentary is permissible.
Lets see if the Chief Constable follows through on his threat of arrest.
He’ll have to arrest an awful lot of people who have retweeted the image
Just a brief glance at the trans debate on Twitter shows that it has lost none of its ugliness and venom. What a horrible poisonous mess
I’m still bemused how we ended up here, when ten years ago trans people were generally accepted and everyone seemed to rub along
What happened? Who did this? Why?
Was it simply the Chinese and the Russians stirring it all up on Twitter?
I think it all hinges on the "trapped in the wrong body" question.
If you believe that this is the condition of trans people, then any attempt to convince them to accept the body they have is oppressive, any delay to medical intervention is cruel, and any attempt to distinguish between people based on biological sex is transphobic.
BREAKING: Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says all of the former PM’s WhatsApps and notebooks requested by Covid Inquiry have been handed to Cabinet Office in full.
Now up to Cabinet Office to hand them over to Inquiry or not. Johnson urges them to do so. Deadline 4pm tomorrow.
From a political betting view point, Primeminister Wallace or Mourdant might be close now.
Sunak might be toast. He is already in a very weak position. With Tories on 28% and slaughtered in the locals - Sunak’s WhatsAppGate could be about to finish him. The second Tory PM this parliament brought down by covid.
A worry for Labour as they clearly have Sunak beaten, sub 200 Tory seats even. But PM Penny might trump Labour appeals for a fresh change.
Penny will come across as more centre ground to voters than the increasingly right wing Starmer front bench.
Sunak actually polls better than his party, especially with under 50s and urban professionals.
Mordaunt is too woke for the party membership as leader.
I doubt the whatsapp messages will make the slightest difference to Sunak's position, indeed Tory and RefUK voters think we locked down too early and too long if anything
With the benefit of hindsight, which I fully accept was not available at the time and the risks were very difficult to calculate, I think it is far from clear that we should ever have locked down at all. Protected vulnerable groups, certainly. Ensured proper protection for medical and care staff beyond doubt. But closing schools, factories, pubs, restaurants, etc. I think it was a mistake now.
The problem is, of course, that we didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We had terrible scenes coming out of Northern Italy and New York. We had stories of ambulances running through the night.
And we knew very little of successful treatment methods, and had little idea when - or even if - a vaccine would be forthcoming.
I don't blame the government for the initial lockdown.
I do blame them for the severity of the restrictions, and the length of time they went on for, despite all the evidence that we were getting on top of the disease. It is an absolute disgrace that, even though we had a fantastic headstart with the vaccine roll out, that we lagged so many of our European peers for the removal of restrictions.
Yes, I accept that this is with hindsight. We never got near a collapse of the hospital system, we never used the nightingale hospitals, the projections the government were being given were alarming but entirely wrong. I accept given what was not known, the first lockdown was probably inevitable but I would still want the inquiry to look at whether it was in fact a good idea and whether we should ever do the like again faced with anything similar. The subsequent lockdowns were increasingly bizarre.
the mask mandate was ridiculous and cowardly - masks did F all to stop the virus as proved by Scotland having higher rates of infection whilst having a mask mandate when England eventually relaxed it. The mask thig was especially evil when applied in schools
The problem is that people like to look for silver bullets.
And there are no silver bullets. Mask wearing reduced the spread of Covid.
Now, did that justify mask mandates beyond a certain point? Almost certainly not. But it's ridiculous to claim that mask wearing did not reduce the spread of a airborne viral infection of the respiratory tract.
I had an interesting discussion recently with an American professor of biology. He cited the rapid evolution of covid variants, each replacing the last, as one of the best illustrations of evolution and natural selection that one could ask for.
A secondary thought that arose is this may well explain the fixation on the lab release conspiracy theories abundant on the American right. They don't believe in evolution, therefore covid must have been deliberately constructed by someone.
Re the last para I hadn't thought of that. I noticed there has been a lot of discussion recently in the media with experts and the consensus was still we don't know which theory of the source is correct. The fact that someone who is not an expert can be so certain (whether right or wrong) is telling.
The certainty of non-experts tells us - that non-experts are certain.
The number of Extinction Rebellion people gluing themselves to sporting fixtures has no correlation with the academic truth of Global Warming.
Just because weird, crazy or evil people adopt a theory, doesn't tell us anything about the theory itself. Rational analysis does that.
And Bayes' Theorem tells us to have a good look at our priors when a mutant virus arises within a stone's throw of a virus mutating lab.
Which is true but most novel virus's seem able to emerge without the need for a microbiology lab.
See SARS, MERS etc.
A beautifully anti Bayesian comment. Like standing on a battlefield and saying "You say gunshot, but you do realise cardiovascular disease is the commonest cause of death?"
Nonsense. See my other post. Bayes theorem deals with the increased probability, not certainty.
By deciding it must be from the lab because a lab is nearby when we know that there are other examples that have nothing to do with a lab is just as daft.
It would be equally as daft to ignore the lab theory.
The difference between the two groups of people is that some are open minded and others are certain it came for a lab.
Sure. Anyone with a 100% belief here, is an idiot. But your criticism doesn't touch anyone who thinks that lab escape is the most likely of the competing theories.
I'm only critical of those who are absolutely certain when it isn't. The discussion came out of a post by another who was commenting upon the anti evolutionists who can't accept something can evolve and therefore must be a lab leak i.e. nutters.
As @Miklosvar says, no one is 100% certain. That’s true of anything. We can’t be sure that Them Aliens didn’t come down and give some poor bat soup monger a coronavirus concocted on Uranus
But the balance of probabilities points very very firmly to a lab leak. That is now undeniable
In a criminal court I reckon you could now convict “beyond reasonable doubt”. You would certainly win a civil case
Others disagree. I've moved from thinking it unlikely to have been a lab leak to thinking it likely. I am not sure what type of leak though. I think you believe its a leak of modified virus (i.e. GOF research). I am happy to think thats possible but its also possible that its a leak of a natural virus.
And lastly the other origin story is also plausible, See MERS, SARS etc etc etc
Comments
Hence I keep an open mind. It is not as if you haven't got a track record of coming out with statements of absolute certainty and being completely wrong is it?
The UK wasn't a big Russian gas importer but is extremely dependent on gas vs than other fossil fuel sources, with renewables pricing tied tot he gas price. So us being up there doesn't surprise me. France's normally very expensive nuclear power mix is paying dividends during this time of war.
I expect the Brexit effect for the UK is present, but not the biggest source of the difference.
But the balance of probabilities points very very firmly to a lab leak. That is now undeniable
In a criminal court I reckon you could now convict “beyond reasonable doubt”. You would certainly win a civil case
For example, I had a constituent who had been in prison for credit card fraud, and was willing to discuss the experience, parts of which were not so much outrageous as puzzling (some of her sentence was very comfortable, some not at all, with no real effort to advise or train for return to civilian life). It was all news to me, and helpful for work on the Justice Committee.
So in this case your need a sharper, more inquiring mind than normal, and yes, I see your problem
It would appear only some political commentary is permissible.
Lets see if the Chief Constable follows through on his threat of arrest.
See for example:
A LEADING feminist campaigner has been charged with a hate crime for posting allegedly homophobic and transphobic material on social media.
Marion Millar, from Airdrie, was charged under the Malicious Communications Act for tweets posted in 2019 and 2020, and could face two years in jail if convicted.
It is understood one tweet included a picture of a ribbon in the purple, white and green of the suffragette movement.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19349054.feminist-campaigner-charged-hate-crime/
Fortunately:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/28/scottish-prosecutors-drop-transphobia-case-against-marion-millar
Not that it didn't cause Ms Miller significant "anxiety and distress".....
A range of experience is useful.
For example a relative has a PhD, coached a sport at national level, started his own building company from zero - so he's worked a range of jobs from literal spade work to high end research.
I'd say that level of knocking around the world and seeing things from different angles would be invaluable.
https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1664201022003204096
Just a brief glance at the trans debate on Twitter shows that it has lost none of its ugliness and venom. What a horrible poisonous mess
I’m still bemused how we ended up here, when ten years ago trans people were generally accepted and everyone seemed to rub along
What happened? Who did this? Why?
Was it simply the Chinese and the Russians stirring it all up on Twitter?
NEW THREAD
If you believe that this is the condition of trans people, then any attempt to convince them to accept the body they have is oppressive, any delay to medical intervention is cruel, and any attempt to distinguish between people based on biological sex is transphobic.
And lastly the other origin story is also plausible, See MERS, SARS etc etc etc