A new high of scientific illiteracy from the BBC in its report of the forthcoming execution of a man in the USA in which "toxic [sic] nitrogen will be pumped [sic] into his body through a mask".
A couple of days ago the BBC gave credence to a scare story about the possibility of notrogen "leaking from the mask and killing others in the room".
Actually, displacement of oxygen by inert gases in an enclosed space is a recognised problem. One mechanism for this to happen is a room with a lot of rusting steel - for instance, a space within a ship's hull. The oxygen is absorbed leaving mainly nitrogen. The onset of symptoms is pretty gradual, so one is in trouble before one realises it. And if you have a number of people in a poorly ventilated room hanging around waiting for someone to die, there might be some concerns.
A new high of scientific illiteracy from the BBC in its report of the forthcoming execution of a man in the USA in which "toxic [sic] nitrogen will be pumped [sic] into his body through a mask".
A couple of days ago the BBC gave credence to a scare story about the possibility of notrogen "leaking from the mask and killing others in the room".
Actually, displacement of oxygen by inert gases in an enclosed space is a recognised problem. One mechanism for this to happen is a room with a lot of rusting steel - for instance, a space within a ship's hull. The oxygen is absorbed leaving mainly nitrogen. The onset of symptoms is pretty gradual, so one is in trouble before one realises it. And if you have a number of people in a poorly ventilated room hanging around waiting for someone to die, there might be some concerns.
Humans cannot travel in a lift with liquid nitrogen from what I understand, in case there is a spill and the nitrogen levels raise to make oxygen levels drop enough for breathing to not be able to capture sufficient oxygen.
Until today, I was convinced that there wouldn't be a GE before autumn/winter. However, now I'm not so sure. The Tory Party is increasingly spinning out of control, and Sunak's determination to hold on for most of the year is looking increasingly fragile. I don't think he'll voluntarily go for an earlier GE, and I don't think he'll be replaced this side of a GE. But I think his hand may be forced by the 'will of the people', to coin a phrase he likes. Events, dear boy.
A new high of scientific illiteracy from the BBC in its report of the forthcoming execution of a man in the USA in which "toxic [sic] nitrogen will be pumped [sic] into his body through a mask".
A couple of days ago the BBC gave credence to a scare story about the possibility of notrogen "leaking from the mask and killing others in the room".
An oddity of this abominable subject is that when it comes to executions the argument is constantly made that there is no humane and reliable way of doing it, but when it comes to assisted dying this matter in not raised by its supporters.
I oppose executions and support assisted dying but I am reasonably sure that more or less identical mechanics can apply to how it works.
There is a potential difference: the small matter of cooperation - both by the subject and by the other persons involved. Happily I'm not an expert, but one thing for sure, executioners didn't need a MD in the old days, just a week's training in some prison somewhere, at least in the UK.
That's the advantage of gas chambers, electric chair, hangman's noose etc. No medical input required. Anyone can do it.
Quite a relief for you, in all seriousness - Drs Crippen, Adams and Shipman were quite enough for the BMA to cope with without worrying about a modern A. Pierrepoint MD.
A new high of scientific illiteracy from the BBC in its report of the forthcoming execution of a man in the USA in which "toxic [sic] nitrogen will be pumped [sic] into his body through a mask".
A couple of days ago the BBC gave credence to a scare story about the possibility of notrogen "leaking from the mask and killing others in the room".
Until today, I was convinced that there wouldn't be a GE before autumn/winter. However, now I'm not so sure. The Tory Party is increasingly spinning out of control, and Sunak's determination to hold on for most of the year is looking increasingly fragile. I don't think he'll voluntarily go for an earlier GE, and I don't think he'll be replaced this side of a GE. But I think his hand may be forced by the 'will of the people', to coin a phrase he likes. Events, dear boy.
Would take a rebellion of the PCP on a grand scale, among MPs who knew they would subsequently be routed in a GE. How would such a situation ever come to pass?
Until today, I was convinced that there wouldn't be a GE before autumn/winter. However, now I'm not so sure. The Tory Party is increasingly spinning out of control, and Sunak's determination to hold on for most of the year is looking increasingly fragile. I don't think he'll voluntarily go for an earlier GE, and I don't think he'll be replaced this side of a GE. But I think his hand may be forced by the 'will of the people', to coin a phrase he likes. Events, dear boy.
It's all a bit irresistible force (it can't carry on like this for another year, can it?) meets immovable object (the only man who can call an election is the Prime Minature, and it's not in his interests to do so when he's this far behind and there's time on the clock).
So it's either nothing happening for months, or sudden total collapse.
As Supreme Court weighs Trump’s eligibility, the ‘10th justice’ stays mum The solicitor general would typically file arguments on an issue of this magnitude — but the upcoming Trump case is a political lightning rod.
Sunak’s British Homes for British Workers policy is about to add 20 points to Tory’s in the opinion polls.
Tories are serious about winning this general election after all. I’m beginning to think Isaac Levido is very good at his job.
Where is he planning to build them?
In the right place of course. It theoretically exists I suppose.
In any case the government has severe credibility problems - they might have some great ideas, but who is going to believe even those ideas will happen? And even then would then reward the government for those ideas?
I predict Sunak will be proposing a new high speed railway line from London to the North by the end of all this shitshow.
I see the single REFUK seat would be Lee Anderson's Ashfield. While I wouldn't wish REFUK to win anything, if they have to do so I could just about live with that one for the giggles.
Until today, I was convinced that there wouldn't be a GE before autumn/winter. However, now I'm not so sure. The Tory Party is increasingly spinning out of control, and Sunak's determination to hold on for most of the year is looking increasingly fragile. I don't think he'll voluntarily go for an earlier GE, and I don't think he'll be replaced this side of a GE. But I think his hand may be forced by the 'will of the people', to coin a phrase he likes. Events, dear boy.
Would take a rebellion of the PCP on a grand scale, among MPs who knew they would subsequently be routed in a GE. How would such a situation ever come to pass?
I'm reminded of one of those 'Horizon' (or Hitchhiker's) 1980s animations where they showed orbits variously collapsing or spinning wildly off into deepest, darkest space. But combined with the crazy rabbit from Watership down.
Dizzying collapse, or dizzying explosion. One of those feels like it's going to happen.
“The emotional attachments are raw and almost immediate” “It is gory and harrowing, but never loses sight of its humanity.‘ “ Masters of the Air is truly fantastic television.”
The thing I thought could persuade Sunak to take an early GE, was just the fact that the whole business just looks bloody unenjoyable at this point, and if the rumours are true and he’s looking for a cushy job in Silicon Valley, then the sooner he gets out of dodge and leaves the Tory Party to its smouldering ruins maybe the better from his side.
Certainly if I was in a job, and I wasn’t doing well, and everyone knew I wasn’t doing well, and it was just becoming embarrassing every day, I would hope I would have the self awareness that it was best for me to try something new.
I’ve discounted this, because I’ve realised that politicians are not the same as the rest of us, and they have brass necks, and many of them (particularly the ones that rise to the top) tend, to borrow a phrase, to feel the hand of history on their shoulder, and therefore throwing it all in when you could have a few more months of events (a critical summit with allies, an international crisis to deal with, some minor win at home that you hope will cause some historian in 70 years time to give you some credit) to define that “legacy”, is too good an opportunity to give up.
I still don’t really see how Sunak can be enjoying himself though, or really want to go on. I felt the same for Gordon Brown at the nadir of his premiership.
The thing I thought could persuade Sunak to take an early GE, was just the fact that the whole business just looks bloody unenjoyable at this point, and if the rumours are true and he’s looking for a cushy job in Silicon Valley, then the sooner he gets out of dodge and leaves the Tory Party to its smouldering ruins maybe the better from his side.
Certainly if I was in a job, and I wasn’t doing well, and everyone knew I wasn’t doing well, and it was just becoming embarrassing every day, I would hope I would have the self awareness that I wanted to try something new.
I’ve discounted this, because I’ve realised that politicians are not the same as the rest of us, and they have brass necks, and many of them (particularly the ones that rise to the top) tend, to borrow a phrase, to feel the hand of history on their shoulder, and therefore throwing it all in when you could have a few more months of events (a critical summit with allies, an international crisis to deal with, some minor win at home that you hope will cause some historian in 70 years time to give you some credit) to define that “legacy”, is too good an opportunity to give up.
I still don’t really see how Sunak can be enjoying himself though, or really want to go on. I felt the same for Gordon Brown at the nadir of his premiership.
Yes, I'm also uncomfortable with the consensus that this is a good idea or that it's going to work. Whereas Sunak, rather absurdly, stresses that the Houthi attacks have nothing at all to do with what's going on in Gaza, I'm more inclined to think that the end of the Gaza conflict would lead to the end of the Houthi Red Sea attacks. If it didn't, then a rethink would be needed.
To be fair it’s got issues if you do, issues if you don’t about it.
But if they could disrupt or even close the Red Sea, how come that only impacts USA and UK? Should it not be a more international effort to restore law and order, or kept as a private party for governments in election year?
Sunak’s British Homes for British Workers policy is about to add 20 points to Tory’s in the opinion polls.
Tories are serious about winning this general election after all. I’m beginning to think Isaac Levido is very good at his job.
Where is he planning to build them?
In the right place of course. It theoretically exists I suppose.
In any case the government has severe credibility problems - they might have some great ideas, but who is going to believe even those ideas will happen? And even then would then reward the government for those ideas?
I predict Sunak will be proposing a new high speed railway line from London to the North by the end of all this shitshow.
One of the problems with HS2 is that it was from London to the North.
If people had really wanted it to be built it would have been done so from the North to London.
A new high of scientific illiteracy from the BBC in its report of the forthcoming execution of a man in the USA in which "toxic [sic] nitrogen will be pumped [sic] into his body through a mask".
A couple of days ago the BBC gave credence to a scare story about the possibility of notrogen "leaking from the mask and killing others in the room".
An oddity of this abominable subject is that when it comes to executions the argument is constantly made that there is no humane and reliable way of doing it, but when it comes to assisted dying this matter in not raised by its supporters.
I oppose executions and support assisted dying but I am reasonably sure that more or less identical mechanics can apply to how it works.
There is a potential difference: the small matter of cooperation - both by the subject and by the other persons involved. Happily I'm not an expert, but one thing for sure, executioners didn't need a MD in the old days, just a week's training in some prison somewhere, at least in the UK.
That's the advantage of gas chambers, electric chair, hangman's noose etc. No medical input required. Anyone can do it.
It does seem bizarre to me that a country which idolises guns so much chooses such a complicated execution method.
Selling the places in a firing squad would also be very lucrative.
Sunak’s British Homes for British Workers policy is about to add 20 points to Tory’s in the opinion polls.
Tories are serious about winning this general election after all. I’m beginning to think Isaac Levido is very good at his job.
Where is he planning to build them?
In the right place of course. It theoretically exists I suppose.
In any case the government has severe credibility problems - they might have some great ideas, but who is going to believe even those ideas will happen? And even then would then reward the government for those ideas?
I predict Sunak will be proposing a new high speed railway line from London to the North by the end of all this shitshow.
At this point, I can see him proposing an HS3 from Dover to Rwanda. They are so out of steam it's like a psychedelic cliff-hanger episode of Ivor the Engine.
A new high of scientific illiteracy from the BBC in its report of the forthcoming execution of a man in the USA in which "toxic [sic] nitrogen will be pumped [sic] into his body through a mask".
A couple of days ago the BBC gave credence to a scare story about the possibility of notrogen "leaking from the mask and killing others in the room".
An oddity of this abominable subject is that when it comes to executions the argument is constantly made that there is no humane and reliable way of doing it, but when it comes to assisted dying this matter in not raised by its supporters.
I oppose executions and support assisted dying but I am reasonably sure that more or less identical mechanics can apply to how it works.
There is a potential difference: the small matter of cooperation - both by the subject and by the other persons involved. Happily I'm not an expert, but one thing for sure, executioners didn't need a MD in the old days, just a week's training in some prison somewhere, at least in the UK.
That's the advantage of gas chambers, electric chair, hangman's noose etc. No medical input required. Anyone can do it.
It does seem bizarre to me that a country which idolises guns so much chooses such a complicated execution method.
Selling the places in a firing squad would also be very lucrative.
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
Legitimately, it has to be a GE in May surely? This cannot be sustained.
That certainly was plan A. Declare a "Tax Cut" in November and rush it through. Spend the late winter ramping how things are getting better, then a Big Giveaway Budget early March and use the momentum to launch your election campaign.
Supposedly chunks of Whitehall still thinks it is 2nd May. But I would be astonished now. Remember that the easiest decision is indecision. Can't decide? Don't!
6 weeks of further chaos, a Budget being attacked before it is read out and then is attacked on all sides as the Finance Bill goes through parliament. So we get indecision and no election is called. 2nd May is Brutal and the endless infighting intensifies.
None of the dates that could follow look appealing and one by one they slip. The trailed mid November date means Sunak calling the election at Conference. You can see the problem with that. So he doesn't.
Can the government be sustained? Yes - it will not lose a confidence vote. Will it actually govern? No. And the longer this goes on the worse it gets, which makes it less likely he will call an early election.
So we go on. Until legally it expires. Insane yes, but none of the other options are sane either...
Another thing worth pointing out - a lot of local authorities have already hired venues for local election counts on May 2nd/3rd at this point, and for complicated (London) elections, they're currently planning for two days of counting (verification on Friday May 3rd, the actual count on May 4th). Combining the locals with a snap general, with the inevitable mixing up of ballots, would be an administrative nightmare. It's probably more likely for a snap election to be on May 9th or 16th purely to *avoid* the locals.
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
I see the single REFUK seat would be Lee Anderson's Ashfield. While I wouldn't wish REFUK to win anything, if they have to do so I could just about live with that one for the giggles.
Of course it could be Lee Anderson standing as REFUK...
Electoral Calculus is hopeless. Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock or Didcot & Wantage.
What's weird about Bicester & Woodstock going Labour (or LD)?
Add up the votes in the May 2023 locals and it's clear that, even 8 months ago, the Tories had been utterly routed throughout this constituency - and it was only Labour obduracy that was letting the Tories survive as a minority ruling party in Cherwell district (where the Bicester bit is)
The question worth asking in B&W is whether Labour grab it at the next GE or the LibDems do. And it's how voters in the area are currently voting that matters - not what they did in 2019 when keeping Corbyn's hands off our nuclear codes that mattered.
When I say “Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock” I mean Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock.
But that’s because it’s a Con/LD fight. Labour haven’t even selected a candidate while the other two have been leafleting for months. There is no way that the constituency of Eynsham, Woodstock and Kidlington is suddenly going to start voting Labour instead of LibDem.
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
'Nobody' is doing some rather heavy lifting there.
It is not. Remainers screamingly warned us of a 'bonfire of workers rights', 'the wild west', 'being cut off from our biggest trading partner'. They *never* said "We're not actually going to leave, not a single law will be changed, not a river dredged, not a house built, not a regulation scrapped, not a tax or levy abandoned - we'll do precisely shit all but complain about how awful and damaging it is until we soften everyone up to go back in.'
Clearly the vaccine success was a total fluke - a Government operating out of sheer desperation put that taskforce in place, and the civil service was blindsided and couldn't fuck it up. They later destroyed it and kicked over the ashes.
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
I see the single REFUK seat would be Lee Anderson's Ashfield. While I wouldn't wish REFUK to win anything, if they have to do so I could just about live with that one for the giggles.
Of course it could be Lee Anderson standing as REFUK...
Well, he'd say he was standing for RefUK. But Labour people and a small child would laugh at him and he'd change his mind and ask to rejoin Con
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
On Topic: Doubt Boris will jump ship to Reform at this stage, as even his skills as a proven campaign winner can't overcome FPTP... but should Labour/SKS be foolish enough to replace FPTP with PR in the next parliament it might happen.
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
I assumed if you asked a question you might want to know the answer.
The idea in a post-Horizon world that our world beating civil servants are interested in limiting damage to anything except their own fiefdoms was temporily unamusing to me, I apologise - I do see the satirical side now, very funny.
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
It was always the case that after Brexit (after we left the institutions of the EU and finally fulfilled the referendum result) we would then negotiate various deals in the future.
Personally, when I voted for LEAVE, I thought we'd end up roughly with "Norway". That is what we could have had if Parliament had respected the result at the time and not tried to over-turn it (thanks SKS)
In the end, to implement the result we had to elect Boris Johnson and have a rupture but I still think, long term, we'll fine our way to some sort of "associate" membership where we access the trading arrangement without all the political crap.
It's in the interest of both sides to make things as smooth as possible in the long term.
The Tories have not had a single under 10% polling deficit since Truss and Kwarteng blew things up.
That's quite an impressively long stretch when you consider the number of polling companies, outliers etc.
I think the electorate has made up their mind.
It certainly seems that way. There are always key moment in any parliament preceding a "change" election, when the electorate just says, that's it! Times up!
In recent years that would be September 1992 (ERM) October 2007 (Browns election debacle) and September 2022 (Liz and Kwasi's possibly drug induced, but certainly insane, mini-budget crash)
Of course within that the scale of the defeat is up for grabs. The Tories could still get a respectable defeat or Labour could get a landslide and the Conservatives face ooblivion.
Labour is averaging 45% in the polls, and the LDs 10%. So 55% want a social democratic / liberal democrat government. That's a big contrast to most European countries.
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
'Nobody' is doing some rather heavy lifting there.
It is not. Remainers screamingly warned us of a 'bonfire of workers rights', 'the wild west', 'being cut off from our biggest trading partner'. They *never* said "We're not actually going to leave, not a single law will be changed, not a river dredged, not a house built, not a regulation scrapped, not a tax or levy abandoned - we'll do precisely shit all but complain about how awful and damaging it is until we soften everyone up to go back in.'
Clearly the vaccine success was a total fluke - a Government operating out of sheer desperation put that taskforce in place, and the civil service was blindsided and couldn't fuck it up. They later destroyed it and kicked over the ashes.
There have been some changes in terms of trade and FOM . But the Singapore style utopia envisaged by Vote Leave has bitten the dust.
Most companies don’t want to diverge and NI which was totally ignored during the campaign has come back to haunt the Tories.
In terms of the vaccine rollout I agree that was a total fluke. Maybe your expectations for Brexit were too high .
At least the EU can’t get blamed for all the UKs problems . It’s dawning on people that the real issue was never the EU but the UK government .
On Topic: Doubt Boris will jump ship to Reform at this stage, as even his skills as a proven campaign winner can't overcome FPTP... but should Labour/SKS be foolish enough to replace FPTP with PR in the next parliament it might happen.
Con/Ref coalition government within the decade?
Surely we have had a Ref con government since June 2016?
On Topic: Doubt Boris will jump ship to Reform at this stage, as even his skills as a proven campaign winner can't overcome FPTP... but should Labour/SKS be foolish enough to replace FPTP with PR in the next parliament it might happen.
Con/Ref coalition government within the decade?
Surely we have had a Ref con government since June 2016?
Not really given we started with Cameron, then had May, then Johnson, then Truss (do we even count her 49 days? Suppose we have to) and ended up with Sunak.
The Tories have certainly given us quite a rollercoaster lol....😂
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
'Nobody' is doing some rather heavy lifting there.
It is not. Remainers screamingly warned us of a 'bonfire of workers rights', 'the wild west', 'being cut off from our biggest trading partner'. They *never* said "We're not actually going to leave, not a single law will be changed, not a river dredged, not a house built, not a regulation scrapped, not a tax or levy abandoned - we'll do precisely shit all but complain about how awful and damaging it is until we soften everyone up to go back in.'
Clearly the vaccine success was a total fluke - a Government operating out of sheer desperation put that taskforce in place, and the civil service was blindsided and couldn't fuck it up. They later destroyed it and kicked over the ashes.
There have been some changes in terms of trade and FOM . But the Singapore style utopia envisaged by Vote Leave has bitten the dust.
Most companies don’t want to diverge and NI which was totally ignored during the campaign has come back to haunt the Tories.
In terms of the vaccine rollout I agree that was a total fluke. Maybe your expectations for Brexit were too high .
At least the EU can’t get blamed for all the UKs problems . It’s dawning on people that the real issue was never the EU but the UK government .
My expectations were simply that after some wailing and knashing of teeth, the Government of the UK would govern for the benefit of the UK, diverge where sensible and remain aligned where sensible. That is the essence of the vaccine rollout; it wasn't designed as any sort of kick in the teeth for the EU, it was simply the Government of the UK organising something that was needed for the UK. I don't think that's a high expectation; I think it's the bare minimum that we should all expect.
I agree, the problem as such is closer to home than the EU, but we didn't have a referendum on Brexiting from the blob, we got on on leaving the EU.
If the Telegraph story (it doesn't seem to be paywalled for me) on Sunak sacrificing Brexit freedoms in a so called attempt to restore power sharing is to be believed, it's rather alarming.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
'Nobody' is doing some rather heavy lifting there.
It is not. Remainers screamingly warned us of a 'bonfire of workers rights', 'the wild west', 'being cut off from our biggest trading partner'. They *never* said "We're not actually going to leave, not a single law will be changed, not a river dredged, not a house built, not a regulation scrapped, not a tax or levy abandoned - we'll do precisely shit all but complain about how awful and damaging it is until we soften everyone up to go back in.'
Clearly the vaccine success was a total fluke - a Government operating out of sheer desperation put that taskforce in place, and the civil service was blindsided and couldn't fuck it up. They later destroyed it and kicked over the ashes.
There have been some changes in terms of trade and FOM . But the Singapore style utopia envisaged by Vote Leave has bitten the dust.
Most companies don’t want to diverge and NI which was totally ignored during the campaign has come back to haunt the Tories.
In terms of the vaccine rollout I agree that was a total fluke. Maybe your expectations for Brexit were too high .
At least the EU can’t get blamed for all the UKs problems . It’s dawning on people that the real issue was never the EU but the UK government .
My expectations were simply that after some wailing and knashing of teeth, the Government of the UK would govern for the benefit of the UK, diverge where sensible and remain aligned where sensible. That is the essence of the vaccine rollout; it wasn't designed as any sort of kick in the teeth for the EU, it was simply the Government of the UK organising something that was needed for the UK. I don't think that's a high expectation; I think it's the bare minimum that we should all expect.
I agree, the problem as such is closer to home than the EU, but we didn't have a referendum on Brexiting from the blob, we got on on leaving the EU.
Didn't Hungary, in the EU, deliver vaccines faster than we did outside the EU ?
Linking ability to deliver the covid vaccines to EU membership feels a lot of a stretch.
When Russia says Ukrainian prisoners were on the plane, how credible is that claim?
If it was true then it shouldn't be too hard providing objective evidence.
I hear some of the Ukrainian prisoners supposed to be on the plane had actually already been exchanged. Classic Russian sloppiness if so. Also there were few bodies seen in the wreckage
I think the claims that it was carrying S300 missiles, or at least that the Russians let the Ukrainians think it was, are rather more credible.
Incidentally putting prisoners of war in harm's way is a war crime.
Some assumptions seem a tad racist. The United States seems to manage large armed forces with high immigration. The stuff about the right size of the army neglects that it has been shrinking through decades of Conservative defence cuts.
Running out of manpower is a rather basic oversight for any armed forces. But I know they've had more important things to do recently, like engaging in petty political concerns that don't really have anything to do with their core role.
Some assumptions seem a tad racist. The United States seems to manage large armed forces with high immigration. The stuff about the right size of the army neglects that it has been shrinking through decades of Conservative defence cuts.
Well, yes. I didn't spot the author's other contributions (I got the tweet originally from I think ukdj). But the basic thrust (we are quite a bit fucked militarily) was what I meant.
If the Constitution really made states powerless to defend themselves against an invasion, it wouldn’t have been ratified in the first place and Texas would have never joined the union when it did.
TX is upholding the law while Biden is flouting it.
FL will keep assisting Texas with personnel and assets.
Running out of manpower is a rather basic oversight for any armed forces. But I know they've had more important things to do recently, like engaging in petty political concerns that don't really have anything to do with their core role.
Well yes. Issues like AI and 15minute cities don't fix themselves, y'know. It's not like the Defence Of The Realm is important to this Government, it's far too common and low-level ☹️
Running out of manpower is a rather basic oversight for any armed forces. But I know they've had more important things to do recently, like engaging in petty political concerns that don't really have anything to do with their core role.
If the Constitution really made states powerless to defend themselves against an invasion, it wouldn’t have been ratified in the first place and Texas would have never joined the union when it did.
TX is upholding the law while Biden is flouting it.
FL will keep assisting Texas with personnel and assets.
Abbott has been getting support from quite a few state governors in the past few hours.
Dare I say it, but @Leon was right about immigration being the issue top of the table.
Abbott’s statement is, umm, aggressive in his assertion of his right to defend the border.
”The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them. The result is that he has smashed records for illegal immigration.
“Despite having been put on notice in a series of letters—one of which I delivered to him by hand—President Biden has ignored Texas’s demand that he perform his constitutional duties.
“President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress. Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.
“President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. The effect is to illegally allow their en masse parole into the United States.
“By wasting taxpayer dollars to tear open Texas’s border security infrastructure, President Biden has enticed illegal immigrants away from the 28 legal entry points along this State’s southern border— bridges where nobody drowns—and into the dangerous waters of the Rio Grande.
“Under President Biden’s lawless border policies, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our southern border in just 3 years. That is more than the population of 33 different States in this country. This illegal refusal to protect the States has inflicted unprecedented harm on the People all across the United States. ”
Sunak’s British Homes for British Workers policy is about to add 20 points to Tory’s in the opinion polls.
Tories are serious about winning this general election after all. I’m beginning to think Isaac Levido is very good at his job.
Where is he planning to build them?
In the right place of course. It theoretically exists I suppose.
In any case the government has severe credibility problems - they might have some great ideas, but who is going to believe even those ideas will happen? And even then would then reward the government for those ideas?
I predict Sunak will be proposing a new high speed railway line from London to the North by the end of all this shitshow.
One of the problems with HS2 is that it was from London to the North.
If people had really wanted it to be built it would have been done so from the North to London.
Sigh. The reason it was built from London to Birmingham is because that’s where the worst bottleneck is.
If you build south from Manchester there’s nowhere for the trains to go after they get to Curzon Street.
The level of ignorance about it is staggering. If Sunak and the DfT have the same level of understanding no wonder the silly bastards have cancelled it.
Electoral Calculus is hopeless. Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock or Didcot & Wantage.
What's weird about Bicester & Woodstock going Labour (or LD)?
Add up the votes in the May 2023 locals and it's clear that, even 8 months ago, the Tories had been utterly routed throughout this constituency - and it was only Labour obduracy that was letting the Tories survive as a minority ruling party in Cherwell district (where the Bicester bit is)
The question worth asking in B&W is whether Labour grab it at the next GE or the LibDems do. And it's how voters in the area are currently voting that matters - not what they did in 2019 when keeping Corbyn's hands off our nuclear codes that mattered.
Funnily enough, despite all the concerns about Corbyn, his firing off our nuclear missiles wasn’t one of them.
Electoral Calculus is hopeless. Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock or Didcot & Wantage.
What's weird about Bicester & Woodstock going Labour (or LD)?
Add up the votes in the May 2023 locals and it's clear that, even 8 months ago, the Tories had been utterly routed throughout this constituency - and it was only Labour obduracy that was letting the Tories survive as a minority ruling party in Cherwell district (where the Bicester bit is)
The question worth asking in B&W is whether Labour grab it at the next GE or the LibDems do. And it's how voters in the area are currently voting that matters - not what they did in 2019 when keeping Corbyn's hands off our nuclear codes that mattered.
When I say “Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock” I mean Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock.
But that’s because it’s a Con/LD fight. Labour haven’t even selected a candidate while the other two have been leafleting for months. There is no way that the constituency of Eynsham, Woodstock and Kidlington is suddenly going to start voting Labour instead of LibDem.
"Labour haven't even selected a candidate"
That would be news to the local Labour party (https://banburyandbicester.laboursites.org/) - though their campaigning is a tad sloppy. We live a few miles outside the new B&W boundaries, but Labour have pushed leaflets confirming Woodcock as candidate through our door.
There are two fundamental truths about this constituency: - The LD, Calum Miller, is by several lightyears the best candidate to be MP - But under FPTP there are four roughly equal scenarii in B&W for which grouping will emerge as the largest on election day: Tories, LD, Labour or non-voters. And with a substantial military vote, assuming Reform won't matter may be unrealistic, so Farage/Tice are possibly as likely to split the Tory vote as Labour and LD are to split the anti-Tory vote.
It's really down not just to the quality of campaigning (which would swing it for the LDs) - but also to "events, dear boy, events", which could take things any which way.
Electoral Calculus is hopeless. Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock or Didcot & Wantage.
What's weird about Bicester & Woodstock going Labour (or LD)?
Add up the votes in the May 2023 locals and it's clear that, even 8 months ago, the Tories had been utterly routed throughout this constituency - and it was only Labour obduracy that was letting the Tories survive as a minority ruling party in Cherwell district (where the Bicester bit is)
The question worth asking in B&W is whether Labour grab it at the next GE or the LibDems do. And it's how voters in the area are currently voting that matters - not what they did in 2019 when keeping Corbyn's hands off our nuclear codes that mattered.
When I say “Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock” I mean Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock.
But that’s because it’s a Con/LD fight. Labour haven’t even selected a candidate while the other two have been leafleting for months. There is no way that the constituency of Eynsham, Woodstock and Kidlington is suddenly going to start voting Labour instead of LibDem.
"Labour haven't even selected a candidate"
That would be news to the local Labour party (https://banburyandbicester.laboursites.org/) - though their campaigning is a tad sloppy. We live a few miles outside the new B&W boundaries, but Labour have pushed leaflets confirming Woodcock as candidate through our door.
There are two fundamental truths about this constituency: - The LD, Calum Miller, is by several lightyears the best candidate to be MP - But under FPTP there are four roughly equal scenarii in B&W for which grouping will emerge as the largest on election day: Tories, LD, Labour or non-voters. And with a substantial military vote, assuming Reform won't matter may be unrealistic, so Farage/Tice are possibly as likely to split the Tory vote as Labour and LD are to split the anti-Tory vote.
It's really down not just to the quality of campaigning (which would swing it for the LDs) - but also to "events, dear boy, events", which could take things any which way.
Electoral Calculus is hopeless. Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock or Didcot & Wantage.
What's weird about Bicester & Woodstock going Labour (or LD)?
Add up the votes in the May 2023 locals and it's clear that, even 8 months ago, the Tories had been utterly routed throughout this constituency - and it was only Labour obduracy that was letting the Tories survive as a minority ruling party in Cherwell district (where the Bicester bit is)
The question worth asking in B&W is whether Labour grab it at the next GE or the LibDems do. And it's how voters in the area are currently voting that matters - not what they did in 2019 when keeping Corbyn's hands off our nuclear codes that mattered.
When I say “Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock” I mean Labour is really not going to win Bicester & Woodstock.
But that’s because it’s a Con/LD fight. Labour haven’t even selected a candidate while the other two have been leafleting for months. There is no way that the constituency of Eynsham, Woodstock and Kidlington is suddenly going to start voting Labour instead of LibDem.
Comments
Events, dear boy.
It's rapid and painless: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9412544/
Plus, his last words would be *hilarious*.
So it's either nothing happening for months, or sudden total collapse.
Don't have nightmares.
The solicitor general would typically file arguments on an issue of this magnitude — but the upcoming Trump case is a political lightning rod.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/24/trump-eligibility-supreme-court-biden-justice-department-00137655
Dizzying collapse, or dizzying explosion. One of those feels like it's going to happen.
“The emotional attachments are raw and almost immediate”
“It is gory and harrowing, but never loses sight of its humanity.‘
“ Masters of the Air is truly fantastic television.”
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/jan/24/masters-of-the-air-review-spielberg-and-hankss-band-of-brothers-follow-up-is-absolutely-classic-tv
It looks like you were wrong. Sir. 🫡
Certainly if I was in a job, and I wasn’t doing well, and everyone knew I wasn’t doing well, and it was just becoming embarrassing every day, I would hope I would have the self awareness that it was best for me to try something new.
I’ve discounted this, because I’ve realised that politicians are not the same as the rest of us, and they have brass necks, and many of them (particularly the ones that rise to the top) tend, to borrow a phrase, to feel the hand of history on their shoulder, and therefore throwing it all in when you could have a few more months of events (a critical summit with allies, an international crisis to deal with, some minor win at home that you hope will cause some historian in 70 years time to give you some credit) to define that “legacy”, is too good an opportunity to give up.
I still don’t really see how Sunak can be enjoying himself though, or really want to go on. I felt the same for Gordon Brown at the nadir of his premiership.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrVA1BBHFHw&t=19s
"Roller Coaster - bizarre chart in Excel"
But if they could disrupt or even close the Red Sea, how come that only impacts USA and UK? Should it not be a more international effort to restore law and order, or kept as a private party for governments in election year?
If people had really wanted it to be built it would have been done so from the North to London.
Selling the places in a firing squad would also be very lucrative.
How can a country where the Government refuses all moves toward divergence from EU law and direction of travel, despite being elected with an explicit mandate to do so, be said to have left the EU in any meaningful sense? How can Brexit be said to have 'worked' or 'not worked' with a sort of zombie retained membership that nobody on either side of the Brexit debate ever envisaged?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/24/rishi-sunak-sacrifice-brexit-freedoms-northern-ireland/
But that’s because it’s a Con/LD fight. Labour haven’t even selected a candidate while the other two have been leafleting for months. There is no way that the constituency of Eynsham, Woodstock and Kidlington is suddenly going to start voting Labour instead of LibDem.
Clearly the vaccine success was a total fluke - a Government operating out of sheer desperation put that taskforce in place, and the civil service was blindsided and couldn't fuck it up. They later destroyed it and kicked over the ashes.
That's quite an impressively long stretch when you consider the number of polling companies, outliers etc.
I think the electorate has made up their mind.
Con/Ref coalition government within the decade?
1) Partygate, sleaze, greed and other misbehaviours
2) Dizzy Lizzy's loss of economic control
The Conservatives might have recovered from one of them but not both.
Then to put the 'icing on the cake' the self-obsessed arguing among Conservative politicians which we've had in the last year.
Personally, when I voted for LEAVE, I thought we'd end up roughly with "Norway". That is what we could have had if Parliament had respected the result at the time and not tried to over-turn it (thanks SKS)
In the end, to implement the result we had to elect Boris Johnson and have a rupture but I still think, long term, we'll fine our way to some sort of "associate" membership where we access the trading arrangement without all the political crap.
It's in the interest of both sides to make things as smooth as possible in the long term.
In recent years that would be September 1992 (ERM) October 2007 (Browns election debacle) and September 2022 (Liz and Kwasi's possibly drug induced, but certainly insane, mini-budget crash)
Of course within that the scale of the defeat is up for grabs. The Tories could still get a respectable defeat or Labour could get a landslide and the Conservatives face ooblivion.
But Labour WILL be forming the next government.
Most companies don’t want to diverge and NI which was totally ignored during the campaign has come back to haunt the Tories.
In terms of the vaccine rollout I agree that was a total fluke. Maybe your expectations for Brexit were too high .
At least the EU can’t get blamed for all the UKs problems . It’s dawning on people that the real issue was never the EU but the UK government .
The Tories have certainly given us quite a rollercoaster lol....😂
I agree, the problem as such is closer to home than the EU, but we didn't have a referendum on Brexiting from the blob, we got on on leaving the EU.
Linking ability to deliver the covid vaccines to EU membership feels a lot of a stretch.
https://nitter.net/PeteNorth303/status/1749961146214355197#m
I think the claims that it was carrying S300 missiles, or at least that the Russians let the Ukrainians think it was, are rather more credible.
Incidentally putting prisoners of war in harm's way is a war crime.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/01/24/russia-vectored-a-100-ton-cargo-plane-to-belgorod-20-miles-from-ukraine-so-of-course-ukraine-shot-it-down/?sh=7b7b81d62a47
https://nitter.net/UKDefJournal/status/1750172692936806663#m
https://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.com/2024/01/is-company-going-concern.html
https://x.com/govrondesantis/status/1750292966067851637
If the Constitution really made states powerless to defend themselves against an invasion, it wouldn’t have been ratified in the first place and Texas would have never joined the union when it did.
TX is upholding the law while Biden is flouting it.
FL will keep assisting Texas with personnel and assets.
I hate to sound like Richard LittleJohn, but you really couldn't make it up. Priorities... ☹️
Dare I say it, but @Leon was right about immigration being the issue top of the table.
Abbott’s statement is, umm, aggressive in his assertion of his right to defend the border.
”The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them. The result is that he has smashed records for illegal immigration.
“Despite having been put on notice in a series of letters—one of which I delivered to him by hand—President Biden has ignored Texas’s demand that he perform his constitutional duties.
“President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress. Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.
“President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. The effect is to illegally allow their en masse parole into the United States.
“By wasting taxpayer dollars to tear open Texas’s border security infrastructure, President Biden has enticed illegal immigrants away from the 28 legal entry points along this State’s southern border— bridges where nobody drowns—and into the dangerous waters of the Rio Grande.
“Under President Biden’s lawless border policies, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our southern border in just 3 years. That is more than the population of 33 different States in this country. This illegal refusal to protect the States has inflicted unprecedented harm on the People all across the United States. ”
https://thepostmillennial.com/just-in-greg-abbott-declares-invasion-over-border-crisis-invokes-right-to-self-defense
The reason it was built from London to Birmingham is because that’s where the worst bottleneck is.
If you build south from Manchester there’s nowhere for the trains to go after they get to Curzon Street.
The level of ignorance about it is staggering. If Sunak and the DfT have the same level of understanding no wonder the silly bastards have cancelled it.
https://twitter.com/NikkiHaley/status/1750216142004609288
That would be news to the local Labour party (https://banburyandbicester.laboursites.org/) - though their campaigning is a tad sloppy. We live a few miles outside the new B&W boundaries, but Labour have pushed leaflets confirming Woodcock as candidate through our door.
There are two fundamental truths about this constituency:
- The LD, Calum Miller, is by several lightyears the best candidate to be MP
- But under FPTP there are four roughly equal scenarii in B&W for which grouping will emerge as the largest on election day: Tories, LD, Labour or non-voters. And with a substantial military vote, assuming Reform won't matter may be unrealistic, so Farage/Tice are possibly as likely to split the Tory vote as Labour and LD are to split the anti-Tory vote.
It's really down not just to the quality of campaigning (which would swing it for the LDs) - but also to "events, dear boy, events", which could take things any which way.