By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
And you have no sense of historical perspective whatsoever. The fuel crisis of 2000 led to William Hague's Tories - William Hague's Tories! - leading Blair's Labour by 8 points.
I suppose fickle Labourites were also saying that Blair was finished and could never win a majority again then too.
Do whatever you like, but my message to others is: Garde ta Foy, FFS!
Mexico's capital has registered 8,072 more deaths than usual in the first five months of this year, a study has found, casting doubt on the country’s official coronavirus figures.
I don't think the official figures can be relied upon in most countries outside of Europe, North America and Australasia, not necessarily because they're deliberately seeking to mislead, but because their data collection infrastructure very likely isn't reliable.
Another footballer, who seems to have caught it by just going to the shops...
Bournemouth goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale says he was one of two individuals to test positive for coronavirus in the latest round of Premier League tests. Ramsdale, 22, who had tested negative last Monday, told the Sun he was asymptomatic.
"When you know you haven't had it, and you've just been following the rules and only gone to the shop, that was obviously scary at first."
I can't see any of our other parties being more libertarian than the Conservative Party. If the Tories were to oust our current great leader and go back to someone like May, while if the Lib Dems were to go for someone like Nick Clegg and to run on an Orange Book platform then I'd have a difficult decision to make and would probably go to the Lib Dems.
But the odds of that happening seem to be up there with a zombie apocalypse or asteroid strike.
What you need is PR so you can vote for a Libertarian Party which would go into coalition with the Conservatives.
Hmm, PR. Why has no one ever written a thread header about that.
No thanks. What I need is the Conservatives to win and be led by a libertarian. As has happened under Boris, Cameron and Thatcher in my lifetime.
A Libertarian Party would struggle to come fourth like the FDP in Germany.
If the same thing happened to any of us with young children without access to an empty house, it would be a pretty scary situation. Puts into perspective how different dealing with the virus is between the richest and the poorest. Hopefully that will be taken into account in future policies - there are many stealth taxes on the poor that dont appear on the statute.
That said, if we were offered the chance of such access I doubt many people would turn it down.
Agree. But then most of us aren't the government's senior advisor responsible for the policy saying it shouldn't be done.
If his supporters turn on him it'd be news. That Labour voters are no longer supporting him isn't news.
Labour voters weren't supporting him - the drop in support is almost identical between Con & Lab voters.
Con voters approval of the Govt has gone from +86% at the end of March to +56% in the most recent YouGov - a drop of 30 points, and the lowest since the GE
Labour voters approval over the same time period has gone from -31% to -63% a drop of 32 points.
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
And you have no sense of historical perspective whatsoever. The fuel crisis of 2000 led to William Hague's Tories - William Hague's Tories! - leading Blair's Labour by 8 points.
I suppose fickle Labourites were also saying that Blair was finished and could never win a majority again then too.
Do whatever you like, but my message to others is: Garde ta Foy, FFS!
Tone himself said that the fuel crisis was the only time he feared for his premiership.
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
"Boris' USP as a man of the people"
Not sure he ever had that.
I think he does, or perhaps rather did. From HIGNFY to winning Labour London for the Conservatives and then championing the Olympics, he showed a deft touch that belied his Etonian education. He reached across the political spectrum as, indeed, he did by winning last year.
He has really blown it through standing by Cummings. More even than his lack of judgement and his failure to capture the mood of the country, it shows he is insecure and weak. And those are terrible qualities in a PM. The last (godawful) PM we had like that was Gordon Brown.
Maybe I think there is a difference between being popular and being "a man of the people" and you dont
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
I can't see how Boris makes it another 4 years. I can see Tory party pushing him out and spinning it as him going having never fully recovered from coronavirus.
I think Johnson will be there for the next election - and I'm betting that way - but I hope he is brought down and I hope it's in humiliating circumstances. He deserves it.
I like to have respect for the PM of this country. It's important to me, regardless of which party is in power, that I can feel this way. And despite being no Tory, I have been able to feel this way about every Conservative PM of my adult lifetime. Thatcher, Major, Cameron, May. Every one. Why? Because, whilst hating their politics much of the time, I could sense some integrity and diligence and sense of public service in the individuaI.
But this guy - this "Boris" character - he would not recognize any of these things if he fell over them. He is about nothing more elevated than himself. Born into privilege he has done little with it except feed his own vanity and need for the spotlight. He is a piss-taker.
And this means - for the very first time - I find it impossible to respect the person leading the country. Which makes me feel bad. I feel bad about it. A bit sick even, when I dwell on it.
So I want him gone. And I want him punished for putting me through this.
I can't see any of our other parties being more libertarian than the Conservative Party. If the Tories were to oust our current great leader and go back to someone like May, while if the Lib Dems were to go for someone like Nick Clegg and to run on an Orange Book platform then I'd have a difficult decision to make and would probably go to the Lib Dems.
But the odds of that happening seem to be up there with a zombie apocalypse or asteroid strike.
What you need is PR so you can vote for a Libertarian Party which would go into coalition with the Conservatives.
Hmm, PR. Why has no one ever written a thread header about that.
No thanks. What I need is the Conservatives to win and be led by a libertarian. As has happened under Boris, Cameron and Thatcher in my lifetime.
A Libertarian Party would struggle to come fourth like the FDP in Germany.
Philip you are our resident won't people please think of the children PB Poster.
Do you think this view has any merit? Would you have done the same? Come on kids get into the care we're on a voyage of investigation. What's your take?
"But of course, which responsible parent does not test whether their eyesight makes it safe for them to drive by doing a 30-40 minute drive both ways WITH YOUR CHILD IN THE BACK"
And this means - for the very first time - I find it impossible to respect the person leading the country. Which makes me feel bad. I feel bad about it. A bit sick even, when I dwell on it.
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
And you have no sense of historical perspective whatsoever. The fuel crisis of 2000 led to William Hague's Tories - William Hague's Tories! - leading Blair's Labour by 8 points.
Indeed - and the Tories were back in power a mere... checks notes.... 10 years later (as a coalition).
If the same thing happened to any of us with young children without access to an empty house, it would be a pretty scary situation. Puts into perspective how different dealing with the virus is between the richest and the poorest. Hopefully that will be taken into account in future policies - there are many stealth taxes on the poor that dont appear on the statute.
That said, if we were offered the chance of such access I doubt many people would turn it down.
Agree. But then most of us aren't the government's senior advisor responsible for the policy saying it shouldn't be done.
Myself, I would still do what I thought best for my family if I were the government's senior advisor
Worth remembering again that policy-wise this has been the easy bit for the government. It is now going to start getting a whole lot tougher. First with the unwinding of the lockdown and how that is done, and then with the unwinding of the furlough. To have lost so much support in advance of this is not smart, to say the least. But it's the kind of thing that happens when you think you are untouchable. Political hubris is incredibly dangerous.
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
"Boris' USP as a man of the people"
Not sure he ever had that.
He definitely did. He was "the toff that was like us" because he "says it how it is" and doesn't "bullshit like other politicians".
That's the 3m votes the Tory party has just put into the undecided column.
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
And the world economy is going to be in the toilet and whatever fall out over brexit. It isn't going to be like say 2005 for New Labour, where people thought they are pretty sleazy, Bad Al, Mandy, et al. but I am doing very nicely thank you so why rock the boat.
It depends upon how the recover goes. That's all that really matters at the end of the day.
One thing that concerns me in retrospect about the herd immunity strategy that the Government were apparently following until mid-March was that no-one was saying anything about the issue that all other coronaviruses have a tendency to have infection-induced-immunity wear off.
The four common cold coronaviruses: you start being susceptible to reinfection in 3-6 months. SARS, which is much more serious and triggers a much greater immune reaction, seems to start wearing off immunity-wise in about 2 years.
So if this is mid-way between them, and we failed to get a vaccine, we'd be vulnerable to be hit by it every year on average.
That's not an attractive option, really.
Sweden went for herd immunity and failed. Stockholm's antibody rate is far lower than London's and yet the deaths per million is also lower than ours.
Why??
The only logical explanation comes from professor Gupta at Oxford. There is a large reservoir of people for whom Corona is simply not a thing. They have immunity through genes or being exposed to other viruses.
You have only to read about incident in America where nearly 90% of the members of a choir were infected to see that's not the case.
Actually that doesn't negate the Gupta thesis as the choir may not have been a representative sample of the overall population.
Yes, I do realise that producing evidence against this sort of theory is pointless.
If the same thing happened to any of us with young children without access to an empty house, it would be a pretty scary situation.
I'm not quite sure what you mean here.
The same thing did happen to me. I had Covid-19, as did my wife. Our three-year old probably had a typical mild child case, but who knows (he was coughing more than usual, but kids are kids).
We self-isolated in our house. Neighbours, friends and family brought round medicine and food. We got through the isolation period. Like thousands of others.
I think I must be missing some nuance in your comment, because I honestly don't see why access to an empty house is important here.
I don't think the official figures can be relied upon in most countries outside of Europe, North America and Australasia, not necessarily because they're deliberately seeking to mislead, but because their data collection infrastructure very likely isn't reliable.
No testing either. They're doing about as many tests in a month as we do in a day (and that for double the population).
" Another MP said the situation "feels more poll tax than ERM, actually." "
Telegraph
I can't quite work out what distinction is being drawn here.
Any ideas?
The poll tax didn’t cost the Tories the next election because they ditched their leader?
Given the purge of Tory MPs in 2019 I would think Johnson is the safest Conservative Party leader in history.
Given what is going on right now in the world and country that's a pretty daft comment. He may be fine but events dear boy, events.
I think any other leader of the Conservative Party would have faced more explicit criticism of his judgement from his own MPs, but he hasn't because they're scared.
Indeed, I'd have thought in most previous Cabinets you would have had senior ministers telling the PM privately that this was not tenable.
It's only because Johnson's position is so strong that he's been allowed to make such a huge mistake over this.
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
And the world economy is going to be in the toilet and whatever fall out over brexit. It isn't going to be like say 2005 for New Labour, where people thought they are pretty sleazy, Bad Al, Mandy, et al. but I am doing very nicely thank you so why rock the boat.
It depends upon how the recover goes. That's all that really matters at the end of the day.
The world economy was already looking like it was heading into a downturn. Unless there is a vaccine this year / early next, there won't be much sign of a recovery in 4 years. And that's before all the complications of Brexit.
Do we know anything about this different type of test they are using?
The pooled testing technique ? I've seen a several papers experimentally validating the approach. They're basically taking a bit of (say) each of ten samples and (RT-PCR) testing them together in one batch. If the batch shows positive, then they will retest each sample individually - if negative, then you have found ten negatives in the time it takes to process one.
As the article points out, if you have a very low incidence overall (which is likely the case in Wuhan now), pooling speeds up the processing of samples considerably. If the population incidence is 10% or above, then you can only effectively pool a smaller number of samples at a time, so you don't get much benefit.
France has announced a new list of alternatives for English language terms such as clickbait, podcast and deepfake.
For clickbait - the term used for headlines that tempt a reader to click on an online link to a story - CELF suggests "piège à clics", or "click trap" in English.
The commission also recommends the use of "audio à la demande" (AAD) or "audio on demand" for podcast, and "videotox infox" for "deepfake" - edited media which puts a person's face or body onto someone else's.
If the same thing happened to any of us with young children without access to an empty house, it would be a pretty scary situation. Puts into perspective how different dealing with the virus is between the richest and the poorest. Hopefully that will be taken into account in future policies - there are many stealth taxes on the poor that dont appear on the statute.
That said, if we were offered the chance of such access I doubt many people would turn it down.
Agree. But then most of us aren't the government's senior advisor responsible for the policy saying it shouldn't be done.
Myself, I would still do what I thought best for my family if I were the government's senior advisor
I suppose that's why you are posting on PB instead of being that advisor.
...and now two months later there is no elbow room on the beaches of England. You couldn't make this madness up!
Their app doesnt have data from when the matches were played, only from 17 days later, so whilst he might be a scientist, there is no scientific rigour or data behind his assumptions. Nor do they know who went to the matches.
There is plenty of extrapolated evidence an accepted modelling to suggest these events mattered.
What you have suggested is like saying Dominic Cummings definitely did not travel to County Durham because we personally did not see him there.
Not at all, I am saying if a prominent scientist is making a high profile contribution to a key part of public safety, he should publish the data that supports his conclusion. He cant do that because he doesnt have anything relevant.
It would be perfectly feasible for a university to try and arrange a survey with LFC or Cheltenham which could investigate this matter with real data and real people. Id imagine such things are already happening but are yet to report, if not they should be.
As I mentioned yesterday, and I'm sure many others did, the Conservatives will never recover from this. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Those heady days of high approval ratings are at an end. The new northern tory MPs will begin to finger their shirt collars nervously.
It's over. This isn't hyperbole. As Black Wednesday demonstrated, it only takes one catastrophic day to blow the people's trust for a generation.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
And when the only referent in your political toolbox is 'Black Wednesday OMG!', then everything looks like Black Wednesday.
What about all the political scandals that looked big at the time, but _didn't_ turn out to be Black Wednesday? Some critical thinking, please.
Black Wednesday was not a political scandal. The reason Black Wednesday was significant is that it said to voters who had faced enormous hardships through high interest rates, losing their jobs and even their homes, that it was all for nothing; the government had mugged them off.
The parallel now is not that Dominic Cummings broke the rules and got away with it. The parallel is that in doing so, and condoned by the Prime Minister, it says to everyone who has made sacrifices and endured hardships that they are fools. That is why this is so dangerous for the government.
If you can think of another situation like this, what is it?
Peter Mandelson and his revolving door in and out of cabinet . Pick your own scandal.
Mandelson is irrelevant to the point since there was no hardship to the population at large as there was in the ERM with artificially high interest rates cost people money, jobs and even homes. I can think of no other circumstance like this between Black Wednesday and now.
Mandelson is, however, relevant in that he illiustrates the solution advocated by @FrancisUrquhart in this thread: that Cummings quits now and comes back in a few months' time.
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
"Boris' USP as a man of the people"
Not sure he ever had that.
I think he does, or perhaps rather did. From HIGNFY to winning Labour London for the Conservatives and then championing the Olympics, he showed a deft touch that belied his Etonian education. He reached across the political spectrum as, indeed, he did by winning last year.
He has really blown it through standing by Cummings. More even than his lack of judgement and his failure to capture the mood of the country, it shows he is insecure and weak. And those are terrible qualities in a PM. The last (godawful) PM we had like that was Gordon Brown.
France has announced a new list of alternatives for English language terms such as clickbait, podcast and deepfake.
For clickbait - the term used for headlines that tempt a reader to click on an online link to a story - CELF suggests "piège à clics", or "click trap" in English.
The commission also recommends the use of "audio à la demande" (AAD) or "audio on demand" for podcast, and "videotox infox" for "deepfake" - edited media which puts a person's face or body onto someone else's.
One thing that concerns me in retrospect about the herd immunity strategy that the Government were apparently following until mid-March was that no-one was saying anything about the issue that all other coronaviruses have a tendency to have infection-induced-immunity wear off.
The four common cold coronaviruses: you start being susceptible to reinfection in 3-6 months. SARS, which is much more serious and triggers a much greater immune reaction, seems to start wearing off immunity-wise in about 2 years.
So if this is mid-way between them, and we failed to get a vaccine, we'd be vulnerable to be hit by it every year on average.
That's not an attractive option, really.
Sweden went for herd immunity and failed. Stockholm's antibody rate is far lower than London's and yet the deaths per million is also lower than ours.
Why??
The only logical explanation comes from professor Gupta at Oxford. There is a large reservoir of people for whom Corona is simply not a thing. They have immunity through genes or being exposed to other viruses.
You have only to read about incident in America where nearly 90% of the members of a choir were infected to see that's not the case.
Actually that doesn't negate the Gupta thesis as the choir may not have been a representative sample of the overall population.
Yes, I do realise that producing evidence against this sort of theory is pointless.
Even arithmetic.
"Probably no more than one in ten thousand who catches it will die."
Divide population of UK by 10,000 to see the maximum death toll if literally everyone gets it, assuming no herd immunity kicks in and everyone, no matter how socially distant or loner, catches it. Gets 6,700.
All those who desperately want to believe it ignore the fact that 6,700 isn't really a credible number for the maximum death toll when it's already several times that number. Because of reasons...
Worth remembering again that policy-wise this has been the easy bit for the government. It is now going to start getting a whole lot tougher. First with the unwinding of the lockdown and how that is done, and then with the unwinding of the furlough. To have lost so much support in advance of this is not smart, to say the least. But it's the kind of thing that happens when you think you are untouchable. Political hubris is incredibly dangerous.
Will Trump and Johnson be the only two leaders to fuck up the Covid-19 boost almost all other pms/presidents have received?
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
What odds will you give me for £10 that says he will?
If his supporters turn on him it'd be news. That Labour voters are no longer supporting him isn't news.
I've got many tory friends who are absolutely incandescent. They feel that they and others sacrificed almost everything and their leadership have taken them for complete fools.
You should follow Cummings' example and get out more.
Then your Tory friends are - to put it politely - obtuse. One man driving to Durham had fuck all effect on the efficacy of the national lockdown, as proven by the statistics demonstrating the, er, efficacy of the national lockdown. Their sacrifices are worth precisely as much as they always were, which is a hell of a lot.
Stats here on the efficacy of the lockdown show a massive drop in number worried this weekend.
Even if it's true that less worry = compromised lockdown (which is not necessarily clear), then all it proves is that the Guardian and Mirror caused it to be compromised. It is surely incontrovertible that had they not conducted their hit-job, confidence in the lockdown would be higher, would it not?
So Cummings actions not the issue
Thats all right then
By now it's marginal.
Johnson's (in)actions are the issue, and the impact they're having on Public Health.
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
"Boris' USP as a man of the people"
Not sure he ever had that.
He definitely did. He was "the toff that was like us" because he "says it how it is" and doesn't "bullshit like other politicians".
That's the 3m votes the Tory party has just put into the undecided column.
Now that looks extremely useful - a pre-built COVID early warning system for every local area.
But that's not really important, is it? Let's get back to talking about the real issues, like driving for an eye-test...
Ironically, this is the sort of thing Dominic Cummings was supposed to be good at: finding new technological solutions to government problems. Not much evidence of it so far.
This is all rubbish of course and adding to the confected story, but FWIW on 12 April it was not illegal to drive somewhere to exercise, though the police, as part of the general thought police, were not keen. Which is why 'exercise' would have been the best excuse for Barnard Castle, unless he happened to have a true reasonable excuse - which plainly he didn't or he would have let us into the secret.
If the same thing happened to any of us with young children without access to an empty house, it would be a pretty scary situation. Puts into perspective how different dealing with the virus is between the richest and the poorest. Hopefully that will be taken into account in future policies - there are many stealth taxes on the poor that dont appear on the statute.
That said, if we were offered the chance of such access I doubt many people would turn it down.
Agree. But then most of us aren't the government's senior advisor responsible for the policy saying it shouldn't be done.
Myself, I would still do what I thought best for my family if I were the government's senior advisor
I suppose that's why you are posting on PB instead of being that advisor.
That doesn't make sense, the senior advisor did it!
Anyway, we're not seeing the wargamed deeper cunning plan, here. Cummings has realised that the vaccine trials are being imperilled because we've successfully got the infection rate down. He sacrifices his own reputation and the Government's political capital to heroically press up the chances by trying to increase the infection rate.
France has announced a new list of alternatives for English language terms such as clickbait, podcast and deepfake.
For clickbait - the term used for headlines that tempt a reader to click on an online link to a story - CELF suggests "piège à clics", or "click trap" in English.
The commission also recommends the use of "audio à la demande" (AAD) or "audio on demand" for podcast, and "videotox infox" for "deepfake" - edited media which puts a person's face or body onto someone else's.
Ha, they've clearly never heard French teenagers talking. The French language police have long since missed their opportunity to stop the kids speaking "Franglish".
This is all rubbish of course and adding to the confected story, but FWIW on 12 April it was not illegal to drive somewhere to exercise, though the police, as part of the general thought police, were not keen. Which is why 'exercise' would have been the best excuse for Barnard Castle, unless he happened to have a true reasonable excuse - which plainly he didn't or he would have let us into the secret.
Difficult to explain away why he couldn't exercise in the woods and grounds of his parents' estate - as he'd relied on that to explain away the earlier sighting.
" Another MP said the situation "feels more poll tax than ERM, actually." "
Telegraph
To me it seems more like the expenses scandal. Expenses are acceptable, claiming a duck island as part of your expenses is just taking the piss.
People understand the reasons for a lockdown (even if a few disagree with the policy). If the people imposing the lockdown do not follow it themselves, then that is taking the piss out of the British public.
This is all rubbish of course and adding to the confected story, but FWIW on 12 April it was not illegal to drive somewhere to exercise, though the police, as part of the general thought police, were not keen. Which is why 'exercise' would have been the best excuse for Barnard Castle, unless he happened to have a true reasonable excuse - which plainly he didn't or he would have let us into the secret.
The conspiracy theorists suggest he was cooking up a backroom deal with GSK (who have headquarters in Barnard Castle). They did announce something 2 days later, after all...
France has announced a new list of alternatives for English language terms such as clickbait, podcast and deepfake.
For clickbait - the term used for headlines that tempt a reader to click on an online link to a story - CELF suggests "piège à clics", or "click trap" in English.
The commission also recommends the use of "audio à la demande" (AAD) or "audio on demand" for podcast, and "videotox infox" for "deepfake" - edited media which puts a person's face or body onto someone else's.
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
"Boris' USP as a man of the people"
Not sure he ever had that.
I think he does, or perhaps rather did. From HIGNFY to winning Labour London for the Conservatives and then championing the Olympics, he showed a deft touch that belied his Etonian education. He reached across the political spectrum as, indeed, he did by winning last year.
He has really blown it through standing by Cummings. More even than his lack of judgement and his failure to capture the mood of the country, it shows he is insecure and weak. And those are terrible qualities in a PM. The last (godawful) PM we had like that was Gordon Brown.
Standing up to the media shows he is weak.
Couldn't make it up 😂😂😂😂😂😂
You can see lots of magical, mystical things through your rose tinted spectacles that many of the rest of us cannot see. Where did you get them? Barnard Castle.
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
"Boris' USP as a man of the people"
Not sure he ever had that.
I think he does, or perhaps rather did. From HIGNFY to winning Labour London for the Conservatives and then championing the Olympics, he showed a deft touch that belied his Etonian education. He reached across the political spectrum as, indeed, he did by winning last year.
He has really blown it through standing by Cummings. More even than his lack of judgement and his failure to capture the mood of the country, it shows he is insecure and weak. And those are terrible qualities in a PM. The last (godawful) PM we had like that was Gordon Brown.
Standing up to the media shows he is weak.
Couldn't make it up 😂😂😂😂😂😂
No, not standing up for what's right makes him weak. Being reliant on a guy who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong makes him weak. This isn't some whipped up media storm. Dom made the wrong decision on three separate occasions. Boris standing by him because he can't afford to lose him is the weakness.
If the same thing happened to any of us with young children without access to an empty house, it would be a pretty scary situation. Puts into perspective how different dealing with the virus is between the richest and the poorest. Hopefully that will be taken into account in future policies - there are many stealth taxes on the poor that dont appear on the statute.
That said, if we were offered the chance of such access I doubt many people would turn it down.
Agree. But then most of us aren't the government's senior advisor responsible for the policy saying it shouldn't be done.
Myself, I would still do what I thought best for my family if I were the government's senior advisor
I suppose that's why you are posting on PB instead of being that advisor.
That doesn't make sense, the senior advisor did it!
The point is that you are not prepared to make the many sacrifices that go with being the government's senior advisor. Hence you, and most others on here, stick to posting on PB.
Because if you are the government's senior advisor you should be aware that rules and expectations which don't apply to most people may well apply to you.
This is all rubbish of course and adding to the confected story, but FWIW on 12 April it was not illegal to drive somewhere to exercise, though the police, as part of the general thought police, were not keen. Which is why 'exercise' would have been the best excuse for Barnard Castle, unless he happened to have a true reasonable excuse - which plainly he didn't or he would have let us into the secret.
The conspiracy theorists suggest he was cooking up a backroom deal with GSK (who have headquarters in Barnard Castle). They did announce something 2 days later, after all...
Two tweets supportive of Ross from Davidson and Tomkins won't have added to the gaiety of Carlaw's morning.....
It actually wouldn't be a bad thing. It starts him off on the right foot having stuck it to Boris and Cummings. It proves he is independent and principled. There is just the small matter of being elected to Holyrood...
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
I can't see how Boris makes it another 4 years. I can see Tory party pushing him out and spinning it as him going having never fully recovered from coronavirus.
I think Johnson will be there for the next election - and I'm betting that way - but I hope he is brought down and I hope it's in humiliating circumstances. He deserves it.
I like to have respect for the PM of this country. It's important to me, regardless of which party is in power, that I can feel this way. And despite being no Tory, I have been able to feel this way about every Conservative PM of my adult lifetime. Thatcher, Major, Cameron, May. Every one. Why? Because, whilst hating their politics much of the time, I could sense some integrity and diligence and sense of public service in the individuaI.
But this guy - this "Boris" character - he would not recognize any of these things if he fell over them. He is about nothing more elevated than himself. Born into privilege he has done little with it except feed his own vanity and need for the spotlight. He is a piss-taker.
And this means - for the very first time - I find it impossible to respect the person leading the country. Which makes me feel bad. I feel bad about it. A bit sick even, when I dwell on it.
So I want him gone. And I want him punished for putting me through this.
Fuck off Boris.
You respected Theresa May? The woman who sent vans telling immigrants to Go Home?
If the same thing happened to any of us with young children without access to an empty house, it would be a pretty scary situation. Puts into perspective how different dealing with the virus is between the richest and the poorest. Hopefully that will be taken into account in future policies - there are many stealth taxes on the poor that dont appear on the statute.
That said, if we were offered the chance of such access I doubt many people would turn it down.
Agree. But then most of us aren't the government's senior advisor responsible for the policy saying it shouldn't be done.
Myself, I would still do what I thought best for my family if I were the government's senior advisor
I suppose that's why you are posting on PB instead of being that advisor.
That doesn't make sense, the senior advisor did it!
The point is that you are not prepared to make the many sacrifices that go with being the government's senior advisor. Hence you, and most others on here, stick to posting on PB.
Because if you are the government's senior advisor you should be aware that rules and expectations which don't apply to most people may well apply to you.
You can go out if you think it's absolutely necessary you know. It's a £60 fine the first time you're caught or something, less than weed, and everyone smokes weed.
I went to the shittiest of state schools and even I understand that sometimes you have to take personal responsibility in a shitty situation. And it sounds like his child is not particularly well a lot of the time.
I can't see any of our other parties being more libertarian than the Conservative Party. If the Tories were to oust our current great leader and go back to someone like May, while if the Lib Dems were to go for someone like Nick Clegg and to run on an Orange Book platform then I'd have a difficult decision to make and would probably go to the Lib Dems.
But the odds of that happening seem to be up there with a zombie apocalypse or asteroid strike.
What you need is PR so you can vote for a Libertarian Party which would go into coalition with the Conservatives.
Hmm, PR. Why has no one ever written a thread header about that.
No thanks. What I need is the Conservatives to win and be led by a libertarian. As has happened under Boris, Cameron and Thatcher in my lifetime.
A Libertarian Party would struggle to come fourth like the FDP in Germany.
Philip you are our resident won't people please think of the children PB Poster.
Do you think this view has any merit? Would you have done the same? Come on kids get into the care we're on a voyage of investigation. What's your take?
"But of course, which responsible parent does not test whether their eyesight makes it safe for them to drive by doing a 30-40 minute drive both ways WITH YOUR CHILD IN THE BACK"
I think the eyesight thing has been misphrased and then [perhaps deliberately] misunderstood but I understood what he meant [I think] rather than what he said.
What he said about the drive made sense to me. I do the same thing. And no if I felt my vision was still compromised I wouldn't get behind the wheel. But I don't think that's what he meant.
Two tweets supportive of Ross from Davidson and Tomkins won't have added to the gaiety of Carlaw's morning.....
It actually wouldn't be a bad thing. It starts him off on the right foot having stuck it to Boris and Cummings. It proves he is independent and principled. There is just the small matter of being elected to Holyrood...
Not sure if it's in the SCon constitution that their leader has to be at Holyrood, though it helps obvs. Otoh Jim Murphy is not a happy precedent.
If the same thing happened to any of us with young children without access to an empty house, it would be a pretty scary situation. Puts into perspective how different dealing with the virus is between the richest and the poorest. Hopefully that will be taken into account in future policies - there are many stealth taxes on the poor that dont appear on the statute.
That said, if we were offered the chance of such access I doubt many people would turn it down.
Agree. But then most of us aren't the government's senior advisor responsible for the policy saying it shouldn't be done.
Myself, I would still do what I thought best for my family if I were the government's senior advisor
I suppose that's why you are posting on PB instead of being that advisor.
That doesn't make sense, the senior advisor did it!
The point is that you are not prepared to make the many sacrifices that go with being the government's senior advisor. Hence you, and most others on here, stick to posting on PB.
Because if you are the government's senior advisor you should be aware that rules and expectations which don't apply to most people may well apply to you.
My Mum keeps saying "Why can't Boris govern without this guy? It's really worrying how reliant he is."
If the same thing happened to any of us with young children without access to an empty house, it would be a pretty scary situation. Puts into perspective how different dealing with the virus is between the richest and the poorest. Hopefully that will be taken into account in future policies - there are many stealth taxes on the poor that dont appear on the statute.
That said, if we were offered the chance of such access I doubt many people would turn it down.
Agree. But then most of us aren't the government's senior advisor responsible for the policy saying it shouldn't be done.
Myself, I would still do what I thought best for my family if I were the government's senior advisor
I suppose that's why you are posting on PB instead of being that advisor.
That doesn't make sense, the senior advisor did it!
The point is that you are not prepared to make the many sacrifices that go with being the government's senior advisor. Hence you, and most others on here, stick to posting on PB.
Because if you are the government's senior advisor you should be aware that rules and expectations which don't apply to most people may well apply to you.
You can go out if you think it's absolutely necessary you know. It's a £60 fine the first time you're caught or something, less than weed, and everyone smokes weed.
I went to the shittiest of state schools and even I understand that sometimes you have to take personal responsibility in a shitty situation. And it sounds like his child is not particularly well a lot of the time.
You are the government's senior advisor. You helped to formulate the rules. Which you then broke.
Same question to you as yesterday: which is worse, a 17-yr old scrote stealing a Mars Bar from Tesco or the Chief Constable stealing a Mars Bar from Tesco?
By my unscientific finger in the air method the Tory party has just shifted 3m votes from their column into the undecided column. It's literally all to play for for Labour now. If Boris is still there in 2024 I could see Labour getting very close to a majority or even a working majority atm.
It's going to be a very long 4 years for the party if they don't dump Boris.
Yes, of course they should dump their best election winner in 32 years over a single incident. Remember when Boris' prorogation was overturned? When he expelled 20 MPs from his own party, was in deep minority, and faced a die-in-a-ditch deadline within weeks?
The received wisdom was that he was finished then too. It is comically lacking in perspective to believe that he is finished now with a majority of 80, Labour 163 seats behind, and 4 years to plan strategy for the next election.
The difference then is that Boris was (fairly or unfairly) cast as the saviour of the people vs the elites. That strategy isn't going to be available to him and Dom next time. This has taken away Boris' USP as a man of the people. The consensus view of Boris among those who would consider voting for him is "he might be rich and a toff but he's not like the rest of them". That's been completely shattered today.
You are completely blinkered if you think Boris will win another majority.
"Boris' USP as a man of the people"
Not sure he ever had that.
I think he does, or perhaps rather did. From HIGNFY to winning Labour London for the Conservatives and then championing the Olympics, he showed a deft touch that belied his Etonian education. He reached across the political spectrum as, indeed, he did by winning last year.
He has really blown it through standing by Cummings. More even than his lack of judgement and his failure to capture the mood of the country, it shows he is insecure and weak. And those are terrible qualities in a PM. The last (godawful) PM we had like that was Gordon Brown.
Maybe I think there is a difference between being popular and being "a man of the people" and you dont
I think Boris showed with his Brexit backing, against the Remainer Parliament, that he was very much a man of the people. And popular.
I'm not sure your distinction holds up to close scrutiny anyway tbh. I suspect you're referring to upbringing which isn't entirely the same thing.
Am I the only person on this site who can't stand Theresa May and finds her morally awful?
I don't understand it. I quit the party when she became leader as I can't stand the vile woman. I can't stand anyone who shouts at immigrants to "GO HOME" yet to listen to people here you'd swear she was a paragon of virtue.
People saying this is a bit like expenses scandal. Cameron managed to insulate himself personally from most of the criticism, because he very sensibly came straight out and said this shit isn't on, doesn't matter if technically within the rules, we are going to investigate and punish.
In comparison, initially Gordo tried the yes, but no, but yes, but we need to look at all this in the round. Process, rules, you see.
The eventual result from both parties was basically the same, a kinda of sham court, some people thrown under the bus, but yes people remember duck house man etc, but Cameron's personal brand wasn't permanently damaged.
He then tried to keep Andy Coulson for too long and took a big hit and became personally mired in the whole phone hacking affair.
Boris accepts Cummings resignation over the weekend, he doesn't get it personally. Now he is hitched to Cummings actions.
The media are sooo desperate for that scalp, not just because they hate Cummings, but because they know that if they don't get it their power will have been broken and the Government can tell them to get stuffed with any future whining.
I would sacrifice a lot of temporary popularity to win that prize. And I think Dominic Cummings would too
If the same thing happened to any of us with young children without access to an empty house, it would be a pretty scary situation. Puts into perspective how different dealing with the virus is between the richest and the poorest. Hopefully that will be taken into account in future policies - there are many stealth taxes on the poor that dont appear on the statute.
That said, if we were offered the chance of such access I doubt many people would turn it down.
Agree. But then most of us aren't the government's senior advisor responsible for the policy saying it shouldn't be done.
Myself, I would still do what I thought best for my family if I were the government's senior advisor
I suppose that's why you are posting on PB instead of being that advisor.
That doesn't make sense, the senior advisor did it!
The point is that you are not prepared to make the many sacrifices that go with being the government's senior advisor. Hence you, and most others on here, stick to posting on PB.
Because if you are the government's senior advisor you should be aware that rules and expectations which don't apply to most people may well apply to you.
You can go out if you think it's absolutely necessary you know. It's a £60 fine the first time you're caught or something, less than weed, and everyone smokes weed.
I went to the shittiest of state schools and even I understand that sometimes you have to take personal responsibility in a shitty situation. And it sounds like his child is not particularly well a lot of the time.
You are the government's senior advisor. You helped to formulate the rules. Which you then broke.
Same question to you as yesterday: which is worse, a 17-yr old scrote stealing a Mars Bar from Tesco or the Chief Constable stealing a Mars Bar from Tesco?
This is why Dom in the garden yesterday is clever. In journalism, everything is black and white, there's only one side, it's all Good or Bad.
Turns out real life is nuanced. It's a human story now. There's exceptional circumstances. This site was unified against him before it, now there is at least some debate, because it's murky, and it's real. So the media lost. Maybe the chief constable has diabetes and collapsed before he got to the till, and there's a rule that says you only need the wrapper to pay.
This is all rubbish of course and adding to the confected story, but FWIW on 12 April it was not illegal to drive somewhere to exercise, though the police, as part of the general thought police, were not keen. Which is why 'exercise' would have been the best excuse for Barnard Castle, unless he happened to have a true reasonable excuse - which plainly he didn't or he would have let us into the secret.
The conspiracy theorists suggest he was cooking up a backroom deal with GSK (who have headquarters in Barnard Castle). They did announce something 2 days later, after all...
Comments
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1265231988606337025
Nails it. Go Owen!
I suppose fickle Labourites were also saying that Blair was finished and could never win a majority again then too.
Do whatever you like, but my message to others is: Garde ta Foy, FFS!
Bournemouth goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale says he was one of two individuals to test positive for coronavirus in the latest round of Premier League tests. Ramsdale, 22, who had tested negative last Monday, told the Sun he was asymptomatic.
"When you know you haven't had it, and you've just been following the rules and only gone to the shop, that was obviously scary at first."
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52805363
A Libertarian Party would struggle to come fourth like the FDP in Germany.
Yesterday: 1625
OK I'm cherry picking
March 19th the last day of the Cheltenham festival: 643
There are still a lot of infected people out there.
Con voters approval of the Govt has gone from +86% at the end of March to +56% in the most recent YouGov - a drop of 30 points, and the lowest since the GE
Labour voters approval over the same time period has gone from -31% to -63% a drop of 32 points.
I'd say it was a "drop across the board".
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/government-approval
I like to have respect for the PM of this country. It's important to me, regardless of which party is in power, that I can feel this way. And despite being no Tory, I have been able to feel this way about every Conservative PM of my adult lifetime. Thatcher, Major, Cameron, May. Every one. Why? Because, whilst hating their politics much of the time, I could sense some integrity and diligence and sense of public service in the individuaI.
But this guy - this "Boris" character - he would not recognize any of these things if he fell over them. He is about nothing more elevated than himself. Born into privilege he has done little with it except feed his own vanity and need for the spotlight. He is a piss-taker.
And this means - for the very first time - I find it impossible to respect the person leading the country. Which makes me feel bad. I feel bad about it. A bit sick even, when I dwell on it.
So I want him gone. And I want him punished for putting me through this.
Fuck off Boris.
Do you think this view has any merit? Would you have done the same? Come on kids get into the care we're on a voyage of investigation. What's your take?
"But of course, which responsible parent does not test whether their eyesight makes it safe for them to drive by doing a 30-40 minute drive both ways WITH YOUR CHILD IN THE BACK"
And BoZo is sooooo much worse.
I'm turning into Scott!!
That's the 3m votes the Tory party has just put into the undecided column.
If we get another wave, with a doubling rate of 2-3 days, a week's notice will be invaluable.
The same thing did happen to me. I had Covid-19, as did my wife. Our three-year old probably had a typical mild child case, but who knows (he was coughing more than usual, but kids are kids).
We self-isolated in our house. Neighbours, friends and family brought round medicine and food. We got through the isolation period. Like thousands of others.
I think I must be missing some nuance in your comment, because I honestly don't see why access to an empty house is important here.
Indeed, I'd have thought in most previous Cabinets you would have had senior ministers telling the PM privately that this was not tenable.
It's only because Johnson's position is so strong that he's been allowed to make such a huge mistake over this.
I've seen a several papers experimentally validating the approach. They're basically taking a bit of (say) each of ten samples and (RT-PCR) testing them together in one batch.
If the batch shows positive, then they will retest each sample individually - if negative, then you have found ten negatives in the time it takes to process one.
As the article points out, if you have a very low incidence overall (which is likely the case in Wuhan now), pooling speeds up the processing of samples considerably.
If the population incidence is 10% or above, then you can only effectively pool a smaller number of samples at a time, so you don't get much benefit.
It is a shame we aren't seeing exactly where these cases are coming from. Is it all hospitals and other care settings now?
For clickbait - the term used for headlines that tempt a reader to click on an online link to a story - CELF suggests "piège à clics", or "click trap" in English.
The commission also recommends the use of "audio à la demande" (AAD) or "audio on demand" for podcast, and "videotox infox" for "deepfake" - edited media which puts a person's face or body onto someone else's.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52806469
It would be perfectly feasible for a university to try and arrange a survey with LFC or Cheltenham which could investigate this matter with real data and real people. Id imagine such things are already happening but are yet to report, if not they should be.
Mandelson is, however, relevant in that he illiustrates the solution advocated by @FrancisUrquhart in this thread: that Cummings quits now and comes back in a few months' time.
We don't need those who pander to the media and Sir Humphreys to be in charge.
A strong PM could jettison advisors on a whim.
Apparently without Cummings, BoZo can't think.
Couldn't make it up 😂😂😂😂😂😂
I wonder if the day will even come when Mandarin will be a lingua franca. Doesn't look like it atm.
Source TVZone
5m then watched Boris Johnsons press conference.
Source Broadcast
"Probably no more than one in ten thousand who catches it will die."
Divide population of UK by 10,000 to see the maximum death toll if literally everyone gets it, assuming no herd immunity kicks in and everyone, no matter how socially distant or loner, catches it. Gets 6,700.
All those who desperately want to believe it ignore the fact that 6,700 isn't really a credible number for the maximum death toll when it's already several times that number. Because of reasons...
Johnson's (in)actions are the issue, and the impact they're having on Public Health.
Cummings has realised that the vaccine trials are being imperilled because we've successfully got the infection rate down. He sacrifices his own reputation and the Government's political capital to heroically press up the chances by trying to increase the infection rate.
What a guy!
https://twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1265197170854105088
People understand the reasons for a lockdown (even if a few disagree with the policy). If the people imposing the lockdown do not follow it themselves, then that is taking the piss out of the British public.
#JacksonforFM
https://twitter.com/GerryHassan/status/1265222406584643584?s=20
https://uk.gsk.com/en-gb/about-us/uk-locations/barnard-castle/
Because if you are the government's senior advisor you should be aware that rules and expectations which don't apply to most people may well apply to you.
I think that when I talk of Johnson now it is with the understanding that he is merely the front man for this triumvirate.
It doesnt sound like something he would choose to avoid saying?
I went to the shittiest of state schools and even I understand that sometimes you have to take personal responsibility in a shitty situation. And it sounds like his child is not particularly well a lot of the time.
Obviously in Ireland and here is a list of elsewhere in Europe.
https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-elite-skewered-for-coronavirus-covid19-lockdown-double-standards/
"Fuck you, plebs"
https://www.change.org/p/dominic-cummings-must-be-sacked
What he said about the drive made sense to me. I do the same thing. And no if I felt my vision was still compromised I wouldn't get behind the wheel. But I don't think that's what he meant.
Same question to you as yesterday: which is worse, a 17-yr old scrote stealing a Mars Bar from Tesco or the Chief Constable stealing a Mars Bar from Tesco?
What is really important is that these newly infected people properly self isolate and don't just think "F&*§-it I'm going to drive to Durham too".
I'm not sure your distinction holds up to close scrutiny anyway tbh. I suspect you're referring to upbringing which isn't entirely the same thing.
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1265239163089096706
I don't understand it. I quit the party when she became leader as I can't stand the vile woman. I can't stand anyone who shouts at immigrants to "GO HOME" yet to listen to people here you'd swear she was a paragon of virtue.
In comparison, initially Gordo tried the yes, but no, but yes, but we need to look at all this in the round. Process, rules, you see.
The eventual result from both parties was basically the same, a kinda of sham court, some people thrown under the bus, but yes people remember duck house man etc, but Cameron's personal brand wasn't permanently damaged.
He then tried to keep Andy Coulson for too long and took a big hit and became personally mired in the whole phone hacking affair.
Boris accepts Cummings resignation over the weekend, he doesn't get it personally. Now he is hitched to Cummings actions.
I would sacrifice a lot of temporary popularity to win that prize. And I think Dominic Cummings would too
I see good old Leo has been out enjoying himself
Turns out real life is nuanced. It's a human story now. There's exceptional circumstances. This site was unified against him before it, now there is at least some debate, because it's murky, and it's real. So the media lost. Maybe the chief constable has diabetes and collapsed before he got to the till, and there's a rule that says you only need the wrapper to pay.
It's a bollox justification for a bollox excuse for a very stupid thing to do.