I don't think the intention is to keep matches secret. If you have Newcastle playing West Ham at a stadium in Manchester then it's less likely that fans will congregate outside the ground then if it's played at either teams home ground.
And they think some grounds will be better for social distancing than others.
But given the Bundesliga is restarting this weekend with teams playing home games at their home venue, the PL will try to get this too.
But what marking strategy at corners will Brighton use ? Why hasn’t Boris explained it - it’s so confusing. Why Boris why didn’t you explain it ?
If Texas goes Democrat, you might as well give up trying to win the presidency if you're a Republican for the next 20 years.
Does that actually follow? If Texas votes Democrat on a 50:50 national vote split then I'd guess that there would have to be a bunch of other states that flipped the other way, maybe New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maine (at large), for example.
I have read all the guidance on the HSE website regarding the requirements that employers must carry out to protect their staff. It’s very detailed and comprehensive. The HSE will also be carrying out far more spot checks to ensure compliance. It’s worth a read.
If they had released all the documents at the same time as Boris gave his speech, they wouldn't have got half the incoming.
Boris’s address was superfluous; it hasn’t added anything except confusion.
Viewing figures between 27 and 30 million
That is a huge figure
That's a vindication of the No. 10 strategy, if half the country actually tuned in to listen to the PM directly - rather than listening to others interpret and spin his words in their own way. 27m is in the top 10 TV audiences of all time, up there with World Cup matches, which is why he went for the 7pm Sunday slot.
That the media collectively shat themselves for a few hours, between the PM's address to the people and the announcement in Parliament, shows exactly why the strategy was necessary in the first place.
Sod the death toll and go for the viewing figures? If you are right about vindicating Number 10's strategy then perhaps that is the problem, that Boris and Cummings are more interested in spin than science. It's a pandemic, not an election campaign.
Not at all - by having the PM address the nation on Sunday night, rather than Monday night, he managed to get ahead of the media spin and let the people hear him directly.
A Monday night address would have been completely overshadowed with media talking points and opposition to the plans that were unveiled on Monday in Parliament.
It’s not about whether it is overshadowed and how successful it is in media spin.
It was a Prime Ministerial address, and is supposed to have an important purpose in sending us a clear message. Which it comprehensively failed to do.
No, it's entirely about avoiding the spin and getting through to the general public directly.
Those listening to what the PM actually said - rather than what others said he said, or think he said, or want to think he said - will have a much clearer idea of what is actually going on.
By its very nature, the next phase is more complicated and can't be distilled in to a single soundbite - which is really upsetting the likes of Rigby and Peston, who appear not to have the capacity to think beyond a single soundbite.
"getting through" implies there is something to get through. Whereas it was just a holding exercise of waffle while the civil servants hurried to write up the latest change of tack.
The 50-page document was ready to go on Sunday, it only wasn't released at the same time as the PM's speech because the correct protocol was to release it first to Parliament.
If the PM had instead spoken on Monday night, all we would have seen on the news was the spin and out-of-context quotes, not what the PM actually had to say. By making the speech on Sunday night, everyone (literally half the country, a massive TV audience) got to hear the actual message.
FWIW, I'm expecting more of the same process in future. A public statement, followed by more detailed Parliamentary statement and questioning, then the press conference. The press conference last being quite the deliberate strategy, in an attempt to try and hold back the utter inanity that's dominated the Lobby's efforts for the last three months.
Well William Hague has conceded that the address was unclear and it would have been better to have had it after the parliamentary debate. Using up a PM nationwide address when the message hasn't been finalised and isn't clear really wasn't wise.
Mr Hague's actual words:
This has major implications for how ministers should present their approach. I make no criticism of Mr Johnson for his broadcast on Sunday evening – he spoke well and clearly, the direction he set was right, and the immediate decisions justified. But he would be well advised in future to present a detailed statement to Parliament first, with the accompanying documents and detail, and then address the nation. Then there would be far fewer opportunities for critics to jump on the absence of detail, or for the media to have to rely on briefings about the implications. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/11/slogans-far-simplistic-complex-emergency-like-one/
TL:DR - In an environment that's fast changing and getting more complex, a simple slogan is no longer sufficient. In making his address, the PM is right, and the media don't understand what's going on unless it's spoon-fed to them.
Your blind loyalty to a person that is clearly not up to the job by almost every measure is touching.
Your blind disloyalty to someone who is clearly doing their best in the most challenging of circumstances, is quite something to behold.
His "best" is simply not good enough. All those Conservative party members that voted for the buffoon, and those that encouraged them, are as culpable in the debacle as he is. He needs to be called to account and he needs to up his game or step aside. I have no allegiance to the man, so it is not "disloyalty". I have historic (now past) allegiance to the Conservative Party and current and ever strong allegiance to the country that I was born in, live in, employ people and pay taxes in. The current PM is a fool, a liar and a poseur, and for those reasons only idiots will continue to blindly trust him, and the team of lightweight sycophants that he has surrounded himself with.
If Texas goes Democrat, you might as well give up trying to win the presidency if you're a Republican for the next 20 years.
Does that actually follow? If Texas votes Democrat on a 50:50 national vote split then I'd guess that there would have to be a bunch of other states that flipped the other way, maybe New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maine (at large), for example.
Historically, of course, Texas always voted Dem; it was Civil Rights which switched it to Rep. Ironic really, when the Republicans were the party of Lincoln, the one in power when the North won the Civil War.
Measuring immunity is important, but it isn’t easy. The most obvious way is to look for the presence of antibodies. But antibodies to what? The virus has many components. Its main entry weapon is known as Spike. This is a large, sugar-coated protein complex that can rip a hole in the membrane of a cell to allow the virus to enter. Block Spike, and you keep the virus out. It’s easy enough to measure antibodies to Spike, but not all of them actually prevent the virus from entering cells. To find out whether the antibodies are doing their job effectively, you have to culture the virus in a high-containment facility, titrate tiny amounts of serum extracted from the test subject’s blood into the virus culture, and demonstrate that the serum blocks the virus. It’s painfully slow. We are working on ways to make these assays faster, easier and more accurate. So are many others, and for once I’m happy when another lab does something better. The procedure isn’t going to be useful for testing on a large scale: instead, we’ll have to correlate antibody tests with the neutralisation assays. Some of the newly developed commercial antibody tests will probably correlate well. Others will be useful only for epidemiologists as markers of infection. Until very recently, most of the widely available tests have been so inaccurate as to be useless.
If someone outside a high-end research lab has conducted a test for you purporting to show that you are ‘immune’, I strongly caution against assuming it means anything. Lots of people have had symptoms compatible with coronavirus. In a recent draft of a study from an excellent laboratory in New York, 99.5 per cent of people who had confirmed infection developed antibodies eventually, sometimes several weeks after the test for the virus itself. Only 38 per cent of people with likely symptoms of Covid-19 – but with no positive test – had developed antibodies. Assuming that probable infection means definite immunity is a very big mistake.
There are four ‘seasonal’ coronaviruses – 229E, OC43, NL63 and HKU1 – that cause mild disease in nearly everyone, only occasionally causing pneumonia. They can be given to healthy volunteers to study the immune response. They cause the ‘common cold’, and in experimentally infected humans they give rise to an antibody response. That response wanes after a few months, and the same people can be experimentally reinfected, though they tend to get milder symptoms the second time round. It is thought that adults get reinfected on average about once every five years. Sars-CoV-2 causes mild disease in most cases, and gives rise to antibody responses in nearly all cases. We don’t know how long these responses will last, but it is likely that people who suffer only mild disease will be susceptible to reinfection after a few months or years. Humanity has never developed ‘herd immunity’ to any coronavirus, and it’s unlikely that Sars-CoV-2 infection will be any different. If we did nothing, a likely possibility is that Covid-19 would become a recurring plague. We don’t know yet.
That would mess up the Swedish strategy rather nastily. And before anyone leaps on this as being “happy” about that, I’m also painfully aware that we’ve got a per capita death rate greater than theirs’ at the moment, so if their strategy worked, we could have ended up with the same benefits without deliberately going for it.
I have read all the guidance on the HSE website regarding the requirements that employers must carry out to protect their staff. It’s very detailed and comprehensive. The HSE will also be carrying out far more spot checks to ensure compliance. It’s worth a read.
If they had released all the documents at the same time as Boris gave his speech, they wouldn't have got half the incoming.
Boris’s address was superfluous; it hasn’t added anything except confusion.
Viewing figures between 27 and 30 million
That is a huge figure
That's a vindication of the No. 10 strategy, if half the country actually tuned in to listen to the PM directly - rather than listening to others interpret and spin his words in their own way. 27m is in the top 10 TV audiences of all time, up there with World Cup matches, which is why he went for the 7pm Sunday slot.
That the media collectively shat themselves for a few hours, between the PM's address to the people and the announcement in Parliament, shows exactly why the strategy was necessary in the first place.
Sod the death toll and go for the viewing figures? If you are right about vindicating Number 10's strategy then perhaps that is the problem, that Boris and Cummings are more interested in spin than science. It's a pandemic, not an election campaign.
Not at all - by having the PM address the nation on Sunday night, rather than Monday night, he managed to get ahead of the media spin and let the people hear him directly.
A Monday night address would have been completely overshadowed with media talking points and opposition to the plans that were unveiled on Monday in Parliament.
It’s not about whether it is overshadowed and how successful it is in media spin.
It was a Prime Ministerial address, and is supposed to have an important purpose in sending us a clear message. Which it comprehensively failed to do.
I really think you've got that wrong.
Johnson sounded serious and conveyed the need now to change. Of course people feel threatened and confused but that's not because of the PM. It's because the 'Stay Home' message was something everyone could get. It worked, and worked too well. It instilled fear into the hardest of hearts (not Peter Hitchens, obvs). So they did their job.
Phase 2, releasing the headlock, is like letting a colony of house rabbits out on a wild warren for the first time. They're now scared. They want to return to their hutches. To feel warm, snug and secure where this evil invisible predator cannot snatch them away.
It's all Maslow.
Boris Johnson did just fine.
You must have watched a different broadcast to me. It was the most ghastly and amateurish presentation I have ever seen from a leading politician. Even the hopeless Corbyn would have done it better. Content: 2/10; presentation 2/10; clarity of message 1/10. If that had been a job interview presentation he would have failed a junior management assessment.
As i said yesterday my 13 year old nephew totally understood it.
Your 13 year old nephew certainly did better than Dominic Raab then. Perhaps he should be appointed Foreign Sec.?
That's a vindication of the No. 10 strategy, if half the country actually tuned in to listen to the PM directly - rather than listening to others interpret and spin his words in their own way. 27m is in the top 10 TV audiences of all time, up there with World Cup matches, which is why he went for the 7pm Sunday slot.
That the media collectively shat themselves for a few hours, between the PM's address to the people and the announcement in Parliament, shows exactly why the strategy was necessary in the first place.
Sod the death toll and go for the viewing figures? If you are right about vindicating Number 10's strategy then perhaps that is the problem, that Boris and Cummings are more interested in spin than science. It's a pandemic, not an election campaign.
Not at all - by having the PM address the nation on Sunday night, rather than Monday night, he managed to get ahead of the media spin and let the people hear him directly.
A Monday night address would have been completely overshadowed with media talking points and opposition to the plans that were unveiled on Monday in Parliament.
It’s not about whether it is overshadowed and how successful it is in media spin.
It was a Prime Ministerial address, and is supposed to have an important purpose in sending us a clear message. Which it comprehensively failed to do.
No, it's entirely about avoiding the spin and getting through to the general public directly.
Those listening to what the PM actually said - rather than what others said he said, or think he said, or want to think he said - will have a much clearer idea of what is actually going on.
By its very nature, the next phase is more complicated and can't be distilled in to a single soundbite - which is really upsetting the likes of Rigby and Peston, who appear not to have the capacity to think beyond a single soundbite.
"getting through" implies there is something to get through. Whereas it was just a holding exercise of waffle while the civil servants hurried to write up the latest change of tack.
The 50-page document was ready to go on Sunday, it only wasn't released at the same time as the PM's speech because the correct protocol was to release it first to Parliament.
If the PM had instead spoken on Monday night, all we would have seen on the news was the spin and out-of-context quotes, not what the PM actually had to say. By making the speech on Sunday night, everyone (literally half the country, a massive TV audience) got to hear the actual message.
FWIW, I'm expecting more of the same process in future. A public statement, followed by more detailed Parliamentary statement and questioning, then the press conference. The press conference last being quite the deliberate strategy, in an attempt to try and hold back the utter inanity that's dominated the Lobby's efforts for the last three months.
That is to defend in terms of spin. What resulted was confusion about what the government wants us to do, and the slow realisation that the government itself is not sure.
It's hardly the fault of the Prime Minister, that the Lobby hacks can't see past their own noses and don't understand words of more than one syllable.
Lobby hacks, the public, MPs, the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister. Either everyone is an idiot or there was a late change of plan.
Why shouldn't there be a late change or adjustment to the plan. In fact in PMQs Boris said the reason for the Sunday address was because they were waiting for the data that was coming in later this week in order to get as much data as they can before they announce the plan.
The only reason you'd do that is because you were planning to change the plan depending upon what that data says - and he was already saying the data isn't in thus the plan isn't finalised at PMQs.
The fact the media missed that isn't here nor there.
The hypothesis is that Sunday was scheduled to present the agreed plan but this was not possible after something (possibly the German uptick) spooked them. This has the merit of explaining both the content-light presentation and the subsequent confusion, and it does so without suggesting Boris is a cock or any deficiency on the part of ministers, journalists or the public.
O/T, the Tories have a lot of reasons to be worried about Starmer. The main one is perhaps that the general population will catch up with the fact that he is a professional and Johnson a rank amateur. Not only does he look more Prime Ministerial, he IS more prime ministerial. The second one is that is you agree with my analysis that the main reason for the collapse of the Red Wall was not Brexit, but a phobia of Corbyn then that causes problems for the Tories at the next GE. If you adhere to HYUFD's belief that it was because of Brexit then this will surely not be anything like an issue at the next GE,except in the minds of the most stalwart believer. Tories in ex-Labour seats would be wise to be setting up contingency plans for employment after the next GE. Their two main reasons to be have been removed.
The next general election is likely to still be hard Brexit WTO terms with Boris and no free movement or return to the single market with Starmer
I have read all the guidance on the HSE website regarding the requirements that employers must carry out to protect their staff. It’s very detailed and comprehensive. The HSE will also be carrying out far more spot checks to ensure compliance. It’s worth a read.
If they had released all the documents at the same time as Boris gave his speech, they wouldn't have got half the incoming.
Boris’s address was superfluous; it hasn’t added anything except confusion.
Viewing figures between 27 and 30 million
That is a huge figure
That's a vindication of the No. 10 strategy, if half the country actually tuned in to listen to the PM directly - rather than listening to others interpret and spin his words in their own way. 27m is in the top 10 TV audiences of all time, up there with World Cup matches, which is why he went for the 7pm Sunday slot.
That the media collectively shat themselves for a few hours, between the PM's address to the people and the announcement in Parliament, shows exactly why the strategy was necessary in the first place.
Sod the death toll and go for the viewing figures? If you are right about vindicating Number 10's strategy then perhaps that is the problem, that Boris and Cummings are more interested in spin than science. It's a pandemic, not an election campaign.
Not at all - by having the PM address the nation on Sunday night, rather than Monday night, he managed to get ahead of the media spin and let the people hear him directly.
A Monday night address would have been completely overshadowed with media talking points and opposition to the plans that were unveiled on Monday in Parliament.
It’s not about whether it is overshadowed and how successful it is in media spin.
It was a Prime Ministerial address, and is supposed to have an important purpose in sending us a clear message. Which it comprehensively failed to do.
I really think you've got that wrong.
Johnson sounded serious and conveyed the need now to change. Of course people feel threatened and confused but that's not because of the PM. It's because the 'Stay Home' message was something everyone could get. It worked, and worked too well. It instilled fear into the hardest of hearts (not Peter Hitchens, obvs). So they did their job.
Phase 2, releasing the headlock, is like letting a colony of house rabbits out on a wild warren for the first time. They're now scared. They want to return to their hutches. To feel warm, snug and secure where this evil invisible predator cannot snatch them away.
It's all Maslow.
Boris Johnson did just fine.
It really wasn't fine. First of all you had the spin doctors briefing papers on "Freedom is coming". Then Johnson on Sunday announces a number of inconsequential easings of lockdown, a new meaningless slogan, and by the way you need to go back to work tomorrow. Then the realisation that actually they need some sort of planning. And then the release of the plan, which is in fact a decent one.
You don't have to be a genius of communication to know to focus on the key points, which in this case is getting people back to work safely. So the presentation should be explicitly about that: explain what the government expects from employers and employees and what support the government is giving to both. It's not difficult.
Johnson never said "you need to go to work tomorrow".
If you're going to criticise something at least try watching it. And if you watched it you need to pay more attention to the words that were actually said.
I had to go back to the transcript (which already shows a problem) and you are strictly correct. Johnson actually said "work from home if you can, but you should go to work if you can’t work from home." He made some vague references to guidelines, that you might assume already exist.. And this well down in the middle of the speech and wasn't given a lot of prominence. Point is, a reasonable person paying a moderate amount of attention would understand the instruction to apply from now. And indeed most people understand it that way.
I have read all the guidance on the HSE website regarding the requirements that employers must carry out to protect their staff. It’s very detailed and comprehensive. The HSE will also be carrying out far more spot checks to ensure compliance. It’s worth a read.
If they had released all the documents at the same time as Boris gave his speech, they wouldn't have got half the incoming.
Boris’s address was superfluous; it hasn’t added anything except confusion.
Viewing figures between 27 and 30 million
That is a huge figure
That's a vindication of the No. 10 strategy, if half the country actually tuned in to listen to the PM directly - rather than listening to others interpret and spin his words in their own way. 27m is in the top 10 TV audiences of all time, up there with World Cup matches, which is why he went for the 7pm Sunday slot.
That the media collectively shat themselves for a few hours, between the PM's address to the people and the announcement in Parliament, shows exactly why the strategy was necessary in the first place.
Sod the death toll and go for the viewing figures? If you are right about vindicating Number 10's strategy then perhaps that is the problem, that Boris and Cummings are more interested in spin than science. It's a pandemic, not an election campaign.
Not at all - by having the PM address the nation on Sunday night, rather than Monday night, he managed to get ahead of the media spin and let the people hear him directly.
A Monday night address would have been completely overshadowed with media talking points and opposition to the plans that were unveiled on Monday in Parliament.
It’s not about whether it is overshadowed and how successful it is in media spin.
It was a Prime Ministerial address, and is supposed to have an important purpose in sending us a clear message. Which it comprehensively failed to do.
I really think you've got that wrong.
Johnson sounded serious and conveyed the need now to change. Of course people feel threatened and confused but that's not because of the PM. It's because the 'Stay Home' message was something everyone could get. It worked, and worked too well. It instilled fear into the hardest of hearts (not Peter Hitchens, obvs). So they did their job.
Phase 2, releasing the headlock, is like letting a colony of house rabbits out on a wild warren for the first time. They're now scared. They want to return to their hutches. To feel warm, snug and secure where this evil invisible predator cannot snatch them away.
It's all Maslow.
Boris Johnson did just fine.
You must have watched a different broadcast to me. It was the most ghastly and amateurish presentation I have ever seen from a leading politician. Even the hopeless Corbyn would have done it better. Content: 2/10; presentation 2/10; clarity of message 1/10. If that had been a job interview presentation he would have failed a junior management assessment.
We get it. He's left you. It's very sad. He's never coming back. He's found somebody else.
Somebody who isn't a shrieking, repetitive, cloying, clawing, self-obsessed harridan, with a massively inflated opinion of how much of a catch you were, back in the day. Well, the looks (such as they were) have gone, the tits have sagged, the arse is now the size of a small country. So accept the world has moved on, go rent yourself a gigolo and stop boring your circle of "friends" to death about your break up.
I don't think the intention is to keep matches secret. If you have Newcastle playing West Ham at a stadium in Manchester then it's less likely that fans will congregate outside the ground then if it's played at either teams home ground.
How about we treat the public as if they are responsible? Is that so difficult?
The Germans are doing it, and when the Germans do it its great, but when we suggest that its horrific.
I didn't say I thought it was necessary, but I do think there is a rational argument for it.
Another advantage cited is that you could play a series of games at one ground which would mean you'd only need one set of people to do the TV broadcast.
I'm not going to be upset if football teams play at their home grounds.
O/T, the Tories have a lot of reasons to be worried about Starmer. The main one is perhaps that the general population will catch up with the fact that he is a professional and Johnson a rank amateur. Not only does he look more Prime Ministerial, he IS more prime ministerial. The second one is that is you agree with my analysis that the main reason for the collapse of the Red Wall was not Brexit, but a phobia of Corbyn then that causes problems for the Tories at the next GE. If you adhere to HYUFD's belief that it was because of Brexit then this will surely not be anything like an issue at the next GE,except in the minds of the most stalwart believer. Tories in ex-Labour seats would be wise to be setting up contingency plans for employment after the next GE. Their two main reasons to be have been removed.
The next general election is likely to still be hard Brexit WTO terms with Boris and no free movement or return to the single market with Starmer
Wouldn't that mean we'd still be in a transition state until then?
I have read all the guidance on the HSE website regarding the requirements that employers must carry out to protect their staff. It’s very detailed and comprehensive. The HSE will also be carrying out far more spot checks to ensure compliance. It’s worth a read.
If they had released all the documents at the same time as Boris gave his speech, they wouldn't have got half the incoming.
Boris’s address was superfluous; it hasn’t added anything except confusion.
Viewing figures between 27 and 30 million
That is a huge figure
That's a vindication of the No. 10 strategy, if half the country actually tuned in to listen to the PM directly - rather than listening to others interpret and spin his words in their own way. 27m is in the top 10 TV audiences of all time, up there with World Cup matches, which is why he went for the 7pm Sunday slot.
That the media collectively shat themselves for a few hours, between the PM's address to the people and the announcement in Parliament, shows exactly why the strategy was necessary in the first place.
Sod the death toll and go for the viewing figures? If you are right about vindicating Number 10's strategy then perhaps that is the problem, that Boris and Cummings are more interested in spin than science. It's a pandemic, not an election campaign.
Not at all - by having the PM address the nation on Sunday night, rather than Monday night, he managed to get ahead of the media spin and let the people hear him directly.
A Monday night address would have been completely overshadowed with media talking points and opposition to the plans that were unveiled on Monday in Parliament.
It’s not about whether it is overshadowed and how successful it is in media spin.
It was a Prime Ministerial address, and is supposed to have an important purpose in sending us a clear message. Which it comprehensively failed to do.
I really think you've got that wrong.
Johnson sounded serious and conveyed the need now to change. Of course people feel threatened and confused but that's not because of the PM. It's because the 'Stay Home' message was something everyone could get. It worked, and worked too well. It instilled fear into the hardest of hearts (not Peter Hitchens, obvs). So they did their job.
Phase 2, releasing the headlock, is like letting a colony of house rabbits out on a wild warren for the first time. They're now scared. They want to return to their hutches. To feel warm, snug and secure where this evil invisible predator cannot snatch them away.
It's all Maslow.
Boris Johnson did just fine.
It really wasn't fine. First of all you had the spin doctors briefing papers on "Freedom is coming". Then Johnson on Sunday announces a number of inconsequential easings of lockdown, a new meaningless slogan, and by the way you need to go back to work tomorrow. Then the realisation that actually they need some sort of planning. And then the release of the plan, which is in fact a decent one.
You don't have to be a genius of communication to know to focus on the key points, which in this case is getting people back to work safely. So the presentation should be explicitly about that: explain what the government expects from employers and employees and what support the government is giving to both. It's not difficult.
Johnson never said "you need to go to work tomorrow".
If you're going to criticise something at least try watching it. And if you watched it you need to pay more attention to the words that were actually said.
I had to go back to the transcript (which already shows a problem) and you are strictly correct. Johnson actually said "work from home if you can, but you should go to work if you can’t work from home." He made some vague references to guidelines, that you might assume already exist.. And this well down in the middle of the speech and wasn't given a lot of prominence. Point is, a reasonable person paying a moderate amount of attention would understand the instruction to apply from now. And indeed most people understand it that way.
Turns out the "work from Monday" rule was issued in a press release to journalists so they could write about the speech before actually listening to it
If Texas goes Democrat, you might as well give up trying to win the presidency if you're a Republican for the next 20 years.
Does that actually follow? If Texas votes Democrat on a 50:50 national vote split then I'd guess that there would have to be a bunch of other states that flipped the other way, maybe New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maine (at large), for example.
You're each imagining different scenarios.
If all you knew about the next election was that Biden has won Texas, you'd conclude he'd won maybe a 54-46 victory and a landslide election.
However all you knew was that he'd swung Texas but had only won 50% of the vote nationally, you'd wonder what a strange election that would be.
Tories only have two settings: complacent arrogance and blind panic. It seems that SKS has flipped the switch on some of them, which is nice. Personally I doubt Starmer has the showbiz angle that seems to be necessary in these degraded times. But who knows, maybe serious and sober is in now.
I don't think the intention is to keep matches secret. If you have Newcastle playing West Ham at a stadium in Manchester then it's less likely that fans will congregate outside the ground then if it's played at either teams home ground.
How about we treat the public as if they are responsible? Is that so difficult?
The Germans are doing it, and when the Germans do it its great, but when we suggest that its horrific.
I didn't say I thought it was necessary, but I do think there is a rational argument for it.
Another advantage cited is that you could play a series of games at one ground which would mean you'd only need one set of people to do the TV broadcast.
I'm not going to be upset if football teams play at their home grounds.
If the fear is that fans will turn up ("I ain't missed a home game since the War and a bit of virus in the crowd won't stop me now") - then the FA and the clubs jointly let it be known that anybody caught on CCTV outside the ground breaking the social distancing rules will be banned from all football grounds for five years.
I don't think the intention is to keep matches secret. If you have Newcastle playing West Ham at a stadium in Manchester then it's less likely that fans will congregate outside the ground then if it's played at either teams home ground.
How about we treat the public as if they are responsible? Is that so difficult?
The Germans are doing it, and when the Germans do it its great, but when we suggest that its horrific.
I didn't say I thought it was necessary, but I do think there is a rational argument for it.
Another advantage cited is that you could play a series of games at one ground which would mean you'd only need one set of people to do the TV broadcast.
I'm not going to be upset if football teams play at their home grounds.
If the fear is that fans will turn up ("I ain't missed a home game since the War and a bit of virus in the crowd won't stop me now") - then the FA and the clubs jointly let it be known that anybody caught on CCTV outside the ground breaking the social distancing rules will be banned from all football grounds for five years.
I've never worked out how somebody can be banned from all football grounds in terms of policing it
O/T, the Tories have a lot of reasons to be worried about Starmer. The main one is perhaps that the general population will catch up with the fact that he is a professional and Johnson a rank amateur. Not only does he look more Prime Ministerial, he IS more prime ministerial. The second one is that is you agree with my analysis that the main reason for the collapse of the Red Wall was not Brexit, but a phobia of Corbyn then that causes problems for the Tories at the next GE. If you adhere to HYUFD's belief that it was because of Brexit then this will surely not be anything like an issue at the next GE,except in the minds of the most stalwart believer. Tories in ex-Labour seats would be wise to be setting up contingency plans for employment after the next GE. Their two main reasons to be have been removed.
The next general election is likely to still be hard Brexit WTO terms with Boris and no free movement or return to the single market with Starmer
Wouldn't that mean we'd still be in a transition state until then?
No, Boris will have ended the transition period from next year
I have read all the guidance on the HSE website regarding the requirements that employers must carry out to protect their staff. It’s very detailed and comprehensive. The HSE will also be carrying out far more spot checks to ensure compliance. It’s worth a read.
If they had released all the documents at the same time as Boris gave his speech, they wouldn't have got half the incoming.
Boris’s address was superfluous; it hasn’t added anything except confusion.
Viewing figures between 27 and 30 million
That is a huge figure
That's a vindication of the No. 10 strategy, if half the country actually tuned in to listen to the PM directly - rather than listening to others interpret and spin his words in their own way. 27m is in the top 10 TV audiences of all time, up there with World Cup matches, which is why he went for the 7pm Sunday slot.
That the media collectively shat themselves for a few hours, between the PM's address to the people and the announcement in Parliament, shows exactly why the strategy was necessary in the first place.
Sod the death toll and go for the viewing figures? If you are right about vindicating Number 10's strategy then perhaps that is the problem, that Boris and Cummings are more interested in spin than science. It's a pandemic, not an election campaign.
Not at all - by having the PM address the nation on Sunday night, rather than Monday night, he managed to get ahead of the media spin and let the people hear him directly.
A Monday night address would have been completely overshadowed with media talking points and opposition to the plans that were unveiled on Monday in Parliament.
It’s not about whether it is overshadowed and how successful it is in media spin.
It was a Prime Ministerial address, and is supposed to have an important purpose in sending us a clear message. Which it comprehensively failed to do.
I really think you've got that wrong.
Johnson sounded serious and conveyed the need now to change. Of course people feel threatened and confused but that's not because of the PM. It's because the 'Stay Home' message was something everyone could get. It worked, and worked too well. It instilled fear into the hardest of hearts (not Peter Hitchens, obvs). So they did their job.
Phase 2, releasing the headlock, is like letting a colony of house rabbits out on a wild warren for the first time. They're now scared. They want to return to their hutches. To feel warm, snug and secure where this evil invisible predator cannot snatch them away.
It's all Maslow.
Boris Johnson did just fine.
It really wasn't fine. First of all you had the spin doctors briefing papers on "Freedom is coming". Then Johnson on Sunday announces a number of inconsequential easings of lockdown, a new meaningless slogan, and by the way you need to go back to work tomorrow. Then the realisation that actually they need some sort of planning. And then the release of the plan, which is in fact a decent one.
You don't have to be a genius of communication to know to focus on the key points, which in this case is getting people back to work safely. So the presentation should be explicitly about that: explain what the government expects from employers and employees and what support the government is giving to both. It's not difficult.
Johnson never said "you need to go to work tomorrow".
If you're going to criticise something at least try watching it. And if you watched it you need to pay more attention to the words that were actually said.
I had to go back to the transcript (which already shows a problem) and you are strictly correct. Johnson actually said "work from home if you can, but you should go to work if you can’t work from home." He made some vague references to guidelines, that you might assume already exist.. And this well down in the middle of the speech and wasn't given a lot of prominence. Point is, a reasonable person paying a moderate amount of attention would understand the instruction to apply from now. And indeed most people understand it that way.
Turns out the "work from Monday" rule was issued in a press release to journalists so they could write about the speech before actually listening to it
Is that because you can actually go into the office if you can't work from home, and have been able to do so since 23 March. So Boris was merely encouraging us to do what we already can. The new workplace rules probably need to be in an SI. Of course, there is nothing stopping employers from implementing social distancing measures immediately, as indeed many have also been doing since before 23 March
I'm no fan of clucking leftists, but why should we suspend partisan politics?
We do so during a total war, to avoid giving unnecessary information to the enemy, which obviously doesn't apply here, or to keep morale up. And there is, or should be, an overwhelming consensus on the need to win the war.
Instead we have a crisis caused by a virus, which in its turn has caused major restrictions on civil liberties and economic activity. The measures involved have been far-reaching. It's exactly under these circumstances that public scrutiny and comment are most important, and, in a parliamentary democracy, they are inseparable from partisan politics.
In fact, if anything, I'd say there wasn't enough criticism at the start: Jezza's poor leadership may have allowed the government to get away with stuff it wouldn't have been able to.
Comments
I have historic (now past) allegiance to the Conservative Party and current and ever strong allegiance to the country that I was born in, live in, employ people and pay taxes in. The current PM is a fool, a liar and a poseur, and for those reasons only idiots will continue to blindly trust him, and the team of lightweight sycophants that he has surrounded himself with.
This board does not lack disingenuous naysayers. It's quite transparent that for them the virus crisis is no reason to suspend partisan politics.
And before anyone leaps on this as being “happy” about that, I’m also painfully aware that we’ve got a per capita death rate greater than theirs’ at the moment, so if their strategy worked, we could have ended up with the same benefits without deliberately going for it.
Somebody who isn't a shrieking, repetitive, cloying, clawing, self-obsessed harridan, with a massively inflated opinion of how much of a catch you were, back in the day. Well, the looks (such as they were) have gone, the tits have sagged, the arse is now the size of a small country. So accept the world has moved on, go rent yourself a gigolo and stop boring your circle of "friends" to death about your break up.
Ta.
Another advantage cited is that you could play a series of games at one ground which would mean you'd only need one set of people to do the TV broadcast.
I'm not going to be upset if football teams play at their home grounds.
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1259770307482615808
If all you knew about the next election was that Biden has won Texas, you'd conclude he'd won maybe a 54-46 victory and a landslide election.
However all you knew was that he'd swung Texas but had only won 50% of the vote nationally, you'd wonder what a strange election that would be.
We do so during a total war, to avoid giving unnecessary information to the enemy, which obviously doesn't apply here, or to keep morale up. And there is, or should be, an overwhelming consensus on the need to win the war.
Instead we have a crisis caused by a virus, which in its turn has caused major restrictions on civil liberties and economic activity. The measures involved have been far-reaching. It's exactly under these circumstances that public scrutiny and comment are most important, and, in a parliamentary democracy, they are inseparable from partisan politics.
In fact, if anything, I'd say there wasn't enough criticism at the start: Jezza's poor leadership may have allowed the government to get away with stuff it wouldn't have been able to.