Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Having screwed HS2 up they now have a rather big problem - just putting the HS2 trains on the WCML will reduce capacity on the line to the extent that the hourly number of seats from Manchester to be reduced by 160.
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
The evacuation of millions of children during the Blitz was surely a bigger public health mistake?
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
I'm reminded of many years ago and an earlier Tory monkeying about with the railways: a Tory MP - possibly even a junior minister - wondering why they couldn't have, *on the same densely trafficked commuter tracks*, luxurious first class fast trains for people such as him, and slow and cheap and cheerful trains for secretaries and similar proles.
"Cameron coalition government ‘knew Post Office chiefs covered up computer scandal’ ‘Project Sparrow’ was formed to remove the forensic accountants who uncovered the scandal
Newly released documents show that Post Office chiefs secretly ditched forensic accountants who found problems in the Horizon IT system – with the full knowledge of David Cameron’s coalition government."
It would kinda be the icing on the shit sandwich if, Sunak having brought him back to show some gravitas to his team, Cameron were to have to resign from Government again.....
Doesn’t it increase the ability of the Conservatives to blame the LibDems?
The Lib Dems seem to be a sideshow, as far as the polling goes.
But if guilty knowledge of what was going on in the POst Office could be pinned squarely on Cameron ...
Cameron was aware of problems with Horizon as far back as 2009, apparently:
There are subpostoffices in every constituency and thousands of them were involved in the scandal, and not far short of a thousand prosecutions. Given that the government owned the PO, it is likely that very many MPs had representations from directly affected constituents, and all the MPs will have been aware of the campaigning activities of Arbuthnot and others, certainly after the matter got raised in parliament and select committee. I doubt many if any MPs can claim entirely clean hands...
"Cameron coalition government ‘knew Post Office chiefs covered up computer scandal’ ‘Project Sparrow’ was formed to remove the forensic accountants who uncovered the scandal
Newly released documents show that Post Office chiefs secretly ditched forensic accountants who found problems in the Horizon IT system – with the full knowledge of David Cameron’s coalition government."
It would kinda be the icing on the shit sandwich if, Sunak having brought him back to show some gravitas to his team, Cameron were to have to resign from Government again.....
No, I don't think the Post Office Horizon scandal fells Dave (there is a safety in numbers) or questions why Rishi might bring him back into Government.
One of Labour's most effective attacks on the government is campaigning against Tory sleaze and cronyism. It certainly hits home with Mone and related PPE profiteering, but Greensill coming back as an issue too.
Its quite a safe attack by Labour too as can get little return fire.
Teesside Freeport in the mix too?
Too far outside the M25 for the national media, but might well be significant in the NE.
The PO scandal was largely outside the M25.
ITV drama on Teesside Freeport anyone?
It's a good old fashioned local Labour corruption scandal from the1970s. Only this time the grifters badged themselves as Tories.
Well, Lib Dems mainly. At the time of Operation Sparrow Jo Swinson had taken over from Ed Davey and Vince Cable was her boss as business secretary. I thought that they were supposed to be the good guys?
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Certainly where I work there has been an acknowledgment that the pre-Covid "struggle into work when loaded with lurgy" just means more people get the lurgy and overall less work gets done. Here that probably translates to WFH - possibly in Germany it translates to sicknote (as noted elsewhere) and might-as-well-not-WFH-then.
"Cameron coalition government ‘knew Post Office chiefs covered up computer scandal’ ‘Project Sparrow’ was formed to remove the forensic accountants who uncovered the scandal
Newly released documents show that Post Office chiefs secretly ditched forensic accountants who found problems in the Horizon IT system – with the full knowledge of David Cameron’s coalition government."
It would kinda be the icing on the shit sandwich if, Sunak having brought him back to show some gravitas to his team, Cameron were to have to resign from Government again.....
No, I don't think the Post Office Horizon scandal fells Dave (there is a safety in numbers) or questions why Rishi might bring him back into Government.
One of Labour's most effective attacks on the government is campaigning against Tory sleaze and cronyism. It certainly hits home with Mone and related PPE profiteering, but Greensill coming back as an issue too.
Its quite a safe attack by Labour too as can get little return fire.
Teesside Freeport in the mix too?
Too far outside the M25 for the national media, but might well be significant in the NE.
The PO scandal was largely outside the M25.
ITV drama on Teesside Freeport anyone?
It's a good old fashioned local Labour corruption scandal from the1970s. Only this time the grifters badged themselves as Tories.
It was probably Starmer's fault as DPP though.
Hmm. Starmer, I suspect, was long gone from the CPS. This does seem to be an exclusive made in the North East Conservative enterprise.
Although to be fair to both parties, Labour or Conservative is probably merely a convenient peg for a grifter to hang his hi-viz jacket.
The polls are widening and that is only going to get worse. I think the tories will panic to save what is left of the Parliamentary group. Recession, summer boats, brexit border chaos,, medicine shortages, interest rates will remain high, ever more infighting on the right and reform in the ascendant > there is simply less and less to wait for. They can wait, but it would be the wrong move. It is time to cut losses now.
I agree.
think of a re-election campaign as nesting. it has to align with fair news cycle - you can’t campaign on we have turned a corner as you enter recession, nor campaign on making progress on boat crossing in the middle of a boat crossing surge. Recession, summer boats are just some of the bad news cycles plumbed in to splurge out from media’s sewage pipe and all over Rishi and his government throughout summer and Autumn, starting in May with local election hammering, ongoing mortgage crisis of key voters deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals, and then comes the interim covid report publication!
We have to consider the backdrop to the campaign in Q3 and 4. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in serious trouble.
"Cameron coalition government ‘knew Post Office chiefs covered up computer scandal’ ‘Project Sparrow’ was formed to remove the forensic accountants who uncovered the scandal
Newly released documents show that Post Office chiefs secretly ditched forensic accountants who found problems in the Horizon IT system – with the full knowledge of David Cameron’s coalition government."
It would kinda be the icing on the shit sandwich if, Sunak having brought him back to show some gravitas to his team, Cameron were to have to resign from Government again.....
No, I don't think the Post Office Horizon scandal fells Dave (there is a safety in numbers) or questions why Rishi might bring him back into Government.
One of Labour's most effective attacks on the government is campaigning against Tory sleaze and cronyism. It certainly hits home with Mone and related PPE profiteering, but Greensill coming back as an issue too.
Its quite a safe attack by Labour too as can get little return fire.
Teesside Freeport in the mix too?
Too far outside the M25 for the national media, but might well be significant in the NE.
The PO scandal was largely outside the M25.
ITV drama on Teesside Freeport anyone?
It's a good old fashioned local Labour corruption scandal from the1970s. Only this time the grifters badged themselves as Tories.
Well, Lib Dems mainly. At the time of Operation Sparrow Jo Swinson had taken over from Ed Davey and Vince Cable was her boss as business secretary. I thought that they were supposed to be the good guys?
"Cameron coalition government ‘knew Post Office chiefs covered up computer scandal’ ‘Project Sparrow’ was formed to remove the forensic accountants who uncovered the scandal
Newly released documents show that Post Office chiefs secretly ditched forensic accountants who found problems in the Horizon IT system – with the full knowledge of David Cameron’s coalition government."
It would kinda be the icing on the shit sandwich if, Sunak having brought him back to show some gravitas to his team, Cameron were to have to resign from Government again.....
No, I don't think the Post Office Horizon scandal fells Dave (there is a safety in numbers) or questions why Rishi might bring him back into Government.
One of Labour's most effective attacks on the government is campaigning against Tory sleaze and cronyism. It certainly hits home with Mone and related PPE profiteering, but Greensill coming back as an issue too.
Its quite a safe attack by Labour too as can get little return fire.
Teesside Freeport in the mix too?
Too far outside the M25 for the national media, but might well be significant in the NE.
The PO scandal was largely outside the M25.
ITV drama on Teesside Freeport anyone?
It's a good old fashioned local Labour corruption scandal from the1970s. Only this time the grifters badged themselves as Tories.
It was probably Starmer's fault as DPP though.
Hmm. Starmer, I suspect, was long gone from the CPS. This does seem to be an exclusive made in the North East Conservative enterprise.
Although to be fair to both parties, Labour or Conservative is probably merely a convenient peg for a grifter to hang his hi-viz jacket.
Your irony filter seems to be playing up, just saying.
A lovely phrase from an audience member in last week's QT, saying the last fourteen years has felt like a "fourteen year long episode of The Thick of It"...
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
Yeah, we had that poster Eadric who escaped the Smoke to Wales. I wonder what happened to him. Despite his meticulous precautions perhaps he succumbed anyway.
The polls are widening and that is only going to get worse. I think the tories will panic to save what is left of the Parliamentary group. Recession, summer boats, brexit border chaos,, medicine shortages, interest rates will remain high, ever more infighting on the right and reform in the ascendant > there is simply less and less to wait for. They can wait, but it would be the wrong move. It is time to cut losses now.
I agree.
think of a re-election campaign as nesting. it has to align with fair news cycle - you can’t campaign on we have turned a corner as you enter recession, nor campaign on making progress on boat crossing in the middle of a boat crossing surge. Recession, summer boats are just some of the bad news cycles plumbed in to splurge out from media’s sewage pipe and all over Rishi and his government throughout summer and Autumn, starting in May with local election hammering, ongoing mortgage crisis of key voters deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals, and then comes the interim covid report publication!
We have to consider the backdrop to the campaign in Q3 and 4. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in serious trouble.
Agreed, although they are already well into 'serious trouble' territory. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in existential trouble.
"Cameron coalition government ‘knew Post Office chiefs covered up computer scandal’ ‘Project Sparrow’ was formed to remove the forensic accountants who uncovered the scandal
Newly released documents show that Post Office chiefs secretly ditched forensic accountants who found problems in the Horizon IT system – with the full knowledge of David Cameron’s coalition government."
It is no surprise, Andy, but now the smoking gun is in full view it will be impossible for the PO to deny the cover-up.
I wasn't aware there was a Civil Servant on the Board. I had always assumed that the CS would escape censure over the Scandal on grounds of anonymity, but if they were representing the Government at Board level and instrumental in the cover-up there is no reason why the individuals involved should not be named, and if appropriate, charged along with the rest of the gang.
Here you go. I have named them already.
So it was either Susannah Storey or Richard Callard or likely both. Susannah Storey is now the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
Richard Callard was at the meeting which discussed the wisdom of taking action to get the judge in the Bates litigation to recuse himself. According to the Project Sparrow meeting minutes, he recused himself from being involved in the decision in order for the government not to be seen to be compromising the independence of the judiciary. No such qualms bothered the PO's Chair, Tim Parker, despite his role as Chair of HM Courts and Tribunal Service.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
Yeah, we had that poster Eadric who escaped the Smoke to Wales. I wonder what happened to him. Despite his meticulous precautions perhaps he succumbed anyway.
Surely Leon must know we all see right through him.
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
You don't need as grand as project as the Severn Barrage. A series of tidal lagoons either side of the Severn are far easier (and far less disruptive of shipping too).
If May had approved Swansea (or more to the point, if her civil servants hadn't nobbled it) then you would now have half a dozen lagoons under construction, delivering power by 2030. Well before Hinkley C. And at at fraction of the cost.
The Severn barrage won't get built, because it isn't needed. Tidal lagoons will get built, because they are exactly the answer that various Ministers have been groping around for in the dark.
To misquote Dave Allen, much of our civil service resembles a man in a dark room trying to find a black cat that isn’t there.
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
I'm reminded of many years ago and an earlier Tory monkeying about with the railways: a Tory MP - possibly even a junior minister - wondering why they couldn't have, *on the same densely trafficked commuter tracks*, luxurious first class fast trains for people such as him, and slow and cheap and cheerful trains for secretaries and similar proles.
Not a stupid question, given there were such trains up to the 1970s, with names like 'Brighton Belle', which were more luxurious. And which AIUI were often timed for senior civil servants to get to and from work.
People liked them so much that the Brighton Belle is being reborn, with the original rolling stock.
"Cameron coalition government ‘knew Post Office chiefs covered up computer scandal’ ‘Project Sparrow’ was formed to remove the forensic accountants who uncovered the scandal
Newly released documents show that Post Office chiefs secretly ditched forensic accountants who found problems in the Horizon IT system – with the full knowledge of David Cameron’s coalition government."
It would kinda be the icing on the shit sandwich if, Sunak having brought him back to show some gravitas to his team, Cameron were to have to resign from Government again.....
Doesn’t it increase the ability of the Conservatives to blame the LibDems?
The Lib Dems seem to be a sideshow, as far as the polling goes.
But if guilty knowledge of what was going on in the POst Office could be pinned squarely on Cameron ...
Cameron was aware of problems with Horizon as far back as 2009, apparently:
Evidence from the Inquiry this week shows that in a prosecution in 2005 a forensic accountant's report was produced by the defence pointing out Horizon deficiencies. 2005.
They've known for a long time of the problems. They just chose to look away.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
Yeah, we had that poster Eadric who escaped the Smoke to Wales. I wonder what happened to him. Despite his meticulous precautions perhaps he succumbed anyway.
I believe he later wrote an article for some now discredited rag about how grim life was in lockdown London, while looking out of the window to sea?
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
No, it didn't. You keep on making grand statements like that, and when you're proved wrong - as you did with your stupid claims about kids and toilet training - you deny reality.
You claim to have a high IQ. It'd be good if you actually showed signs of using it occasionally...
Wait till he notices that in addition to the Post Office scandal, Horizon was up to its neck in the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
I'm reminded of many years ago and an earlier Tory monkeying about with the railways: a Tory MP - possibly even a junior minister - wondering why they couldn't have, *on the same densely trafficked commuter tracks*, luxurious first class fast trains for people such as him, and slow and cheap and cheerful trains for secretaries and similar proles.
Not a stupid question, given there were such trains up to the 1970s, with names like 'Brighton Belle', which were more luxurious. And which AIUI were often timed for senior civil servants to get to and from work.
People liked them so much that the Brighton Belle is being reborn, with the original rolling stock.
If the DfT and DfE staff use it, will we rename it the Brighton Belle Ends?
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Certainly where I work there has been an acknowledgment that the pre-Covid "struggle into work when loaded with lurgy" just means more people get the lurgy and overall less work gets done. Here that probably translates to WFH - possibly in Germany it translates to sicknote (as noted elsewhere) and might-as-well-not-WFH-then.
I agree though I do think there has been a worrying trend towards “I’ll just work from home and be unwell there” rather than “my body needs a rest I shouldn’t be working at all” (which I suspect has an impact on people’s long term productivity/burnout rates too).
Fundamentally we do need to change our relationship with work, because new technology is going to change it for us eventually, and the ways we are working even now will not fit neatly into the way the world will be. This is actually an opportunity for us to make the value we do add more important and better, while hopefully putting ourselves through less mental and physical stress.
The polls are widening and that is only going to get worse. I think the tories will panic to save what is left of the Parliamentary group. Recession, summer boats, brexit border chaos,, medicine shortages, interest rates will remain high, ever more infighting on the right and reform in the ascendant > there is simply less and less to wait for. They can wait, but it would be the wrong move. It is time to cut losses now.
I agree.
think of a re-election campaign as nesting. it has to align with fair news cycle - you can’t campaign on we have turned a corner as you enter recession, nor campaign on making progress on boat crossing in the middle of a boat crossing surge. Recession, summer boats are just some of the bad news cycles plumbed in to splurge out from media’s sewage pipe and all over Rishi and his government throughout summer and Autumn, starting in May with local election hammering, ongoing mortgage crisis of key voters deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals, and then comes the interim covid report publication!
We have to consider the backdrop to the campaign in Q3 and 4. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in serious trouble.
Agreed. I had for a long time thought that 24rd October was a dead cert, but am now definitely leaning towards May 2nd.
A combination of economic stagnation, the local elections, countless stories of small boat crossings in summer, and yes the number of people having to remortgage at much higher rates, which could be a couple of million voters.
The date I really don’t understand is November, which is a crap month to be campaigning in the dark, cold, and wet.
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
I'm reminded of many years ago and an earlier Tory monkeying about with the railways: a Tory MP - possibly even a junior minister - wondering why they couldn't have, *on the same densely trafficked commuter tracks*, luxurious first class fast trains for people such as him, and slow and cheap and cheerful trains for secretaries and similar proles.
Not a stupid question, given there were such trains up to the 1970s, with names like 'Brighton Belle', which were more luxurious. And which AIUI were often timed for senior civil servants to get to and from work.
People liked them so much that the Brighton Belle is being reborn, with the original rolling stock.
Ooh yes, complete with kippers for breakfast. But the tracks wouldn't have been so densely occupied further out - many people didn't commute the long distances they do today. PLus the timing was not prole-friendly I seem to recall? No good for nurses or typists?
With more and more prominent Tories coming out for Trump, there is a risk for Sunak in going to the country as the US has its presidential election - especially if Trump wins. Trump is not popular here and Tory backing for a Putin enabler will not play well.
I still hold my theory for May, between GE and VoNC, Rishi makes his calculation on fighting the main event rather than being weakened, but what do I know?
Off-topic, giving Mrs Rata a short snoring holiday to drop off, finished off the Mr Bates drama.A lot to think on, but the actual number affected in some way, not just the convicted but those PO took action against:
3500 SPMs.
3500.
I know it was over years and the offices with SPMs may have had multiple in that time but.
That is a hell of a portion of the entire SPM base
When I first heard about the Scandal, Rata, I didn't know much about the facts but my very first reaction was that common sense ought tohave told you that there was something amiss because of the sheer numbers involved. For the PO to be right you had to believe that the organisation had somehow cornered the market in crooked shopkeepers.
(Snip)
Common sense isn't very common, sadly. And I say that about myself at times, as well as others. We can all make dumb mistakes.
This leads into another aspect of human nature: the tendency we all have not to want to admit to mistakes, especially when there is a harsh penalty for admitting those mistakes. Say you make a mistake, and might lose your job over it. Instead of admitting the mistake, you double down on it in the hope that no-one will notice the mistake, and/or that the effect of the mistake will somehow come right.
Even 'good' people can get into this mindset. So we need people to admit to mistakes; but we also need penalties for making mistakes to be more... understanding, especially as many mistakes are made in environments that allowed them to be made.
So what we had in the PO were people who must have known they were doing wrong, and were doing wrong deliberately. And the more they did wrong, the harsher the penalties (and in this case, the greater the rewards...) were.
If a few people had been more honest at the start of this, in the early 2000s, a massive amount of suffering might have been prevented.
Yet again, openness and clarity are key. "Yes, i fucked up," should not automatically be followed by: "You're fired!", and instead by "Let's fix it. Why did you fuck up?" It might still end up with an individual losing their job, but the organisation also learns.
In this case, the rewards were such that the organisation did wrong, knew it, and kept on doing wrong. Because admitting their mistakes was not in their interest, even when it hurt others.
(Sorry, a bit of a rambling, incoherent reply. But hopefully you get what I mean...)
Very successful in aviation accident investigation.
Good luck spreading that culture beyond aviation.
Sounds like what the Rail Accident peeps do as well.
Both engineering, both rational. I'd be pretty confident that the mindset leads to better outcomes than "rewards while you are seen to succeed but heaven help you if something goes wrong" approach that's more common.
There clearly is a value in making an example, encourager the autres and all that. And there are professional crimes that are unforgivable.
But our collective attitude feels like something that holds us back... is there a way of tweaking the incentives to reward healthier responses to things going wrong?
IMO it requires an open corporate culture and *very* good management.
I fear that one of the reasons many organisations have closed cultures is because it helps hide the fact they don't have good management...
Good morning everybody; fine, clear sky here this morning! So often the post office scandal gives me a couple of tangent thoughts. Another one this morning; in how many post offices did problems occur after a manager had been sacked? In other words, if the postmaster at Little Snoring had been convicted of false accounting, due to Horizon , and sacked, did problems arise when his or her successor was in post? And if not, why not?
Yes - that happened quite often. It was this which led to James Arbuthnot to take it seriously. Not just the Jo Hamilton case.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
The polls are widening and that is only going to get worse. I think the tories will panic to save what is left of the Parliamentary group. Recession, summer boats, brexit border chaos,, medicine shortages, interest rates will remain high, ever more infighting on the right and reform in the ascendant > there is simply less and less to wait for. They can wait, but it would be the wrong move. It is time to cut losses now.
I agree.
think of a re-election campaign as nesting. it has to align with fair news cycle - you can’t campaign on we have turned a corner as you enter recession, nor campaign on making progress on boat crossing in the middle of a boat crossing surge. Recession, summer boats are just some of the bad news cycles plumbed in to splurge out from media’s sewage pipe and all over Rishi and his government throughout summer and Autumn, starting in May with local election hammering, ongoing mortgage crisis of key voters deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals, and then comes the interim covid report publication!
We have to consider the backdrop to the campaign in Q3 and 4. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in serious trouble.
Agreed. I had for a long time thought that 24rd October was a dead cert, but am now definitely leaning towards May 2nd.
A combination of economic stagnation, the local elections, countless stories of small boat crossings in summer, and yes the number of people having to remortgage at much higher rates, which could be a couple of million voters.
The date I really don’t understand is November, which is a crap month to be campaigning in the dark, cold, and wet.
November is favourite because George Osborne said he'd been told the general election would be held on 14th November, and because George Osborne has never been involved in spin or the dark arts, we can believe him.
There is also a theory which Boris is said to hold (and which is why I reckon they will go for January) that although bad weather disrupts campaigning, this favours the Conservative Party by neutralising the Opposition's ground war advantage and also because Tory voters are more likely to turn out to vote in bad weather.
With more and more prominent Tories coming out for Trump, there is a risk for Sunak in going to the country as the US has its presidential election - especially if Trump wins. Trump is not popular here and Tory backing for a Putin enabler will not play well.
Not sure I quite agree with that, if Trump makes it through to the November election then the opposition likely won’t want to draw too many parallels between the Tories/Trump because there will be a decent chance they’ll have to work with him in the coming months.
I think it does have a downside for the Tories but in the other way - it amplifies the Reform message and could cause more leakage of votes on the right.
The polls are widening and that is only going to get worse. I think the tories will panic to save what is left of the Parliamentary group. Recession, summer boats, brexit border chaos,, medicine shortages, interest rates will remain high, ever more infighting on the right and reform in the ascendant > there is simply less and less to wait for. They can wait, but it would be the wrong move. It is time to cut losses now.
I agree.
think of a re-election campaign as nesting. it has to align with fair news cycle - you can’t campaign on we have turned a corner as you enter recession, nor campaign on making progress on boat crossing in the middle of a boat crossing surge. Recession, summer boats are just some of the bad news cycles plumbed in to splurge out from media’s sewage pipe and all over Rishi and his government throughout summer and Autumn, starting in May with local election hammering, ongoing mortgage crisis of key voters deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals, and then comes the interim covid report publication!
We have to consider the backdrop to the campaign in Q3 and 4. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in serious trouble.
Agreed. I had for a long time thought that 24rd October was a dead cert, but am now definitely leaning towards May 2nd.
A combination of economic stagnation, the local elections, countless stories of small boat crossings in summer, and yes the number of people having to remortgage at much higher rates, which could be a couple of million voters.
The date I really don’t understand is November, which is a crap month to be campaigning in the dark, cold, and wet.
November is favourite because George Osborne said he'd been told the general election would be held on 14th November, and because George Osborne has never been involved in spin or the dark arts, we can believe him.
There is also a theory which Boris is said to hold (and which is why I reckon they will go for January) that although bad weather disrupts campaigning, this favours the Conservative Party by neutralising the Opposition's ground war advantage and also because Tory voters are more likely to turn out to vote in bad weather.
There is also a theory which Boris is said to hold (and which is why I reckon they will go for January) that although bad weather disrupts campaigning, this favours the Conservative Party by neutralising the Opposition's ground war advantage and also because Tory voters are more likely to turn out to vote in bad weather.
This may have been true before the only people voting brexit Tory were pensioners
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
I had a quick look - quite enough for me. But the comments are a real surprise. Readers not at all impressed.
BTW you now have to pay to read more than a few words of the Johnsonian lucubrations, and similar op-ed columns.
Yes, the Mail is said to be institutingt a partial paywall blocking access to some but not all content. However, I could read all of Boris's column without paying so I am not sure what is going on there. Perhaps some form of A/B testing?
Big problems never start out that way. They always start out as small problems or mistakes. That is why a good culture tries to catch problems and mistakes at the earliest stage so that they can be corrected, people taught what to do better next time and the issues treated as learning opportunities and a chance to make improvements rather than let them turn into crises to be managed.
But what you also need is zero tolerance of the sorts of mistakes which can blow you up eg a lack of integrity. We are bad as a society at distinguishing between the mistakes, failings, errors which can be used as opportunities to learn and those which we ought to be much much tougher on.
It is because we fail to do this, because people fail to take responsibility for anything at all that when something is uncovered, there are calls for resignation. Denial always makes the issue worse.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
The polls are widening and that is only going to get worse. I think the tories will panic to save what is left of the Parliamentary group. Recession, summer boats, brexit border chaos,, medicine shortages, interest rates will remain high, ever more infighting on the right and reform in the ascendant > there is simply less and less to wait for. They can wait, but it would be the wrong move. It is time to cut losses now.
On the flip side inflation and will have likely fallen further by the Autumn, with interest rate cuts having commenced.
It'll be more plausible to argue "we've turned the corner economically, don't let Labour ruin it" in the Autumn as compared to early May.
The flip side is the summer is when small boats come and Reform will sense their opportunity to make an impact at Westminster.
I think Sunak is screwed either way.
With the brexit border controls, possible tax cuts and the oil prices settling in a 12 week high and other headwinds in the economy I don't see interest rates coming down... not at all. The tories have noting good to wait for going into autumn....
If you put the last yougov poll into electoral calculus it gives moo... 38 seats for the conservatives.... if this polling trend gets worse, the tories are looking at total annihilation as an electoral party ... that has to be priced in...the cost of a long strategy failing is incredibly high.... a rational mind will cut losses to retain something.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Lots are sending up Boris, but one or two ask how come Boris never actually took the king's shilling himself when younger. I recall when Tony Blair was sending the army into seven-ish military engagements, some asked whether he'd encourage his own children to sign up. Apparently not.
The polls are widening and that is only going to get worse. I think the tories will panic to save what is left of the Parliamentary group. Recession, summer boats, brexit border chaos,, medicine shortages, interest rates will remain high, ever more infighting on the right and reform in the ascendant > there is simply less and less to wait for. They can wait, but it would be the wrong move. It is time to cut losses now.
I agree.
think of a re-election campaign as nesting. it has to align with fair news cycle - you can’t campaign on we have turned a corner as you enter recession, nor campaign on making progress on boat crossing in the middle of a boat crossing surge. Recession, summer boats are just some of the bad news cycles plumbed in to splurge out from media’s sewage pipe and all over Rishi and his government throughout summer and Autumn, starting in May with local election hammering, ongoing mortgage crisis of key voters deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals, and then comes the interim covid report publication!
We have to consider the backdrop to the campaign in Q3 and 4. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in serious trouble.
Agreed. I had for a long time thought that 24rd October was a dead cert, but am now definitely leaning towards May 2nd.
A combination of economic stagnation, the local elections, countless stories of small boat crossings in summer, and yes the number of people having to remortgage at much higher rates, which could be a couple of million voters.
The date I really don’t understand is November, which is a crap month to be campaigning in the dark, cold, and wet.
November is favourite because George Osborne said he'd been told the general election would be held on 14th November, and because George Osborne has never been involved in spin or the dark arts, we can believe him.
There is also a theory which Boris is said to hold (and which is why I reckon they will go for January) that although bad weather disrupts campaigning, this favours the Conservative Party by neutralising the Opposition's ground war advantage and also because Tory voters are more likely to turn out to vote in bad weather.
I think December probably helped Boris last time out, but the wider context was that there really had to be an election, as Parliament was totally chaotic and unable to pass anything.
I think the PM choosing to leave it so late, for what are the nakedly political reasons of hoping something positive turns up, might do down badly with the electorate.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
Ex PB-er @SeanT was right about that, as about everything else
I've said for ages that it'll be Nov 14th, called from (or, technically, immediately after), the Tory conference.
April or May is hard because of the polls. Why lose now when you can not lose now. June / early July will be impossible after the local elections. The summer holidays is impossible for practical reasons. September is also impossible because you'd have to call it, and campaign, in the same summer holidays. December means a month of faffing about in Westminster after the conferences, to no useful end. January is even more faffing, plus disrupting the election with Xmas / NY, to media, public (and activist) annoyance.
So Oct / Nov is the only window that makes sense.
The argument for October is that it's lighter, doesn't get disrupted at the end with the uncertainties of a Trump win or uncertain result in America, and doesn't give the opposition a parliamentary bite at the cherry.
The argument for November is that the Tory conference is the last decent chance the Tories have to set the narrative largely on their own initiative.
Of the two, I'd favour November but Oct is perhaps the value bet.
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Cheers for that, I’ll give it a watch.
Other good stuff on there for newbies, IMHO: Slow Horses - as discussed on here before. It gets better and better. For All Mankind - I’m not particularly a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed this, but the latest series isn’t so good. The alternative history shtick is perhaps feeling its age. Ted Lasso - superb, feel good, makes my eyes leak far too often. Probably a bit woke for some but worth the admission price for the Amazonian Hannah Waddingham alone. Shrinking - Harrison Ford steals every scene in this comedy about dysfunctional therapists. Again, may be too woke for some but for a bleeding heart liberal like me it’s great.
"Cameron coalition government ‘knew Post Office chiefs covered up computer scandal’ ‘Project Sparrow’ was formed to remove the forensic accountants who uncovered the scandal
Newly released documents show that Post Office chiefs secretly ditched forensic accountants who found problems in the Horizon IT system – with the full knowledge of David Cameron’s coalition government."
It would kinda be the icing on the shit sandwich if, Sunak having brought him back to show some gravitas to his team, Cameron were to have to resign from Government again.....
No, I don't think the Post Office Horizon scandal fells Dave (there is a safety in numbers) or questions why Rishi might bring him back into Government.
One of Labour's most effective attacks on the government is campaigning against Tory sleaze and cronyism. It certainly hits home with Mone and related PPE profiteering, but Greensill coming back as an issue too.
Its quite a safe attack by Labour too as can get little return fire.
Teesside Freeport in the mix too?
Too far outside the M25 for the national media, but might well be significant in the NE.
The PO scandal was largely outside the M25.
ITV drama on Teesside Freeport anyone?
It's a good old fashioned local Labour corruption scandal from the1970s. Only this time the grifters badged themselves as Tories.
Well, Lib Dems mainly. At the time of Operation Sparrow Jo Swinson had taken over from Ed Davey and Vince Cable was her boss as business secretary. I thought that they were supposed to be the good guys?
They, like others, were lied to by the Post Office.
I'd like to see evidence about what the Senior Civil Servant who sat on the Operation Sparrow Committee relayed back to ministers.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Here's the thing: since Johnson has had the opportunity to sign-up and serve his country, we have had the Falklands, Kuwait and Iraq. We also had the running sore of Northern Ireland, not to mention other NATO-led engagements. Johnson never went near the armed forces. He had much better things to do. Just like all chicken hawks. And just like them, too, now he is no longer in any danger of having to risk his life for his country he says that he would. It is very, very Johnson.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
I had a quick look - quite enough for me. But the comments are a real surprise. Readers not at all impressed.
BTW you now have to pay to read more than a few words of the Johnsonian lucubrations, and similar op-ed columns.
Yes, the Mail is said to be institutingt a partial paywall blocking access to some but not all content. However, I could read all of Boris's column without paying so I am not sure what is going on there. Perhaps some form of A/B testing?
Interesting. No paywall here, browsing from abroad.
Will DM readers really put their hand in their pocket to read the columnists though? I’d be surprised if many of them would.
That said, a lot depends on the implementation - the Telegraph paywall is trivial to get around. The Times and the FT are more difficult but still possible.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
You don't need as grand as project as the Severn Barrage. A series of tidal lagoons either side of the Severn are far easier (and far less disruptive of shipping too).
If May had approved Swansea (or more to the point, if her civil servants hadn't nobbled it) then you would now have half a dozen lagoons under construction, delivering power by 2030. Well before Hinkley C. And at at fraction of the cost.
The Severn barrage won't get built, because it isn't needed. Tidal lagoons will get built, because they are exactly the answer that various Ministers have been groping around for in the dark.
Barrage design using low velocity water wheels. Probably less plausible if Port Talbot steelworks is being taken offline... but does feel a bit like "look at what you could have won..."
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Lots are sending up Boris, but one or two ask how come Boris never actually took the king's shilling himself when younger. I recall when Tony Blair was sending the army into seven-ish military engagements, some asked whether he'd encourage his own children to sign up. Apparently not.
I didn't take the King's shilling. Most people don't for whatever reason. Most people in WW2 did not fight; but many, many more worked on the war effort, from the famous (Bletchley Park) to the less so (the conscientious objectors who became UXO officers).
Big problems never start out that way. They always start out as small problems or mistakes. That is why a good culture tries to catch problems and mistakes at the earliest stage so that they can be corrected, people taught what to do better next time and the issues treated as learning opportunities and a chance to make improvements rather than let them turn into crises to be managed.
But what you also need is zero tolerance of the sorts of mistakes which can blow you up eg a lack of integrity. We are bad as a society at distinguishing between the mistakes, failings, errors which can be used as opportunities to learn and those which we ought to be much much tougher on.
It is because we fail to do this, because people fail to take responsibility for anything at all that when something is uncovered, there are calls for resignation. Denial always makes the issue worse.
Hello @Cyclefree - apologies for not following up the mirror thing
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Thanks. I need more TV drama recommendations
I ehar Griselda is great, as well
Sadly, I cannot recommend Money Heist, which started off OK but gets more and more ridiculous til it plot problems overwhelm the whole
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is the same but worse (Apple TV0; starts great then totally falls apart in a swamp of Woke GenZ badly plotted drivel, with shit acting and terrible CGI (how? Apple is so rich??)
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Having screwed HS2 up they now have a rather big problem - just putting the HS2 trains on the WCML will reduce capacity on the line to the extent that the hourly number of seats from Manchester to be reduced by 160.
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
So we've spent how many billions to reduce capacity ?
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
I see that the ITV series is written by Jed Mercurio. Given that, I'd expect it to be pretty powerful and very sympathetic to Mrs Foxy (not personally of course) and all the other NHS staff involved. It will have an impact, I suspect.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
No, it didn't. You keep on making grand statements like that, and when you're proved wrong - as you did with your stupid claims about kids and toilet training - you deny reality.
You claim to have a high IQ. It'd be good if you actually showed signs of using it occasionally...
If you actually wanted to see, with your own eyes, how little I give the tiniest fuck of an iota of a quark about your stupid dumb low IQ marathon-running weirdo freakaloid dumb opinion of me, you would actually need a proton-powered nanobotic quantum-micro-super-nano-microscope, which hasn't even been invented yet
* Conservative Britain Alliance talking to Suella aides
* campaign of attrition, next target Feb 15
* anti-Sunak convos between NewCons, ex-aides to Jenrick, Rees-Mogg
The Tory hard right are very good at getting their message across through the papers and appearing much more numerous and powerful than they actually are. Which then of course does actually make them more powerful than they should be.
There’s no way there’s a majority in the parliamentary party for a Braverman putsch, yet here they are talking about it. Where they then win is after the election, when the membership (who will by now be even more ancient and right wing than last time when they elected Truss) get their chance to install a nutter.
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Having screwed HS2 up they now have a rather big problem - just putting the HS2 trains on the WCML will reduce capacity on the line to the extent that the hourly number of seats from Manchester to be reduced by 160.
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
So we've spent how many billions to reduce capacity ?
The important bit of “capacity”, the number of paths between London and Birmingham, will increase dramatically.
The whole thing is still a huge mess though, there really needs to be a JFDI culture brought into major infrastructure projects - this line should really be open by now, all of it to Leeds and Liverpool.
Nothing to see here, or not for long anyway. Not corruption you understand, but security in case your government phone falls into the hands of the CIA, KGB or BBC.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
I see that the ITV series is written by Jed Mercurio. Given that, I'd expect it to be pretty powerful and very sympathetic to Mrs Foxy (not personally of course) and all the other NHS staff involved. It will have an impact, I suspect.
Jed is a good writer, but in this one we know the ending. I don't think we will watch it. Neither Mrs Foxy nor I want to revisit those times. It was horrible.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
The evacuation of millions of children during the Blitz was surely a bigger public health mistake?
Upper lips were stiffer then, and mental health hadn’t been invented.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
No, it didn't. You keep on making grand statements like that, and when you're proved wrong - as you did with your stupid claims about kids and toilet training - you deny reality.
You claim to have a high IQ. It'd be good if you actually showed signs of using it occasionally...
If you actually wanted to see, with your own eyes, how little I give the tiniest fuck of an iota of a quark about your stupid dumb low IQ marathon-running weirdo freakaloid dumb opinion of me, you would actually need a proton-powered nanobotic quantum-micro-super-nano-microscope, which hasn't even been invented yet
It's probably a good thing that you don't give much of a fuck about people's opinions of you, either...
Nothing to see here, or not for long anyway. Not corruption you understand, but security in case your government phone falls into the hands of the CIA, KGB or BBC.
Every government department and MP should have done this, roughly one minute after the decision by the Covid inquiry that people’s phones were fair game to be examined.
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Having screwed HS2 up they now have a rather big problem - just putting the HS2 trains on the WCML will reduce capacity on the line to the extent that the hourly number of seats from Manchester to be reduced by 160.
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
So we've spent how many billions to reduce capacity ?
The important bit of “capacity”, the number of paths between London and Birmingham, will increase dramatically.
The whole thing is still a huge mess though, there really needs to be a JFDI culture brought into major infrastructure projects - this line should really be open by now, all of it to Leeds and Liverpool.
Just stunningly stupid mess that Sunak has created.
All so he could stand at conference and say he was the 'change candidate' ripping up 30 years of tory thinking. A strategy which lasted barely a couple of weeks.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
Ex PB-er @SeanT was right about that, as about everything else
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
I see that the ITV series is written by Jed Mercurio. Given that, I'd expect it to be pretty powerful and very sympathetic to Mrs Foxy (not personally of course) and all the other NHS staff involved. It will have an impact, I suspect.
It could be the next Mr Bates as it will focus partly on the f*ck up with PPE.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
I had a quick look - quite enough for me. But the comments are a real surprise. Readers not at all impressed.
BTW you now have to pay to read more than a few words of the Johnsonian lucubrations, and similar op-ed columns.
Yes, the Mail is said to be institutingt a partial paywall blocking access to some but not all content. However, I could read all of Boris's column without paying so I am not sure what is going on there. Perhaps some form of A/B testing?
Interesting. No paywall here, browsing from abroad.
Will DM readers really put their hand in their pocket to read the columnists though? I’d be surprised if many of them would.
That said, a lot depends on the implementation - the Telegraph paywall is trivial to get around. The Times and the FT are more difficult but still possible.
The DM is indeed introducing a semipaywall, AIUI
Some articles free, some behind the wall - or so it is said
As for Boris' column, the fact you are all talking about it, and linking to it, suggests that it is doing its job rather well, and drawing still more eyes to the Daily Mail website, so they are probably quite pleased with their new employee
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
The evacuation of millions of children during the Blitz was surely a bigger public health mistake?
Upper lips were stiffer then, and mental health hadn’t been invented.
My mother and her sister were evacuated from Manchester to distant family in the High Peak.
My grandfather called them back to Manchester after the winter in which the 2 girls had to wade 2 miles through snow to get to primary school. Safer with the German bombs in Manchester was his view.
* Conservative Britain Alliance talking to Suella aides
* campaign of attrition, next target Feb 15
* anti-Sunak convos between NewCons, ex-aides to Jenrick, Rees-Mogg
The Tory hard right are very good at getting their message across through the papers and appearing much more numerous and powerful than they actually are. Which then of course does actually make them more powerful than they should be.
There’s no way there’s a majority in the parliamentary party for a Braverman putsch, yet here they are talking about it. Where they then win is after the election, when the membership (who will by now be even more ancient and right wing than last time when they elected Truss) get their chance to install a nutter.
Presumably they are focusing on Braverman rather than Badenoch as the latter seems to have told them she doesn't want to take over and then immediately lose a GE. Let Sunak take the fall. Sensible.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
Ex PB-er @SeanT was right about that, as about everything else
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Having screwed HS2 up they now have a rather big problem - just putting the HS2 trains on the WCML will reduce capacity on the line to the extent that the hourly number of seats from Manchester to be reduced by 160.
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
So we've spent how many billions to reduce capacity ?
The important bit of “capacity”, the number of paths between London and Birmingham, will increase dramatically.
The whole thing is still a huge mess though, there really needs to be a JFDI culture brought into major infrastructure projects - this line should really be open by now, all of it to Leeds and Liverpool.
Just stunningly stupid mess that Sunak has created.
All so he could stand at conference and say he was the 'change candidate' ripping up 30 years of tory thinking. A strategy which lasted barely a couple of weeks.
That conference, and doubling down on Rwanda, have been two ridiculous errors on Sunak’s part. His only chance at salvaging something from the GE was to portray himself as a well-meaning, managerial, steadying-the-ship sort of leader. Instead he decided he’d go down the route of craziness and short-termism.
* Conservative Britain Alliance talking to Suella aides
* campaign of attrition, next target Feb 15
* anti-Sunak convos between NewCons, ex-aides to Jenrick, Rees-Mogg
The Tory hard right are very good at getting their message across through the papers and appearing much more numerous and powerful than they actually are. Which then of course does actually make them more powerful than they should be.
There’s no way there’s a majority in the parliamentary party for a Braverman putsch, yet here they are talking about it. Where they then win is after the election, when the membership (who will by now be even more ancient and right wing than last time when they elected Truss) get their chance to install a nutter.
Presumably they are focusing on Braverman rather than Badenoch as the latter seems to have told them she doesn't want to take over and then immediately lose a GE. Let Sunak take the fall. Sensible.
There’s very little chance that a new leader would turn things around so much that they’d still be in power after a GE, so it’s mad to want to want to be the person standing up now - although politicians at that level are nothing if not ruthlessly ambitious.
The government has simply run out of steam, as all governments do after so long in power, so they might as well let Sunak stay as the deckchair rearranger on the Titanic.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Having screwed HS2 up they now have a rather big problem - just putting the HS2 trains on the WCML will reduce capacity on the line to the extent that the hourly number of seats from Manchester to be reduced by 160.
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
So we've spent how many billions to reduce capacity ?
The important bit of “capacity”, the number of paths between London and Birmingham, will increase dramatically.
The whole thing is still a huge mess though, there really needs to be a JFDI culture brought into major infrastructure projects - this line should really be open by now, all of it to Leeds and Liverpool.
Just stunningly stupid mess that Sunak has created.
All so he could stand at conference and say he was the 'change candidate' ripping up 30 years of tory thinking. A strategy which lasted barely a couple of weeks.
That conference, and doubling down on Rwanda, have been two ridiculous errors on Sunak’s part. His only chance at salvaging something from the GE was to portray himself as a well-meaning, managerial, steadying-the-ship sort of leader. Instead he decided he’d go down the route of craziness and short-termism.
He is being appalling advised and he seems to just do whatever looney tunes idea the spads come up with next.
Big problems never start out that way. They always start out as small problems or mistakes. That is why a good culture tries to catch problems and mistakes at the earliest stage so that they can be corrected, people taught what to do better next time and the issues treated as learning opportunities and a chance to make improvements rather than let them turn into crises to be managed.
But what you also need is zero tolerance of the sorts of mistakes which can blow you up eg a lack of integrity. We are bad as a society at distinguishing between the mistakes, failings, errors which can be used as opportunities to learn and those which we ought to be much much tougher on.
It is because we fail to do this, because people fail to take responsibility for anything at all that when something is uncovered, there are calls for resignation. Denial always makes the issue worse.
A very good point. We need to look more closely at why mistakes were made and a little less at the consequences.
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Having screwed HS2 up they now have a rather big problem - just putting the HS2 trains on the WCML will reduce capacity on the line to the extent that the hourly number of seats from Manchester to be reduced by 160.
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
So we've spent how many billions to reduce capacity ?
The important bit of “capacity”, the number of paths between London and Birmingham, will increase dramatically.
The whole thing is still a huge mess though, there really needs to be a JFDI culture brought into major infrastructure projects - this line should really be open by now, all of it to Leeds and Liverpool.
More paths in the south east to benefit south east commuters.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
A war with Russia may be the only way to defeat the Woke
Because in the end these lefty traitors will have to pick a side. The West, or the Rest?
And they will have to sign up and actually FIGHT, and then they will realise why we have and we need patriotism, and a sense of identity, and why we need to defend the same free speech and democratic liberty that allows them to be Woke in the first place
Those that won't fight can go to Novosibirsk and do their Trans Activist Parades there
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
No, it didn't. You keep on making grand statements like that, and when you're proved wrong - as you did with your stupid claims about kids and toilet training - you deny reality.
You claim to have a high IQ. It'd be good if you actually showed signs of using it occasionally...
If you actually wanted to see, with your own eyes, how little I give the tiniest fuck of an iota of a quark about your stupid dumb low IQ marathon-running weirdo freakaloid dumb opinion of me, you would actually need a proton-powered nanobotic quantum-micro-super-nano-microscope, which hasn't even been invented yet
Enough to engage your vituperative capacity, evidently.
It might be the only window that makes sense for Richi.
He won't last that long...
1. I think he probably will. There is downside risk to another leadership change as well as upside. 2. Another leadership election probably rules out a general election this side of the summer holidays anyway, just on timetabling.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
I see that the ITV series is written by Jed Mercurio. Given that, I'd expect it to be pretty powerful and very sympathetic to Mrs Foxy (not personally of course) and all the other NHS staff involved. It will have an impact, I suspect.
Jed is a good writer, but in this one we know the ending. I don't think we will watch it. Neither Mrs Foxy nor I want to revisit those times. It was horrible.
Does anyone really want to remember a pandemic?
Too many people had their lives upended for years, or were personally affected by the virus itself - not to mention the brave people working in healthcare such as yourself and your wife, for whom the horrror of it was encountered up close on a daily basis.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
This is a fair point, and I was making it way back in the 20-whatevers, when Obama was busily droning people al over the shop, and cracking jokes about it at White House dinners
In the end non-western actors - I predicted - will start taking out THEIR enemies on foreign soil, eg on the territory of western nations. And we won't like it, but we won't have much of a moral argument
* Conservative Britain Alliance talking to Suella aides
* campaign of attrition, next target Feb 15
* anti-Sunak convos between NewCons, ex-aides to Jenrick, Rees-Mogg
The Tory hard right are very good at getting their message across through the papers and appearing much more numerous and powerful than they actually are. Which then of course does actually make them more powerful than they should be.
There’s no way there’s a majority in the parliamentary party for a Braverman putsch, yet here they are talking about it. Where they then win is after the election, when the membership (who will by now be even more ancient and right wing than last time when they elected Truss) get their chance to install a nutter.
Presumably they are focusing on Braverman rather than Badenoch as the latter seems to have told them she doesn't want to take over and then immediately lose a GE. Let Sunak take the fall. Sensible.
There’s very little chance that a new leader would turn things around so much that they’d still be in power after a GE, so it’s mad to want to want to be the person standing up now - although politicians at that level are nothing if not ruthlessly ambitious.
The government has simply run out of steam, as all governments do after so long in power, so they might as well let Sunak stay as the deckchair rearranger on the Titanic.
There is also the real chance that any incoming new leader would face overwhelming pressure to go to the country immediately, which they may not be able to resist.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
Ex PB-er @SeanT was right about that, as about everything else
..For there will be another Spanish flu pandemic one day. The 1918 outbreak occurred because the viral strain acquired the ability to infect humans and then to become transmissible among humans. Other strains have that potential too. Global warming may empower the strongest ones still further. The world of 2018 is infinitely more interconnected than that of 1918. ..
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Well, he could have done it in his 20s when his immense social capital would have got him a plum commission in a Guards regiment or similar. Yet, like a lot of tory chickenhawks, he chose not to...
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
Ex PB-er @SeanT was right about that, as about everything else
..For there will be another Spanish flu pandemic one day. The 1918 outbreak occurred because the viral strain acquired the ability to infect humans and then to become transmissible among humans. Other strains have that potential too. Global warming may empower the strongest ones still further. The world of 2018 is infinitely more interconnected than that of 1918. ..
Fair play, that's an excellent and, yes, prescient article by Martin Kettle
Whatever happened to him? He used to be one of the few go-to writers on the Guardian, with unexpected stuff like that. Now he just rehashes tedious anti-Tory talking points
Indeed, this can be said of several Guardian writers.Toynbee has completely lost it (age?). Owen Jones is wholly lost in la-la-Corbynland. Marina Hyde used to be great, now hmmm
The only Guardian writer I now turn to with anticipation is Jay Rayner, on restaurants. And sometimes that cricket dude with the weird name
The polls are widening and that is only going to get worse. I think the tories will panic to save what is left of the Parliamentary group. Recession, summer boats, brexit border chaos,, medicine shortages, interest rates will remain high, ever more infighting on the right and reform in the ascendant > there is simply less and less to wait for. They can wait, but it would be the wrong move. It is time to cut losses now.
I agree.
think of a re-election campaign as nesting. it has to align with fair news cycle - you can’t campaign on we have turned a corner as you enter recession, nor campaign on making progress on boat crossing in the middle of a boat crossing surge. Recession, summer boats are just some of the bad news cycles plumbed in to splurge out from media’s sewage pipe and all over Rishi and his government throughout summer and Autumn, starting in May with local election hammering, ongoing mortgage crisis of key voters deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals, and then comes the interim covid report publication!
We have to consider the backdrop to the campaign in Q3 and 4. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in serious trouble.
Agreed. I had for a long time thought that 24rd October was a dead cert, but am now definitely leaning towards May 2nd.
A combination of economic stagnation, the local elections, countless stories of small boat crossings in summer, and yes the number of people having to remortgage at much higher rates, which could be a couple of million voters.
The date I really don’t understand is November, which is a crap month to be campaigning in the dark, cold, and wet.
November is favourite because George Osborne said he'd been told the general election would be held on 14th November, and because George Osborne has never been involved in spin or the dark arts, we can believe him.
There is also a theory which Boris is said to hold (and which is why I reckon they will go for January) that although bad weather disrupts campaigning, this favours the Conservative Party by neutralising the Opposition's ground war advantage and also because Tory voters are more likely to turn out to vote in bad weather.
Those were the educated, reliable, and in many cases former Tories. Their new voters, such as they are, attracted by all the Suella shtick, may not be so diligent?
Comments
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
Although to be fair to both parties, Labour or Conservative is probably merely a convenient peg for a grifter to hang his hi-viz jacket.
think of a re-election campaign as nesting. it has to align with fair news cycle - you can’t campaign on we have turned a corner as you enter recession, nor campaign on making progress on boat crossing in the middle of a boat crossing surge. Recession, summer boats are just some of the bad news cycles plumbed in to splurge out from media’s sewage pipe and all over Rishi and his government throughout summer and Autumn, starting in May with local election hammering, ongoing mortgage crisis of key voters deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals, and then comes the interim covid report publication!
We have to consider the backdrop to the campaign in Q3 and 4. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in serious trouble.
So it was either Susannah Storey or Richard Callard or likely both. Susannah Storey is now the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
Richard Callard was at the meeting which discussed the wisdom of taking action to get the judge in the Bates litigation to recuse himself. According to the Project Sparrow meeting minutes, he recused himself from being involved in the decision in order for the government not to be seen to be compromising the independence of the judiciary. No such qualms bothered the PO's Chair, Tim Parker, despite his role as Chair of HM Courts and Tribunal Service.
https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/what-are-ministers-for/
But claims to have found it…
People liked them so much that the Brighton Belle is being reborn, with the original rolling stock.
They've known for a long time of the problems. They just chose to look away.
Fundamentally we do need to change our relationship with work, because new technology is going to change it for us eventually, and the ways we are working even now will not fit neatly into the way the world will be. This is actually an opportunity for us to make the value we do add more important and better, while hopefully putting ourselves through less mental and physical stress.
A combination of economic stagnation, the local elections, countless stories of small boat crossings in summer, and yes the number of people having to remortgage at much higher rates, which could be a couple of million voters.
The date I really don’t understand is November, which is a crap month to be campaigning in the dark, cold, and wet.
I fear that one of the reasons many organisations have closed cultures is because it helps hide the fact they don't have good management...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13010871/BORIS-JOHNSON-fight-King-country.html
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
NEW: Inside the plot against Sunak
* they want Badenoch or Braverman as PM by June
* Conservative Britain Alliance talking to Suella aides
* campaign of attrition, next target Feb 15
* anti-Sunak convos between NewCons, ex-aides to Jenrick, Rees-Mogg
BTW you now have to pay to read more than a few words of the Johnsonian lucubrations, and similar op-ed columns.
There is also a theory which Boris is said to hold (and which is why I reckon they will go for January) that although bad weather disrupts campaigning, this favours the Conservative Party by neutralising the Opposition's ground war advantage and also because Tory voters are more likely to turn out to vote in bad weather.
I think it does have a downside for the Tories but in the other way - it amplifies the Reform message and could cause more leakage of votes on the right.
brexitTory were pensionersBig problems never start out that way. They always start out as small problems or mistakes. That is why a good culture tries to catch problems and mistakes at the earliest stage so that they can be corrected, people taught what to do better next time and the issues treated as learning opportunities and a chance to make improvements rather than let them turn into crises to be managed.
But what you also need is zero tolerance of the sorts of mistakes which can blow you up eg a lack of integrity. We are bad as a society at distinguishing between the mistakes, failings, errors which can be used as opportunities to learn and those which we ought to be much much tougher on.
It is because we fail to do this, because people fail to take responsibility for anything at all that when something is uncovered, there are calls for resignation. Denial always makes the issue worse.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
If you put the last yougov poll into electoral calculus it gives moo... 38 seats for the conservatives.... if this polling trend gets worse, the tories are looking at total annihilation as an electoral party ... that has to be priced in...the cost of a long strategy failing is incredibly high.... a rational mind will cut losses to retain something.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
https://twitter.com/doctor_oxford/status/1750095892848263265?t=mbkDA_DaVLiQ3Pwr_1GD-g&s=19
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
I think the PM choosing to leave it so late, for what are the nakedly political reasons of hoping something positive turns up, might do down badly with the electorate.
"Why people remember wars, and forget plagues"
https://unherd.com/2020/05/why-we-remember-wars-but-forget-plagues/
Written in May 2020. About two months in
2020!
Terrifically presicent: his acumen is much missed on here. I bet he'd agree with me about the later lockdowns
April or May is hard because of the polls. Why lose now when you can not lose now.
June / early July will be impossible after the local elections.
The summer holidays is impossible for practical reasons.
September is also impossible because you'd have to call it, and campaign, in the same summer holidays.
December means a month of faffing about in Westminster after the conferences, to no useful end.
January is even more faffing, plus disrupting the election with Xmas / NY, to media, public (and activist) annoyance.
So Oct / Nov is the only window that makes sense.
The argument for October is that it's lighter, doesn't get disrupted at the end with the uncertainties of a Trump win or uncertain result in America, and doesn't give the opposition a parliamentary bite at the cherry.
The argument for November is that the Tory conference is the last decent chance the Tories have to set the narrative largely on their own initiative.
Of the two, I'd favour November but Oct is perhaps the value bet.
Other good stuff on there for newbies, IMHO:
Slow Horses - as discussed on here before. It gets better and better.
For All Mankind - I’m not particularly a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed this, but the latest series isn’t so good. The alternative history shtick is perhaps feeling its age.
Ted Lasso - superb, feel good, makes my eyes leak far too often. Probably a bit woke for some but worth the admission price for the Amazonian Hannah Waddingham alone.
Shrinking - Harrison Ford steals every scene in this comedy about dysfunctional therapists. Again, may be too woke for some but for a bleeding heart liberal like me it’s great.
I'd like to see evidence about what the Senior Civil Servant who sat on the Operation Sparrow Committee relayed back to ministers.
Will DM readers really put their hand in their pocket to read the columnists though? I’d be surprised if many of them would.
That said, a lot depends on the implementation - the Telegraph paywall is trivial to get around. The Times and the FT are more difficult but still possible.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
Barrage design using low velocity water wheels. Probably less plausible if Port Talbot steelworks is being taken offline... but does feel a bit like "look at what you could have won..."
You can reach me on my Vanilla email
leonsmoothsnake@gmail.com
He won't last that long...
I ehar Griselda is great, as well
Sadly, I cannot recommend Money Heist, which started off OK but gets more and more ridiculous til it plot problems overwhelm the whole
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is the same but worse (Apple TV0; starts great then totally falls apart in a swamp of Woke GenZ badly plotted drivel, with shit acting and terrible CGI (how? Apple is so rich??)
There’s no way there’s a majority in the parliamentary party for a Braverman putsch, yet here they are talking about it. Where they then win is after the election, when the membership (who will by now be even more ancient and right wing than last time when they elected Truss) get their chance to install a nutter.
The whole thing is still a huge mess though, there really needs to be a JFDI culture brought into major infrastructure projects - this line should really be open by now, all of it to Leeds and Liverpool.
Deletions seem more likely in the future as politicians fear the consequences of messages entering the public domain
https://bylinetimes.com/2024/01/26/revealed-government-advises-mps-and-staff-to-turn-on-disappearing-messages-citing-security-concerns/
Nothing to see here, or not for long anyway. Not corruption you understand, but security in case your government phone falls into the hands of the CIA, KGB or BBC.
All so he could stand at conference and say he was the 'change candidate' ripping up 30 years of tory thinking. A strategy which lasted barely a couple of weeks.
https://www.economist.com/international/2020/04/18/how-the-spanish-flu-of-1918-20-was-largely-forgotten
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
Could it be because Sunak is just stunningly stupid at politics?
Some articles free, some behind the wall - or so it is said
As for Boris' column, the fact you are all talking about it, and linking to it, suggests that it is doing its job rather well, and drawing still more eyes to the Daily Mail website, so they are probably quite pleased with their new employee
My grandfather called them back to Manchester after the winter in which the 2 girls had to wade 2 miles through snow to get to primary school. Safer with the German bombs in Manchester was his view.
Also, it doesn't explain WHY we forget plagues, and remember wars, unlike that other brilliant piece
Fail
What’s the FPTP equivalent of losing by an innings? Having fewer than half of the winning party’s seat count perhaps?
That would mean that 1997 and 2001 were innings defeats. 1983 wasn’t. In 1945 Churchill avoided innings defeat by one seat.
The government has simply run out of steam, as all governments do after so long in power, so they might as well let Sunak stay as the deckchair rearranger on the Titanic.
We need to look more closely at why mistakes were made and a little less at the consequences.
Leveling up, Tory style.
But I cannot help thinking Elon needs just one more tweak to Twix's trend classification algorithm.
Because in the end these lefty traitors will have to pick a side. The West, or the Rest?
And they will have to sign up and actually FIGHT, and then they will realise why we have and we need patriotism, and a sense of identity, and why we need to defend the same free speech and democratic liberty that allows them to be Woke in the first place
Those that won't fight can go to Novosibirsk and do their Trans Activist Parades there
2. Another leadership election probably rules out a general election this side of the summer holidays anyway, just on timetabling.
Too many people had their lives upended for years, or were personally affected by the virus itself - not to mention the brave people working in healthcare such as yourself and your wife, for whom the horrror of it was encountered up close on a daily basis.
In the end non-western actors - I predicted - will start taking out THEIR enemies on foreign soil, eg on the territory of western nations. And we won't like it, but we won't have much of a moral argument
Someone properly prescient would have written it a couple of years earlier.
https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/25/spanish-flu-pandemic-1918-forgetting-100-million-deaths
...In the face of such figures, it seems unbelievable that we forget or look away. Yet we do. Perhaps that is because, unlike equality for women, a disease has no ultimate prize to win and celebrate...
..For there will be another Spanish flu pandemic one day. The 1918 outbreak occurred because the viral strain acquired the ability to infect humans and then to become transmissible among humans. Other strains have that potential too. Global warming may empower the strongest ones still further. The world of 2018 is infinitely more interconnected than that of 1918. ..
Whatever happened to him? He used to be one of the few go-to writers on the Guardian, with unexpected stuff like that. Now he just rehashes tedious anti-Tory talking points
Indeed, this can be said of several Guardian writers.Toynbee has completely lost it (age?). Owen Jones is wholly lost in la-la-Corbynland. Marina Hyde used to be great, now hmmm
The only Guardian writer I now turn to with anticipation is Jay Rayner, on restaurants. And sometimes that cricket dude with the weird name