So it's the long awaited return of mass participation sport tomorrow. "Boo for Boris" at 8 pm.
We could rename it the 2 minute hate.
Orwell was a genius in his modestly British way.
I do hate Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. I wish them harm.
There.
I find that just weird and frankly more than a little disturbed. For the record I do not hate SKS, Corbyn, Nicola or even Gordon bloody Brown and I wish them all the very best of health.
More importantly, you still have 1minute 55 seconds of raving to fill.
More Johnson than Cummings actually. As posted to @Stocky.
By harm, I don't mean physical. I mean the mental turmoil and misery of being exposed as what he is and roundly rejected. Humiliation, is what I'm rooting for. Abject humiliation.
He’s not even a law maker. MPs make laws. He’s just an adviser. Which makes this whole thing all the more weird. As I say above I’ve had plenty of client fire people for causing them a quantum level of the bad publicity this is causing the PM.
I am not at all clear what Cummings actually is. Is he an adviser, a senior civil servant, a spokesperson,campaign director, the de facto head of government?
Cummings is to Boris as Grigori Rasputin was to Tsarina Alexandra.
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
Agree with that. In particular the Bishop of Leeds branding the PM a liar was disgraceful. It's wholly inappropriate for a senior Churchman to write such a thing unless they were in full possession of the facts and had proof the PM lied.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
At those odds I`d take 6/4 to go with Lads. But I backed the other side of the bet yesterday and I``ll let it ride I think.
Money has come for Cummings to go.
Ladbrokes 5/4 go, 4/7 stay PP/Betfair Evens go, 8/11 stay (though it was 5/6 each of two when I started typing).
I have no bet but I'm getting all emotionally invested in this now. If he were to go it would feel amazing. It would get an actual fist pump and a guttural yell out on the terrace. The sensation will be all the stronger given he and Johnson are obviously trying so hard to stave it off. The winning goal in stoppage time is always the sweetest.
But my sense (just) is still that he stays.
I'm conflicted. My view is this should bring Cummings down, and if not, it could hasten Boris's departure which I suspect will happen pretty soon anyway on health grounds, and that it might even have lost the next election already.
Against that, always keep tight hold of nurse! Boris and Cummings are right on the need for investment and to oppose austerity, so from that point of view, I'd rather have them in place than someone like, say, George Osborne who thought he could cut his way to growth. Betting-wise, I've backed both sides for a profit so will cop either way next week.
I`ve managed to back both sides at odds against.
For me, I`ll be amazed if he survives this but I can`t decide whether he`ll make it to the end of May.
So it's the long awaited return of mass participation sport tomorrow. "Boo for Boris" at 8 pm.
We could rename it the 2 minute hate.
Orwell was a genius in his modestly British way.
I do hate Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. I wish them harm.
There.
I find that just weird and frankly more than a little disturbed. For the record I do not hate SKS, Corbyn, Nicola or even Gordon bloody Brown and I wish them all the very best of health.
More importantly, you still have 1minute 55 seconds of raving to fill.
I don`t think I hate anyone. I recoil at the word - as I do "evil". I blame it on Christian upbringing I guess.
I suppose, for me, Trump comes closest. Farage and Owen Jones some distance behind, but both worthy of mention .
It's Dr Evil! I didn't spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called Mr, thank you!
If he acted illegally he should be charged and if convicted should go. If he acted legally that should be the end of story.
Law makers can't be law breakers.
Wow your standards are very low. Nobody should ever resign or be fired unless they are actually convicted of a crime?
Unbelievable.
Not required if you want them on your team it's reasonable to let justice play out. Of course you have the option to fire someone if they're charged but no obligation to do so ... Certainly not if they haven't even been charged.
I think Boris screwed up the optics by not triggering an investigation. If he'd said he understood Cummings actions were for childcare but he wanted to ensure that no laws will be broken so would be asking (whoever is appropriate) to investigate and if the law was broken then Cummings would resign then I think that would have squared it away.
I think if he'd done that then partisan hacks would have continued to squeal but most reasonable people would hear there will be an investigation. And if the investigation said no law broken then fair enough.
I thought you were on here the other day claiming that the rules have, at all points, been simple and entirely clear. How would that necessitate an investigation?
Johnson either had to condemn or exonerate Cummings yesterday. But either way, he needed to set out the facts and analysis that led him to that conclusion. And he simply didn't, which leaves the story running and makes everyone feel completely mugged off.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
If this wasn't someone involved in politics this would be no big deal. If the story was a footballer had sought childcare (instead of a footballer had sought a prostitute) I imagine most of those outraged now would be saying "so what?"
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
So it's the long awaited return of mass participation sport tomorrow. "Boo for Boris" at 8 pm.
We could rename it the 2 minute hate.
Orwell was a genius in his modestly British way.
I do hate Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. I wish them harm.
There.
Life is too short to waste on hate. Just accept that they are assh*les.
They probably fear indifference more than hate. Hate means they are getting through to you. Indifference means that they are so insignificant in your life that they are not even worth scorn.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
Loyalty is the absolute backbone of human relationships. There's literally nothing I value more highly than it in my personal life, and nothing I despise more than disloyalty, so maybe that's why my gut reaction to this is so strong, quite apart from my obvious partisanship.
If someone does good to you, you must do good to them. End of discussion.
A minor and highly contingent virtue. Tellingly it was the excuse the scumbags who covered up Lucan's disappearance pleaded. And much prized by the Hitler youth.
Valuing personal loyalty now aligns you with the Hitler Youth? Are you sure you've thought this one through all the way?
No, the example of the Hitler Youth (and Lucan's friends) merely negates the implied claim that loyal people are necessarily good people. Do you need a Venn diagram drawing? Do you think that if I state that all members of the Hitler Youth had two feet, and so do I, that has implications about my "alignment" with the HY? I thought I had the impression that you read Greats. The logic lectures seem not to have sunk in.
So it's the long awaited return of mass participation sport tomorrow. "Boo for Boris" at 8 pm.
We could rename it the 2 minute hate.
Orwell was a genius in his modestly British way.
I do hate Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. I wish them harm.
There.
I find that just weird and frankly more than a little disturbed. For the record I do not hate SKS, Corbyn, Nicola or even Gordon bloody Brown and I wish them all the very best of health.
More importantly, you still have 1minute 55 seconds of raving to fill.
I don`t think I hate anyone. I recoil at the word - as I do "evil". I blame it on Christian upbringing I guess.
I suppose, for me, Trump comes closest. Farage and Owen Jones some distance behind, but both worthy of mention .
It's Dr Evil! I didn't spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called Mr, thank you!
MR is the inverted snobbery of the medical world,. To Be called MR instead of Doctor means you have passed by the basic title of Doctor into an elevated position
If he acted illegally he should be charged and if convicted should go. If he acted legally that should be the end of story.
Law makers can't be law breakers.
Wow your standards are very low. Nobody should ever resign or be fired unless they are actually convicted of a crime?
Unbelievable.
Not required if you want them on your team it's reasonable to let justice play out. Of course you have the option to fire someone if they're charged but no obligation to do so ... Certainly not if they haven't even been charged.
I think Boris screwed up the optics by not triggering an investigation. If he'd said he understood Cummings actions were for childcare but he wanted to ensure that no laws will be broken so would be asking (whoever is appropriate) to investigate and if the law was broken then Cummings would resign then I think that would have squared it away.
I think if he'd done that then partisan hacks would have continued to squeal but most reasonable people would hear there will be an investigation. And if the investigation said no law broken then fair enough.
I thought you were on here the other day claiming that the rules have, at all points, been simple and entirely clear. How would that necessitate an investigation?
Johnson either had to condemn or exonerate Cummings yesterday. But either way, he needed to set out the facts and analysis that led him to that conclusion. And he simply didn't, which leaves the story running and makes everyone feel completely mugged off.
I think the rules are reasonably clear though certainly up to people to interpret.
I think an investigation would have made political sense rather than being necessary.
If (big if) Cummings has acted within the law as I think and as Johnson said but others don't accept that and think Johnson is just backing his friend then an independent investigation would give an independent answer that takes the sting of politics out of it.
The facts he set out are that he thought there were special childcare requirements so he acted accordingly. Just as the DCMO set out about seven weeks ago.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
I have had a longstanding loathing of Johnson ever since reading his fucking pig ignorant review of a Lamborghini Gallardo in the early 2000s. However, I had always thought that the British political system ensured that a person who ascended to the office of PM would be, au moins, capable of doing the basics of the jobs. Over the last few days I have come to realise that, at a most basic level, the job of PM is beyond him. It's quite disconcerting even though I am a Johnson hater by trade.
Go on, what did Johnson say about the Gallardo? Was he one of those idiots who loved the shitty first-gen 'flappy paddle' gearboxes?
He just had no fucking idea about the history of Lamborghini or the significance of the Gallardo. It was the first genuine VAG Lambo and the first designed with some accommodation for the realities of mass production.
The E-Gear Gallardos certainly weren't any worse than the Ferrari (F1 shift or whatever the fuck it was called) or BMWs (SMG) of the time. Unfortunately for them Porsche put the Doppelkupplungsgetriebe transmission into the 2005 997 and set a standard that the other OEMs have struggled to match ever since.
I'd imagine most of them will be desperately hoping Dom gets the sack without having to stick their heads above the parapet. @Tissue_Price is focussing on local heroes
I feel sorry for Aaron
I think he got into politics for the right reasons, wanted to be an MP and do well for his constituents.
He won his seat thanks to the charm and charisma of BoZo
He'll lose it thanks to the incompetence and arrogance of BoZo.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I've seen nothing in statute that forbids this.
Certainly guidance is trickier, the simplistic guidance says not to move but then when asked about more unique situations then the simplistic answers don't work. But that's the distinction between guidance and statute. Guidance is a guide for most scenarios not the law for all.
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
Even as an atheist I think culling them a bit harsh.
I am not clear that Cummings has in fact broken any rules.
I keep asking this. Even if people swallow the bizarre argument that the child was in some kind of imminent danger of harm and had to be taken to Durham, WHAT CONCEIVABLE JUSTIFICATION WAS THERE FOR CUMMINGS'S SYMPTOMATIC WIFE TO BE DRIVEN TO THE OTHER END OF THE COUNTRY TOO?
Has Cummings broken any rules. This question has to be broken down into parts:[snip]
Sorry, but my question is extremely simple.
I'm taking about the regulations governing leaving people's place of residence. I'm asking what was the reasonable excuse for Cummings's wife to travel halfway across the country.
The excuse for Cummings is alleged to be that his child was at risk of harm in certain circumstances (which at that time were almost entirely hypothetical), so he had to take the child to Durham.
But even if that were true, what was the excuse for his wife travelling? Particularly as she was symptomatic at the time.
A very simple question.
I`ve been wondering that too. It may also be worth pondering why, in the scenario of a spouse being positive and a spouse negative, with them both travelling, that the negative spouse is the one getting all the flack when it is the positive spouse who has broken quarantine. Has this been pondered I wonder?
They both broke quarantine. If a member of your household has the symptoms of the virus you are supposed to isolate for 14 days. Irrespective of whether or not you show any symptoms. This is entirely separate from the basic lockdown rules and is far more serious.
I agree it's more serious.
However, some people are trying to take the very narrow line that the quarantine guidance didn't have the force of law. But no legal justification has been put forward for the wife's travelling.
If travelling for the child is legal then that applies to the parents.
The justification for Cummings travelling is supposed to be that the child was at risk of harm, so the child had to be taken to Durham. (Codswallop though that is.)
The question is - given that Cummings was taking the child to Durham, what is the justification for his wife travelling to Durham.
She was taking the child to Durham too. She doesn't cease to be a mother just because Dom is a father.
Wouldn't you take the kid, leave the wife at home, deliver kid with minimum of contact and return home to look after wife?
Wouldn't that be the normal thing to do?
No. I wouldn't abandon my sick wife.
If I was worried about childcare for my young children but my brother or sister in law had somewhere I could safely reside while they could offer help then I'd be tempted to drive us there. I wouldn't be tempted to abandon my sick wife and go without her.
I can't speak for others but I don't see any situation where abandoning someone you love who is sick for two weeks is normal.
No one is talking about abandoning her, Phil. You maybe get the kid collected, or sent with a friend/relative; worst case you drive up there with the kid and return straight away. Durham and back in a day is not impossible.
Then you look after your sick wife.
Anyway, I don't want you to think that I am buying Cummings' version of events. It's sounding more and more like a bit of a yarn. My guess is that neither parent was sick, or at least not seriously so, and they just fancied some quality time up in Durham with the family. That was clearly not defensible so a cock and bull story was manufactured.
Of course the evidence for this supposition is thin, but then Boris and pals are not doing much of a job of putting the facts out there, so I don't feel ashamed about speculating a little.
Except he stayed with the child, but with access to childcare. He didn't drop off the child.
So yes leaving the wife behind would have been abandoning her. Either they all go or none of them go.
There is a (very) reasonable argument to day none of them should go. There is no argument to say he could go but had to leave her behind.
Not sure you've understood me, Phil, so for the avoidance of doubt....
Worst case is he drives up to Durham with the kid, drops it off and returns pronto to look after wife. Wouldn't be away long and can probably arrange someone to care for her in his absence. Much better though to arrange for kid to be collected, or delivered by friend/relative/or hired hand if need be. No need to to abandon wife even for a moment then.
I'm just trying to assess the plausibilty of the Cummings story, and finding it less and less so as time goes by (and neither he nor the Government seem inclined to fill in the gaps.)
Dropping the child off was never the scenario though!
The scenario was he took the kid and stayed with the kid but moved the family to be near childcare. Now if moving the child (and staying with the child) is legal then why shouldn't the mother go? Either the family moves or they don't but it's one family unit either way.
Plus returning would of course be double the mileage and may require refueling which a one way trip might not.
Why shouldn't the mother go? Well, she's sick, isn't she? If she is very sick, as she indicated in her article, she really shouldn't go. If she is not, is it necessary to make the journey and ask someone else (instead of her husband) to look after the child?
None of this is really adding up though. Do you really believe the story?
He’s not even a law maker. MPs make laws. He’s just an adviser. Which makes this whole thing all the more weird. As I say above I’ve had plenty of client fire people for causing them a quantum level of the bad publicity this is causing the PM.
I am not at all clear what Cummings actually is. Is he an adviser, a senior civil servant, a spokesperson,campaign director, the de facto head of government?
He's a "Senior Advisor", a member of staff working in the Prime Minister's office and reporting directly to Johnson.
He was previously founder and Campaign Director of Vote Leave, the official referendum campaign in 2016.
He’s not even a law maker. MPs make laws. He’s just an adviser. Which makes this whole thing all the more weird. As I say above I’ve had plenty of client fire people for causing them a quantum level of the bad publicity this is causing the PM.
I am not at all clear what Cummings actually is. Is he an adviser, a senior civil servant, a spokesperson,campaign director, the de facto head of government?
Cummings is to Boris as Grigori Rasputin was to Tsarina Alexandra.
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I can confirm you are 100% correct from the grand sample of 1 that I know. I haven't owned up to him that I think god is a figment of his imagination.
No 10 confirms Dominic Cummings to make a public statement and answer questions
Unique surely
Cummings to say he has had a long conversation with Boris Johnson, and while he thinks he acted legally, responsibly and with integrity he has decided, with a heavy heart, to accept Johnson's resignation.
At those odds I`d take 6/4 to go with Lads. But I backed the other side of the bet yesterday and I``ll let it ride I think.
Money has come for Cummings to go.
Ladbrokes 5/4 go, 4/7 stay PP/Betfair Evens go, 8/11 stay (though it was 5/6 each of two when I started typing).
I have no bet but I'm getting all emotionally invested in this now. If he were to go it would feel amazing. It would get an actual fist pump and a guttural yell out on the terrace. The sensation will be all the stronger given he and Johnson are obviously trying so hard to stave it off. The winning goal in stoppage time is always the sweetest.
But my sense (just) is still that he stays.
I'm conflicted. My view is this should bring Cummings down, and if not, it could hasten Boris's departure which I suspect will happen pretty soon anyway on health grounds, and that it might even have lost the next election already.
Against that, always keep tight hold of nurse! Boris and Cummings are right on the need for investment and to oppose austerity, so from that point of view, I'd rather have them in place than someone like, say, George Osborne who thought he could cut his way to growth. Betting-wise, I've backed both sides for a profit so will cop either way next week.
I`ve managed to back both sides at odds against.
For me, I`ll be amazed if he survives this but I can`t decide whether he`ll make it to the end of May.
A professional punter could have made a fortune in this market. I cannot recall a two-horse race so volatile as this. One moment "go" is favourite; the next moment "stay", at least up to last night and even now, there is some movement.
It looks like I shall be facing redundancy in the autumn, so might look back at this as a missed opportunity to stash away a month or two's wages, but right now I am still gainfully employed and staring at the odds screens seems too much like hard work.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I've seen nothing in statute that forbids this.
Certainly guidance is trickier, the simplistic guidance says not to move but then when asked about more unique situations then the simplistic answers don't work. But that's the distinction between guidance and statute. Guidance is a guide for most scenarios not the law for all.
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
There have been some more conservative Bishops eg Richard Chartres when Bishop of London or Michael Nazir Ali when Bishop of Rochester but really as long as bishops can do the job it does not matter how bishops vote.
I agree they should avoid public statements on party politics however
No 10 confirms Dominic Cummings to make a public statement and answer questions
Unique surely
Wow, large quantities of popcorn required. Has he (or any ministerial advisor) ever made a formal public statement whilst in the role?
Will the press pack manage to make a total Horlicks of questioning someone who is a lot more intelligent than most of them, and holds the lot of them in utter disdain?
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
That's the thing about quarantine. It's incredibly difficult for the people being quarantined. Being stuck in a house with the sick and infectious, having to cope with people who could be disabled, elderly, or very young, and staying put in order to avoid spreading the infection to others. It is, though, essential, even though it goes against our natural instincts to go and find help and congregate with others when we need help.
It's why the message was forced home so forcefully. This isn't optional, it is very difficult, you will have to make sacrifices and stumble through. But it's not about you, your children, your spouse, your siblings, your parents - it's about everyone else you could infect.
And Cummings ignored all that, blew quarantine, where so many others didn't. I've got a severely autistic son. We sat down at the start of this to try to work out what we could do if the illness came in to our household and we had to get through somehow.
Turns out we didn't have to worry; we could have said "fuck quarantine, I'm following my instincts," and I'm apparently a bad father for not resolving to do that right up front.
I have never seen MrsC so animated and angry about any political story. When someone tried passing around a "Well, it's because the child is autistic" line online, she went from furious to beyond incandescent. And she is by no means a lefty.
I now think if Boris doesn't go, this will stick like shit smeared over an entire Party,
Off topic but the revelation this morning that Post Office is now reviewing around 900 prosecutions that may have relied on Horizon data should be getting a lot more attention. This is miscarriage of justice on an industrial scale.
We now know that Post Office prosecuted an average of 7.7 people (subpostmasters, assistants and employees) per year in the 6 years leading up to the introduction of Horizon. The next 6 years saw that jump to 55 per year. This high rate continued until Second Sight, the firm of forensic accountants engaged by Post Office to investigate cases as part of a mediation scheme which collapsed acrimoniously, produced their first report which suggested all was not well with Horizon. This report came out in July 2013. That year there were only 27 prosecutions. Since then there have only been 4 prosecutions, all of them in 2015.
The Civil Service is clearly trying to brush this under a carpet, trotting out the line that this was all a long time ago and that many people were involved so no-one should be held accountable, so all that is needed is an independent review to make sure lessons are learned rather than an judge-led public inquiry to establish what went wrong and who was responsible.
I have had a longstanding loathing of Johnson ever since reading his fucking pig ignorant review of a Lamborghini Gallardo in the early 2000s. However, I had always thought that the British political system ensured that a person who ascended to the office of PM would be, au moins, capable of doing the basics of the jobs. Over the last few days I have come to realise that, at a most basic level, the job of PM is beyond him. It's quite disconcerting even though I am a Johnson hater by trade.
Go on, what did Johnson say about the Gallardo? Was he one of those idiots who loved the shitty first-gen 'flappy paddle' gearboxes?
He just had no fucking idea about the history of Lamborghini or the significance of the Gallardo. It was the first genuine VAG Lambo and the first designed with some accommodation for the realities of mass production.
The E-Gear Gallardos certainly weren't any worse than the Ferrari (F1 shift or whatever the fuck it was called) or BMWs (SMG) of the time. Unfortunately for them Porsche put the Doppelkupplungsgetriebe transmission into the 2005 997 and set a standard that the other OEMs have struggled to match ever since.
Off topic but the revelation this morning that Post Office is now reviewing around 900 prosecutions that may have relied on Horizon data should be getting a lot more attention. This is miscarriage of justice on an industrial scale.
We now know that Post Office prosecuted an average of 7.7 people (subpostmasters, assistants and employees) per year in the 6 years leading up to the introduction of Horizon. The next 6 years saw that jump to 55 per year. This high rate continued until Second Sight, the firm of forensic accountants engaged by Post Office to investigate cases as part of a mediation scheme which collapsed acrimoniously, produced their first report which suggested all was not well with Horizon. This report came out in July 2013. That year there were only 27 prosecutions. Since then there have only been 4 prosecutions, all of them in 2015.
The Civil Service is clearly trying to brush this under a carpet, trotting out the line that this was all a long time ago and that many people were involved so no-one should be held accountable, so all that is needed is an independent review to make sure lessons are learned rather than an judge-led public inquiry to establish what went wrong and who was responsible.
That is something. A lot of subpostmasters and staff had their lives ruined.
The only point of a presser is for him to say "I was right"
He's a narcissist
He'd want to flounce out in high dudgeon, cameras blazing.
I can see him saying
"Look, what I did was perfectly fine because of THIS THIS and THIS. But because you are all such miserable reptiles menacing my family I am going to feck off anyway, so there"
Exit in a puff of black smoke
I would agree with you: it's resign or be sacked stage. This is Dom's pound of flesh: to rant at the forces of elitism. But this govt so weird they may actually believe it is part of their brilliant comms strategy.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I've seen nothing in statute that forbids this.
Certainly guidance is trickier, the simplistic guidance says not to move but then when asked about more unique situations then the simplistic answers don't work. But that's the distinction between guidance and statute. Guidance is a guide for most scenarios not the law for all.
Can you not see the fundamental contradiction between your position a short while ago that the guidance was totally clear and complaints that it wasn't are manufactured nonsense, and your position now that Johnson should have punted this off into an inquiry? I'd have thought it was fairly glaring.
In terms of the law, you're straightforwardly wrong. The law very clearly and explicitly forbade what Cummings did, but gave a "reasonable excuse" defence which Cummings has to make out.
An analogy is murder and self defence. The law is crystal clear that killing someone recklessly or with intent is murder, and forbidden. But there is a self defence exception which is for the defendant to demonstrate.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I've seen nothing in statute that forbids this.
Of course not. Because you've swallowed whole the nonsense that the government has put out in Cummings's defence.
The upshot of all this is that people - or at least people like you - now believe that both the regulations and the quarantine guidance are in effect optional.
I don't mean in the sense that "If they break the rules, I'm not going to bother keeping them." I mean in the sense that the government is really saying people don't have to obey them if they don't want to.
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
The fact that the only other country in the world who thinks having senior clergy forming a part of their legislature by dint of their office is Iran really ought to make more people think about this than seem to.
"The coronavirus should have pushed voters to Trump." There was I think initially a little 'rally round the flag' response - as there was for Boris in the UK and for leaders in other countries. However, after a while people respond to how the leaders are handling the pandemic. In Trump's case I think we can say not well at all.
I have had a longstanding loathing of Johnson ever since reading his fucking pig ignorant review of a Lamborghini Gallardo in the early 2000s. However, I had always thought that the British political system ensured that a person who ascended to the office of PM would be, au moins, capable of doing the basics of the jobs. Over the last few days I have come to realise that, at a most basic level, the job of PM is beyond him. It's quite disconcerting even though I am a Johnson hater by trade.
Go on, what did Johnson say about the Gallardo? Was he one of those idiots who loved the shitty first-gen 'flappy paddle' gearboxes?
He just had no fucking idea about the history of Lamborghini or the significance of the Gallardo. It was the first genuine VAG Lambo and the first designed with some accommodation for the realities of mass production.
The E-Gear Gallardos certainly weren't any worse than the Ferrari (F1 shift or whatever the fuck it was called) or BMWs (SMG) of the time. Unfortunately for them Porsche put the Doppelkupplungsgetriebe transmission into the 2005 997 and set a standard that the other OEMs have struggled to match ever since.
Is there a translation of this into English?
Doppelkupplungsgetriebe means "dual-clutch gearbox" in German. Porsche's "PDK" was way better than everyone else's single-clutch automated manual transmissions 15 years ago, and has been developed to remain the standard for performance automated gearboxes to this day
"The coronavirus should have pushed voters to Trump." There was I think initially a little 'rally round the flag' response - as there was for Boris in the UK and for leaders in other countries. However, after a while people respond to how the leaders are handling the pandemic. In Trump's case I think we can say not well at all.
"The coronavirus should have pushed voters to Trump." There was I think initially a little 'rally round the flag' response - as there was for Boris in the UK and for leaders in other countries. However, after a while people respond to how the leaders are handling the pandemic. In Trump's case I think we can say not well at all.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
Boris will think this is like the RAF at Dunkirk initially blamed by many in the Army and Navy for not doing enough.. When in reality just because they could not be seen on the ground , they were giving their all high above in the air.
I have had a longstanding loathing of Johnson ever since reading his fucking pig ignorant review of a Lamborghini Gallardo in the early 2000s. However, I had always thought that the British political system ensured that a person who ascended to the office of PM would be, au moins, capable of doing the basics of the jobs. Over the last few days I have come to realise that, at a most basic level, the job of PM is beyond him. It's quite disconcerting even though I am a Johnson hater by trade.
Go on, what did Johnson say about the Gallardo? Was he one of those idiots who loved the shitty first-gen 'flappy paddle' gearboxes?
He just had no fucking idea about the history of Lamborghini or the significance of the Gallardo. It was the first genuine VAG Lambo and the first designed with some accommodation for the realities of mass production.
The E-Gear Gallardos certainly weren't any worse than the Ferrari (F1 shift or whatever the fuck it was called) or BMWs (SMG) of the time. Unfortunately for them Porsche put the Doppelkupplungsgetriebe transmission into the 2005 997 and set a standard that the other OEMs have struggled to match ever since.
Is there a translation of this into English?
He thought that the car was significant in ways that Boris didn't fully appreciate. Oh and something to do with gears.
That's the thing about quarantine. It's incredibly difficult for the people being quarantined. Being stuck in a house with the sick and infectious, having to cope with people who could be disabled, elderly, or very young, and staying put in order to avoid spreading the infection to others. It is, though, essential, even though it goes against our natural instincts to go and find help and congregate with others when we need help.
If the avoidance of harm excuse is valid in relation to childcare, in the extremely hypothetical circumstance of neither parent being able to take care of the child, how much more valid is it when someone is in a house with someone infected, and in fear of contracted a deadly disease?
If Cummings was justified in taking his child to Durham, then anyone who doesn't want to stay in quarantine and risk contracting coronavirus is justified in leaving the household and going somewhere else.
The logic of Cummings's defence kills not only lockdown but quarantine.
I had thought before this that even the looniest of the looneys weren't against quarantine.
Off topic but the revelation this morning that Post Office is now reviewing around 900 prosecutions that may have relied on Horizon data should be getting a lot more attention. This is miscarriage of justice on an industrial scale.
We now know that Post Office prosecuted an average of 7.7 people (subpostmasters, assistants and employees) per year in the 6 years leading up to the introduction of Horizon. The next 6 years saw that jump to 55 per year. This high rate continued until Second Sight, the firm of forensic accountants engaged by Post Office to investigate cases as part of a mediation scheme which collapsed acrimoniously, produced their first report which suggested all was not well with Horizon. This report came out in July 2013. That year there were only 27 prosecutions. Since then there have only been 4 prosecutions, all of them in 2015.
The Civil Service is clearly trying to brush this under a carpet, trotting out the line that this was all a long time ago and that many people were involved so no-one should be held accountable, so all that is needed is an independent review to make sure lessons are learned rather than an judge-led public inquiry to establish what went wrong and who was responsible.
Yes, this is a massive scandal.
Dozens of people have been imprisoned, and hundreds have lost their businesses due to yet another civil service IT project f***-up, the failure of which no-one appears to be held accountable.
Dominic Cummings to make a public statement and answer questions
Unique surely
1) WTAF.. 2) when in a hole he does seem stupid enough to keep digging.
Unless he is just going to resign
A press conference to announce your own resignation seems rather over the top for an appointee - plausible but unlikely to be an endearing move.
Clearly they're reflecting on the press coverage but the problem with talking about it more is, well, that it means you're talking about it more. Unless some brilliant evidence is going to be revealed that could only be revealed by Cummings I don't see anything positive deriving from this. Unless he's a hidden gem of a performer in front of the media this could be more of a car-crash than yesterday.
I don't understand why they are doing this. Theresa May must be pleased she's on the verge of being supplanted as worst PM and worst media operator of all time.
Putting Cummings in front of the press shows just how desperate Johnson is to keep him. Prime Ministers should not be so dependent on one individual, especially one who is not elected. It is weakness, not strength.
OT Japanese state of emergency ended, Tokyo down to single-digits cases.
Compared to the UK it seems like a data point in support of Abe's "be kind of rubbish but not entirely fucking unbelievably astonishingly incompetent" strategy.
If the former “red wall” does crumble, and the liberal-elite Tory home-county seats trend further Labour or Lib Dem, then there’s a possibility of Keir getting the swing he needs to easily form a Government.
Off topic but the revelation this morning that Post Office is now reviewing around 900 prosecutions that may have relied on Horizon data should be getting a lot more attention. This is miscarriage of justice on an industrial scale.
We now know that Post Office prosecuted an average of 7.7 people (subpostmasters, assistants and employees) per year in the 6 years leading up to the introduction of Horizon. The next 6 years saw that jump to 55 per year. This high rate continued until Second Sight, the firm of forensic accountants engaged by Post Office to investigate cases as part of a mediation scheme which collapsed acrimoniously, produced their first report which suggested all was not well with Horizon. This report came out in July 2013. That year there were only 27 prosecutions. Since then there have only been 4 prosecutions, all of them in 2015.
The Civil Service is clearly trying to brush this under a carpet, trotting out the line that this was all a long time ago and that many people were involved so no-one should be held accountable, so all that is needed is an independent review to make sure lessons are learned rather than an judge-led public inquiry to establish what went wrong and who was responsible.
That is something. A lot of subpostmasters and staff had their lives ruined.
It was a dreadful example of managerial incompetence and ruined many lives.
Putting Cummings in front of the press shows just how desperate Johnson is to keep him. Prime Ministers should not be so dependent on one individual, especially one who is not elected. It is weakness, not strength.
Putting Cummings in front of the press shows just how desperate Johnson is to keep him. Prime Ministers should not be so dependent on one individual, especially one who is not elected. It is weakness, not strength.
If Dom was going to go, he would just go, surely? The only point of a presser is for him to say "I was right"
If it was anyone else, this all smells like the classic: "it's distracting from the govt priorities, current events the priority, yadda yadda, therefore I quit"
With Cummings it seems as likely to be him ranting at the press for 10 minutes, telling them all to fuck off, and making it way worse.
If the former “red wall” does crumble, and the liberal-elite Tory home-county seats trend further Labour or Lib Dem, then there’s a possibility of Keir getting the swing he needs to easily form a Government.
The former is only likely if Boris extends the transition period and does not end free movement and leave the single market as Leavers in the red wall switch from Tory to Brexit Party.
The latter is only likely if we go to WTO terms Brexit and leave the single market and Tory Remain voters in the South go Labour or LD.
If the former “red wall” does crumble, and the liberal-elite Tory home-county seats trend further Labour or Lib Dem, then there’s a possibility of Keir getting the swing he needs to easily form a Government.
The former is only likely if Boris extends the transition period and does not end free movement and leave the single market as Leavers in the red wall switch from Tory to Brexit Party.
The latter is only likely if we go to WTO terms Brexit and leave the single market and Tory Remain voters in the South go Labour or LD.
One might happen but not both
You’re fighting the last war. Still. Don’t you get it? Brexit is “done” to Northern leaver voters. See the WhatsApp message I posted from exactly your kind of new voter. Boris is currently shitting all over them.
Boris will think this is like the RAF at Dunkirk initially blamed by many in the Army and Navy for not doing enough.. When in reality just because they could not be seen on the ground , they were giving their all high above in the air.
Were they? I thought the decision was made to keep the RAF in reserve in large part for the forthcoming battle of Britain where we would have the advantages of additional fuel, radar and time as opposed to trying to fight over France where the Germans had all the advantages.
Putting Cummings in front of the press shows just how desperate Johnson is to keep him. Prime Ministers should not be so dependent on one individual, especially one who is not elected. It is weakness, not strength.
And begs the question, why???
Dominic Cummings fronting up to the press would normally mean he is resigning but these are not normal times, and Cummings may well believe not only that he has done nothing wrong, but that he can convince the media and the country that he is father of the year. A bit like Blair saying for years afterwards that he was not going to apologise for removing Saddam Hussein.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
I think it means he will attempt to stay - and will probably succeed. Provided he shows some contrition. At the very least the, “I’m sorry I’ve upset everyone” apology. But probably needs to be a bit more than that.
I’ve had £140 at 4/7 with Ladbrokes that he stays. So I’m all GREEN to smallish amounts.
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
The fact that the only other country in the world who thinks having senior clergy forming a part of their legislature by dint of their office is Iran really ought to make more people think about this than seem to.
If Dom was going to go, he would just go, surely? The only point of a presser is for him to say "I was right"
If it was anyone else, this all smells like the classic: "it's distracting from the govt priorities, current events the priority, yadda yadda, therefore I quit"
With Cummings it seems as likely to be him ranting at the press for 10 minutes, telling them all to fuck off, and making it way worse.
My best guess is that he clearly and technically lays out why he was acting within rules (which I suspected anyway) and invites questions which he dispatches easily with expertise. A risk for Johnson is that Cummings shows us the sort of quality intellect that we should expect from elected MPs but often fail to get.
Feel free to beat me over the head with this later if I have it wrong.
Off topic but the revelation this morning that Post Office is now reviewing around 900 prosecutions that may have relied on Horizon data should be getting a lot more attention. This is miscarriage of justice on an industrial scale.
We now know that Post Office prosecuted an average of 7.7 people (subpostmasters, assistants and employees) per year in the 6 years leading up to the introduction of Horizon. The next 6 years saw that jump to 55 per year. This high rate continued until Second Sight, the firm of forensic accountants engaged by Post Office to investigate cases as part of a mediation scheme which collapsed acrimoniously, produced their first report which suggested all was not well with Horizon. This report came out in July 2013. That year there were only 27 prosecutions. Since then there have only been 4 prosecutions, all of them in 2015.
The Civil Service is clearly trying to brush this under a carpet, trotting out the line that this was all a long time ago and that many people were involved so no-one should be held accountable, so all that is needed is an independent review to make sure lessons are learned rather than an judge-led public inquiry to establish what went wrong and who was responsible.
Yes, this is a massive scandal.
Dozens of people have been imprisoned, and hundreds have lost their businesses due to yet another civil service IT project f***-up, the failure of which no-one appears to be held accountable.
Its how the alphabet soup operates.
Government in general in this country is both mediocre and deeply self-serving.
Comments
By harm, I don't mean physical. I mean the mental turmoil and misery of being exposed as what he is and roundly rejected. Humiliation, is what I'm rooting for. Abject humiliation.
Like Trump's getting in November.
https://twitter.com/PaulLewis/status/1264827637601644544
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
For me, I`ll be amazed if he survives this but I can`t decide whether he`ll make it to the end of May.
Hold on! Dom Cummings!
Unique surely
Anyway - golf. I'm playing this afternoon. And why not? It's allowed.
2) when in a hole he does seem stupid enough to keep digging.
Johnson either had to condemn or exonerate Cummings yesterday. But either way, he needed to set out the facts and analysis that led him to that conclusion. And he simply didn't, which leaves the story running and makes everyone feel completely mugged off.
If this wasn't someone involved in politics this would be no big deal. If the story was a footballer had sought childcare (instead of a footballer had sought a prostitute) I imagine most of those outraged now would be saying "so what?"
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
commings and goings.
They probably fear indifference more than hate. Hate means they are getting through to you. Indifference means that they are so insignificant in your life that they are not even worth scorn.
They will try and be clever.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I think an investigation would have made political sense rather than being necessary.
If (big if) Cummings has acted within the law as I think and as Johnson said but others don't accept that and think Johnson is just backing his friend then an independent investigation would give an independent answer that takes the sting of politics out of it.
The facts he set out are that he thought there were special childcare requirements so he acted accordingly. Just as the DCMO set out about seven weeks ago.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
The E-Gear Gallardos certainly weren't any worse than the Ferrari (F1 shift or whatever the fuck it was called) or BMWs (SMG) of the time. Unfortunately for them Porsche put the Doppelkupplungsgetriebe transmission into the 2005 997 and set a standard that the other OEMs have struggled to match ever since.
I think he got into politics for the right reasons, wanted to be an MP and do well for his constituents.
He won his seat thanks to the charm and charisma of BoZo
He'll lose it thanks to the incompetence and arrogance of BoZo.
Certainly guidance is trickier, the simplistic guidance says not to move but then when asked about more unique situations then the simplistic answers don't work. But that's the distinction between guidance and statute. Guidance is a guide for most scenarios not the law for all.
None of this is really adding up though. Do you really believe the story?
He was previously founder and Campaign Director of Vote Leave, the official referendum campaign in 2016.
(Off to check the odds again.)
It looks like I shall be facing redundancy in the autumn, so might look back at this as a missed opportunity to stash away a month or two's wages, but right now I am still gainfully employed and staring at the odds screens seems too much like hard work.
Ladbrokes: 11/10 go, 4/6 stay
PP/Betfair: 10/11 go, 4/5 stay
Ha
Haha
Hahaha
Hahahahahahahahaha
Maybe?
I agree they should avoid public statements on party politics however
Will the press pack manage to make a total Horlicks of questioning someone who is a lot more intelligent than most of them, and holds the lot of them in utter disdain?
The only point of a presser is for him to say "I was right"
It's incredibly difficult for the people being quarantined. Being stuck in a house with the sick and infectious, having to cope with people who could be disabled, elderly, or very young, and staying put in order to avoid spreading the infection to others.
It is, though, essential, even though it goes against our natural instincts to go and find help and congregate with others when we need help.
It's why the message was forced home so forcefully. This isn't optional, it is very difficult, you will have to make sacrifices and stumble through. But it's not about you, your children, your spouse, your siblings, your parents - it's about everyone else you could infect.
And Cummings ignored all that, blew quarantine, where so many others didn't.
I've got a severely autistic son. We sat down at the start of this to try to work out what we could do if the illness came in to our household and we had to get through somehow.
Turns out we didn't have to worry; we could have said "fuck quarantine, I'm following my instincts," and I'm apparently a bad father for not resolving to do that right up front.
I have never seen MrsC so animated and angry about any political story. When someone tried passing around a "Well, it's because the child is autistic" line online, she went from furious to beyond incandescent. And she is by no means a lefty.
I now think if Boris doesn't go, this will stick like shit smeared over an entire Party,
https://twitter.com/lucyprebblish/status/1264889386283433986
Can he really ask for sympathy?
Could he actually make it worse?
We now know that Post Office prosecuted an average of 7.7 people (subpostmasters, assistants and employees) per year in the 6 years leading up to the introduction of Horizon. The next 6 years saw that jump to 55 per year. This high rate continued until Second Sight, the firm of forensic accountants engaged by Post Office to investigate cases as part of a mediation scheme which collapsed acrimoniously, produced their first report which suggested all was not well with Horizon. This report came out in July 2013. That year there were only 27 prosecutions. Since then there have only been 4 prosecutions, all of them in 2015.
The Civil Service is clearly trying to brush this under a carpet, trotting out the line that this was all a long time ago and that many people were involved so no-one should be held accountable, so all that is needed is an independent review to make sure lessons are learned rather than an judge-led public inquiry to establish what went wrong and who was responsible.
So I think he has been pushed out on the gangplank. "It's up to you Dominic. You either placate them or you jump".
In terms of the law, you're straightforwardly wrong. The law very clearly and explicitly forbade what Cummings did, but gave a "reasonable excuse" defence which Cummings has to make out.
An analogy is murder and self defence. The law is crystal clear that killing someone recklessly or with intent is murder, and forbidden. But there is a self defence exception which is for the defendant to demonstrate.
The upshot of all this is that people - or at least people like you - now believe that both the regulations and the quarantine guidance are in effect optional.
I don't mean in the sense that "If they break the rules, I'm not going to bother keeping them." I mean in the sense that the government is really saying people don't have to obey them if they don't want to.
From the people who thought Boris' statement yesterday was a super idea.
There was I think initially a little 'rally round the flag' response - as there was for Boris in the UK and for leaders in other countries.
However, after a while people respond to how the leaders are handling the pandemic. In Trump's case I think we can say not well at all.
When in reality just because they could not be seen on the ground , they were giving their all high above in the air.
Has he ever done this before? It isn't easy.
Doubtless he is confident...
Same old rubberband rule of Trump approval ratings, after any event it always resets back to -10.
If Cummings was justified in taking his child to Durham, then anyone who doesn't want to stay in quarantine and risk contracting coronavirus is justified in leaving the household and going somewhere else.
The logic of Cummings's defence kills not only lockdown but quarantine.
I had thought before this that even the looniest of the looneys weren't against quarantine.
Dozens of people have been imprisoned, and hundreds have lost their businesses due to yet another civil service IT project f***-up, the failure of which no-one appears to be held accountable.
Clearly they're reflecting on the press coverage but the problem with talking about it more is, well, that it means you're talking about it more. Unless some brilliant evidence is going to be revealed that could only be revealed by Cummings I don't see anything positive deriving from this. Unless he's a hidden gem of a performer in front of the media this could be more of a car-crash than yesterday.
I don't understand why they are doing this. Theresa May must be pleased she's on the verge of being supplanted as worst PM and worst media operator of all time.
Compared to the UK it seems like a data point in support of Abe's "be kind of rubbish but not entirely fucking unbelievably astonishingly incompetent" strategy.
If it was anyone else, this all smells like the classic: "it's distracting from the govt priorities, current events the priority, yadda yadda, therefore I quit"
With Cummings it seems as likely to be him ranting at the press for 10 minutes, telling them all to fuck off, and making it way worse.
The latter is only likely if we go to WTO terms Brexit and leave the single market and Tory Remain voters in the South go Labour or LD.
One might happen but not both
From what I have seen of him he's not likely to come across as contrite.
I’ve had £140 at 4/7 with Ladbrokes that he stays. So I’m all GREEN to smallish amounts.
LEAVE +£10.05
REMAIN +£28.80
Same as I would any normal member of the public in those circumstances
https://twitter.com/DPMcBride/status/1264894021186486272
Feel free to beat me over the head with this later if I have it wrong.
(Don`t know why I said that, you will anyway.)
Government in general in this country is both mediocre and deeply self-serving.