The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
No it really wasn't.
It was that they imposed those rules and then didn't keep them themselves. They deprived people of the right to go to birthday parties or visit dying relatives, whilst all the while mocking us.
The British public will never forgive them for this and on election day vengeance will be brutal.
I know there is a narrative about ‘parties’ that people have. The idea that number 10 was a constant orgy of drinking etc but I really think this should be challenged. Yes there were pathetic gatherings of people trying to do the right thing, among work colleagues. But for the most part those setting the rules followed them. I know I am probably the only person on pb who thinks this. If you think the ‘Johnson birthday party’ at work, during work, is your idea of fun then I pity you. The rules were too strict on certain things. Never again should people have to die separated from their relatives and spouses. If a situation requires lockdown or something similar, don’t get into micromanagement. Set the rules and stick to it.
I’d also castigate the media in this. Every single press conference seemed to be a chance for a gotcha moment. PB was far better informed and would have asked far better questions.
I think the government will suffer from stuff that comes out of the Inquiry, probably unfairly, in the most part. People are very poor at remembering what those days were like. How little we really knew. All they want is to lay the blame somewhere. I often feel that some think no-one should have died of covid if the government had made the right calls. This is nonsense, and ignores the experiences of other western governments who ended up with broadly similar outcomes.
I think the point is that what they did was illegal according to their own rules. Therefore, they were in their own eyes not 'doing the right thing.'
Those of us who were, ignoring the lies of that idiot Fabricant, actually working on the front line were not having any parties at all, never mind boozy ones.
If their own rules were stupid (which they were) then that only really makes things worse.
I don't think that is entirely fair.
Under the uncertainty of the moment the lock downs were a perfectly reasonable response. Partying like it was 1999, whilst we were locked down wasn't.
"Partying like it was 1999"? Really?
If you take that attitude, then neither was getting pissed and having curries in Durham...
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
No it really wasn't.
It was that they imposed those rules and then didn't keep them themselves. They deprived people of the right to go to birthday parties or visit dying relatives, whilst all the while mocking us.
The British public will never forgive them for this and on election day vengeance will be brutal.
I know there is a narrative about ‘parties’ that people have. The idea that number 10 was a constant orgy of drinking etc but I really think this should be challenged. Yes there were pathetic gatherings of people trying to do the right thing, among work colleagues. But for the most part those setting the rules followed them. I know I am probably the only person on pb who thinks this. If you think the ‘Johnson birthday party’ at work, during work, is your idea of fun then I pity you. The rules were too strict on certain things. Never again should people have to die separated from their relatives and spouses. If a situation requires lockdown or something similar, don’t get into micromanagement. Set the rules and stick to it.
I’d also castigate the media in this. Every single press conference seemed to be a chance for a gotcha moment. PB was far better informed and would have asked far better questions.
I think the government will suffer from stuff that comes out of the Inquiry, probably unfairly, in the most part. People are very poor at remembering what those days were like. How little we really knew. All they want is to lay the blame somewhere. I often feel that some think no-one should have died of covid if the government had made the right calls. This is nonsense, and ignores the experiences of other western governments who ended up with broadly similar outcomes.
I think the point is that what they did was illegal according to their own rules. Therefore, they were in their own eyes not 'doing the right thing.'
Those of us who were, ignoring the lies of that idiot Fabricant, actually working on the front line were not having any parties at all, never mind boozy ones.
If their own rules were stupid (which they were) then that only really makes things worse.
I don't think that is entirely fair.
Under the uncertainty of the moment the lock downs were a perfectly reasonable response. Partying like it was 1999, whilst we were locked down wasn't.
It's not the lockdowns I'm pointing out the absurdity of. I'm pointing out the absurdity of saying people who were working together couldn't meet for any non-work purposes while at work.
It's reminiscent of their bizarre instruction that school staff should wear masks when not teaching, such as in the staff room at lunchtime.
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
You misunderstand the nature of the expert advice given. SAGE was set up such that Govt would pose it questions and SAGE would give an answer. Policymaking remained with Govt and it was explicitly Govt’s job to balance the different issues at play, like medical and non-medical consequences.
No, I know how it worked. But what happened in practice is that SAGE gave excessively pessimistic answers, projecting death and infection rates we never got close to and politicians were largely terrified not to implement their advice in full for fear of being attacked as irresponsible. Sunak seems, on current evidence, a notable exception to that but the structure did not produce optimal results, far from it. How do we do better?
Not sure that is necessarily correct - there would have been a range of values for each estimate. And the normal thing (no pun intended) would have been to be fairly conservative as to deaths. Whether this was the scientists, or the politicians themselves picking from that range, I don't know. Or indeed if it weas a matter of the politicians demanding a single figure.
One thing that makes me wonder about some such confusion: the probability distribution within each range needn't be a linear normal curve. Could be linear-log or log-log for all I know, with further scope for confusion bt pols who often don't even know what an exponential is.
Come back Mrs T ...
Edit: and add Bondegezou's key point - that the forecasts changed the results. But the understanding by pols of scientific stats and predictions is indeed an issue worth looking at. Even if some of the pols had worked in banks and the like where such competence is more common than in journalism.
My first real political engagement was during John Major's final years. He was a decent man trying to lead an increasingly indecent party. The stench of political death was unavoidable, with the inevitable ending.
The stench is far worse this time. The government is suffering from Necrotising fasciitis - it is consuming itself. It has stopped governing, stopped with actual policies. It gets the crayons out and comes up with slogans, or even announces proposed new laws which it then quietly drops. And its solution to everything isn't to act, it is to blame everyone else.
Instead of governing, they are expending their energy eating themselves. The Covid enquiry was created grudgingly, very late, deliberately to kick the can down the road. And now the government who created it is suing its own enquiry to stop WhatsApp messages being handed over to save the reputation of the former PM who just handed them over.
I know that we have some Tories on here, but even they must be able to smell death. How can they not? It isn't even about Labour or Keith Donkey not being Tony Blair - the Tory government is necrotic.
What does Sunak have to hide? I'm not sure that he knows the detail. But he can smell it.
This time in 1996 there was a palpable fury emanating from Blair but felt by everyone that a competent adult was being prevented from taking the controls by Major pointlessly insisting on his right to serve out 5 years in the forlorn hope of something turning up. I don't get that sense at all now. Starmer might be a bit better or a bit worse than Sunak, but nobody - not even Starmer- thinks there's a night and day difference between them.
That's EXACTLY the public feeling I sense. I suspect you're in for a nasty surprise (and perhaps Starmer in for a pleasant one).
Why nasty? As a matter of fact I think sks pm is nailed on, and better for the country if he has a proper majority.
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
You misunderstand the nature of the expert advice given. SAGE was set up such that Govt would pose it questions and SAGE would give an answer. Policymaking remained with Govt and it was explicitly Govt’s job to balance the different issues at play, like medical and non-medical consequences.
No, I know how it worked. But what happened in practice is that SAGE gave excessively pessimistic answers, projecting death and infection rates we never got close to and politicians were largely terrified not to implement their advice in full for fear of being attacked as irresponsible. Sunak seems, on current evidence, a notable exception to that but the structure did not produce optimal results, far from it. How do we do better?
Some of the predictions that didn’t happen didn’t happen because we took measures to prevent them. This is a common problem with political commentary after an event: there is a risk of something bad, we take measures to reduce the risk, people complain that the measures taken were unnecessary because the bad thing didn’t happen.
My first real political engagement was during John Major's final years. He was a decent man trying to lead an increasingly indecent party. The stench of political death was unavoidable, with the inevitable ending.
(Snip)
This amuses me, and seems common amongst the centre-left, who now say Major was a decent man, let down by his party. But I bet they were not saying that in 1997.
Major's reputation after being PM has largely improved. Blair's has decreased. Thatcher's reputation has probably remained neutral: she was too divisive, although I think some of the heat of the dislike has decreased recently. Although hatred of her still remains mythic in some quarters, even amongst those who could never vote for her.
(I recently heard a podcast where a thirty-something Aussie was spewing Thatcher-hate, and insinuating it was a shame the Brighton bombing failed.)
I can't really say if Brown's reputation has improved or declined; he seems to be mostly forgotten. Cameron shines like a star against his immediate predecessor and successors, but has the Brexit decision against his name (then again, I think a referendum was inevitable).
Even at the time Major was decent compared to most of the cabinet!
The reluctance to disclose Whatsapp stuff to the inquiry is imv justified by the baleful effect it would have on future decision making within government, and probably nothing to do with a Sunak 'cover-up". As someone here said the other day, it will encourage the use of burner phones by ministers or selecting instant delete after reading the message if such is available on the Whatsapp platform (never used it so dunno)
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
And we had a perfectly good alternative on the table. Nothing scary about Covid, ignore all those people dying, Boris gets injected with Covid live on TV to show there is nothing to fear.
Not an alternative. He did do that, or at least insist on shaking hands with almost everyone in a covid-infected hospital. And then what happened?
That's true; but again, look at when it happened: 3rd March 2020, and the Sage advice came out the same day..
" His spokesman said Johnson “wouldn’t have seen” the advice before the press conference at which he boasted about continuing to shake hands.
The spokesman insisted the prime minister had taken other precautions, including regular handwashing, and that he changed his behaviour when the official advice changed."
Incidentally, about a week after that, my parents were driving back with their caravan when another driver took off their wing mirror. They stopped to exchange details, and the other driver came up and shook my dad's hand. My mum was horrified, but it was an instinctive gesture on both their parts.
It was a massive breach of basic hygiene by any standard. OK so Mr J might have got out the sanitiser after the camera moved on - but what about the other folk?
Even in the years before covid, that sort of thing was increasingly frowned on, as I saw in a hospital several years before.
The reluctance to disclose Whatsapp stuff to the inquiry is imv justified by the baleful effect it would have on future decision making within government, and probably nothing to do with a Sunak 'cover-up". As someone here said the other day, it will encourage the use of burner phones by ministers or selecting instant delete after reading the message if such is available on the Whatsapp platform (never used it so dunno)
So the problem, you’re saying, is with how the terms of the Inquiry were set up in the first place? If only we knew which Government had determined those…
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
You misunderstand the nature of the expert advice given. SAGE was set up such that Govt would pose it questions and SAGE would give an answer. Policymaking remained with Govt and it was explicitly Govt’s job to balance the different issues at play, like medical and non-medical consequences.
No, I know how it worked. But what happened in practice is that SAGE gave excessively pessimistic answers, projecting death and infection rates we never got close to and politicians were largely terrified not to implement their advice in full for fear of being attacked as irresponsible. Sunak seems, on current evidence, a notable exception to that but the structure did not produce optimal results, far from it. How do we do better?
Some of the predictions that didn’t happen didn’t happen because we took measures to prevent them. This is a common problem with political commentary after an event: there is a risk of something bad, we take measures to reduce the risk, people complain that the measures taken were unnecessary because the bad thing didn’t happen.
Lockdowns were a success.
How do we know? Because everyone says they weren't needed.
As a certain rather brilliant poster with a penchant for awesome puns predicted in March 2020.
That doesn't mean of course that they couldn't have been handled better, or that there weren't significant other costs on the way.
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
What’s terrifying is how those on the Right have convinced themselves that the various public health measures taken — lockdowns, masks, vaccines, information campaigns, etc. — were bad. We saw how that played out in the US, where Republican-voting areas had death rates that were 40%-300% higher: https://news.northeastern.edu/2022/12/05/republican-covid-death-rate/
Agree. For what it’s worth in my view the first lockdown was absolutely vital, the second was advisable and the third was unnecessary. The flight of the right to anti-science is perplexing, as policy responses should be rooted basically in an open understanding of scientific evidence, even allowing for political nuance.
There is no question that in Mar 2020 it was lockdown or public health collapse.
The issue was not that the third one was unnecessary. It was that it could potentially have been avoided if the second one hadn't been comprehensively bungled.
The determination to avoid locking down - for example, from my own experience, ordering schools to stay open when they couldn't actually staff their lessons, refusing to consider phased lessons and even simple things like ordering staff who should according to law have been isolating to go into work - meant, ironically, that another full lockdown became necessary.
In other words, competence matters.
Since the Conservative party was remade in BoJo's wobbly image, it's been good at persuading people that it wants personal freedom, national vigour, levelling up yada yada. But loudly wanting something isn't enough.
Unfortunately, the things it has done and the way it has gone about them have left us less free, less vigorous and more dependent on City middlemen than before.
The long lockdown at the start of 2021 was the price we paid for the unsuccessful attempt to save Christmas 2020.
What I found especially irritating about the second half of Covid was that although it was obvious that it would continue to be a problem, no preparations had been made for how to deal to with the situation, and when it was plain what was being done was simply not working, there was a point-blank refusal to face facts and change course apparently for that reason.
For example, it was obvious from October 2020 onwards that the level of disruption to education meant exams run as usual would be worthless, if they could be run at all. (Interestingly, this would not necessarily have been the case in 2020, but that's another story.) But right until January, not only were the government insisting they would go ahead, but refused point blank to make any contingency plans for them being cancelled. Indeed, anyone who called for plans to be made, or tried to make them, was threatened with reprisals for 'undermining the public narrative.'
So when they were finally cancelled, we were left with no plans for replacing them, even though we could and should have been readying ourselves for that scenario from September.
The result was that we actually had *more* exams than before, because we needed so many test papers, which was twice as expensive (no extra funding was provided for extra photocopying and staffing, but exam boards still charged pretty much full fees) and uneven in quality (because despite assurances almost no additional papers were provided and in most subjects only one actually useful set of papers existed after the botched exam reforms of the Gove era).
This was basic, it was simple and any vaguely intelligent human being would have been on it. One of the ways the teaching unions did get it right and that is not something they managed with everything in the pandemic is they were demanding this contingency planning from a year out. The bullying and abuse they received not from ministers but from civil servants - some of whom, we now find, were under the influence of 'works meetings' in these sessions - was appalling and in my view should have been career ending. But it hasn't been.
This is the kind of thing we need to have investigated. Although to be honest I'm not sure how useful this inquiry would be for that. It's not the government made mistakes. That's allowable. They were in a very difficult situation. And the inquiry can make recommendations for next time to improve their response. But clearly there were people who were either so stupid they should not be running a Costa drive through or so wilfully negligent they should be doing jail time. And those people are still out there doing damage.
In fairness, I imagine running a Costa drive-thru is probably quite stressful, unpleasant and poorly-paid, as well being quite difficult.
The people in question shouldn’t be trusted to place an order at one, let alone run one.
The reluctance to disclose Whatsapp stuff to the inquiry is imv justified by the baleful effect it would have on future decision making within government, and probably nothing to do with a Sunak 'cover-up". As someone here said the other day, it will encourage the use of burner phones by ministers or selecting instant delete after reading the message if such is available on the Whatsapp platform (never used it so dunno)
That argument makes no sense because the Government itself set the terms of reference for the inquiry, and the inquiry is established under the Inquiries Act 2005.
So, if the outcome on disclosure is seen to be too broad, that is a matter the Government can address for future inquiries.
In terms of burner phones and the like - pretty ludicrous. You only need one person involved in the conversation to say "when I needed to contact the Minister, I used this number" and you've got a major scandal on your hands (even if the content is actually quite anodyne).
My first real political engagement was during John Major's final years. He was a decent man trying to lead an increasingly indecent party. The stench of political death was unavoidable, with the inevitable ending.
(Snip)
This amuses me, and seems common amongst the centre-left, who now say Major was a decent man, let down by his party. But I bet they were not saying that in 1997.
Major's reputation after being PM has largely improved. Blair's has decreased. Thatcher's reputation has probably remained neutral: she was too divisive, although I think some of the heat of the dislike has decreased recently. Although hatred of her still remains mythic in some quarters, even amongst those who could never vote for her.
(I recently heard a podcast where a thirty-something Aussie was spewing Thatcher-hate, and insinuating it was a shame the Brighton bombing failed.)
I can't really say if Brown's reputation has improved or declined; he seems to be mostly forgotten. Cameron shines like a star against his immediate predecessor and successors, but has the Brexit decision against his name (then again, I think a referendum was inevitable).
Even at the time Major was decent compared to most of the cabinet!
I put Labour-LibDems together because there's evidentially (04-05-23) a double pincer movement in operation amongst the electorate against the Conservatives.
I know you may not 'like' these findings but going Ad Hominem is weak, and dismissing them out of hand as 'tripe' reflects poorly on your political judgement.
A week is a long time in politics. Your extrapolation is tripe.
Were you the poster who predicted in January that the lead would shrink by 1% every month from then on?
The evidence from every single poll for the last year is that the public has a settled intention to remove the Conservatives from office. The "week is a long time" is less relevant in that context. The Tories need a very large black swan. Attacking Heathener for pointing that out is an unpleasant evasion of that obvious fact.
I don't think it's that it's just we get the same hyperbolic morning dump from Heathener every day, who then disappears. It's almost like, um, the poster considers themselves "on duty" to set the tone of the discussion in the thread beneath the line each and every day.
The less forgiveable thing is about how this is presented as a betting certainty, when nothing is certain - particularly 18 months out, and it's quite right to continue to challenge this and point that out.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
It's a sobering thought that the Tories have won a majority only twice in the last 30 years - once when offering a referendum on Brexit, and once when offering Brexit itself.
Talking of sobering thoughts:
Labour MP Charlotte Nichols says that when she was elected in 2019, the Labour whips gave her a list of thirty male MPs that she should avoid being alone with, at risk of her personal safety.
In 2019, Labour saw 202 MPs elected.
Remove the female MPs, and you are left with 98.
Remove the men who have declared themselves as gay, and you are left with 83.
Remove those who were newly elected in 2019 and therefore unlikely to be on the whips' black list, and you are left with just 77 (by my reckoning).
Which suggests that a woman who finds herself alone with a heterosexual Labour MP stands an almost 40% chance of being in the company of a potentially dangerous sexual predator.....
(edit/ I am making the assumption here that the MPs on the Labour whips' blacklist were all their own, which does seem to be the inference of the story, but I haven't seen explicitly stated)
The list wasn't confined to Labour MPs - rather all MPs. The reporting around this has been extremely poor in leading to that misconception. As previously noted here.
The reporting, particularly by the BBC has cleverly focused it as an exclusively Labour Party scandal. The tacit implication by the BBC (from evidence by Nichols that there are 30 MPs of different stripes she was told to avoid) has been without question that all 30 belong to the Labour Party.
That said, the Labour Party have behaved abominably over the issue, so perhaps they exclusively deserve to have the entire bucket of ordure poured over them, rather than sharing it with the Conservatives.
The story was, of course, about a Labour MP talking about the failure of Labour to deal with the issue - and TBF in the original BBC interview I heard, she made it clear that it was a cross party list.
The reporting hasn't gone out if its way to imply that it's a Labour only problem, but it has failed badly in making the nature of the list clear. In the case of the BBC, they have an obligation to do that better.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
And we had a perfectly good alternative on the table. Nothing scary about Covid, ignore all those people dying, Boris gets injected with Covid live on TV to show there is nothing to fear.
Not an alternative. He did do that, or at least insist on shaking hands with almost everyone in a covid-infected hospital. And then what happened?
That's true; but again, look at when it happened: 3rd March 2020, and the Sage advice came out the same day..
" His spokesman said Johnson “wouldn’t have seen” the advice before the press conference at which he boasted about continuing to shake hands.
The spokesman insisted the prime minister had taken other precautions, including regular handwashing, and that he changed his behaviour when the official advice changed."
Incidentally, about a week after that, my parents were driving back with their caravan when another driver took off their wing mirror. They stopped to exchange details, and the other driver came up and shook my dad's hand. My mum was horrified, but it was an instinctive gesture on both their parts.
It was a massive breach of basic hygiene by any standard. OK so Mr J might have got out the sanitiser after the camera moved on - but what about the other folk?
Even in the years before covid, that sort of thing was increasingly frowned on, as I saw in a hospital several years before.
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
No it really wasn't.
It was that they imposed those rules and then didn't keep them themselves. They deprived people of the right to go to birthday parties or visit dying relatives, whilst all the while mocking us.
The British public will never forgive them for this and on election day vengeance will be brutal.
I know there is a narrative about ‘parties’ that people have. The idea that number 10 was a constant orgy of drinking etc but I really think this should be challenged. Yes there were pathetic gatherings of people trying to do the right thing, among work colleagues. But for the most part those setting the rules followed them. I know I am probably the only person on pb who thinks this. If you think the ‘Johnson birthday party’ at work, during work, is your idea of fun then I pity you. The rules were too strict on certain things. Never again should people have to die separated from their relatives and spouses. If a situation requires lockdown or something similar, don’t get into micromanagement. Set the rules and stick to it.
I’d also castigate the media in this. Every single press conference seemed to be a chance for a gotcha moment. PB was far better informed and would have asked far better questions.
I think the government will suffer from stuff that comes out of the Inquiry, probably unfairly, in the most part. People are very poor at remembering what those days were like. How little we really knew. All they want is to lay the blame somewhere. I often feel that some think no-one should have died of covid if the government had made the right calls. This is nonsense, and ignores the experiences of other western governments who ended up with broadly similar outcomes.
Policing of restrictions was too zealous, as the Govt was advised of at the time. We needed more carrot and less stick. That is, more help for those self-isolating.
Personal experience was that we weren't nearly as zealous as the government seemed to want which is why I find those who need to get out the smelling salts every time we find out that the government didn't always take them incredibly seriously either, odd.
But that is ok and was predicted. No doubt the government had modelling which indicated the degree of compliance that could reasonably be expected and overshot the regulations to some degree to reflect that.
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
I was most certainly not entirely compliant with the lockdown rules, and I would not expect others to have been. We'd have all gone up the wall had we been so compliant.
I complied with what I thought was sensible, particularly by the third lockdown when we were all despairing but also knew there was an exit.
The disappointing thing is that there were rather more neighbourly busybodies who delighted in shopping each other for a taste of power than I expected.
A fair warning that, if we were ever occupied, there would be plenty of willing collaborators.
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
You misunderstand the nature of the expert advice given. SAGE was set up such that Govt would pose it questions and SAGE would give an answer. Policymaking remained with Govt and it was explicitly Govt’s job to balance the different issues at play, like medical and non-medical consequences.
What was striking was how the modelling seemed to underplay how the public would take their own measures, rather than need laws/rules to help reduce spread. Almost every time the models overestimated how bad things would get, and arguably they didn’t as the people of the country took their own choices to not socialise, or to work from home (if they could). That hints at a possibility that a more grown up approach may have work, rather than the blunt scare tactics. But perhaps it was the scare that induced the behaviour change. I also think that while I understand the SAGE remit, there was a lot of leak of experts onto the media, and this did not help either. It’s hard to know how other nations experienced this clash between science, advisory boards and government, with the media muddying the water at every point. But I’d hope most were better than ours.
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
That's roughly where I'm at, and tactical voting on top will probably deliver a clear Labour majority.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
It's a sobering thought that the Tories have won a majority only twice in the last 30 years - once when offering a referendum on Brexit, and once when offering Brexit itself.
Talking of sobering thoughts:
Labour MP Charlotte Nichols says that when she was elected in 2019, the Labour whips gave her a list of thirty male MPs that she should avoid being alone with, at risk of her personal safety.
In 2019, Labour saw 202 MPs elected.
Remove the female MPs, and you are left with 98.
Remove the men who have declared themselves as gay, and you are left with 83.
Remove those who were newly elected in 2019 and therefore unlikely to be on the whips' black list, and you are left with just 77 (by my reckoning).
Which suggests that a woman who finds herself alone with a heterosexual Labour MP stands an almost 40% chance of being in the company of a potentially dangerous sexual predator.....
Labour MPs or all MPs?
Edit - also, those six elected in 2019 still be included in your final figure as you said 'being left alone' without qualifying it.
Ive just taken a look at the gorgeous pouting Charlotte Nichols and it's very probably something she dreamt
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
No it really wasn't.
It was that they imposed those rules and then didn't keep them themselves. They deprived people of the right to go to birthday parties or visit dying relatives, whilst all the while mocking us.
The British public will never forgive them for this and on election day vengeance will be brutal.
I know there is a narrative about ‘parties’ that people have. The idea that number 10 was a constant orgy of drinking etc but I really think this should be challenged. Yes there were pathetic gatherings of people trying to do the right thing, among work colleagues. But for the most part those setting the rules followed them. I know I am probably the only person on pb who thinks this. If you think the ‘Johnson birthday party’ at work, during work, is your idea of fun then I pity you. The rules were too strict on certain things. Never again should people have to die separated from their relatives and spouses. If a situation requires lockdown or something similar, don’t get into micromanagement. Set the rules and stick to it.
I’d also castigate the media in this. Every single press conference seemed to be a chance for a gotcha moment. PB was far better informed and would have asked far better questions.
I think the government will suffer from stuff that comes out of the Inquiry, probably unfairly, in the most part. People are very poor at remembering what those days were like. How little we really knew. All they want is to lay the blame somewhere. I often feel that some think no-one should have died of covid if the government had made the right calls. This is nonsense, and ignores the experiences of other western governments who ended up with broadly similar outcomes.
I think the point is that what they did was illegal according to their own rules. Therefore, they were in their own eyes not 'doing the right thing.'
Those of us who were, ignoring the lies of that idiot Fabricant, actually working on the front line were not having any parties at all, never mind boozy ones.
If their own rules were stupid (which they were) then that only really makes things worse.
I don't think that is entirely fair.
Under the uncertainty of the moment the lock downs were a perfectly reasonable response. Partying like it was 1999, whilst we were locked down wasn't.
Except they didn’t party like it’s 1999, or at least the one everyone hates didn’t. And Sunak certainly didn’t.
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
And we had a perfectly good alternative on the table. Nothing scary about Covid, ignore all those people dying, Boris gets injected with Covid live on TV to show there is nothing to fear.
Not an alternative. He did do that, or at least insist on shaking hands with almost everyone in a covid-infected hospital. And then what happened?
That's true; but again, look at when it happened: 3rd March 2020, and the Sage advice came out the same day..
" His spokesman said Johnson “wouldn’t have seen” the advice before the press conference at which he boasted about continuing to shake hands.
The spokesman insisted the prime minister had taken other precautions, including regular handwashing, and that he changed his behaviour when the official advice changed."
Incidentally, about a week after that, my parents were driving back with their caravan when another driver took off their wing mirror. They stopped to exchange details, and the other driver came up and shook my dad's hand. My mum was horrified, but it was an instinctive gesture on both their parts.
Arguably the handshake was fine, the threat was from the aerosol you breathed in when doin* the handshake…
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
It's perfectly possible the result could be worse than 1997, with ultra-tactical voting. The worst that could happen is the worst than happen.
But, that would require a very depressed centre-right base not to turn up. That's the bit people keep forgetting. A landslide can't happen without the willing collaboration of the base.
But, if it turns out that Heathener is right on that, that will be due to stopped clocks being right twice a day - not serious analysis, as that poster has none other than emotion, I'm afraid, and a track record of playing the man not the ball when challenged with results and analysis.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
It's a sobering thought that the Tories have won a majority only twice in the last 30 years - once when offering a referendum on Brexit, and once when offering Brexit itself.
Talking of sobering thoughts:
Labour MP Charlotte Nichols says that when she was elected in 2019, the Labour whips gave her a list of thirty male MPs that she should avoid being alone with, at risk of her personal safety.
In 2019, Labour saw 202 MPs elected.
Remove the female MPs, and you are left with 98.
Remove the men who have declared themselves as gay, and you are left with 83.
Remove those who were newly elected in 2019 and therefore unlikely to be on the whips' black list, and you are left with just 77 (by my reckoning).
Which suggests that a woman who finds herself alone with a heterosexual Labour MP stands an almost 40% chance of being in the company of a potentially dangerous sexual predator.....
Labour MPs or all MPs?
Edit - also, those six elected in 2019 still be included in your final figure as you said 'being left alone' without qualifying it.
Ive just taken a look at the gorgeous pouting Charlotte Nichols and it's very probably something she dreamt
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
And we had a perfectly good alternative on the table. Nothing scary about Covid, ignore all those people dying, Boris gets injected with Covid live on TV to show there is nothing to fear.
Not an alternative. He did do that, or at least insist on shaking hands with almost everyone in a covid-infected hospital. And then what happened?
That's true; but again, look at when it happened: 3rd March 2020, and the Sage advice came out the same day..
" His spokesman said Johnson “wouldn’t have seen” the advice before the press conference at which he boasted about continuing to shake hands.
The spokesman insisted the prime minister had taken other precautions, including regular handwashing, and that he changed his behaviour when the official advice changed."
Incidentally, about a week after that, my parents were driving back with their caravan when another driver took off their wing mirror. They stopped to exchange details, and the other driver came up and shook my dad's hand. My mum was horrified, but it was an instinctive gesture on both their parts.
It was a massive breach of basic hygiene by any standard. OK so Mr J might have got out the sanitiser after the camera moved on - but what about the other folk?
Even in the years before covid, that sort of thing was increasingly frowned on, as I saw in a hospital several years before.
At the time, and setting such a public example - yes, 'massive' is what anyone with common sense would think, and what I thought when I saw that news report at the time. Even in Feb 2020 my GP was being very careful - and insisting that I wash hands with the correct goop after an examination, never mind him doing it.
I wasn't impressed by such things earlier either. You'd think Mr Blair had never heard of hospital infections and such things as streptococcal bacteria.
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
And we had a perfectly good alternative on the table. Nothing scary about Covid, ignore all those people dying, Boris gets injected with Covid live on TV to show there is nothing to fear.
Not an alternative. He did do that, or at least insist on shaking hands with almost everyone in a covid-infected hospital. And then what happened?
That's true; but again, look at when it happened: 3rd March 2020, and the Sage advice came out the same day..
" His spokesman said Johnson “wouldn’t have seen” the advice before the press conference at which he boasted about continuing to shake hands.
The spokesman insisted the prime minister had taken other precautions, including regular handwashing, and that he changed his behaviour when the official advice changed."
Incidentally, about a week after that, my parents were driving back with their caravan when another driver took off their wing mirror. They stopped to exchange details, and the other driver came up and shook my dad's hand. My mum was horrified, but it was an instinctive gesture on both their parts.
Arguably the handshake was fine, the threat was from the aerosol you breathed in when doin* the handshake…
Yep. But again, 3rd March 2020. We knew essentially f'all about Covid at that time. The Sage advice only came out the same day.
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
No it really wasn't.
It was that they imposed those rules and then didn't keep them themselves. They deprived people of the right to go to birthday parties or visit dying relatives, whilst all the while mocking us.
The British public will never forgive them for this and on election day vengeance will be brutal.
I know there is a narrative about ‘parties’ that people have. The idea that number 10 was a constant orgy of drinking etc but I really think this should be challenged. Yes there were pathetic gatherings of people trying to do the right thing, among work colleagues. But for the most part those setting the rules followed them. I know I am probably the only person on pb who thinks this. If you think the ‘Johnson birthday party’ at work, during work, is your idea of fun then I pity you. The rules were too strict on certain things. Never again should people have to die separated from their relatives and spouses. If a situation requires lockdown or something similar, don’t get into micromanagement. Set the rules and stick to it.
I’d also castigate the media in this. Every single press conference seemed to be a chance for a gotcha moment. PB was far better informed and would have asked far better questions.
I think the government will suffer from stuff that comes out of the Inquiry, probably unfairly, in the most part. People are very poor at remembering what those days were like. How little we really knew. All they want is to lay the blame somewhere. I often feel that some think no-one should have died of covid if the government had made the right calls. This is nonsense, and ignores the experiences of other western governments who ended up with broadly similar outcomes.
Policing of restrictions was too zealous, as the Govt was advised of at the time. We needed more carrot and less stick. That is, more help for those self-isolating.
Personal experience was that we weren't nearly as zealous as the government seemed to want which is why I find those who need to get out the smelling salts every time we find out that the government didn't always take them incredibly seriously either, odd.
But that is ok and was predicted. No doubt the government had modelling which indicated the degree of compliance that could reasonably be expected and overshot the regulations to some degree to reflect that.
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
I was most certainly not entirely compliant with the lockdown rules, and I would not expect others to have been. We'd have all gone up the wall had we been so compliant.
I complied with what I thought was sensible, particularly by the third lockdown when we were all despairing but also knew there was an exit.
The disappointing thing is that there were rather more neighbourly busybodies who delighted in shopping each other for a taste of power than I expected.
A fair warning that, if we were ever occupied, there would be plenty of willing collaborators.
I took a similar approach. For example, I was routinely out for more than an hour of exercise when I took my bike out for a ride on the empty streets in the early morning. Also I’d go for a family walk later on. And I couldn’t break the instinct to not touch my face (that was an odd one).
But I regularly hand-washed, sanitised, masked and kept my distance where appropriate. And I didn’t panic buy!
It all feels like a mad dream now. We got through it unscathed* (we all got covid in the end, but it was post lockdowns) but nearly went utterly bonkers in that first few months, in particular with the home schooling.
*the effect on my son, who is just about to turn 10, is uncertain - he missed nigh on a year of normal life, socialising etc. as a 6/7yo should. Already young in the year it feels like he hasn’t caught back up. And the mock sats papers he’s started doing are ludicrously difficult; they feel like a cruel trick.
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
And we had a perfectly good alternative on the table. Nothing scary about Covid, ignore all those people dying, Boris gets injected with Covid live on TV to show there is nothing to fear.
Not an alternative. He did do that, or at least insist on shaking hands with almost everyone in a covid-infected hospital. And then what happened?
That's true; but again, look at when it happened: 3rd March 2020, and the Sage advice came out the same day..
" His spokesman said Johnson “wouldn’t have seen” the advice before the press conference at which he boasted about continuing to shake hands.
The spokesman insisted the prime minister had taken other precautions, including regular handwashing, and that he changed his behaviour when the official advice changed."
Incidentally, about a week after that, my parents were driving back with their caravan when another driver took off their wing mirror. They stopped to exchange details, and the other driver came up and shook my dad's hand. My mum was horrified, but it was an instinctive gesture on both their parts.
Arguably the handshake was fine, the threat was from the aerosol you breathed in when doin* the handshake…
Yep. But again, 3rd March 2020. We knew essentially f'all about Covid at that time. The Sage advice only came out the same day.
I dont disagree. It’s more a point about how the advice never changed over the pandemic to reflect the true nature of most of the spread, People spent years not opening letters for a week for instance, and washing their delivered groceries, to no effect.
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
You misunderstand the nature of the expert advice given. SAGE was set up such that Govt would pose it questions and SAGE would give an answer. Policymaking remained with Govt and it was explicitly Govt’s job to balance the different issues at play, like medical and non-medical consequences.
What was striking was how the modelling seemed to underplay how the public would take their own measures, rather than need laws/rules to help reduce spread. Almost every time the models overestimated how bad things would get, and arguably they didn’t as the people of the country took their own choices to not socialise, or to work from home (if they could). That hints at a possibility that a more grown up approach may have work, rather than the blunt scare tactics. But perhaps it was the scare that induced the behaviour change. I also think that while I understand the SAGE remit, there was a lot of leak of experts onto the media, and this did not help either. It’s hard to know how other nations experienced this clash between science, advisory boards and government, with the media muddying the water at every point. But I’d hope most were better than ours.
Well, there were epidemiologists in SPI-M looking at spread and behavioural scientists in SPI-B looking at people’s behaviour, different groups answering different questions. They possibly weren’t as joined up as would’ve been optimal.
SPI-B never recommended “blunt scare tactics”. I think Conservative politicians sometimes favoured tough rules and scare tactics over the advice from SPI-B that talked more about making it easier for people to do desired behaviours.
I don’t think there were many “leaks” to the media. SAGE moved fairly rapidly to being more open. You can go read all the SAGE minutes and reports, they’re all online. SAGE participants were often interviewed by the media and gave their personal views: those are not “leaks”.
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
You misunderstand the nature of the expert advice given. SAGE was set up such that Govt would pose it questions and SAGE would give an answer. Policymaking remained with Govt and it was explicitly Govt’s job to balance the different issues at play, like medical and non-medical consequences.
What was striking was how the modelling seemed to underplay how the public would take their own measures, rather than need laws/rules to help reduce spread. Almost every time the models overestimated how bad things would get, and arguably they didn’t as the people of the country took their own choices to not socialise, or to work from home (if they could). That hints at a possibility that a more grown up approach may have work, rather than the blunt scare tactics. But perhaps it was the scare that induced the behaviour change. I also think that while I understand the SAGE remit, there was a lot of leak of experts onto the media, and this did not help either. It’s hard to know how other nations experienced this clash between science, advisory boards and government, with the media muddying the water at every point. But I’d hope most were better than ours.
Well, there were epidemiologists in SPI-M looking at spread and behavioural scientists in SPI-B looking at people’s behaviour, different groups answering different questions. They possibly weren’t as joined up as would’ve been optimal.
SPI-B never recommended “blunt scare tactics”. I think Conservative politicians sometimes favoured tough rules and scare tactics over the advice from SPI-B that talked more about making it easier for people to do desired behaviours.
I don’t think there were many “leaks” to the media. SAGE moved fairly rapidly to being more open. You can go read all the SAGE minutes and reports, they’re all online. SAGE participants were often interviewed by the media and gave their personal views: those are not “leaks”.
Perhaps leaks is the wrong word. I mean media interventions from members of SAGE, and in some cases also members of iSAGE too.
The reluctance to disclose Whatsapp stuff to the inquiry is imv justified by the baleful effect it would have on future decision making within government, and probably nothing to do with a Sunak 'cover-up". As someone here said the other day, it will encourage the use of burner phones by ministers or selecting instant delete after reading the message if such is available on the Whatsapp platform (never used it so dunno)
So the problem, you’re saying, is with how the terms of the Inquiry were set up in the first place? If only we knew which Government had determined those…
No, the problem is the effect this disclosure requirement will have on the efficient conduct of business within government. Retrospective judicial surveillance of all communications will hamper frankness and tentative exploration of policies (along with much else). We used to be concerned about a "surveillance society" in which authorities can snoop on private individuals. Here my concern is that blanket disclosure will inhibit such discussions taking place at all, much to our detriment. Decision making in secret contradicts the open society most people favour, but this will regretably encourage it.
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
You misunderstand the nature of the expert advice given. SAGE was set up such that Govt would pose it questions and SAGE would give an answer. Policymaking remained with Govt and it was explicitly Govt’s job to balance the different issues at play, like medical and non-medical consequences.
What was striking was how the modelling seemed to underplay how the public would take their own measures, rather than need laws/rules to help reduce spread. Almost every time the models overestimated how bad things would get, and arguably they didn’t as the people of the country took their own choices to not socialise, or to work from home (if they could). That hints at a possibility that a more grown up approach may have work, rather than the blunt scare tactics. But perhaps it was the scare that induced the behaviour change. I also think that while I understand the SAGE remit, there was a lot of leak of experts onto the media, and this did not help either. It’s hard to know how other nations experienced this clash between science, advisory boards and government, with the media muddying the water at every point. But I’d hope most were better than ours.
Well, there were epidemiologists in SPI-M looking at spread and behavioural scientists in SPI-B looking at people’s behaviour, different groups answering different questions. They possibly weren’t as joined up as would’ve been optimal.
SPI-B never recommended “blunt scare tactics”. I think Conservative politicians sometimes favoured tough rules and scare tactics over the advice from SPI-B that talked more about making it easier for people to do desired behaviours.
I don’t think there were many “leaks” to the media. SAGE moved fairly rapidly to being more open. You can go read all the SAGE minutes and reports, they’re all online. SAGE participants were often interviewed by the media and gave their personal views: those are not “leaks”.
Perhaps leaks is the wrong word. I mean media interventions from members of SAGE, and in some cases also members of iSAGE too.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
The reluctance to disclose Whatsapp stuff to the inquiry is imv justified by the baleful effect it would have on future decision making within government, and probably nothing to do with a Sunak 'cover-up". As someone here said the other day, it will encourage the use of burner phones by ministers or selecting instant delete after reading the message if such is available on the Whatsapp platform (never used it so dunno)
So the problem, you’re saying, is with how the terms of the Inquiry were set up in the first place? If only we knew which Government had determined those…
No, the problem is the effect this disclosure requirement will have on the efficient conduct of business within government. Retrospective judicial surveillance of all communications will hamper frankness and tentative exploration of policies (along with much else). We used to be concerned about a "surveillance society" in which authorities can snoop on private individuals. Here my concern is that blanket disclosure will inhibit such discussions taking place at all, much to our detriment. Decision making in secret contradicts the open society most people favour, but this will regretably encourage it.
OK, but this disclosure requirement came from how the Inquiry was set up. So if your beef is with the disclosure requirement, your beef is with the Government who set up the Inquiry.
The reluctance to disclose Whatsapp stuff to the inquiry is imv justified by the baleful effect it would have on future decision making within government, and probably nothing to do with a Sunak 'cover-up". As someone here said the other day, it will encourage the use of burner phones by ministers or selecting instant delete after reading the message if such is available on the Whatsapp platform (never used it so dunno)
So the problem, you’re saying, is with how the terms of the Inquiry were set up in the first place? If only we knew which Government had determined those…
No, the problem is the effect this disclosure requirement will have on the efficient conduct of business within government. Retrospective judicial surveillance of all communications will hamper frankness and tentative exploration of policies (along with much else). We used to be concerned about a "surveillance society" in which authorities can snoop on private individuals. Here my concern is that blanket disclosure will inhibit such discussions taking place at all, much to our detriment. Decision making in secret contradicts the open society most people favour, but this will regretably encourage it.
But the terms of reference of an inquiry (set by Government) is what defines the scope of disclosure.
That's the point being made, and the bizarre nature of the Government challenging the terms of reference of an inquiry it established itself!
Additionally, it shows a total, somewhat Trumpian, lack of trust in the Inquiry and its legal advisors in itself redacting and maintaining confidentiality in irrelevant materials.
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
You misunderstand the nature of the expert advice given. SAGE was set up such that Govt would pose it questions and SAGE would give an answer. Policymaking remained with Govt and it was explicitly Govt’s job to balance the different issues at play, like medical and non-medical consequences.
What was striking was how the modelling seemed to underplay how the public would take their own measures, rather than need laws/rules to help reduce spread. Almost every time the models overestimated how bad things would get, and arguably they didn’t as the people of the country took their own choices to not socialise, or to work from home (if they could). That hints at a possibility that a more grown up approach may have work, rather than the blunt scare tactics. But perhaps it was the scare that induced the behaviour change. I also think that while I understand the SAGE remit, there was a lot of leak of experts onto the media, and this did not help either. It’s hard to know how other nations experienced this clash between science, advisory boards and government, with the media muddying the water at every point. But I’d hope most were better than ours.
Well, there were epidemiologists in SPI-M looking at spread and behavioural scientists in SPI-B looking at people’s behaviour, different groups answering different questions. They possibly weren’t as joined up as would’ve been optimal.
SPI-B never recommended “blunt scare tactics”. I think Conservative politicians sometimes favoured tough rules and scare tactics over the advice from SPI-B that talked more about making it easier for people to do desired behaviours.
I don’t think there were many “leaks” to the media. SAGE moved fairly rapidly to being more open. You can go read all the SAGE minutes and reports, they’re all online. SAGE participants were often interviewed by the media and gave their personal views: those are not “leaks”.
Perhaps leaks is the wrong word. I mean media interventions from members of SAGE, and in some cases also members of iSAGE too.
We have free speech and a free press.
Absolutely, but I think the press is not an honest actor in this country and certain views were more likely to sell papers.
@bondegezou , @SirNorfolkPassmore - you're probably right that the fault was in setting up the Inquiry with its terms of reference, I am simply lamenting the wider effects it will have
In predicting the outcome of the next GE, there's an assumption by all sides that, based on precedent, the polls are likely to narrow both before and during the GE campaign.
I'm tempted to think this may not happen this time round. Unfortunately, our GE campaigns are increasingly presidential in nature. I wouldn't be at all surprised if, under the intense spotlight of the campaign, Starmer becomes more 'popular' and Sunak less 'popular'. Of course, others may think this absurdly unlikely. I'm not so sure. Anyway, on that basis I'm expecting a comfortable Labour majority.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
@bondegezou , @SirNorfolkPassmore - you're probably right that the fault was in setting up the Inquiry with its terms of reference, I am simply lamenting the wider effects it will have
But then why is the Government spending public money challenging its own terms of reference?
It could negate the issue you are talking about simply by saying "we are looking again at how to set the terms of reference for public inquiries, to ensure clarity on the matter in future".
There - I've saved the public purse a few hundred thousand pounds, and Sunak a ton of horrible headlines.
You're welcome, guys, and no need to thank me - a simple Order of the Garter will suffice.
What this inquiry should be focusing on, rather than government tittle tattle, is how decisions were made, and how, in some cases the expert advice was so wrong (I am not suggesting for a moment that it was anything other than genuine). In other words, did the expert structure have built into it an excessive degree of caution, a tendency to ignore the non medical consequences of their decisions and a degree of group think that was unhealthy? How could we do it better the next time?
You misunderstand the nature of the expert advice given. SAGE was set up such that Govt would pose it questions and SAGE would give an answer. Policymaking remained with Govt and it was explicitly Govt’s job to balance the different issues at play, like medical and non-medical consequences.
What was striking was how the modelling seemed to underplay how the public would take their own measures, rather than need laws/rules to help reduce spread. Almost every time the models overestimated how bad things would get, and arguably they didn’t as the people of the country took their own choices to not socialise, or to work from home (if they could). That hints at a possibility that a more grown up approach may have work, rather than the blunt scare tactics. But perhaps it was the scare that induced the behaviour change. I also think that while I understand the SAGE remit, there was a lot of leak of experts onto the media, and this did not help either. It’s hard to know how other nations experienced this clash between science, advisory boards and government, with the media muddying the water at every point. But I’d hope most were better than ours.
Well, there were epidemiologists in SPI-M looking at spread and behavioural scientists in SPI-B looking at people’s behaviour, different groups answering different questions. They possibly weren’t as joined up as would’ve been optimal.
SPI-B never recommended “blunt scare tactics”. I think Conservative politicians sometimes favoured tough rules and scare tactics over the advice from SPI-B that talked more about making it easier for people to do desired behaviours.
I don’t think there were many “leaks” to the media. SAGE moved fairly rapidly to being more open. You can go read all the SAGE minutes and reports, they’re all online. SAGE participants were often interviewed by the media and gave their personal views: those are not “leaks”.
I get the impression that SAGE became more open as the balance of risk shifted and they were fairly confident we were in a containment situation rather than "how might we deal with 20%+ of the population dying".
I also wonder if this also encouraged the politicians to be more reckless as a) they are generally risk takers b) the doomsday scenario was off the table.
@bondegezou , @SirNorfolkPassmore - you're probably right that the fault was in setting up the Inquiry with its terms of reference, I am simply lamenting the wider effects it will have
But then why is the Government spending public money challenging its own terms of reference?
It could negate the issue you are talking about simply by saying "we are looking again at how to set the terms of reference for public inquiries, to ensure clarity on the matter in future".
There - I've saved the public purse a few hundred thousand pounds, and Sunak a ton of horrible headlines.
You're welcome, guys, and no need to thank me - a simple Order of the Garter will suffice.
What's needed is obviously a public inquiry into the setting of the terms of reference of the public inquiry so you have actually cost the exchequer 10s of millions.
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
No it really wasn't.
It was that they imposed those rules and then didn't keep them themselves. They deprived people of the right to go to birthday parties or visit dying relatives, whilst all the while mocking us.
The British public will never forgive them for this and on election day vengeance will be brutal.
I know there is a narrative about ‘parties’ that people have. The idea that number 10 was a constant orgy of drinking etc but I really think this should be challenged. Yes there were pathetic gatherings of people trying to do the right thing, among work colleagues. But for the most part those setting the rules followed them. I know I am probably the only person on pb who thinks this. If you think the ‘Johnson birthday party’ at work, during work, is your idea of fun then I pity you. The rules were too strict on certain things. Never again should people have to die separated from their relatives and spouses. If a situation requires lockdown or something similar, don’t get into micromanagement. Set the rules and stick to it.
I’d also castigate the media in this. Every single press conference seemed to be a chance for a gotcha moment. PB was far better informed and would have asked far better questions.
I think the government will suffer from stuff that comes out of the Inquiry, probably unfairly, in the most part. People are very poor at remembering what those days were like. How little we really knew. All they want is to lay the blame somewhere. I often feel that some think no-one should have died of covid if the government had made the right calls. This is nonsense, and ignores the experiences of other western governments who ended up with broadly similar outcomes.
I think the point is that what they did was illegal according to their own rules. Therefore, they were in their own eyes not 'doing the right thing.'
Those of us who were, ignoring the lies of that idiot Fabricant, actually working on the front line were not having any parties at all, never mind boozy ones.
If their own rules were stupid (which they were) then that only really makes things worse.
I don't think that is entirely fair.
Under the uncertainty of the moment the lock downs were a perfectly reasonable response. Partying like it was 1999, whilst we were locked down wasn't.
"Partying like it was 1999"? Really?
If you take that attitude, then neither was getting pissed and having curries in Durham...
Really!
And as for Beergate the suspect after a rigerous investigation was not charged.
The polls hardly narrowed in GE19 because people had already decided Corbyn would not be PM.
Does anyone think the people have already decided the Tories will be removed?
The people don't move as one.
The key question here is what happens with the centre-right bloc vote.
The centre right no longer have a Party.
Do they ally with a mediocre, small-c conservative centre left, or a spent, worse than mediocre party of the right? Or do they stay at home and see how it pans out?
The polls hardly narrowed in GE19 because people had already decided Corbyn would not be PM.
Does anyone think the people have already decided the Tories will be removed?
The people don't move as one.
The key question here is what happens with the centre-right bloc vote.
The centre right no longer have a Party.
Do they ally with a mediocre, small-c conservative centre left, or a spent, worse than mediocre party of the right? Or do they stay at home and see how it pans out?
(The polls seem to split 20% 20% 60% on that front.)
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
It also prices in a few other possibilities:
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
No it really wasn't.
It was that they imposed those rules and then didn't keep them themselves. They deprived people of the right to go to birthday parties or visit dying relatives, whilst all the while mocking us.
The British public will never forgive them for this and on election day vengeance will be brutal.
I know there is a narrative about ‘parties’ that people have. The idea that number 10 was a constant orgy of drinking etc but I really think this should be challenged. Yes there were pathetic gatherings of people trying to do the right thing, among work colleagues. But for the most part those setting the rules followed them. I know I am probably the only person on pb who thinks this. If you think the ‘Johnson birthday party’ at work, during work, is your idea of fun then I pity you. The rules were too strict on certain things. Never again should people have to die separated from their relatives and spouses. If a situation requires lockdown or something similar, don’t get into micromanagement. Set the rules and stick to it.
I’d also castigate the media in this. Every single press conference seemed to be a chance for a gotcha moment. PB was far better informed and would have asked far better questions.
I think the government will suffer from stuff that comes out of the Inquiry, probably unfairly, in the most part. People are very poor at remembering what those days were like. How little we really knew. All they want is to lay the blame somewhere. I often feel that some think no-one should have died of covid if the government had made the right calls. This is nonsense, and ignores the experiences of other western governments who ended up with broadly similar outcomes.
I think the point is that what they did was illegal according to their own rules. Therefore, they were in their own eyes not 'doing the right thing.'
Those of us who were, ignoring the lies of that idiot Fabricant, actually working on the front line were not having any parties at all, never mind boozy ones.
If their own rules were stupid (which they were) then that only really makes things worse.
I don't think that is entirely fair.
Under the uncertainty of the moment the lock downs were a perfectly reasonable response. Partying like it was 1999, whilst we were locked down wasn't.
"Partying like it was 1999"? Really?
If you take that attitude, then neither was getting pissed and having curries in Durham...
Really!
And as for Beergate the suspect after a rigerous investigation was not charged.
Without rehashing all of this, I would say the following:
*) Starmer voted for the regulations. He is a big-brained lawyer, yet could not say whether he had broken them or not. It was borderline, at best.
*) Epidemiolocally, getting people from all over the country together into a crowded room, eating and drinking, after and before meeting members of the public, was stupid. And unnecessary. IMV far worse than the No.10 debacle.
He may not have been charged, but it was stupid, unnecessary and dangerous.
The reluctance to disclose Whatsapp stuff to the inquiry is imv justified by the baleful effect it would have on future decision making within government, and probably nothing to do with a Sunak 'cover-up". As someone here said the other day, it will encourage the use of burner phones by ministers or selecting instant delete after reading the message if such is available on the Whatsapp platform (never used it so dunno)
Timed delete for chats is available on WhatsApp and other platforms - after x days the messages are deleted.
The polls hardly narrowed in GE19 because people had already decided Corbyn would not be PM.
Does anyone think the people have already decided the Tories will be removed?
The people don't move as one.
The key question here is what happens with the centre-right bloc vote.
Those, in themselves, don't move as one (and you're right of course... I've met a handful of people who voted for Kinnock's Labour in 1992 and Major's Tories in 1997... it takes all sorts).
But I suspect enough of the centre-right vote to which you refer have decided that the Government has run out of steam and the old adage applies that "politicians and nappies need changing regularly, and for the same reason".
That view was deferred somewhat by Corbyn being unacceptable to centre right voters generally, but Starmer is harder to demonise in that way. Not impossible, perhaps, and the Tories will get some traction from his difficulties defining a woman for instance (it's still a little niche as an issue but I see why this sort of thing gives pause for thought). But the trump card of Sturgeon with Starmer in her pocket (which has more potential) has been taken off the table.
So my view is that the Conservatives are running out of road with a sizeable part of that vote. They won't all switch to Labour, of course, and OGH makes a powerful point that polling suggests many aren't. But differential turnout matters.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
It also prices in a few other possibilities:
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
(4) That SKS quits due to health reasons.
The price is still probably value. But, not much.
(1) I was quoting price for pm after next election not next pm, though in practice there's not much difference. (2) I think means sks at head of a coalition. 3 and 4 just unlikely.
I doubt there is anything significant, if there was significant Sunak involvement in partygate it would have come out in the last 12-18 months. In any case the most pro lockdown people will almost all now be voting Labour, it is the anti lockdown voters many of whom are now voting RefUK or DK Sunak needs to squeeze
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
It's perfectly possible the result could be worse than 1997, with ultra-tactical voting. The worst that could happen is the worst than happen.
But, that would require a very depressed centre-right base not to turn up. That's the bit people keep forgetting. A landslide can't happen without the willing collaboration of the base.
But, if it turns out that Heathener is right on that, that will be due to stopped clocks being right twice a day - not serious analysis, as that poster has none other than emotion, I'm afraid, and a track record of playing the man not the ball when challenged with results and analysis.
On your last paragraph, are you not at risk of finding yourself in a dark cupboard full of soot-covered pots and kettles? If someone goes as hominem and you want to call it out you end up indulging in what you are calling out (you in general, rather than you specifically). Though I agree with your first two paragraphs.
On the overall thrust: I have just traded out at a slight loss my (minuscule) position on NOM. I agree wholeheartedly that there is space and time for narratives to change markedly between now and the election. Until recently I have felt the balance of probabilities lies with a Tory recovery - I have believed that Sunak and Hunt had a narrow window of opportunity focused on boring professionalism and cynically sloped shoulders about the current mess.
But the response to the Covid inquiry feels like the sort of thing that will define Sunak as incompetent/corrupt just as his immediate predecessors have been.
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
Perfectly reasonable, Sean, but are you taking tactical voting into account? I suspect that is going to hurt them badly this time round.
There is a very clear Anyone But Conservative tactical voting machine in effect. Its possible the Tories may be able to find a truce with the NatC wing, but they didn't in 2019. Seats like Stockton North stayed Labour only because the hard right split the vote.
If both of these trends continue then we are into bloodbath territory. Not a Labour landslide because ABC doesn't always mean voting Labour. Not a Labour landslide because the Tories will likely keep hold of some recently won territory especially in the midlands.
The simple truth though is that LibDem, Green, SNP MPs will not be the opposition. They will not blindly vote against a Labour government. You could get a Labour majority of 50 but a working majority of 100. Where by working with the rest of the ABC block they drive through some long term changes that screw the Tories in opposition even harder.
If the LDs, SNP and Greens work with a Labour government with a small majority all the better for the Tories.
If the Tories lose they want opposition all to themselves, so they can tie the Starmer government's failures and any failure to cut inflation, tax rises, strikes etc to the LDs and other minor parties as much as the Labour government
The reluctance to disclose Whatsapp stuff to the inquiry is imv justified by the baleful effect it would have on future decision making within government, and probably nothing to do with a Sunak 'cover-up". As someone here said the other day, it will encourage the use of burner phones by ministers or selecting instant delete after reading the message if such is available on the Whatsapp platform (never used it so dunno)
Timed delete for chats is available on WhatsApp and other platforms - after x days the messages are deleted.
There are limits on that (couple of days for WhatsApp I think).
And there are two obvious problems for someone doing that. One is that it begs the question "why?" and that, in itself, may be more damaging than the content - feels like cover-up. Another is that part of the reason for putting something in writing (whether on WhatsApp or a more conventional form) is to enable you to say "if you recall, we agreed X back in October". That's the big advantage over spoken communication (which, unless recording devices are involved) always has been automatically and instantly deleted - people can be asked questions about spoken conversations they had during COVID but clearly disclosure of a transcript can't be required as it never existed and memories aren't photographic.
The polls hardly narrowed in GE19 because people had already decided Corbyn would not be PM.
Does anyone think the people have already decided the Tories will be removed?
The people don't move as one.
The key question here is what happens with the centre-right bloc vote.
Those, in themselves, don't move as one (and you're right of course... I've met a handful of people who voted for Kinnock's Labour in 1992 and Major's Tories in 1997... it takes all sorts).
But I suspect enough of the centre-right vote to which you refer have decided that the Government has run out of steam and the old adage applies that "politicians and nappies need changing regularly, and for the same reason".
That view was deferred somewhat by Corbyn being unacceptable to centre right voters generally, but Starmer is harder to demonise in that way. Not impossible, perhaps, and the Tories will get some traction from his difficulties defining a woman for instance (it's still a little niche as an issue but I see why this sort of thing gives pause for thought). But the trump card of Sturgeon with Starmer in her pocket (which has more potential) has been taken off the table.
So my view is that the Conservatives are running out of road with a sizeable part of that vote. They won't all switch to Labour, of course, and OGH makes a powerful point that polling suggests many aren't. But differential turnout matters.
The brand of the parties will play a much bigger role in the next election than it did in the previous two, which is why after a long period in government, "the Tories, the Tories, the Tories" will have an uphill struggle.
If Rishi Sunak has failed to relaunch the party as a new vehicle in his own image, their best option might yet be the return of the prodigal Boris.
The polls hardly narrowed in GE19 because people had already decided Corbyn would not be PM.
Does anyone think the people have already decided the Tories will be removed?
But they did change a lot compared to where they were in the summer of 2019. The LibDems got squeezed by Labour, to an extent, but the Tories hoovered up the BXP/UKIP vote.
The assumption that it is the politicians (only) trying to hide stuff is a mistake, I think.
Plenty of people in permanent government positions will be very upset by the idea that their casual communications would become fodder for the enquiry.
I don’t think it is “Trump like” to assume the enquiry will leak, either. I think it is inevitable that redacted and personal information will be leaked.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
It's a sobering thought that the Tories have won a majority only twice in the last 30 years - once when offering a referendum on Brexit, and once when offering Brexit itself.
Talking of sobering thoughts:
Labour MP Charlotte Nichols says that when she was elected in 2019, the Labour whips gave her a list of thirty male MPs that she should avoid being alone with, at risk of her personal safety.
In 2019, Labour saw 202 MPs elected.
Remove the female MPs, and you are left with 98.
Remove the men who have declared themselves as gay, and you are left with 83.
Remove those who were newly elected in 2019 and therefore unlikely to be on the whips' black list, and you are left with just 77 (by my reckoning).
Which suggests that a woman who finds herself alone with a heterosexual Labour MP stands an almost 40% chance of being in the company of a potentially dangerous sexual predator.....
(edit/ I am making the assumption here that the MPs on the Labour whips' blacklist were all their own, which does seem to be the inference of the story, but I haven't seen explicitly stated)
The list wasn't confined to Labour MPs - rather all MPs. The reporting around this has been extremely poor in leading to that misconception. As previously noted here.
The reporting, particularly by the BBC has cleverly focused it as an exclusively Labour Party scandal. The tacit implication by the BBC (from evidence by Nichols that there are 30 MPs of different stripes she was told to avoid) has been without question that all 30 belong to the Labour Party.
That said, the Labour Party have behaved abominably over the issue, so perhaps they exclusively deserve to have the entire bucket of ordure poured over them, rather than sharing it with the Conservatives.
The story was, of course, about a Labour MP talking about the failure of Labour to deal with the issue - and TBF in the original BBC interview I heard, she made it clear that it was a cross party list.
The reporting hasn't gone out if its way to imply that it's a Labour only problem, but it has failed badly in making the nature of the list clear. In the case of the BBC, they have an obligation to do that better.
Nichols made it clear, but the interpretation (in my view) by Evan Davis was of an exclusively Labour scandal.
Perhaps on a day when Johnson and Sunak were under negative scrutiny, couching "Pestminster" as a uniquely Labour issue constitutes BBC balance. I have only just twigged that is probably the reason behind the reporting slant.
All you fools thinking Sunak is bad at politics, this messages furore is a very cunning plan to ramp up the interest in the enquiry so people and the press are waiting with baited breath for the messages to come out and then they do and will show Rishi as the people’s champion in Covid making masterful decisions daily, questioning dodgy PPE purchases but being over-ruled by Boris and Hancock. Pushing hard to make lockdown less onerous so people can enjoy well earned birthday cakes at work.
He’s cleverly ramped up the interest because otherwise his genius would have just been overlooked in the inquiry findings.
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
That's roughly where I'm at, and tactical voting on top will probably deliver a clear Labour majority.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
I can understand why there is this constant focus on 1997, but the 1964 and and 2010 results show how tough it can be to dislodge a government that has been in power for a long time. I think more attention should be paid to both.
The assumption that it is the politicians (only) trying to hide stuff is a mistake, I think.
Plenty of people in permanent government positions will be very upset by the idea that their casual communications would become fodder for the enquiry.
I don’t think it is “Trump like” to assume the enquiry will leak, either. I think it is inevitable that redacted and personal information will be leaked.
It hasn't happened on inquiries far more sensitive than this.
Ministers may feel that a hint as to who they might or might not have been banging, or an off-colour joke is the most sensitive thing in the world. But things like the Bloody Sunday inquiry have involved disclosure of material that, unredacted, would endanger lives.
All you fools thinking Sunak is bad at politics, this messages furore is a very cunning plan to ramp up the interest in the enquiry so people and the press are waiting with baited breath for the messages to come out and then they do and will show Rishi as the people’s champion in Covid making masterful decisions daily, questioning dodgy PPE purchases but being over-ruled by Boris and Hancock. Pushing hard to make lockdown less onerous so people can enjoy well earned birthday cakes at work.
He’s cleverly ramped up the interest because otherwise his genius would have just been overlooked in the inquiry findings.
This is all true.
Dominic Cummings really should have stuck to Dungeons and Dragons.
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
That's roughly where I'm at, and tactical voting on top will probably deliver a clear Labour majority.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
I can understand why there is this constant focus on 1997, but the 1964 and and 2010 results show how tough it can be to dislodge a government that has been in power for a long time. I think more attention should be paid to both.
Indeed, though in 1964 and 2010 the opposition still won, just with a tiny majority in the first and most seats in a hung parliament in 2010. Starmer is no Blair and we are 13 years into a Tory government like 1964 not 18 years in like 1997, hence I expect a resilt closer to 1964 than 1997.
Indeed in some respects Sunak could be Home to Starmer's Wilson, PM for only a year or 2, very posh, brought some competence back to government after scandals and lost but respectably given the circumstances
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
It also prices in a few other possibilities:
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
(4) That SKS quits due to health reasons.
The price is still probably value. But, not much.
(1) I was quoting price for pm after next election not next pm, though in practice there's not much difference. (2) I think means sks at head of a coalition. 3 and 4 just unlikely.
I don’t see a road at this point to a Tory recovery reaching largest party. Labour as largest party after the next election is at 95%+, in my view.
The absolute best that Sunak et al could do it deprive Starmer of an absolute majority. And I see little sign of that.
Starmer may get mocked for caution - but all he needs to do is hold on to the solid lead he has. Due to the way that core votes work, 20+ percent leads will evaporate at a slight touch. Or, more likely, fade back as scandal X dies away.
The assumption that it is the politicians (only) trying to hide stuff is a mistake, I think.
Plenty of people in permanent government positions will be very upset by the idea that their casual communications would become fodder for the enquiry.
I don’t think it is “Trump like” to assume the enquiry will leak, either. I think it is inevitable that redacted and personal information will be leaked.
It hasn't happened on inquiries far more sensitive than this.
Ministers may feel that a hint as to who they might or might not have been banging, or an off-colour joke is the most sensitive thing in the world. But things like the Bloody Sunday inquiry have involved disclosure of material that, unredacted, would endanger lives.
Because of the remit and modern technology, the amount of information this inquiry will be getting will be much larger.
Two decades ago, politicians would have a phone call and discuss business. The conversation may stray between various topics of business, and also personal matters and jokes. That's what happens in phone calls. The calls were rarely recorded.
Things like WhatsApp came along, and often took over from the phone. Conversations still stray between various topics of business, and also personal matters and jokes. But they are now recorded.
Hence the inquiry gets access to much more potential information.
And IME (the tech sector), it is rare for long conversations between colleagues *not* to stray onto matters other than the direct reason for the conversation. They shouldn't, but people are people.
The most shameful thing about the government's behaviour during the pandemic wasn't whatever rules they broke personally, but that they agreed to stupid, tyrannical and counter-productive lockdowns at all, and then deliberately tried to terrify the public to keep them in place.
No it really wasn't.
It was that they imposed those rules and then didn't keep them themselves. They deprived people of the right to go to birthday parties or visit dying relatives, whilst all the while mocking us.
The British public will never forgive them for this and on election day vengeance will be brutal.
I know there is a narrative about ‘parties’ that people have. The idea that number 10 was a constant orgy of drinking etc but I really think this should be challenged. Yes there were pathetic gatherings of people trying to do the right thing, among work colleagues. But for the most part those setting the rules followed them. I know I am probably the only person on pb who thinks this. If you think the ‘Johnson birthday party’ at work, during work, is your idea of fun then I pity you. The rules were too strict on certain things. Never again should people have to die separated from their relatives and spouses. If a situation requires lockdown or something similar, don’t get into micromanagement. Set the rules and stick to it.
I’d also castigate the media in this. Every single press conference seemed to be a chance for a gotcha moment. PB was far better informed and would have asked far better questions.
I think the government will suffer from stuff that comes out of the Inquiry, probably unfairly, in the most part. People are very poor at remembering what those days were like. How little we really knew. All they want is to lay the blame somewhere. I often feel that some think no-one should have died of covid if the government had made the right calls. This is nonsense, and ignores the experiences of other western governments who ended up with broadly similar outcomes.
I think the point is that what they did was illegal according to their own rules. Therefore, they were in their own eyes not 'doing the right thing.'
Those of us who were, ignoring the lies of that idiot Fabricant, actually working on the front line were not having any parties at all, never mind boozy ones.
If their own rules were stupid (which they were) then that only really makes things worse.
I don't think that is entirely fair.
Under the uncertainty of the moment the lock downs were a perfectly reasonable response. Partying like it was 1999, whilst we were locked down wasn't.
"Partying like it was 1999"? Really?
If you take that attitude, then neither was getting pissed and having curries in Durham...
Really!
And as for Beergate the suspect after a rigerous investigation was not charged.
Without rehashing all of this, I would say the following:
*) Starmer voted for the regulations. He is a big-brained lawyer, yet could not say whether he had broken them or not. It was borderline, at best.
*) Epidemiolocally, getting people from all over the country together into a crowded room, eating and drinking, after and before meeting members of the public, was stupid. And unnecessary. IMV far worse than the No.10 debacle.
He may not have been charged, but it was stupid, unnecessary and dangerous.
Others may differ.
That may be so, but compared to the goings on in Downing Street and the date at which Beergate occurred it is small potatoes when compared to Barnards Castle (which we have all forgotten about) and Johnson's "parties, not parties".
I remember the consternation on here when Steve Kinnock pushed a disinfected birthday cake down Neil's garden path with a telescopic broom handle. The cries of " hang the barsteward" rang loud and clear, but poor old Boris was simply "ambushed by a cake". . For what it is worth I believe that is exactly what happened to Sunak. Although as he rows back against Hallet, I am less inclined towards supporting this view.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
It also prices in a few other possibilities:
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
(4) That SKS quits due to health reasons.
The price is still probably value. But, not much.
(1) I was quoting price for pm after next election not next pm, though in practice there's not much difference. (2) I think means sks at head of a coalition. 3 and 4 just unlikely.
I don’t see a road at this point to a Tory recovery reaching l
The assumption that it is the politicians (only) trying to hide stuff is a mistake, I think.
Plenty of people in permanent government positions will be very upset by the idea that their casual communications would become fodder for the enquiry.
I don’t think it is “Trump like” to assume the enquiry will leak, either. I think it is inevitable that redacted and personal information will be leaked.
It hasn't happened on inquiries far more sensitive than this.
Ministers may feel that a hint as to who they might or might not have been banging, or an off-colour joke is the most sensitive thing in the world. But things like the Bloody Sunday inquiry have involved disclosure of material that, unredacted, would endanger lives.
All the enquiries I’m aware of weren’t given the personal communications of everyone. What they were given was, generally, extensively filtered.
Leaking political stuff is one thing, leaking actual secrets that risk lives is another.
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
That's roughly where I'm at, and tactical voting on top will probably deliver a clear Labour majority.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
I can understand why there is this constant focus on 1997, but the 1964 and and 2010 results show how tough it can be to dislodge a government that has been in power for a long time. I think more attention should be paid to both.
1992 is burned into my memory. Lightening can of course strike twice.
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
That's roughly where I'm at, and tactical voting on top will probably deliver a clear Labour majority.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
I can understand why there is this constant focus on 1997, but the 1964 and and 2010 results show how tough it can be to dislodge a government that has been in power for a long time. I think more attention should be paid to both.
1992 is burned into my memory. Lightening can of course strike twice.
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
That's roughly where I'm at, and tactical voting on top will probably deliver a clear Labour majority.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
I can understand why there is this constant focus on 1997, but the 1964 and and 2010 results show how tough it can be to dislodge a government that has been in power for a long time. I think more attention should be paid to both.
1992 is burned into my memory. Lightening can of course strike twice.
Had Thatcher still been leading the Tories or Blair been leading Labour in 1992 then Labour probably would have won.
It was a victory the Tories won by replacing Thatcher with Major after the poll tax and Labour lost by keeping Kinnock after his 1987 defeat (albeit probably still an election too early for Blair)
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
It's a sobering thought that the Tories have won a majority only twice in the last 30 years - once when offering a referendum on Brexit, and once when offering Brexit itself.
Talking of sobering thoughts:
Labour MP Charlotte Nichols says that when she was elected in 2019, the Labour whips gave her a list of thirty male MPs that she should avoid being alone with, at risk of her personal safety.
In 2019, Labour saw 202 MPs elected.
Remove the female MPs, and you are left with 98.
Remove the men who have declared themselves as gay, and you are left with 83.
Remove those who were newly elected in 2019 and therefore unlikely to be on the whips' black list, and you are left with just 77 (by my reckoning).
Which suggests that a woman who finds herself alone with a heterosexual Labour MP stands an almost 40% chance of being in the company of a potentially dangerous sexual predator.....
Labour MPs or all MPs?
Edit - also, those six elected in 2019 still be included in your final figure as you said 'being left alone' without qualifying it.
Ive just taken a look at the gorgeous pouting Charlotte Nichols and it's very probably something she dreamt
It always surprises me how male posters are prepared to let their critical faculties disappear to appear PC. The idea that 40% of the Heterosexual Labour Party MPs or anyone else for that matter wouldn't be safe to be left alone with Charlotte Nichols is plainly ridiculous not to mention extremely insulting to those dozens of male MPs.
So all we are left with is some mischievous whips having a joke or Charlotte's fevered imagination. You choose.
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
That's roughly where I'm at, and tactical voting on top will probably deliver a clear Labour majority.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
I can understand why there is this constant focus on 1997, but the 1964 and and 2010 results show how tough it can be to dislodge a government that has been in power for a long time. I think more attention should be paid to both.
No idea about 1964 but this feels completely different to "I agree with Nick" 2010, 2024 is more along the lines of "Ed Who??"
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
That's roughly where I'm at, and tactical voting on top will probably deliver a clear Labour majority.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
I can understand why there is this constant focus on 1997, but the 1964 and and 2010 results show how tough it can be to dislodge a government that has been in power for a long time. I think more attention should be paid to both.
1992 is burned into my memory. Lightening can of course strike twice.
Had Thatcher still been leading the Tories or Blair been leading Labour in 1992 then Labour probably would have won.
It was a victory the Tories won by replacing Thatcher with Major after the poll tax and Labour lost by keeping Kinnock after his 1987 defeat (albeit probably still an election too early for Blair)
Kinnock served a purpose after 1987. Can you imagine the enthusiasm for LOTO Eric Heffer? Didn't he have leadership aspirations around that time? Almost as delusional as Corbyn believing he could become Labour leader.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
It's a sobering thought that the Tories have won a majority only twice in the last 30 years - once when offering a referendum on Brexit, and once when offering Brexit itself.
Talking of sobering thoughts:
Labour MP Charlotte Nichols says that when she was elected in 2019, the Labour whips gave her a list of thirty male MPs that she should avoid being alone with, at risk of her personal safety.
In 2019, Labour saw 202 MPs elected.
Remove the female MPs, and you are left with 98.
Remove the men who have declared themselves as gay, and you are left with 83.
Remove those who were newly elected in 2019 and therefore unlikely to be on the whips' black list, and you are left with just 77 (by my reckoning).
Which suggests that a woman who finds herself alone with a heterosexual Labour MP stands an almost 40% chance of being in the company of a potentially dangerous sexual predator.....
Labour MPs or all MPs?
Edit - also, those six elected in 2019 still be included in your final figure as you said 'being left alone' without qualifying it.
Ive just taken a look at the gorgeous pouting Charlotte Nichols and it's very probably something she dreamt
It always surprises me how male posters are prepared to let their critical faculties disappear to appear PC. The idea that 40% of the Heterosexual Labour Party MPs or anyone else for that matter wouldn't be safe to be left alone with Charlotte Nichols is plainly ridiculous not to mention extremely insulting to those dozens of male MPs.
So all we are left with is some mischievous whips having a joke or Charlotte's fevered imagination. You choose.
I hate to join in the PB bloodsport of Roger Bashing, but on this point you are plain wrong.
Nichols specifically stated it was 30 MPs from a range of parties. The BBC in particular has tried to make the case that it was 30 Labour MPs.
Creasey and Duffield have corroborated Nichols' charge.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
It also prices in a few other possibilities:
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
(4) That SKS quits due to health reasons.
The price is still probably value. But, not much.
(1) I was quoting price for pm after next election not next pm, though in practice there's not much difference. (2) I think means sks at head of a coalition. 3 and 4 just unlikely.
I don’t see a road at this point to a Tory recovery reaching largest party. Labour as largest party after the next election is at 95%+, in my view.
The absolute best that Sunak et al could do it deprive Starmer of an absolute majority. And I see little sign of that.
Starmer may get mocked for caution - but all he needs to do is hold on to the solid lead he has. Due to the way that core votes work, 20+ percent leads will evaporate at a slight touch. Or, more likely, fade back as scandal X dies away.
The Tories best hope is to bring back Boris. It is also the best hope of complete self destruction too, but he would have a significantly more plausible chance of a Tory majority compared to Sunak or any alternatives.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
It also prices in a few other possibilities:
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
(4) That SKS quits due to health reasons.
The price is still probably value. But, not much.
(1) I was quoting price for pm after next election not next pm, though in practice there's not much difference. (2) I think means sks at head of a coalition. 3 and 4 just unlikely.
I don’t see a road at this point to a Tory recovery reaching l
All you fools thinking Sunak is bad at politics, this messages furore is a very cunning plan to ramp up the interest in the enquiry so people and the press are waiting with baited breath for the messages to come out and then they do and will show Rishi as the people’s champion in Covid making masterful decisions daily, questioning dodgy PPE purchases but being over-ruled by Boris and Hancock. Pushing hard to make lockdown less onerous so people can enjoy well earned birthday cakes at work.
He’s cleverly ramped up the interest because otherwise his genius would have just been overlooked in the inquiry findings.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
It also prices in a few other possibilities:
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
(4) That SKS quits due to health reasons.
The price is still probably value. But, not much.
(1) I was quoting price for pm after next election not next pm, though in practice there's not much difference. (2) I think means sks at head of a coalition. 3 and 4 just unlikely.
I don’t see a road at this point to a Tory recovery reaching largest party. Labour as largest party after the next election is at 95%+, in my view.
The absolute best that Sunak et al could do it deprive Starmer of an absolute majority. And I see little sign of that.
Starmer may get mocked for caution - but all he needs to do is hold on to the solid lead he has. Due to the way that core votes work, 20+ percent leads will evaporate at a slight touch. Or, more likely, fade back as scandal X dies away.
The Tories best hope is to bring back Boris. It is also the best hope of complete self destruction too, but he would have a significantly more plausible chance of a Tory majority compared to Sunak or any alternatives.
There is no chance of a Tory majority now, Sunak got the leadership to minimise the electoral damage after the Truss debacle and restore some competence after the final months of the Boris government, which he has largely done
Over the past month 3 local by elections, Swansea, Scarborough and Camden, all showing a very significant fall in the Labour percentage vote, each seat has of course individual issues but the pattern has been the same, drops of 18%, and two each of 20% plus. These accompany the May 4th results when Labour did not do as well as many would have thought. Maybe there is a straw in the wind.
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
That's roughly where I'm at, and tactical voting on top will probably deliver a clear Labour majority.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
I can understand why there is this constant focus on 1997, but the 1964 and and 2010 results show how tough it can be to dislodge a government that has been in power for a long time. I think more attention should be paid to both.
1992 is burned into my memory. Lightening can of course strike twice.
Had Thatcher still been leading the Tories or Blair been leading Labour in 1992 then Labour probably would have won.
It was a victory the Tories won by replacing Thatcher with Major after the poll tax and Labour lost by keeping Kinnock after his 1987 defeat (albeit probably still an election too early for Blair)
Kinnock served a purpose after 1987. Can you imagine the enthusiasm for LOTO Eric Heffer? Didn't he have leadership aspirations around that time? Almost as delusional as Corbyn believing he could become Labour leader.
It didn't need to be Heffer. Kinnock's Shadow Cabinet in 1987 included the likes of John Smith, Jack Cunningham, Giles Radice, Donald Dewar and Denis Healey all of whom would have been more appealing to the average voter than he was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Cabinet_of_Neil_Kinnock
The Tories almost always remove their leaders after they lose a general election or lose their majority if they haven't already resigned, the last one they didn't was Heath after 1966 and that was only as it was a snap election by Wilson after only 2 years in power to increase his majority and Heath had only had a year in the job. Whereas Labour are much less ruthless allowing the likes of Kinnock and Corbyn to fight a second general election and lose it despite already having suffered a first general election defeat.
If Labour had been as ruthless as the Tories they would also have replaced Brown with David Miliband before the 2010 general election as the Tories replaced Boris/Truss with Sunak.
It is Labour's lack of ruthlessness compared to the Tories which largely explains why the Tories have been in power longer than Labour have over the last 50 to 100 years
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
It also prices in a few other possibilities:
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
(4) That SKS quits due to health reasons.
The price is still probably value. But, not much.
(1) I was quoting price for pm after next election not next pm, though in practice there's not much difference. (2) I think means sks at head of a coalition. 3 and 4 just unlikely.
I don’t see a road at this point to a Tory recovery reaching largest party. Labour as largest party after the next election is at 95%+, in my view.
The absolute best that Sunak et al could do it deprive Starmer of an absolute majority. And I see little sign of that.
Starmer may get mocked for caution - but all he needs to do is hold on to the solid lead he has. Due to the way that core votes work, 20+ percent leads will evaporate at a slight touch. Or, more likely, fade back as scandal X dies away.
The Tories best hope is to bring back Boris. It is also the best hope of complete self destruction too, but he would have a significantly more plausible chance of a Tory majority compared to Sunak or any alternatives.
There is no chance of a Tory majority now, Sunak got the leadership to minimise the electoral damage after the Truss debacle and restore some competence after the final months of the Boris government, which he has largely done
I don’t think there is any chance of the Conservatives being the largest party, either.
Yes I remember how many here were calling for Kinnock’s head, he was called to resign by all the people who later supported poor Johnson.
Let us be honest, if Keir had done half of what Johnson had done he’d have resigned.
TBF I can't even remember the Kinnock incident. Then again, I've never rated him as a politician. His father was not a brilliant politician, but Stephen isn't even at his level.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
It also prices in a few other possibilities:
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
(4) That SKS quits due to health reasons.
The price is still probably value. But, not much.
(1) I was quoting price for pm after next election not next pm, though in practice there's not much difference. (2) I think means sks at head of a coalition. 3 and 4 just unlikely.
I don’t see a road at this point to a Tory recovery reaching largest party. Labour as largest party after the next election is at 95%+, in my view.
The absolute best that Sunak et al could do it deprive Starmer of an absolute majority. And I see little sign of that.
Starmer may get mocked for caution - but all he needs to do is hold on to the solid lead he has. Due to the way that core votes work, 20+ percent leads will evaporate at a slight touch. Or, more likely, fade back as scandal X dies away.
The Tories best hope is to bring back Boris. It is also the best hope of complete self destruction too, but he would have a significantly more plausible chance of a Tory majority compared to Sunak or any alternatives.
There is no chance of a Tory majority now, Sunak got the leadership to minimise the electoral damage after the Truss debacle and restore some competence after the final months of the Boris government, which he has largely done
I don’t think there is any chance of the Conservatives being the largest party, either.
I think there is a slim chance. Events and all that. But 1% or less?
All the enquiries I’m aware of weren’t given the personal communications of everyone. What they were given was, generally, extensively filtered.
Leaking political stuff is one thing, leaking actual secrets that risk lives is another.
You're wrong on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry - the Inquiry received a vast amount of material that was never disclosed, and there was a very extensive redaction process involving lawyers for the inquiry and Government who both had extensive access to highly sensitive material.
What you now seem to be arguing is that Bloody Sunday material wasn't leaked because it mattered, whereas this material will be because it really doesn't matter all that much.
I think that both underestimates the professionalism of those working on inquiries (and the fact they risk being struck off so have a pretty big incentive to be professional) and rather undercuts the concern you purport to have.
More broadly, I really hope this does lead to a rethink of Government by WhatsApp. It just shouldn't be happening at all - from a national security perspective as much as anything - for a relatively insecure means of communication to be used to conduct Government business, party business, social matters, gossip etc. But it clearly does happen, and very extensively.
More interpretatively, I am concerned that punters on here may be affected by recency bias and, more seriously, using the mistaken benchmark of the December 2019 election.
There are plenty of good, non-offal, reasons for proposing that Dec 19 was a one-off. It came on the back of a stalemate parliament and Boris galvanised the 'Get Brexit Done' vote which was the raison d'etre of the election. He was up against an unelectable Trotskyite anti-semite. It had one purpose: to deliver a majority so that Brexit could be enabled.
Since then, a series of catastrophic occurrences (many self-induced) have Ratnered the Conservative brand. And bubbling away in the background is the clusterfuck of Brexit - the very thing which motivated the Dec 19 vote.
No, the truer benchmark is the last proper General Election which was 08 June 2017 - which resulted in a hung parliament.
I know this part, unlike the previous, is more polemical and less factual but I think there's a good case for it. And I warn punters on here to pay attention, lest you lose your money.
There may be something to listen to here. @Heathener is rather a lone voice, but that in itself interesting and a challenge to the consensus. I would say the same for those predicting a Tory recovery and majority.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Really? Does anyone think sks is not the pm after the election (1/3 on oddschecker)? And what exactly else is Heathener predicting? I am seeing on the same page both GE 2017 type result and "bloodbath". Which is it?
Surely that depends on how the don't knows and floating voters will vote, and even they probably don't know that at this point
It also prices in a few other possibilities:
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
(4) That SKS quits due to health reasons.
The price is still probably value. But, not much.
(1) I was quoting price for pm after next election not next pm, though in practice there's not much difference. (2) I think means sks at head of a coalition. 3 and 4 just unlikely.
I don’t see a road at this point to a Tory recovery reaching largest party. Labour as largest party after the next election is at 95%+, in my view.
The absolute best that Sunak et al could do it deprive Starmer of an absolute majority. And I see little sign of that.
Starmer may get mocked for caution - but all he needs to do is hold on to the solid lead he has. Due to the way that core votes work, 20+ percent leads will evaporate at a slight touch. Or, more likely, fade back as scandal X dies away.
The Tories best hope is to bring back Boris. It is also the best hope of complete self destruction too, but he would have a significantly more plausible chance of a Tory majority compared to Sunak or any alternatives.
There is no chance of a Tory majority now, Sunak got the leadership to minimise the electoral damage after the Truss debacle and restore some competence after the final months of the Boris government, which he has largely done
The chances are slim to none, but slim has only just started packing its bags and has not yet left town.
Yes I remember how many here were calling for Kinnock’s head, he was called to resign by all the people who later supported poor Johnson.
Let us be honest, if Keir had done half of what Johnson had done he’d have resigned.
TBF I can't even remember the Kinnock incident. Then again, I've never rated him as a politician. His father was not a brilliant politician, but Stephen isn't even at his level.
Was it not during the ‘you must stay home period’? Again and again, the tough messaging was driving a puritan streak. Some people, I think, genuinely loved the theatre of lockdown and the chance to spy on neighbours going out for their second run of the day…
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
Not yet he’s not. Let’s find out what he’s so desperate to hide first.
A fair point. The JR is truly bizarre. An astonishing use of public money on any reckoning.
It is worth noting that, in addition, the government is seeking a S.19 notice which would effectively mean that even heavily redacted relevant evidence would not be made available to parties, could not be published or expressly referred to by the inquiry and could only be used as "context". This gives the lie to the claim that the government is primarily concerned about producing irrelevant material etc.,.
This is a government which regrets ordering this inquiry and is now trying every means it can to hobble it.
FWIW I am expecting an election more like 2010 in reverse, possibly a little better for Labour because of developments in Scotland. This government is tired and worn down but I don’t accept that the current incumbent is disgraced, unlike his 2 immediate predecessors. It is time for a change though and Labour are actually offering a credible alternative this time. That’s going to be enough.
I think that's right: I'd expect a Labour majority of 5 to 25, with the SNP down 15 and the LDs up a similar amount.
Polling-wise, the Labour lead now is pretty much where the Conservative lead was in 2009 (although Lib Dem support was greater at that stage). The Conservatives are more corrupt than Labour was at that point (although Labour was quite corrupt by that point). OTOH, the economic outlook is better than it was in 2009, so it's probably a wash. A 15% lead now, probably converts into a 7-8% lead on polling day.
That's roughly where I'm at, and tactical voting on top will probably deliver a clear Labour majority.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
I can understand why there is this constant focus on 1997, but the 1964 and and 2010 results show how tough it can be to dislodge a government that has been in power for a long time. I think more attention should be paid to both.
1992 is burned into my memory. Lightening can of course strike twice.
Had Thatcher still been leading the Tories or Blair been leading Labour in 1992 then Labour probably would have won.
It was a victory the Tories won by replacing Thatcher with Major after the poll tax and Labour lost by keeping Kinnock after his 1987 defeat (albeit probably still an election too early for Blair)
Kinnock served a purpose after 1987. Can you imagine the enthusiasm for LOTO Eric Heffer? Didn't he have leadership aspirations around that time? Almost as delusional as Corbyn believing he could become Labour leader.
It didn't need to be Heffer. Kinnock's Shadow Cabinet in 1987 included the likes of John Smith, Jack Cunningham, Giles Radice, Donald Dewar and Denis Healey all of whom would have been more appealing to the average voter than he was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Cabinet_of_Neil_Kinnock
The Tories almost always remove their leaders after they lose a general election or lose their majority if they haven't already resigned, the last one they didn't was Heath after 1966 and that was only as it was a snap election by Wilson after only 2 years in power to increase his majority and Heath had only had a year in the job. Whereas Labour are much less ruthless allowing the likes of Kinnock and Corbyn to fight a second general election and lose it despite already having suffered a first general election defeat.
If Labour had been as ruthless as the Tories they would also have replaced Brown with David Miliband before the 2010 general election as the Tories replaced Boris/Truss with Sunak.
It is Labour's lack of ruthlessness compared to the Tories which largely explains why the Tories have been in power longer than Labour have over the last 50 to 100 years
A very fair point. I was merely suggesting that Labour in the 1980s like the Tories today had a propensity for turning a drama into a crisis.
The Conservatives could if they followed their own ruthless instincts draw a win from the next GE by replacing Sunak with Penny Dreadful. The look of Catherine Deneuve, the sword carrying capability of King Arthur and the work ethic of Boris Johnson might be enough. Chances are, that should Sunak fall, the party would be minded to replace him with Johnson, Truss, Braverman or Mogg.
Anyway, my hunt for some gardening help goes on. No joy so far. Yesterday I managed a nasty fall and now have a large part of my left leg black, blue, bruised and painful. A nuisance.
I am doing a talk to bankers next week in London so I shall spend the weekend sitting in the sun thinking about what to say and hope to make it down in one piece. I really resent having to go - even for a few days - because the weather here has been and continues to be idyllic. June in the Lakes is just glorious. Still, the bills don't pay themselves .....
Besides, the political heat of the Bloody SUnday inquiry was much less. It mattered massively, but current politicians were not going to get criticised in the report. This reduces the motivations for leaks. The inquiry has the potential to heap massive criticism on current political figures, and that makes it much hotter - and increases the motivations for leaks.
Comments
If you take that attitude, then neither was getting pissed and having curries in Durham...
It's reminiscent of their bizarre instruction that school staff should wear masks when not teaching, such as in the staff room at lunchtime.
One thing that makes me wonder about some such confusion: the probability distribution within each range needn't be a linear normal curve. Could be linear-log or log-log for all I know, with further scope for confusion bt pols who often don't even know what an exponential is.
Come back Mrs T ...
Edit: and add Bondegezou's key point - that the forecasts changed the results. But the understanding by pols of scientific stats and predictions is indeed an issue worth looking at. Even if some of the pols had worked in banks and the like where such competence is more common than in journalism.
Even in the years before covid, that sort of thing was increasingly frowned on, as I saw in a hospital several years before.
How do we know? Because everyone says they weren't needed.
As a certain rather brilliant poster with a penchant for awesome puns predicted in March 2020.
That doesn't mean of course that they couldn't have been handled better, or that there weren't significant other costs on the way.
The people in question shouldn’t be trusted to place an order at one, let alone run one.
So, if the outcome on disclosure is seen to be too broad, that is a matter the Government can address for future inquiries.
In terms of burner phones and the like - pretty ludicrous. You only need one person involved in the conversation to say "when I needed to contact the Minister, I used this number" and you've got a major scandal on your hands (even if the content is actually quite anodyne).
The less forgiveable thing is about how this is presented as a betting certainty, when nothing is certain - particularly 18 months out, and it's quite right to continue to challenge this and point that out.
The reporting hasn't gone out if its way to imply that it's a Labour only problem, but it has failed badly in making the nature of the list clear. In the case of the BBC, they have an obligation to do that better.
Sunak's honeymoon is petering out and his government has all the aimlesness, fatigue and infighting of the 92-97 Major government, but none of the good economic conditions of low debt, cheap housing and GDP growth.
That the Tories could be slaughtered more than 1997 is quite a credible outcome.
Yeah, because politicians never shake hands with patients...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/20/new-labour-neoliberal-left-tony-blair
Does anyone think Sunak just isn’t very good?
The disappointing thing is that there were rather more neighbourly busybodies who delighted in shopping each other for a taste of power than I expected.
A fair warning that, if we were ever occupied, there would be plenty of willing collaborators.
I also think that while I understand the SAGE remit, there was a lot of leak of experts onto the media, and this did not help either. It’s hard to know how other nations experienced this clash between science, advisory boards and government, with the media muddying the water at every point. But I’d hope most were better than ours.
It will converge a bit by polling day. Why? Because the economic situation will improve, I expect boat crossings to diminish and some of the silly stuff Labour keep rolling out (we will reduce tuition fees without spending a single penny of public money) will be exposed for the nonsense they are.
As they look more and more like the prospective government, the more focus will be put on their programme.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-65793257
That's more than were lost in our worst rail disaster at Quintinshill.
But, that would require a very depressed centre-right base not to turn up. That's the bit people keep forgetting. A landslide can't happen without the willing collaboration of the base.
But, if it turns out that Heathener is right on that, that will be due to stopped clocks being right twice a day - not serious analysis, as that poster has none other than emotion, I'm afraid, and a track record of playing the man not the ball when challenged with results and analysis.
I wasn't impressed by such things earlier either. You'd think Mr Blair had never heard of hospital infections and such things as streptococcal bacteria.
But I regularly hand-washed, sanitised, masked and kept my distance where appropriate. And I didn’t panic buy!
It all feels like a mad dream now. We got through it unscathed* (we all got covid in the end, but it was post lockdowns) but nearly went utterly bonkers in that first few months, in particular with the home schooling.
*the effect on my son, who is just about to turn 10, is uncertain - he missed nigh on a year of normal life, socialising etc. as a 6/7yo should. Already young in the year it feels like he hasn’t caught back up. And the mock sats papers he’s started doing are ludicrously difficult; they feel like a cruel trick.
People spent years not opening letters for a week for instance, and washing their delivered groceries, to no effect.
SPI-B never recommended “blunt scare tactics”. I think Conservative politicians sometimes favoured tough rules and scare tactics over the advice from SPI-B that talked more about making it easier for people to do desired behaviours.
I don’t think there were many “leaks” to the media. SAGE moved fairly rapidly to being more open. You can go read all the SAGE minutes and reports, they’re all online. SAGE participants were often interviewed by the media and gave their personal views: those are not “leaks”.
That's the point being made, and the bizarre nature of the Government challenging the terms of reference of an inquiry it established itself!
Additionally, it shows a total, somewhat Trumpian, lack of trust in the Inquiry and its legal advisors in itself redacting and maintaining confidentiality in irrelevant materials.
I'm tempted to think this may not happen this time round. Unfortunately, our GE campaigns are increasingly presidential in nature. I wouldn't be at all surprised if, under the intense spotlight of the campaign, Starmer becomes more 'popular' and Sunak less 'popular'. Of course, others may think this absurdly unlikely. I'm not so sure. Anyway, on that basis I'm expecting a comfortable Labour majority.
Does anyone think the people have already decided the Tories will be removed?
It could negate the issue you are talking about simply by saying "we are looking again at how to set the terms of reference for public inquiries, to ensure clarity on the matter in future".
There - I've saved the public purse a few hundred thousand pounds, and Sunak a ton of horrible headlines.
You're welcome, guys, and no need to thank me - a simple Order of the Garter will suffice.
The key question here is what happens with the centre-right bloc vote.
I also wonder if this also encouraged the politicians to be more reckless as a) they are generally risk takers b) the doomsday scenario was off the table.
And as for Beergate the suspect after a rigerous investigation was not charged.
Do they ally with a mediocre, small-c conservative centre left, or a spent, worse than mediocre party of the right? Or do they stay at home and see how it pans out?
(1) That Rishi departs as PM before the next election, in which case the next PM will not be SKS.
(2) That Rishi comes out mildly ahead in a hung parliament, for example, and SKS is challenged or quits due to being seen to have thrown it away.
(3) That SKS is ousted in an internal coup due to a scandal or bad polling, somewhat unlikely.
(4) That SKS quits due to health reasons.
The price is still probably value. But, not much.
*) Starmer voted for the regulations. He is a big-brained lawyer, yet could not say whether he had broken them or not. It was borderline, at best.
*) Epidemiolocally, getting people from all over the country together into a crowded room, eating and drinking, after and before meeting members of the public, was stupid. And unnecessary. IMV far worse than the No.10 debacle.
He may not have been charged, but it was stupid, unnecessary and dangerous.
Others may differ.
But I suspect enough of the centre-right vote to which you refer have decided that the Government has run out of steam and the old adage applies that "politicians and nappies need changing regularly, and for the same reason".
That view was deferred somewhat by Corbyn being unacceptable to centre right voters generally, but Starmer is harder to demonise in that way. Not impossible, perhaps, and the Tories will get some traction from his difficulties defining a woman for instance (it's still a little niche as an issue but I see why this sort of thing gives pause for thought). But the trump card of Sturgeon with Starmer in her pocket (which has more potential) has been taken off the table.
So my view is that the Conservatives are running out of road with a sizeable part of that vote. They won't all switch to Labour, of course, and OGH makes a powerful point that polling suggests many aren't. But differential turnout matters.
On the overall thrust: I have just traded out at a slight loss my (minuscule) position on NOM. I agree wholeheartedly that there is space and time for narratives to change markedly between now and the election. Until recently I have felt the balance of probabilities lies with a Tory recovery - I have believed that Sunak and Hunt had a narrow window of opportunity focused on boring professionalism and cynically sloped shoulders about the current mess.
But the response to the Covid inquiry feels like the sort of thing that will define Sunak as incompetent/corrupt just as his immediate predecessors have been.
If the Tories lose they want opposition all to themselves, so they can tie the Starmer government's failures and any failure to cut inflation, tax rises, strikes etc to the LDs and other minor parties as much as the Labour government
And there are two obvious problems for someone doing that. One is that it begs the question "why?" and that, in itself, may be more damaging than the content - feels like cover-up. Another is that part of the reason for putting something in writing (whether on WhatsApp or a more conventional form) is to enable you to say "if you recall, we agreed X back in October". That's the big advantage over spoken communication (which, unless recording devices are involved) always has been automatically and instantly deleted - people can be asked questions about spoken conversations they had during COVID but clearly disclosure of a transcript can't be required as it never existed and memories aren't photographic.
If Rishi Sunak has failed to relaunch the party as a new vehicle in his own image, their best option might yet be the return of the prodigal Boris.
Plenty of people in permanent government positions will be very upset by the idea that their casual communications would become fodder for the enquiry.
I don’t think it is “Trump like” to assume the enquiry will leak, either. I think it is inevitable that redacted and personal information will be leaked.
Perhaps on a day when Johnson and Sunak were under negative scrutiny, couching "Pestminster" as a uniquely Labour issue constitutes BBC balance. I have only just twigged that is probably the reason behind the reporting slant.
He’s cleverly ramped up the interest because otherwise his genius would have just been overlooked in the inquiry findings.
This is all true.
Ministers may feel that a hint as to who they might or might not have been banging, or an off-colour joke is the most sensitive thing in the world. But things like the Bloody Sunday inquiry have involved disclosure of material that, unredacted, would endanger lives.
Indeed in some respects Sunak could be Home to Starmer's Wilson, PM for only a year or 2, very posh, brought some competence back to government after scandals and lost but respectably given the circumstances
The absolute best that Sunak et al could do it deprive Starmer of an absolute majority. And I see little sign of that.
Starmer may get mocked for caution - but all he needs to do is hold on to the solid lead he has. Due to the way that core votes work, 20+ percent leads will evaporate at a slight touch. Or, more likely, fade back as scandal X dies away.
Two decades ago, politicians would have a phone call and discuss business. The conversation may stray between various topics of business, and also personal matters and jokes. That's what happens in phone calls. The calls were rarely recorded.
Things like WhatsApp came along, and often took over from the phone. Conversations still stray between various topics of business, and also personal matters and jokes. But they are now recorded.
Hence the inquiry gets access to much more potential information.
And IME (the tech sector), it is rare for long conversations between colleagues *not* to stray onto matters other than the direct reason for the conversation. They shouldn't, but people are people.
I remember the consternation on here when Steve Kinnock pushed a disinfected birthday cake down Neil's garden path with a telescopic broom handle. The cries of " hang the barsteward" rang loud and clear, but poor old Boris was simply "ambushed by a cake". . For what it is worth I believe that is exactly what happened to Sunak. Although as he rows back against Hallet, I am less inclined towards supporting this view.
Leaking political stuff is one thing, leaking actual secrets that risk lives is another.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/educationandchildcare/articles/deprivationinequalitiesintheexperiencesofgcsestudentsduringcoronaviruscovid19england/september2021tomarch2022
TL;DR it's better to be rich, even if your teachers do spend all their time devising awesome puns
I hope you are staying well, did you make any head way after our discussion last week with seeking out support? Sending you best wishes either way
It was a victory the Tories won by replacing Thatcher with Major after the poll tax and Labour lost by keeping Kinnock after his 1987 defeat (albeit probably still an election too early for Blair)
Let us be honest, if Keir had done half of what Johnson had done he’d have resigned.
So all we are left with is some mischievous whips having a joke or Charlotte's fevered imagination. You choose.
Nichols specifically stated it was 30 MPs from a range of parties. The BBC in particular has tried to make the case that it was 30 Labour MPs.
Creasey and Duffield have corroborated Nichols' charge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Cabinet_of_Neil_Kinnock
The Tories almost always remove their leaders after they lose a general election or lose their majority if they haven't already resigned, the last one they didn't was Heath after 1966 and that was only as it was a snap election by Wilson after only 2 years in power to increase his majority and Heath had only had a year in the job. Whereas Labour are much less ruthless allowing the likes of Kinnock and Corbyn to fight a second general election and lose it despite already having suffered a first general election defeat.
If Labour had been as ruthless as the Tories they would also have replaced Brown with David Miliband before the 2010 general election as the Tories replaced Boris/Truss with Sunak.
It is Labour's lack of ruthlessness compared to the Tories which largely explains why the Tories have been in power longer than Labour have over the last 50 to 100 years
What you now seem to be arguing is that Bloody Sunday material wasn't leaked because it mattered, whereas this material will be because it really doesn't matter all that much.
I think that both underestimates the professionalism of those working on inquiries (and the fact they risk being struck off so have a pretty big incentive to be professional) and rather undercuts the concern you purport to have.
More broadly, I really hope this does lead to a rethink of Government by WhatsApp. It just shouldn't be happening at all - from a national security perspective as much as anything - for a relatively insecure means of communication to be used to conduct Government business, party business, social matters, gossip etc. But it clearly does happen, and very extensively.
Again and again, the tough messaging was driving a puritan streak. Some people, I think, genuinely loved the theatre of lockdown and the chance to spy on neighbours going out for their second run of the day…
This is a government which regrets ordering this inquiry and is now trying every means it can to hobble it.
The Conservatives could if they followed their own ruthless instincts draw a win from the next GE by replacing Sunak with Penny Dreadful. The look of Catherine Deneuve, the sword carrying capability of King Arthur and the work ethic of Boris Johnson might be enough. Chances are, that should Sunak fall, the party would be minded to replace him with Johnson, Truss, Braverman or Mogg.
I am doing a talk to bankers next week in London so I shall spend the weekend sitting in the sun thinking about what to say and hope to make it down in one piece. I really resent having to go - even for a few days - because the weather here has been and continues to be idyllic. June in the Lakes is just glorious. Still, the bills don't pay themselves .....
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jun/10/bloody-sunday-inquiry-northern-ireland
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/bloody-sunday-report-leak-claims-1061531
Besides, the political heat of the Bloody SUnday inquiry was much less. It mattered massively, but current politicians were not going to get criticised in the report. This reduces the motivations for leaks. The inquiry has the potential to heap massive criticism on current political figures, and that makes it much hotter - and increases the motivations for leaks.