Not specifically, but I just get a sense our ability to self fund the deficit isn't going to last much longer. The reaction to the extended furlough scheme hasn't been received well among some of the bigger primary bond purchases I know. There is a sense that the government needs to get real about accepting job losses in sectors that aren't going to open up for a long time rather than push an unsustainable open ended wage subsidy.
The risk to the UK and sterling will be mitigated by the fact that so many other major economies are in the same boat.
To some degree, yes but I think people are starting to look at the cost of an open ended measure and wonder what Sunak is playing at by guaranteeing high level of income for people who aren't going to get a job in their current industry without a vaccine. I think if the vaccine comes good in September all of this is forgotten and the pubs ar open by the end of October for people with immunity certificates. If it doesn't does Sunak really cut the scheme and put people on UC just before Christmas? The indefinite nature of our scheme is definitely worrying a lot of people right now. We seriously need to think about a wholly contributory unemployment insurance scheme like Switzerland or Germany.
The other factor is that it doesn't look like the UK is in the position to ease lockdown measures enough to get the majority of the economy back on track. We have an undefined track and trace strategy, an app that probably doesn't work, the infection rate isn't coming down fast enough and the government aren't willing to take the big step of saying under 50s can just go for it as long as they don't come into contact with over 70s.
All of these things are feeding into a sense that the UK government is no longer in control of the crisis and will be extremely dependent on the patience of bond houses, which I sense is already beginning to wear.
It is quite probable that the furlough scheme is far cheaper than the cost of the economic damage. It is apparently costs £14Bn per month.
Yes, and the fact that Sunak has signalled the scheme wil continue until at least October it's being taken as a sign that the government doesn't expect an economic recovery at any point this year.
Why would they?
The BoE was quite clear. Awful figures this year, recovery next year. Why would Sunak be expecting a major recovery before a vaccine or end of the epidemic?
The health ministry in Brazil on Tuesday reported 881 fatalities from the disease in 24 hours, taking its total to 12,400 and making it the world’s sixth worst-affected country for deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. Brazil’s total of 177,589 confirmed cases is the seventh highest in the world.
Along with Mexico, they are two countries that tick all the boxes for having terrible outbreaks that they won't be able to manage
Posted a study yesterday that suggested they were on track for 64k deaths by next month.
It will be his record as DPP. Failed prosecutions of people who then went on to rape/murder again, declined prosecutions who did the same, falsely accused who were wrongly imprisoned etc...
Agree, must be lots of material from his time as DPP.
If we couldn't make historical support for IRA terrorism stick against Corbyn, I hold out limited hope that the public will be terribly interested in Starmer screwing up a murder trial more than a decade ago (by the time of the next election).
There is another issue covered by his time at the DPP (2008-2013) that will be of interest.
Sure - but this stuff is a minor point compared with the physical impossibility of polishing a Miliband/Brown/Starmer.
Been tried before - didn't work.
People like you have polished the turd that is the current PM good and proper. He is shit, and this crisis is proving it, and looking at him at the last PMQs even he knows he is out of his depth. He has no gift, other than conning the immensely gullible, and even with them, as the old saying goes, you can't fool all of the people all of the time. You particularly can't when the alternative is not Corbyn. Unless he resigns (which is possible), we have another 4 years for people to see how bad a choice he was for the Conservative Party and the country (except in comparison to Corbyn) . Being PM is not a job for someone that cannot master detail. Thatcher and Blair were not just in control of their own brief, they were in control of everyone else's too. Bozo can't even remember how many children he has. What a joke!
The government have made too many mistakes over the initial outbreak. We now move to a phase of suppression, while we wait for treatments or a vaccine.
There are continuing huge health and economic challenges, and if / when we get a vaccine organizing getting 70 million done in timely fashion is another massive undertaking.
We could go years having to manage the current situation and all the economic damage. And on the other hand we might not.
What shape the country and the economy will be in, in 4 years, (and against how everybody else is doing) will be how the current government are judged.
Depressing start to PMQs on deaths especially in care homes, and Starmer forensic as you would expect
Boris struggling
Boris should look for the answer in his folder and if it is not there, deflect it by promising to find out or refer to a minister. Bluster doesn't cut it when talking about thousands of deaths.
This discharging of old people into care homes. Why would suspected COVID-19 cases be discharged to make room for... COVID-19 cases?
They were never meant to be and that was never government policy. Though nursing homes are used to those with diseases getting discharged to them and have an established practice called "barrier nursing" to deal with it.
Discharges to care homes dropped during this epidemic the PM just said.
It will be his record as DPP. Failed prosecutions of people who then went on to rape/murder again, declined prosecutions who did the same, falsely accused who were wrongly imprisoned etc...
Agree, must be lots of material from his time as DPP.
If we couldn't make historical support for IRA terrorism stick against Corbyn, I hold out limited hope that the public will be terribly interested in Starmer screwing up a murder trial more than a decade ago (by the time of the next election).
There is another issue covered by his time at the DPP (2008-2013) that will be of interest.
Sure - but this stuff is a minor point compared with the physical impossibility of polishing a Miliband/Brown/Starmer.
Been tried before - didn't work.
People like you have polished the turd that is the current PM good and proper. He is shit, and this crisis is proving it, and looking at him at the last PMQs even he knows he is out of his depth. He has no gift, other than conning the immensely gullible, and even with them, as the old saying goes, you can't fool all of the people all of the time. You particularly can't when the alternative is not Corbyn. Unless he resigns (which is possible), we have another 4 years for people to see how bad a choice he was for the Conservative Party and the country (except in comparison to Corbyn) . Being PM is not a job for someone that cannot master detail. Thatcher and Blair were not just in control of their own brief, they were in control of everyone else's too. Bozo can't even remember how many children he has. What a joke!
You are hardly an unbiased commentator on Boris but to be fair, and to show my honesty, Boris is having a car crash today
OT, just watched last week's PMQ at long last. Johnson was hopeless and Starmer pulled him apart. If that happens every week and it gets coverage most people are going to wake up to the fact that it might not be a good idea to have a low on detail game show host as a PM. The Tories are going to find it difficult to undermine Starmer IMO, unless they find something that sticks that is currently unknown. A lot of PB Johnson fanbois on here have tried to suggest he is boring, which is hardly going to shift the needle much, even if it were true. One on here yesterday tried to suggest that "being forensic" was a bad thing. Maybe he ought to look at the forensic ability of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. Both would have run rings around The Clown. Johnson's advisors are going to have to do a lot better, and Johnson himself would be well advised to start looking at using some heavyweights to support him rather than surrounding himself with hopeless sycophants.
As always, one of Boris' greatest assets is his critics' unswerving dedication to underestimating him...
The SARS-CoV-2 rapidly spread around the world during 2020, but the precise time in which the virus began to spread locally is currently unknown for most countries. Here, we estimate the probable onset date of the community spread of SARS-CoV-2 from the cumulative number of deaths reported during the early stage of the epidemic in Western Europe and the Americas. Our results support that SARS-CoV-2 probably started to spread locally in all western countries analyzed between the middle of January and early February 2020, thus long before community transmission was officially recognized and control measures were implemented.
OT, just watched last week's PMQ at long last. Johnson was hopeless and Starmer pulled him apart. If that happens every week and it gets coverage most people are going to wake up to the fact that it might not be a good idea to have a low on detail game show host as a PM. The Tories are going to find it difficult to undermine Starmer IMO, unless they find something that sticks that is currently unknown. A lot of PB Johnson fanbois on here have tried to suggest he is boring, which is hardly going to shift the needle much, even if it were true. One on here yesterday tried to suggest that "being forensic" was a bad thing. Maybe he ought to look at the forensic ability of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. Both would have run rings around The Clown. Johnson's advisors are going to have to do a lot better, and Johnson himself would be well advised to start looking at using some heavyweights to support him rather than surrounding himself with hopeless sycophants.
As always, one of Boris' greatest assets is his critics' unswerving dedication to underestimating him...
Indeed but even I admit Boris is having a car crash today
On topic. I think it was the 1992 election where demonising the Labour leader had the biggest effect. Of course it is not just the Conservatives it is also the Conservative supporting press who promote this strategy, immortalised by The Sun's "will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights"
I'm confused by the second tweet. This feeds into the right's view that the average worker is undertaxed, and that there is scope to shift more of the burden onto them and away from higher earners.
It is least helpful to those who think the main burden of paying for the furlough scheme should fall onto the wealthy.
OT, just watched last week's PMQ at long last. Johnson was hopeless and Starmer pulled him apart. If that happens every week and it gets coverage most people are going to wake up to the fact that it might not be a good idea to have a low on detail game show host as a PM. The Tories are going to find it difficult to undermine Starmer IMO, unless they find something that sticks that is currently unknown. A lot of PB Johnson fanbois on here have tried to suggest he is boring, which is hardly going to shift the needle much, even if it were true. One on here yesterday tried to suggest that "being forensic" was a bad thing. Maybe he ought to look at the forensic ability of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. Both would have run rings around The Clown. Johnson's advisors are going to have to do a lot better, and Johnson himself would be well advised to start looking at using some heavyweights to support him rather than surrounding himself with hopeless sycophants.
As always, one of Boris' greatest assets is his critics' unswerving dedication to underestimating him...
Indeed but even I admit Boris is having a car crash today
Boris has literally 4 years to learn how to get to grips with Starmer. The obsession with ephemeral performances and events on here is peculiar when the evidence of the past decade is that no single PMQs, speech, etc ever has a permanent effect.
PMQs is a particulary poor predictor, not least given that William Hague reguarly ran rings around Tony Blair, to no electoral reward whatsoever...
On topic - surely the biggest factors affecting the next election will overwhelmingly be the fallout from and economic rebound after the Coronavirus, and how the UK fares post Brexit. These are both immensely uncertain and the election is 4+ years away. Starmer's ratings now hardly matter, and while his ratings then will matter more, Johnson and the tories' handling of these two huge events will determine it to a much greater extent.
Those two statements aren't necessarily inconsistent. For all the complaining about discharges, I bet most of the spread came from workers. The only solution would have been to get staff to live in and come out.
OT, just watched last week's PMQ at long last. Johnson was hopeless and Starmer pulled him apart. If that happens every week and it gets coverage most people are going to wake up to the fact that it might not be a good idea to have a low on detail game show host as a PM. The Tories are going to find it difficult to undermine Starmer IMO, unless they find something that sticks that is currently unknown. A lot of PB Johnson fanbois on here have tried to suggest he is boring, which is hardly going to shift the needle much, even if it were true. One on here yesterday tried to suggest that "being forensic" was a bad thing. Maybe he ought to look at the forensic ability of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. Both would have run rings around The Clown. Johnson's advisors are going to have to do a lot better, and Johnson himself would be well advised to start looking at using some heavyweights to support him rather than surrounding himself with hopeless sycophants.
As always, one of Boris' greatest assets is his critics' unswerving dedication to underestimating him...
Indeed but even I admit Boris is having a car crash today
Boris has literally 4 years to learn how to get to grips with Starmer. The obsession with ephemeral performances and events on here is peculiar when the evidence of the past decade is that no single PMQs, speech, etc ever has a permanent effect.
Indeed, but getting to grips with Starmer will involve getting to grips with detail.
Johnson is going to have to find a way of abolishing PMQs. He just cannot handle the relentless scrutiny that Starmer brings to it.
Boris can go back to the pre-Blair arrangement of two short PMQs sessions. This would restrict Starmer's ability to develop an argument, and the other leaders would have only one question each.
Boris could also go further back to before Mrs Thatcher's power grab and refer questions to departmental ministers. This is hard to square with centralisation of power at Number 10 but who cares about that?
What valid answer could there be to questions like "what caused the other 10,000 excess deaths"?
All nations with this epidemic are seeing excess deaths beyond confirmed cases. Starmer knows that, he is clever at asking an unanswerable question but what answer would there be?
Not specifically, but I just get a sense our ability to self fund the deficit isn't going to last much longer. The reaction to the extended furlough scheme hasn't been received well among some of the bigger primary bond purchases I know. There is a sense that the government needs to get real about accepting job losses in sectors that aren't going to open up for a long time rather than push an unsustainable open ended wage subsidy.
The risk to the UK and sterling will be mitigated by the fact that so many other major economies are in the same boat.
To some degree, yes but I think people are starting to look at the cost of an open ended measure and wonder what Sunak is playing at by guaranteeing high level of income for people who aren't going to get a job in their current industry without a vaccine. I think if the vaccine comes good in September all of this is forgotten and the pubs ar open by the end of October for people with immunity certificates. If it doesn't does Sunak really cut the scheme and put people on UC just before Christmas? The indefinite nature of our scheme is definitely worrying a lot of people right now. We seriously need to think about a wholly contributory unemployment insurance scheme like Switzerland or Germany.
The other factor is that it doesn't look like the UK is in the position to ease lockdown measures enough to get the majority of the economy back on track. We have an undefined track and trace strategy, an app that probably doesn't work, the infection rate isn't coming down fast enough and the government aren't willing to take the big step of saying under 50s can just go for it as long as they don't come into contact with over 70s.
All of these things are feeding into a sense that the UK government is no longer in control of the crisis and will be extremely dependent on the patience of bond houses, which I sense is already beginning to wear.
It is quite probable that the furlough scheme is far cheaper than the cost of the economic damage. It is apparently costs £14Bn per month.
Which is bugger all in interest per month on the sums raised to pay for it. As to what happens to the underlying loans required....
It will be his record as DPP. Failed prosecutions of people who then went on to rape/murder again, declined prosecutions who did the same, falsely accused who were wrongly imprisoned etc...
I should imagine the word "Rochdale" features heavily in the searches Cummings, Guido etc. are completing. Interestingly, no smoking gun revealed thus far.
It will be whatever works. CCHQ's under-the-radar social media campaigning will mean specific voter groups being targeted with whatever works *for that group* and Labour (or the SNP or whoever) will never even know what is being said, so they cannot counter it or even know they need to.
That, I think, may explain why Corbyn was toxic in 2019 but not 2017.
Corbyn was more toxic in 2019 because the public knew him better. Corbyn was genuinely toxic, it wasn't a campaign that made him so. If you don't understand that yet you are beyond redemption it seems. A left wing HYUFD still claiming IDS was good and never lost an election.
Coming close on the heels of the referendum a lot of Remainers voted against May in 2017 without thinking too much about Corbyn. By 2019 his true awfulness was evident to far more people.
Yes. He went from one of the best ever labour vote shares, back to what they normally get!
We will have leftwing economics for years to come, we might as well have a leftwing government. The Tories will be associated with, and tained by, this pandemic.
If Starmer brings a forensic attention to detail onto dealing with antisemitism in his own party and succeeds then he might have a chance of being PM.
Otherwise it will be, "can't govern his own party, why would you trust him with the country?"
I see it's going to be a 'PMQs aren't important in the scheme of things' day.
Again.
The only time I thought it might have mattered was the last one before the 2015 GE. Ed walked on to a right hook and didn't get back up. But he probably would have lost anyway.
There are many, many reports of long term ill effects from covid. It seems the norm rather than the exception.
As I said last night, I think Boris will likely retire in early 2021, on the grounds of ill health, once Brexit is done. Everything he wanted to do in office (Brexit aside) is now impossible; he will preside over austerity, tax rises, deaths, illness, restrictions on civil liberties, a desperately depressing in-tray.
See this paragraph from the Telegraph:
"Unless Johnson has the wherewithal to defy the Treasury’s fiscal hawks, embrace higher debt and keep spending, the loosened national purse strings will be paying for the pandemic. The transformative ambitions of the man who won the biggest majority for the Conservatives since 1987 will lie in ruins."
Yes, Boris may well resign. He is not a wealthy man, or a healthy one, and does not seem to be enjoying the job. From the other side, it was getting pasted at PMQs that did for IDS so backbenchers may soon be casting around for alternatives.
What valid answer could there be to questions like "what caused the other 10,000 excess deaths"?
All nations with this epidemic are seeing excess deaths beyond confirmed cases. Starmer knows that, he is clever at asking an unanswerable question but what answer would there be?
Well. The simple answer would have been "I can't explain because they are unexplained!" Very sad, we are investigating...etc.
Trouble is Boris didn't think of that and reached into his waffle holster.
Should be notes that this per capita deaths based on occupation, the total sample was 2500 people, which were then split across all the different types of occupations.
The margins for error in such a thing is enormous.
I get what Philip is trying to do - its COMMON SENSE. Problem is that a lot of people don't have the same common sense as each other. Hence the need for rules and for clarity. We need that clarity so that people know what to do. Otherwise we get as we have seen up here on Teesside the police making it up as they go along and the Middlesbrough Mayor doing the same.
You CAN do this. You CANNOT do that. You should AVOID the other. CAN and CANNOT have to be the things you CAN and CANNOT do. Not just the confused utterance of a cabinet minster contradicting himself from an interview he gave 5 minutes earlier to someone else. With businesses and retailers and councils and the police all in step together because its clear. Like they managed in other countries. So that people know that what they are doing will keep people from dying. The Matt Lucas tweet both got so many zillion views and enraged the right because it absolutely skewered the incompetence of the mixed messaging. Same with Piers Moron and Philip Schofield. Its inexcusable. I don't get why some defend it and try to deflect the blame onto others.
Its not the Police's job to enforce the advice and nor should it ever be!
The Police's job is to enforce the LAW, no more and no less. The public should take account of the ADVICE and then operate within the law using their own common sense.
To take @TOPPING 's repeated example of drinking and driving, the advice is crystal clear: don't do it! For good reason too. But if you get pulled over and blow a positive number so you have alcohol in your system but under the legal limit then the Police will not charge you. They may advise you that the advice is to not have any, but that is the end of the matter and quite right too.
The law is set, the advice is set and people need to think for themselves.
My point was you ridiculed @Rochdale because he was following the law and not the advice. But his broader point was a comment on the government.
He was obeying the law (exercising more than once a day) which was what you were doing (shandy/glass of wine then driving). He was pointing out the inconsistency of the law and that in the current times the govt made a huge issue of easing exercise rules but actually not changing the law at all on it and then saying "look we've changed the rules". Which they hadn't.
And then after they hadn't changed the rules, everyone saying: what a wonderful Conservative government and PM we have now that they've changed the rules.
Is what he was saying. And I tend to agree with him.
No you're wrong, I have no problem with people breaking the advice and following the law, because its what their own common sense dictates is appropriate for them in their own circumstances.
I have a problem with people acting like the advice is meaningless, never to be followed and not something the government have done or should do.
I have a problem with people pretending a change in the advice is meaningless.
I have a problem with people implying others shouldn't be following the advice, or they'll only follow advice under any circumstances if its the law and the Police tell them to do so.
The government had changed the rules in the advice. Not the rules in the law. Since people are trying to follow the rules in the advice that is a change. You follow the advice because its the right thing to do and because you can, not because its the law.
Says someone who doesn't follow the advice himself when it comes to drink driving.
The point being, to coin a phrase, nothing has changed (advice, schmadvice) but many are saying the government is fantastic in the way they are bringing us out of lockdown.
Advice is advice, not law. Its meaningful, take it on board, then make your own decisions with the advice you have.
As I said I try to never drink when I'm driving. I'll drink soft drinks or alcohol free drinks when I'm driving.
The full and balanced truth seems to be that you try to not drink and drive but sometimes succumb to a shandy.
Little to criticize there (with one obvious caveat).
I see it's going to be a 'PMQs aren't important in the scheme of things' day.
Again.
I don't think they are important in terms of public perception given that no one watches is except political obsessives. What it will do is build a sense that Boris is not capable of holding his own against Starmer which will make the Tory benches restless if he can't stop being lazy even in a time of crisis and get on top of the brief properly.
We will have leftwing economics for years to come, we might as well have a leftwing government. The Tories will be associated with, and tained by, this pandemic.
If Starmer brings a forensic attention to detail onto dealing with antisemitism in his own party and succeeds then he might have a chance of being PM.
Otherwise it will be, "can't govern his own party, why would you trust him with the country?"
Boris lost PMQs today comprehensively, Starmer was excellent yet again, but to translate that into PM Starmer in 2024 is stretching matters a wee bit too far
What valid answer could there be to questions like "what caused the other 10,000 excess deaths"?
All nations with this epidemic are seeing excess deaths beyond confirmed cases. Starmer knows that, he is clever at asking an unanswerable question but what answer would there be?
It is easy to ask questions to which nobody knows the answer, least of all Boris.
I see it's going to be a 'PMQs aren't important in the scheme of things' day.
Again.
I don't know to be honest if they really matter or not. I suspect they do but I can't prove it and I can fully understand why diehards will point out that this will never reach the relevant new blue northern voters.
But it's not a good look. The commentariat do matter and if they unanimously see Boris being shredded, as happened today, it will influence them. Look out for a backlash against Starmer but I don't think anyone should underestimate the Labour leader now.
Will a fairly dour figure be the antidote to the ebullient Boris? I don't know.
We will have leftwing economics for years to come, we might as well have a leftwing government. The Tories will be associated with, and tained by, this pandemic.
Yes. If you enjoy your work you are more likely to excel at it.
The government needs to bring out a dead cat after the dreadful report of 144 health care workers and 131 care home workers dieing of Covid 19.
Health care workers are dying of COVID19 less often than the average worker.
Really, On a per capita basis?
I suspect the only per capita basis where people are dying at a rate faster than care home workers will be care home residents.
That's not what the ONS figures showed.
The ONS figures showed the highest excess deaths per capita were security guards, followed by chefs.
Remember the disease disproportionately impacts men over women and healthcare is a disproportionately stereotypically female role. The top 5 worst industries by deaths per capita according to the ONS were all industries that are stereotypically male dominated.
Good answer from Boris on the Scottish furlough question. No bluster; offer to deal with it later. On furlough, we did wonder here if the guidelines were too complex for some employers and we have seen the government has now issued simplified ones. (Of course, rogue employers are a further complication.)
PMQs now irrelevant because the PB Tories don't like Starmer handing Johnson his arse on a plate
No, they're irrelevant because we're in the middle of a national emergency, the government has a big majority and a mandate for another 4-4.5 years, and Starmer leads a party that is currently more of a regional than a national political force.
The actual paragraph which Starmer is cleverly twisting both as regards content and date was this, issued on the 25th Feb:
This guidance is intended for the current position in the UK where there is currently no transmission of COVID-19 in the community. It is therefore very unlikely that anyone receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected. This is the latest information and will be updated shortly.
PMQs now irrelevant because the PB Tories don't like Starmer handing Johnson his arse on a plate
There's probably not a General Election till 2024 or so - so no a spanking at PMQs doesn't matter from that perspective; but Starmer is definitely impressing. He's keeping his questions to the point and staying rigourously on point. I'm finding him impressive and I've never voted Labour in my life.
As opposed to Labour, who have never demonised Tory leaders such as the 'witch' Thatcher.
TBH, the last three Labour leaders haven't needed Tory demonisation. Brown and Miliband were unsuited to high office, and Corbyn was by a country mile the worst leader of a major political party for at least a hundred years. Voters were quite capable of seeing that for themselves.
Sir Keir is certainly better than those three, not being a particularly thick anti-Semitic Marxist extremist being a jolly good start. It is a great relief to see that once again the Labour Party is led by someone whom a responsible adult could with integrity support as PM. So if I were advising the Conservatives, I think I'd recommend directing attacks not on him personally, but on the remaining tensions within Labour, pointing up the fact that assorted hate-filled loons still infest the party.
How well Sir Keir will play with voters is less clear. The jury is out on that one. He doesn't really meet the 'I'll keep listening if he's being interviewed on the radio' test. But maybe that won't matter in the overall political landscape.
I retracted "Witch" because it's sexist. Replaced with "bad egg".
As opposed to Labour, who have never demonised Tory leaders such as the 'witch' Thatcher.
TBH, the last three Labour leaders haven't needed Tory demonisation. Brown and Miliband were unsuited to high office, and Corbyn was by a country mile the worst leader of a major political party for at least a hundred years. Voters were quite capable of seeing that for themselves.
Sir Keir is certainly better than those three, not being a particularly thick anti-Semitic Marxist extremist being a jolly good start. It is a great relief to see that once again the Labour Party is led by someone whom a responsible adult could with integrity support as PM. So if I were advising the Conservatives, I think I'd recommend directing attacks not on him personally, but on the remaining tensions within Labour, pointing up the fact that assorted hate-filled loons still infest the party.
How well Sir Keir will play with voters is less clear. The jury is out on that one. He doesn't really meet the 'I'll keep listening if he's being interviewed on the radio' test. But maybe that won't matter in the overall political landscape.
I retracted "Witch" because it's sexist. Replaced with "bad egg".
Yes but unfortunately you don't speak for the Labour movement as a whole.
One of the biggest headaches for Boris is that by all accounts this virus and its effects are going to be with us long term. No one denies that. It's also highly complex. It requires forensic attention to detail and someone at the helm who is prepared to put in ultra long hours.
Boris is fantastic on broad-brush bonhomie.
And pretty rubbish on the kind of detail required for going forward. He'll need to find a way of doing an Andrew Neil on PMQ's i.e. avoiding them.
Bit like the Delboy Trotter list, which turned out not only to be full of Delboy's and Arthur Daly's, hardly any of them had even contacted the DoH. So their moaning about the government not engaging was that a) they didn't actually contact the proper department and b) they were asked to fill in details of their suppliers etc (and they didn't because they were only middle men and didn't know).
HMRC website is overloaded by self employed people applying for grants, myself included. On top of the furlough and grants already given to small businesses the amount the treasury have shelled out will be tens of £billions.
Getting that back will be excrutiating as the tax take this year will be massively down
I see it's going to be a 'PMQs aren't important in the scheme of things' day.
Again.
I don't think they are important in terms of public perception given that no one watches is except political obsessives. What it will do is build a sense that Boris is not capable of holding his own against Starmer which will make the Tory benches restless if he can't stop being lazy even in a time of crisis and get on top of the brief properly.
I'd cut Boris a bit of slack (not words I'm accustomed to saying) in that he probably is feeling crap, but feeling crap and being a bit lazy does not an effective PM make, even in the best of times.
HMRC website is overloaded by self employed people applying for grants, myself included. On top of the furlough and grants already given to small businesses the amount the treasury have shelled out will be tens of £billions.
Getting that back will be excrutiating as the tax take this year will be massively down
Don't worry, it isn't going to be paid off for decades.
Yes. He's technically correct that the advice wasn't withdrawn until 13th March, so he's chosen the 12th March to make his lawyerly point. It's effective enough, to be sure, and the journalists have lapped it up.
One of the biggest headaches for Boris is that by all accounts this virus and its effects are going to be with us long term. No one denies that. It's also highly complex. It requires forensic attention to detail and someone at the helm who is prepared to put in ultra long hours.
Boris is fantastic on broad-brush bonhomie.
And pretty rubbish on the kind of detail required for going forward. He'll need to find a way of doing an Andrew Neil on PMQ's i.e. avoiding them.
I also imagine his time preparing for PMQs is limited as he has other things to do. One of the best weapons a PM has at PMQs is to make a joke at the LOTO expense. He can hardly do that at the moment. He just needs to stand there each week, take a beating, answer the questions as best as he can and get back to trying to limit the damage that Covid 19 is doing.
I see it's going to be a 'PMQs aren't important in the scheme of things' day.
Again.
I don't know to be honest if they really matter or not. I suspect they do but I can't prove it and I can fully understand why diehards will point out that this will never reach the relevant new blue northern voters.
But it's not a good look. The commentariat do matter and if they unanimously see Boris being shredded, as happened today, it will influence them. Look out for a backlash against Starmer but I don't think anyone should underestimate the Labour leader now.
Will a fairly dour figure be the antidote to the ebullient Boris? I don't know.
I think one area where they do genuinely matter is "backbench morale" - and today has not been good for the Tories and has been good for Labour.
I also observe a lot of PB Tories handing it as a clear win to Starmer, and non-PB Tories saying they're doing the reverse, or that PMQs don't matter....
Wonder how Sturgeon will cope with "two peaks in Scotland" and "Scotland Care Home deaths"?
Yes. He's technically correct that the advice wasn't withdrawn until 13th March, so he's chosen the 12th March to make his lawyerly point. It's effective enough, to be sure, and the journalists have lapped it up.
I see it's going to be a 'PMQs aren't important in the scheme of things' day.
Again.
I don't know to be honest if they really matter or not. I suspect they do but I can't prove it and I can fully understand why diehards will point out that this will never reach the relevant new blue northern voters.
But it's not a good look. The commentariat do matter and if they unanimously see Boris being shredded, as happened today, it will influence them. Look out for a backlash against Starmer but I don't think anyone should underestimate the Labour leader now.
Will a fairly dour figure be the antidote to the ebullient Boris? I don't know.
I think one area where they do genuinely matter is "backbench morale" - and today has not been good for the Tories and has been good for Labour.
I also observe a lot of PB Tories handing it as a clear win to Starmer, and non-PB Tories saying they're doing the reverse, or that PMQs don't matter....
Wonder how Sturgeon will cope with "two peaks in Scotland" and "Scotland Care Home deaths"?
One of the biggest headaches for Boris is that by all accounts this virus and its effects are going to be with us long term. No one denies that. It's also highly complex. It requires forensic attention to detail and someone at the helm who is prepared to put in ultra long hours.
Boris is fantastic on broad-brush bonhomie.
And pretty rubbish on the kind of detail required for going forward. He'll need to find a way of doing an Andrew Neil on PMQ's i.e. avoiding them.
If you were to pick a time he was the least good for, it would be now. He wants to be PM of good times, when it's all "Brexit means Brexit" and "invest invest invest".
He'd have been comfortable with the 1997-2005 period, I think.
We will have leftwing economics for years to come, we might as well have a leftwing government. The Tories will be associated with, and tained by, this pandemic.
If he is, I doubt it would bother me too much. I only voted for Boris because of Brexit and would have voted for Corbyn if he were a Brexiteer and Boris were threatening a 2nd referendum
But I dont think Starmer can win over the public, he is too dull.
Comments
The BoE was quite clear. Awful figures this year, recovery next year. Why would Sunak be expecting a major recovery before a vaccine or end of the epidemic?
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1260526116969873409
Posted a study yesterday that suggested they were on track for 64k deaths by next month.
Boris struggling
The government have made too many mistakes over the initial outbreak. We now move to a phase of suppression, while we wait for treatments or a vaccine.
There are continuing huge health and economic challenges, and if / when we get a vaccine organizing getting 70 million done in timely fashion is another massive undertaking.
We could go years having to manage the current situation and all the economic damage. And on the other hand we might not.
What shape the country and the economy will be in, in 4 years, (and against how everybody else is doing) will be how the current government are judged.
Discharges to care homes dropped during this epidemic the PM just said.
Starmer's far too good for him on detail. Whether this ever filters through to an election I don't know but the tories have a problem.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.20.20073007v1.full.pdf
This fits with what Mr Recode from Iceland said.
It is least helpful to those who think the main burden of paying for the furlough scheme should fall onto the wealthy.
PMQs is a particulary poor predictor, not least given that William Hague reguarly ran rings around Tony Blair, to no electoral reward whatsoever...
Boris could also go further back to before Mrs Thatcher's power grab and refer questions to departmental ministers. This is hard to square with centralisation of power at Number 10 but who cares about that?
All nations with this epidemic are seeing excess deaths beyond confirmed cases. Starmer knows that, he is clever at asking an unanswerable question but what answer would there be?
BoZo would have to do more prep, and get beaten up twice as often.
Again.
Otherwise it will be, "can't govern his own party, why would you trust him with the country?"
4 - 1 ( 3- 0 at half time) victory for Starmer.
I suspect the only per capita basis where people are dying at a rate faster than care home workers will be care home residents.
Very sad, we are investigating...etc.
Trouble is Boris didn't think of that and reached into his waffle holster.
The margins for error in such a thing is enormous.
Little to criticize there (with one obvious caveat).
That isn't necessarily a platform for government.
144/465,000 = 309 per million, 32692/66650000 = 490 per million
Edit: confused population and workers...
But it's not a good look. The commentariat do matter and if they unanimously see Boris being shredded, as happened today, it will influence them. Look out for a backlash against Starmer but I don't think anyone should underestimate the Labour leader now.
Will a fairly dour figure be the antidote to the ebullient Boris? I don't know.
The ONS figures showed the highest excess deaths per capita were security guards, followed by chefs.
Remember the disease disproportionately impacts men over women and healthcare is a disproportionately stereotypically female role. The top 5 worst industries by deaths per capita according to the ONS were all industries that are stereotypically male dominated.
But yeah, PMQs matter so much more than all that.
This guidance is intended for the current position in the UK where there is currently no transmission of COVID-19 in the community. It is therefore very unlikely that anyone receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected. This is the latest information and will be updated shortly.
(My emphasis).
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1260533883663237120?s=20
https://twitter.com/JeremyVineOn5/status/1260501504131305473?s=20
Boris is fantastic on broad-brush bonhomie.
And pretty rubbish on the kind of detail required for going forward. He'll need to find a way of doing an Andrew Neil on PMQ's i.e. avoiding them.
Getting that back will be excrutiating as the tax take this year will be massively down
I also observe a lot of PB Tories handing it as a clear win to Starmer, and non-PB Tories saying they're doing the reverse, or that PMQs don't matter....
Wonder how Sturgeon will cope with "two peaks in Scotland" and "Scotland Care Home deaths"?
He'd have been comfortable with the 1997-2005 period, I think.
But I dont think Starmer can win over the public, he is too dull.