The idea that the Red Wall - or the Blue Wall, for that matter - will elect this kneeling simperer is really quite laughable.
The North Remembers...
I think if you work from the assumption that voting patterns are increasingly determined by cultural values than economic matters, then Labour's problem is that they are splitting the "liberal" viewpoint with the Lib Dems (and Greens at the margins plus the SNP in Scotland) whereas the Conservatives have the culturally conservative section all to themselves. The only way I would see that weakening is if the Conservatives started to be seen to be buckling on issues such as statues and such like, allowing the re-entry of Farage. For that reason, they won't and if you look at some of the moves in the last week (a defence of statues, moving away from self-defining gender, abolishing DfID, Raab not bending his knee etc), it is clear they will be ensuring they remain hardline enough to stop a Farage-style party having enough room to breathe
The WokeMania will end like all revolutions: when the revolution devours its own children and the cadres turn on each other, and all are destroyed. Just a question of how long.
It is already happening in the TERF-trans war.
Ernest, not Nye, Bevin.
Nye Bevan even.
Are all left-of-centre Welshmen the same to the racist hard right?
I am rarely moved to be very rude to people here (or anywhere else, but I would have thought people who commented on a politics site would have known the names of two giants of the 1945 Labour Government. Aneurin (Nye) Bevan was a former miner, who, having left school at 13 to go down the pit educated himself and worked his way up through the South Wales Miners Federation to become the Minister of Health who brought in the NHS. Ernie Bevin was a West Country man, again a 13yrs old school leaver who came up through the Transport Workers Union and became Minister of Labour during the War, subsequently Foreign Secretary.
Well, Kinabalu, like the bigot he is, thought Ernie Bevin was Welsh
Fair cop.
I hang my head and slink away. To return (I hope) a new and improved man.
Don't be too harsh on yourself. I have confused Michael Foot with Greg Hands.
lol - I will not ask the circumstances.
I used to work with GUY Hands - City big cheese - who I have always assumed was Greg's older brother. Was going to just go ahead and share that snippet with you but in the light of the litany of basic factual errors already from so many on this thread, I thought I'd check Wiki first. And he isn't. Not brothers.
As for Michael Foot, that was the correct answer to my 2nd question when I appeared on Fifteen to One a few years ago. I answered James Callaghan and was eliminated there and then. Most people on here would have got the question right, I think. Certainly @HYUFD and @justin124 would have. I think you might of.
Well Callaghan was an old family friend so probably. #namedropping
"NHS has been testing both systems against each other, over the course of the past month. The centralised version trialled on the Isle of Wight worked well at assessing the distance between two users, but was poor at recognising Apple's iPhones. Specifically, the software registered about 75% of nearby Android handsets but only 4% of iPhones. By contrast, the Apple-Google model logged iPhones but its distance calculations were weaker. In some instances, it could not differentiate between a phone in a user's pocket 1m (3.3ft) away and a phone in a user's hand 3m (9.8ft) away."
I'm not sure I get all this concern about 1m or 2m or 3m.
Surely whether you are 1m or 3m away is much less important than 1) whether you are inside or outside 2) how long the infected person was around
and then what kind of things people were doing, whether masks were worn.
If I was sitting in a restaurant for an hour I would want to know if someone infected was also around, whether they were at the next table or 3 tables away.
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
I've never heard Winnie suggesting that. The French did propose a union between France and Britain with the Queen as head of state when Eden was PM, but the idea was quickly rebuffed:
Yes, and not using the Google/Apple API, I believe. Ditto Norway (although they've now given up on it). So the UK wasn't quite as isolated as people make out, if that's any consolation!
I do wonder though whether the whole idea of an app somehow making a major contribution is wrong in the first place, unless you go the whole S. Korea or Hong Kong route, which would never be acceptable in Europe. I have a sneaking suspicion that in all European countries the apps will end up being quietly dropped.
If there is a second wave the apps could be incredibly useful in avoiding a second lockdown (which we will be desperate to do).
I also think western governments underestimate how willingly people would accept compulsory usage of these apps. We've already accepted an unprecedented mass lockdown and the decimation of our economy.
If the government said "Look, this will help us avoid disaster, it will save thousands of lives and millions of jobs, we need you to download this obligatory app" then I reckon they would get 90% uptake: enough to make it highly effective
I note there has been no criticism of Google/Apple at all.
They decided that they wouldn't support a centralised method 'because privacy'.
And yet Google at least continue to slurp all sorts of sensitive data into their own centralised database by default, including location data.
They could probably track and trace most android users SK style going back years but aren't going to admit it.
I did make that criticism on here weeks ago - but I can forgive you for missing it. In general I think democratic governments should make this sort of decision, rather than unaccountable transnational corporations.
Fair enough, I did miss that. I agree entirely.
The centralised method is actually easier technically (for Google and Apple at least). All that was needed was a permission to keep the bluetooth signal open in a background app with a big red warning on it, and then kicking anything unofficial off their app stores that asked for it for added security.
But no.
Funny that they do bend the rules for some governments (cough, China).
Catching up with WATO. They really can't help themselves can they. This is not a brexit argument, the EU has no competency here as has been shown by the different approaches taken by the various countries of the EU. I'm genuinely hoping the German app becomes standard and all other EU nations adopt it as well as the UK so everyone has an interoperable system and holidays in Europe can still be traced. If I was in government I'd be talking to the Germans about this right now and bringing as many other European countries to the table as possible, especially those that rely on British tourism dollars like Spain and Greece.
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
Corbyn really screwed the pooch for Labour.
But Corbyn was almost certainly the reason for their switch. Maybe some for Brexit, but with that done why would they vote for the Tories, let alone for a PM that even the most myopic can see has the leadership skills of a sheep? I will vote Labour for the first time in my life if Johnson is still leader of the Tories. I will happily switch back again at the following GE if he is replaced by someone more appropriate to the office. Labour voters will do the same in reverse.
So what did you vote the last time?
I voted Lib Dem. I am on a voting journey taking me away from things I believe in because of Boris Johnson and his lightweight acolytes
Because of Brexit if you are being honest
Some voted FOR him for a number of things. I voted against him for a number of things and one was Brexit. Equally I voted against him as it was bleeding obvious to me that he is a liar and an incompetent. The two things don't always go together but often do. Brexit is one thing that divides Conservatives. You, if I remember correctly, don't agree with many Conservatives in your belief that riding a horse with a pack of hounds should be made a criminal offence. I am not in favour of that vindictive piece of legislation. You shouldn't really vote Tory perhaps?
I have voted conservative all my live apart from twice for Blair
But I have no wish to get into a slanging match and of course like most political parties the conservative party has to be a broad church and at present the most important issue for me is it is trusted on the economy by 41% to 21% despite Boris
I nevervoted for Blair, though if he was the alternative to the Clown I would make "favourable references to the devil"
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
Corbyn really screwed the pooch for Labour.
But Corbyn was almost certainly the reason for their switch. Maybe some for Brexit, but with that done why would they vote for the Tories, let alone for a PM that even the most myopic can see has the leadership skills of a sheep? I will vote Labour for the first time in my life if Johnson is still leader of the Tories. I will happily switch back again at the following GE if he is replaced by someone more appropriate to the office. Labour voters will do the same in reverse.
So what did you vote the last time?
I voted Lib Dem. I am on a voting journey taking me away from things I believe in because of Boris Johnson and his lightweight acolytes
Do you believe in anything other than Europe?
Ok ,thanks. I don't "believe in Europe", I happened to believe leaving the EU is the most stupid foreign policy mistake in recent history, and that those like you that claim to believe in Brexit probably also believe in Father Christmas and fairies and goblins. Additionally, and unlike you, I don't just believe in a fad to be contrarian. I am fundamentally a Conservative: I believe in the right to engage in country sports, including fox hunting; I believe in a low tax economy; the enterprise economy; people beingallowed to get rich, the right to chose to educate your children privately and/or have a second home; go on posh holidays; eat expensive meals etc etc. In spite of all that I will NOT VOTE FOR THE CLOWN!
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
Corbyn really screwed the pooch for Labour.
But Corbyn was almost certainly the reason for their switch. Maybe some for Brexit, but with that done why would they vote for the Tories, let alone for a PM that even the most myopic can see has the leadership skills of a sheep? I will vote Labour for the first time in my life if Johnson is still leader of the Tories. I will happily switch back again at the following GE if he is replaced by someone more appropriate to the office. Labour voters will do the same in reverse.
So what did you vote the last time?
I voted Lib Dem. I am on a voting journey taking me away from things I believe in because of Boris Johnson and his lightweight acolytes
Do you believe in anything other than Europe?
Ok ,thanks. I don't "believe in Europe", I happened to believe leaving the EU is the most stupid foreign policy mistake in recent history, and that those like you that claim to believe in Brexit probably also believe in Father Christmas and fairies and goblins. Additionally, and unlike you, I don't just believe in a fad to be contrarian. I am fundamentally a Conservative: I believe in the right to engage in country sports, including fox hunting; I believe in a low tax economy; the enterprise economy; people beingallowed to get rich, the right to chose to educate your children privately and/or have a second home; go on posh holidays; eat expensive meals etc etc. In spite of all that I will NOT VOTE FOR THE CLOWN!
So I disagree with you on not just Europe but religion, animal cruelty and blood sports. Interesting.
Ok, I get from this and @Malmesbury reply that the missing - in your view - word is 'Islamist' or 'Muslim'? Why does that need to be in the headline? It's not in the Sky headline either, only in the subtitle. Both reports mention it as an apparent motivating factor, if that's important at this point, pre-trial, before the facts are established.
For me the important bits are 'bomb' and '14', that's shocking enough, I don't need to know (from the headline) about motivation. Should the headlines about Anders Breivik in Norway have included the word 'Christian'? (he was widely reported to be a Christian fundamentalist at the time, although that seems to have not been strictly accurate).
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
I've never heard Winnie suggesting that. The French did propose a union between France and Britain with the Queen as head of state when Eden was PM, but the idea was quickly rebuffed:
No, I'd never heard of it, though it sounds more like a desperate wartime ruse than a profound vision of permanent unification.
I think the idea was that the French forces that had escaped to the UK and across the French colonial empire would automatically come under British command. Too many French leaders suspected it was really a British attempt to grab the French colonial empire from them and so it went nowhere. After the Fall of France most of the French colonial administrations and forces remained loyal to Vichy, although they gradually switched to the Free French as de Gaulle was able to build up momentum.
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
I've never heard Winnie suggesting that. The French did propose a union between France and Britain with the Queen as head of state when Eden was PM, but the idea was quickly rebuffed:
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
I don't follow your logic there. The Tories achieved much bigger swings than 5.85% in 2019 - so why should it be difficult for Labour to reverse them? Moreover, to the extent that Corbyn was responsible for such results his departure surely makes it easier to recover the lost ground. I suspect that the Tory majorities in seats such as Sedgefield - Don Valley - Grimsby rather flatter to deceive and that that Labour will find it easier to win them back than to gain more marginal seats such as Hendon- Wycombe etc.
The idea that the Red Wall - or the Blue Wall, for that matter - will elect this kneeling simperer is really quite laughable.
The North Remembers...
I think if you work from the assumption that voting patterns are increasingly determined by cultural values than economic matters, then Labour's problem is that they are splitting the "liberal" viewpoint with the Lib Dems (and Greens at the margins plus the SNP in Scotland) whereas the Conservatives have the culturally conservative section all to themselves. The only way I would see that weakening is if the Conservatives started to be seen to be buckling on issues such as statues and such like, allowing the re-entry of Farage. For that reason, they won't and if you look at some of the moves in the last week (a defence of statues, moving away from self-defining gender, abolishing DfID, Raab not bending his knee etc), it is clear they will be ensuring they remain hardline enough to stop a Farage-style party having enough room to breathe
So, is the idea that elections are won in the centre dead? The Tories fighting off a non-existant threat from Farage will no doubt be welcomed by Starmer.
Ok, I get from this and @Malmesbury reply that the missing - in your view - word is 'Islamist' or 'Muslim'? Why does that need to be in the headline? It's not in the Sky headline either, only in the subtitle. Both reports mention it as an apparent motivating factor, if that's important at this point, pre-trial, before the facts are established.
For me the important bits are 'bomb' and '14', that's shocking enough, I don't need to know (from the headline) about motivation. Should the headlines about Anders Breivik in Norway have included the word 'Christian'? (he was widely reported to be a Christian fundamentalist at the time, although that seems to have not been strictly accurate).
The initial report didn't even refer to Islamist angle at all, instead used the term "wanted to become a martyr". He has now been edited to be specific.
You might not want to know about the motivation, I think it is a important aspect of the story. 14 year old convert to Islam wanted to be a suicide bomber, raises a lot of questions, which aren't present if an adult is found to be involved in terrorist acts.
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
Corbyn really screwed the pooch for Labour.
But Corbyn was almost certainly the reason for their switch. Maybe some for Brexit, but with that done why would they vote for the Tories, let alone for a PM that even the most myopic can see has the leadership skills of a sheep? I will vote Labour for the first time in my life if Johnson is still leader of the Tories. I will happily switch back again at the following GE if he is replaced by someone more appropriate to the office. Labour voters will do the same in reverse.
So what did you vote the last time?
I voted Lib Dem. I am on a voting journey taking me away from things I believe in because of Boris Johnson and his lightweight acolytes
Do you believe in anything other than Europe?
Ok ,thanks. I don't "believe in Europe", I happened to believe leaving the EU is the most stupid foreign policy mistake in recent history, and that those like you that claim to believe in Brexit probably also believe in Father Christmas and fairies and goblins. Additionally, and unlike you, I don't just believe in a fad to be contrarian. I am fundamentally a Conservative: I believe in the right to engage in country sports, including fox hunting; I believe in a low tax economy; the enterprise economy; people beingallowed to get rich, the right to chose to educate your children privately and/or have a second home; go on posh holidays; eat expensive meals etc etc. In spite of all that I will NOT VOTE FOR THE CLOWN!
Are you Nick Soames?
Last part would surely have been #InSpiteOfAllThatIWillNotVoteForTheClown! if so?
You're referring to the partitioning of India? If so, how should they have gone about it differently?
They should have taken it much more slowly - they just abandoned India to its fate. It needed much more planning and local involvement. Above all, if it was going to happen in the crude way of partition, it needed military and police presence to enforce law and order during the transition. The Attlee government just let the killings and ethnic cleansing happen, and did nothing.
The UK was losing control of India in 1946 anyway, look at all the fleet mutinies, and it would have been very hard to do that.
Nevertheless, I agree. A phased withdrawal over 18-24 months (and out by 1948-1949) rather than in less than six would have been more sensible to me.
"NHS has been testing both systems against each other, over the course of the past month. The centralised version trialled on the Isle of Wight worked well at assessing the distance between two users, but was poor at recognising Apple's iPhones. Specifically, the software registered about 75% of nearby Android handsets but only 4% of iPhones. By contrast, the Apple-Google model logged iPhones but its distance calculations were weaker. In some instances, it could not differentiate between a phone in a user's pocket 1m (3.3ft) away and a phone in a user's hand 3m (9.8ft) away."
That seems to fit with what I was saying about the bluetooth advertisments getting throttled on iOS, but broadly working on Android. You need to use the Google/Apple API service on iOS to make advertisments reliable otherwise the OS will kill or throttle your process.
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
Corbyn really screwed the pooch for Labour.
But Corbyn was almost certainly the reason for their switch. Maybe some for Brexit, but with that done why would they vote for the Tories, let alone for a PM that even the most myopic can see has the leadership skills of a sheep? I will vote Labour for the first time in my life if Johnson is still leader of the Tories. I will happily switch back again at the following GE if he is replaced by someone more appropriate to the office. Labour voters will do the same in reverse.
So what did you vote the last time?
I voted Lib Dem. I am on a voting journey taking me away from things I believe in because of Boris Johnson and his lightweight acolytes
Do you believe in anything other than Europe?
Ok ,thanks. I don't "believe in Europe", I happened to believe leaving the EU is the most stupid foreign policy mistake in recent history, and that those like you that claim to believe in Brexit probably also believe in Father Christmas and fairies and goblins. Additionally, and unlike you, I don't just believe in a fad to be contrarian. I am fundamentally a Conservative: I believe in the right to engage in country sports, including fox hunting; I believe in a low tax economy; the enterprise economy; people beingallowed to get rich, the right to chose to educate your children privately and/or have a second home; go on posh holidays; eat expensive meals etc etc. In spite of all that I will NOT VOTE FOR THE CLOWN!
Are you Nick Soames?
Quite a lot thinner. I have met him and he is a charming man. He ismore patrician Tory than me. I am more of a Clarkite
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
I've never heard Winnie suggesting that. The French did propose a union between France and Britain with the Queen as head of state when Eden was PM, but the idea was quickly rebuffed:
No, I'd never heard of it, though it sounds more like a desperate wartime ruse than a profound vision of permanent unification.
I think the idea was that the French forces that had escaped to the UK and across the French colonial empire would automatically come under British command. Too many French leaders suspected it was really a British attempt to grab the French colonial empire from them and so it went nowhere. After the Fall of France most of the French colonial administrations and forces remained loyal to Vichy, although they gradually switched to the Free French as de Gaulle was able to build up momentum.
For many, anti-Britishness was a stronger motivating force than anti-Nazism.
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
Corbyn really screwed the pooch for Labour.
And that's before boundary changes
Boundary changes are likely to prove less helpful to the Tories than previously in that quite a number of Tory gains were in smaller seats. Labour also now has a fair few oversized seats in London and elsewhere.
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
Corbyn really screwed the pooch for Labour.
But Corbyn was almost certainly the reason for their switch. Maybe some for Brexit, but with that done why would they vote for the Tories, let alone for a PM that even the most myopic can see has the leadership skills of a sheep? I will vote Labour for the first time in my life if Johnson is still leader of the Tories. I will happily switch back again at the following GE if he is replaced by someone more appropriate to the office. Labour voters will do the same in reverse.
So what did you vote the last time?
I voted Lib Dem. I am on a voting journey taking me away from things I believe in because of Boris Johnson and his lightweight acolytes
Do you believe in anything other than Europe?
Ok ,thanks. I don't "believe in Europe", I happened to believe leaving the EU is the most stupid foreign policy mistake in recent history, and that those like you that claim to believe in Brexit probably also believe in Father Christmas and fairies and goblins. Additionally, and unlike you, I don't just believe in a fad to be contrarian. I am fundamentally a Conservative: I believe in the right to engage in country sports, including fox hunting; I believe in a low tax economy; the enterprise economy; people beingallowed to get rich, the right to chose to educate your children privately and/or have a second home; go on posh holidays; eat expensive meals etc etc. In spite of all that I will NOT VOTE FOR THE CLOWN!
So I disagree with you on not just Europe but religion, animal cruelty and blood sports. Interesting.
I am not surprised. People whouse the term "bloodsports" are normally of little brain. Understanding of complex issues is clearly beyond you.
Also the BBC report: The court was told the boy had converted to Islam. It is alleged he researched how to make explosives, constructed a series of devices with the aim of making them explosive devices containing shrapnel, and had recorded a video saying he wanted to be a martyr....
Also the BBC report: The court was told the boy had converted to Islam. It is alleged he researched how to make explosives, constructed a series of devices with the aim of making them explosive devices containing shrapnel, and had recorded a video saying he wanted to be a martyr....
Has been edited since I linked. The original article didn't contain the first sentence, just the "wanted to be a martyr".
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
Corbyn really screwed the pooch for Labour.
But Corbyn was almost certainly the reason for their switch. Maybe some for Brexit, but with that done why would they vote for the Tories, let alone for a PM that even the most myopic can see has the leadership skills of a sheep? I will vote Labour for the first time in my life if Johnson is still leader of the Tories. I will happily switch back again at the following GE if he is replaced by someone more appropriate to the office. Labour voters will do the same in reverse.
So what did you vote the last time?
I voted Lib Dem. I am on a voting journey taking me away from things I believe in because of Boris Johnson and his lightweight acolytes
Do you believe in anything other than Europe?
Ok ,thanks. I don't "believe in Europe", I happened to believe leaving the EU is the most stupid foreign policy mistake in recent history, and that those like you that claim to believe in Brexit probably also believe in Father Christmas and fairies and goblins. Additionally, and unlike you, I don't just believe in a fad to be contrarian. I am fundamentally a Conservative: I believe in the right to engage in country sports, including fox hunting; I believe in a low tax economy; the enterprise economy; people beingallowed to get rich, the right to chose to educate your children privately and/or have a second home; go on posh holidays; eat expensive meals etc etc. In spite of all that I will NOT VOTE FOR THE CLOWN!
Are you Nick Soames?
Quite a lot thinner. I have met him and he is a charming man. He ismore patrician Tory than me. I am more of a Clarkite
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
I've never heard Winnie suggesting that. The French did propose a union between France and Britain with the Queen as head of state when Eden was PM, but the idea was quickly rebuffed:
No, I'd never heard of it, though it sounds more like a desperate wartime ruse than a profound vision of permanent unification.
I think the idea was that the French forces that had escaped to the UK and across the French colonial empire would automatically come under British command. Too many French leaders suspected it was really a British attempt to grab the French colonial empire from them and so it went nowhere. After the Fall of France most of the French colonial administrations and forces remained loyal to Vichy, although they gradually switched to the Free French as de Gaulle was able to build up momentum.
For many, anti-Britishness was a stronger motivating force than anti-Nazism.
Which seems insane now.
To be fair, France and England had been enemies for most of the previous millennium. France and Germany had only been enemies for most of the previous century.
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
The thing is, I think Johnson and his cabinet of Brexiteer no-marks might just have about got away with it before this crisis exposed what a bunch of incompetents they really are.
It was known before the election.
"We" voted for him anyway.
I agree but it took this crisis to open many peoples' eyes to what sort of people they ad elected.
The UK voted for 'Not Corbyn' just as the US voted for 'Not Hillary'. Which is the Frying Pan and which is the Fire?
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
Churchill did make that suggestion at one point during WWII, as a means to the end of keeping France in the war.
Churchill certainly had some strong principles, that he kept to throughout his life. He was also very imaginative, and came up with many schemes to achieve his desired ends.
The Anglo-French Union was more the latter than the former.
Let's face it, even @TheScreamingEagles would reluctantly concede that union with France would have been better than losing the war and thus entering decades of Nazi rule of the UK and the rest of Europe, in the way that pineapple on pizza would be preferable to starvation.
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
Corbyn really screwed the pooch for Labour.
But Corbyn was almost certainly the reason for their switch. Maybe some for Brexit, but with that done why would they vote for the Tories, let alone for a PM that even the most myopic can see has the leadership skills of a sheep? I will vote Labour for the first time in my life if Johnson is still leader of the Tories. I will happily switch back again at the following GE if he is replaced by someone more appropriate to the office. Labour voters will do the same in reverse.
So what did you vote the last time?
I voted Lib Dem. I am on a voting journey taking me away from things I believe in because of Boris Johnson and his lightweight acolytes
Do you believe in anything other than Europe?
Ok ,thanks. I don't "believe in Europe", I happened to believe leaving the EU is the most stupid foreign policy mistake in recent history, and that those like you that claim to believe in Brexit probably also believe in Father Christmas and fairies and goblins. Additionally, and unlike you, I don't just believe in a fad to be contrarian. I am fundamentally a Conservative: I believe in the right to engage in country sports, including fox hunting; I believe in a low tax economy; the enterprise economy; people beingallowed to get rich, the right to chose to educate your children privately and/or have a second home; go on posh holidays; eat expensive meals etc etc. In spite of all that I will NOT VOTE FOR THE CLOWN!
Are you Nick Soames?
Quite a lot thinner. I have met him and he is a charming man. He ismore patrician Tory than me. I am more of a Clarkite
Alan Clark then?
Clearly not Ken Clarke.
His diaries were something, but unless I am his ghost with poltergeist abilities on a keyboard I am sorry to disappoint you.
Ok, I get from this and @Malmesbury reply that the missing - in your view - word is 'Islamist' or 'Muslim'? Why does that need to be in the headline? It's not in the Sky headline either, only in the subtitle. Both reports mention it as an apparent motivating factor, if that's important at this point, pre-trial, before the facts are established.
For me the important bits are 'bomb' and '14', that's shocking enough, I don't need to know (from the headline) about motivation. Should the headlines about Anders Breivik in Norway have included the word 'Christian'? (he was widely reported to be a Christian fundamentalist at the time, although that seems to have not been strictly accurate).
The initial report didn't even refer to Islamist angle at all, instead used the term "wanted to become a martyr". He has now been edited to be specific.
You might not want to know about the motivation, I think it is a important aspect of the story. 14 year old convert to Islam wanted to be a suicide bomber, raises a lot of questions, which aren't present if an adult is found to be involved in terrorist acts.
The report I read said nothing about martyrdom of any sort. Obviously being added to as we go along.
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
I don't follow your logic there. The Tories achieved much bigger swings than 5.85% in 2019 - so why should it be difficult for Labour to reverse them? Moreover, to the extent that Corbyn was responsible for such results his departure surely makes it easier to recover the lost ground. I suspect that the Tory majorities in seats such as Sedgefield - Don Valley - Grimsby rather flatter to deceive and that that Labour will find it easier to win them back than to gain more marginal seats such as Hendon- Wycombe etc.
The truth is somewhere in the middle probably. I think Labour's huge problems that they've had with over 65s that they've had since 2015 will continue but that a large chunk northern middle aged leave voters could come back to Labour especially those that were just voting Brexit or not voting as a protest as opposed to those actively voting for Johnson.
The Bassetlaw result for example was pretty disastrous for Labour and won't return to Labour at the next election but the size of the collapse was arguably greatly aggravated by candidate selection issues in addition to Brexit and Mann standing down etc
"NHS has been testing both systems against each other, over the course of the past month. The centralised version trialled on the Isle of Wight worked well at assessing the distance between two users, but was poor at recognising Apple's iPhones. Specifically, the software registered about 75% of nearby Android handsets but only 4% of iPhones. By contrast, the Apple-Google model logged iPhones but its distance calculations were weaker. In some instances, it could not differentiate between a phone in a user's pocket 1m (3.3ft) away and a phone in a user's hand 3m (9.8ft) away."
Does that mean, he asks with probably unwarranted optimism, that they have been working on plan B for at least a month?
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
Churchill did make that suggestion at one point during WWII, as a means to the end of keeping France in the war.
Churchill certainly had some strong principles, that he kept to throughout his life. He was also very imaginative, and came up with many schemes to achieve his desired ends.
The Anglo-French Union was more the latter than the former.
Let's face it, even @TheScreamingEagles would reluctantly concede that union with France would have been better than losing the war and thus entering decades of Nazi rule of the UK and the rest of Europe, in the way that pineapple on pizza would be preferable to starvation.
Many of the French at the time would have disagreed says wiki
'At the 5 p.m. [French] cabinet meeting, many called it a British "last minute plan" to steal its colonies, and said that "be[ing] a Nazi province" was preferable to becoming a British dominion. Philippe Pétain, a leader of the pro-armistice group, called union "fusion with a corpse." '
I don't follow your logic there. The Tories achieved much bigger swings than 5.85% in 2019 - so why should it be difficult for Labour to reverse them? Moreover, to the extent that Corbyn was responsible for such results his departure surely makes it easier to recover the lost ground. I suspect that the Tory majorities in seats such as Sedgefield - Don Valley - Grimsby rather flatter to deceive and that that Labour will find it easier to win them back than to gain more marginal seats such as Hendon- Wycombe etc.
The truth is somewhere in the middle probably. I think Labour's huge problems that they've had with over 65s that they've had since 2015 will continue but that a large chunk northern middle aged leave voters could come back to Labour especially those that were just voting Brexit or not voting as a protest as opposed to those actively voting for Johnson.
The Bassetlaw result for example was pretty disastrous for Labour and won't return to Labour at the next election but the size of the collapse was arguably greatly aggravated by candidate selection issues in addition to Brexit and Mann standing down etc
Bassetlaw will doubtless have been heavily influenced by Mann's attacks on Corbyn - but that will not be a factor next time.
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
Churchill did make that suggestion at one point during WWII, as a means to the end of keeping France in the war.
Churchill certainly had some strong principles, that he kept to throughout his life. He was also very imaginative, and came up with many schemes to achieve his desired ends.
The Anglo-French Union was more the latter than the former.
Let's face it, even @TheScreamingEagles would reluctantly concede that union with France would have been better than losing the war and thus entering decades of Nazi rule of the UK and the rest of Europe, in the way that pineapple on pizza would be preferable to starvation.
Many of the French at the time would have disagreed says wiki
'At the 5 p.m. [French] cabinet meeting, many called it a British "last minute plan" to steal its colonies, and said that "be[ing] a Nazi province" was preferable to becoming a British dominion. Philippe Pétain, a leader of the pro-armistice group, called union "fusion with a corpse." '
Ok, I get from this and @Malmesbury reply that the missing - in your view - word is 'Islamist' or 'Muslim'? Why does that need to be in the headline? It's not in the Sky headline either, only in the subtitle. Both reports mention it as an apparent motivating factor, if that's important at this point, pre-trial, before the facts are established.
For me the important bits are 'bomb' and '14', that's shocking enough, I don't need to know (from the headline) about motivation. Should the headlines about Anders Breivik in Norway have included the word 'Christian'? (he was widely reported to be a Christian fundamentalist at the time, although that seems to have not been strictly accurate).
The initial report didn't even refer to Islamist angle at all, instead used the term "wanted to become a martyr". He has now been edited to be specific.
You might not want to know about the motivation, I think it is a important aspect of the story. 14 year old convert to Islam wanted to be a suicide bomber, raises a lot of questions, which aren't present if an adult is found to be involved in terrorist acts.
On the first point, fair enough - it's been added. What's known about motivation is relevant to the article text, I've no problem with that being included, as it now is.
On the second point, I agree that age is important and should be in the headline (it was) and very different issues to if the person was an adult. It shows that someone without full capacity (that can also apply to adults of course) has been perverted by others, either online or in person. Very important to understand why and try and prevent it. I find it equally shocking whether the peversion was (to take two possible examples) by Islamist extremists or a white supremacist group.
To put it another way, if it was a white supremacist plot to bomb a BLM protest, I wouldn't have had a problem with "white" or "racist" missing from the headline (though relevant facts to include in the article). I also wouldn't have a problem with those facts (or in this case, "Islamist" or "apparent Islamist" or similar, if justified) being put in the headline. I just find it odd that you seem to think the omission is somehow sinister.
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
'Who's dead? I'm not': Lord Sugar says the UK should lift lockdown measures because he and his wife are still alive from his holiday home in Florida more than 4,300 MILES away
Also the BBC report: The court was told the boy had converted to Islam. It is alleged he researched how to make explosives, constructed a series of devices with the aim of making them explosive devices containing shrapnel, and had recorded a video saying he wanted to be a martyr....
Has been edited since I linked. The original article didn't contain the first sentence, just the "wanted to be a martyr".
No big deal, I think. I hesitate to critique new news reports, as they tend to get edited pretty quickly after the initial rush to put them up.
I think that the short answer is that he probably doesn't. He is further behind than the Tories were after 2005 (167:157) and swings of that magnitude are rare indeed. We do not live in normal times of course and it is possible that elections will be more volatile than normal but the higher probability is that there will be a much reduced Tory majority in 2024 and a change of power the election after. He might get a second go a la Corbyn but I don't think that he has anything like the support base in the party that Corbyn had.
Yes, the next general election will likely either see the Tories win with a narrow majority under Boris or Sunak a la 1992 or a hung parliament a la 2010 only this time with Labour largest party and doing a deal with the LDs rather than the Tories
Even to get largest party Labour would need to win 84 seats directly from the Tories or rely upon them losing seats to others. That means Labour winning seats up to Ashfield requiring a 5.85% swing: http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/defence/ I mean, its not impossible but its not likely.
Corbyn really screwed the pooch for Labour.
But Corbyn was almost certainly the reason for their switch. Maybe some for Brexit, but with that done why would they vote for the Tories, let alone for a PM that even the most myopic can see has the leadership skills of a sheep? I will vote Labour for the first time in my life if Johnson is still leader of the Tories. I will happily switch back again at the following GE if he is replaced by someone more appropriate to the office. Labour voters will do the same in reverse.
So what did you vote the last time?
I voted Lib Dem. I am on a voting journey taking me away from things I believe in because of Boris Johnson and his lightweight acolytes
Do you believe in anything other than Europe?
Ok ,thanks. I don't "believe in Europe", I happened to believe leaving the EU is the most stupid foreign policy mistake in recent history, and that those like you that claim to believe in Brexit probably also believe in Father Christmas and fairies and goblins. Additionally, and unlike you, I don't just believe in a fad to be contrarian. I am fundamentally a Conservative: I believe in the right to engage in country sports, including fox hunting; I believe in a low tax economy; the enterprise economy; people beingallowed to get rich, the right to chose to educate your children privately and/or have a second home; go on posh holidays; eat expensive meals etc etc. In spite of all that I will NOT VOTE FOR THE CLOWN!
You're referring to the partitioning of India? If so, how should they have gone about it differently?
They should have taken it much more slowly - they just abandoned India to its fate. It needed much more planning and local involvement. Above all, if it was going to happen in the crude way of partition, it needed military and police presence to enforce law and order during the transition. The Attlee government just let the killings and ethnic cleansing happen, and did nothing.
The UK was losing control of India in 1946 anyway, look at all the fleet mutinies, and it would have been very hard to do that.
Nevertheless, I agree. A phased withdrawal over 18-24 months (and out by 1948-1949) rather than in less than six would have been more sensible to me.
It was Lord Mountbatten as Viceroy that brought forward Indian Independence and partition.
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
Churchill did make that suggestion at one point during WWII, as a means to the end of keeping France in the war.
Churchill certainly had some strong principles, that he kept to throughout his life. He was also very imaginative, and came up with many schemes to achieve his desired ends.
The Anglo-French Union was more the latter than the former.
Let's face it, even @TheScreamingEagles would reluctantly concede that union with France would have been better than losing the war and thus entering decades of Nazi rule of the UK and the rest of Europe, in the way that pineapple on pizza would be preferable to starvation.
Well we into an alliance with Joe Stalin during WWII, for the greater good huh?
"NHS has been testing both systems against each other, over the course of the past month. The centralised version trialled on the Isle of Wight worked well at assessing the distance between two users, but was poor at recognising Apple's iPhones. Specifically, the software registered about 75% of nearby Android handsets but only 4% of iPhones. By contrast, the Apple-Google model logged iPhones but its distance calculations were weaker. In some instances, it could not differentiate between a phone in a user's pocket 1m (3.3ft) away and a phone in a user's hand 3m (9.8ft) away."
That is the real problem with all these apps - thanks to the variable accuracy of location tracking, you either set them to catch any possible contact (in which case you cab end up with so large a list that you might as well not bother), or you filter more and potentially miss a number of contacts.
They are not a panacea, or a substitute for teams of experienced/well trained contact tracers.
'Who's dead? I'm not': Lord Sugar says the UK should lift lockdown measures because he and his wife are still alive from his holiday home in Florida more than 4,300 MILES away
"NHS has been testing both systems against each other, over the course of the past month. The centralised version trialled on the Isle of Wight worked well at assessing the distance between two users, but was poor at recognising Apple's iPhones. Specifically, the software registered about 75% of nearby Android handsets but only 4% of iPhones. By contrast, the Apple-Google model logged iPhones but its distance calculations were weaker. In some instances, it could not differentiate between a phone in a user's pocket 1m (3.3ft) away and a phone in a user's hand 3m (9.8ft) away."
Does that mean, he asks with probably unwarranted optimism, that they have been working on plan B for at least a month?
The idea that the Red Wall - or the Blue Wall, for that matter - will elect this kneeling simperer is really quite laughable.
The North Remembers...
...late lockdown, out of stock PPE, Dominic Cummings breaking lockdown whilst infected with Covid-19, failed track and trace, Marcus Rashford and school meals. I could go on and on and on. Much like your subjective, evidence free criticism of Starmer.
Late lockdown - possibly, but based on evidence known at the time and as advised by SAGE PPE - some issues, seems fine now DC infected with Covid-19 - you sure about that? Test and trace is working - track may arrive Rashford/free school meals - Labour didn't do this 1997-2010 as I recall
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
John Mann had a huge personal vote . He fitted in well to that sort of seat.
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
Churchill did make that suggestion at one point during WWII, as a means to the end of keeping France in the war.
Churchill certainly had some strong principles, that he kept to throughout his life. He was also very imaginative, and came up with many schemes to achieve his desired ends.
The Anglo-French Union was more the latter than the former.
Let's face it, even @TheScreamingEagles would reluctantly concede that union with France would have been better than losing the war and thus entering decades of Nazi rule of the UK and the rest of Europe, in the way that pineapple on pizza would be preferable to starvation.
Many of the French at the time would have disagreed says wiki
'At the 5 p.m. [French] cabinet meeting, many called it a British "last minute plan" to steal its colonies, and said that "be[ing] a Nazi province" was preferable to becoming a British dominion. Philippe Pétain, a leader of the pro-armistice group, called union "fusion with a corpse." '
As Eadric has commented previously, had this worked, Franco-Britain might have been a culturally fascinating place, and more culturally productive than either Britain or France have been separately since then.
As a human being ,Johnson is showing himself to be every bit as compulsive a liar as Adolf Hitler. Whilst the consequences for Europe and the wider world will be nothing like as destructive, his word to others is to be taken no more seriously than that given to Chamberlain at Munich in 1938. People increasingly recognise the reality of that as the scales drop from their eyes.
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
My first comment for a few months, mainly to say I'm very happy to get these podcasts back. They are the best ones I've found on politics. And the topic was well chosen.
But I can't leave a comment without actually saying anything, so....
I've been very happy with Starmer, despite putting him second to Nandy on my preference list. I agree that Scotland is the most obvious problem for him, and it's a shame that neither Campbell nor Hazarika had any ideas about it.
Maybe Labour should simply announce some time in 2021/22 that a Labour government would devolve powers to call a referendum to the Scottish Parliament. Morally it's right. We all know the harm that referendums can do, but ultimately the Scottish people, alone, should have the right to choose a government that will either provide or withhold one. Electorally it's no worse, and probably better, than the alternatives. In England and Wales, it avoids a repeat of 2015. The controversy would be dealt with well ahead of the election, and few English people will vote against them over this issue once it's so old and tired. Electorally in Scotland, it's trickier, but they're in a lose-lose situation there anyway.
As a human being ,Johnson is showing himself to be every bit as compulsive a liar as Adolf Hitler. Whilst the consequences for Europe and the wider world will be nothing like as destructive, his word to others is to be taken no more seriously than that given to Chamberlain at Munich in 1938. People increasingly recognise the reality of that as the scales drop from their eyes.
Jesus christ. What compels you to make posts like this?
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
Lots of formerly safe Tory seats which went Labour in 1997 and 2001 are now very safely Tory again - Castle Point - Newark - Thanet South - Sittingbourne & Sheppey etc.
As a human being ,Johnson is showing himself to be every bit as compulsive a liar as Adolf Hitler. Whilst the consequences for Europe and the wider world will be nothing like as destructive, his word to others is to be taken no more seriously than that given to Chamberlain at Munich in 1938. People increasingly recognise the reality of that as the scales drop from their eyes.
Jesus christ. What compels you to make posts like this?
Review article - doesn't contain anything particularly new, but a good summary:
COVID-19 case clusters offer lessons and warnings for reopening Outbreaks in restaurants, offices and other venues could guide strategies for lifting social distancing guidelines https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-case-clusters-lessons-warnings-reopening ...Studying these kinds of transmission clusters as well as common environments where COVID-19 moves easily from person to person provides a glimpse of how to avoid the U-turns. To that end, epidemiologist Gwenan Knight and her colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine compiled a massive database of worldwide COVID-19 case clusters based on media accounts, published scientific studies and government health department reports.
As of June 10, their database included 231 cluster events, or groups of cases tied to the same place. The data are limited to known clusters and to what the patients involved could recall and what they told investigators....
They are now doing them in Brazil....plenty of people there with covid. The way it is exploding some US states, going to be also lots of people to have a go at (if the US let them).
As a human being ,Johnson is showing himself to be every bit as compulsive a liar as Adolf Hitler. Whilst the consequences for Europe and the wider world will be nothing like as destructive, his word to others is to be taken no more seriously than that given to Chamberlain at Munich in 1938. People increasingly recognise the reality of that as the scales drop from their eyes.
Jesus christ. What compels you to make posts like this?
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
Lots of formerly safe Tory seats which went Labour in 1997 and 2001 are now very safely Tory again - Castle Point - Newark - Thanet South - Sittingbourne & Sheppey etc.
South Thanet and Sittingbourne & Sheppey took thirteen years to swing back to the Tories, so not quickly which was your original point.
While the app is an obvious fiasco, the manual part of Track and Trace is equally crap.
Remember all that boasting of 18 000 trackers? Well in three weeks they have only been able to contact a little over 10 000 positive patients, and an average of three contacts each.
Instead of a competent system that would be key to relaxing lockdown safely, we have a charactestically fuckwitted bit of coronashambles.
These clowns couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, yet we are supposed to believe in their Global Britain bullshit. Run for the exits people, get out any way you can, the country is going down the plughole.
While the app is an obvious fiasco, the manual part of Track and Trace is equally crap.
Remember all that boasting of 18 000 trackers? Well in three weeks they have only been able to contact a little over 10 000 positive patients, and an average of three contacts each.
Instead of a competent system that would be key to relaxing lockdown safely, we have a charactestically fuckwitted bit of coronashambles.
These clowns couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, yet we are supposed to believe in their Global Britain bullshit. Run for the exits people, get out any way you can, the country is going down the plughole.
My first comment for a few months, mainly to say I'm very happy to get these podcasts back. They are the best ones I've found on politics. And the topic was well chosen.
But I can't leave a comment without actually saying anything, so....
I've been very happy with Starmer, despite putting him second to Nandy on my preference list. I agree that Scotland is the most obvious problem for him, and it's a shame that neither Campbell nor Hazarika had any ideas about it.
Maybe Labour should simply announce some time in 2021/22 that a Labour government would devolve powers to call a referendum to the Scottish Parliament. Morally it's right. We all know the harm that referendums can do, but ultimately the Scottish people, alone, should have the right to choose a government that will either provide or withhold one. Electorally it's no worse, and probably better, than the alternatives. In England and Wales, it avoids a repeat of 2015. The controversy would be dealt with well ahead of the election, and few English people will vote against them over this issue once it's so old and tired. Electorally in Scotland, it's trickier, but they're in a lose-lose situation there anyway.
If you give the English a vote, Scottish independence would be a racing certainty.
Tory ineptitude, lies and hubris will get Labour to a steady 35%-36%, but over the coming years the party must also build a positive narrative and demonstrate a decisive break with the far-left. Labour can probably reasonably hope for 40% of the vote at the next election if things fall the right way. But Scotland means it is almost impossible to win that election outright. Depriving the Tories of their overall majority has to be the primary aim.
'Who's dead? I'm not': Lord Sugar says the UK should lift lockdown measures because he and his wife are still alive from his holiday home in Florida more than 4,300 MILES away
Has he seen the numbers for coronavirus in Florida over the past week?
What he means is that Florida is getting hot and is full of virus, and he'd quite like to come back to the UK without being quarantined for a fortnight.
As a human being ,Johnson is showing himself to be every bit as compulsive a liar as Adolf Hitler. Whilst the consequences for Europe and the wider world will be nothing like as destructive, his word to others is to be taken no more seriously than that given to Chamberlain at Munich in 1938. People increasingly recognise the reality of that as the scales drop from their eyes.
Jesus christ. What compels you to make posts like this?
While the app is an obvious fiasco, the manual part of Track and Trace is equally crap.
Remember all that boasting of 18 000 trackers? Well in three weeks they have only been able to contact a little over 10 000 positive patients, and an average of three contacts each.
Instead of a competent system that would be key to relaxing lockdown safely, we have a charactestically fuckwitted bit of coronashambles.
These clowns couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, yet we are supposed to believe in their Global Britain bullshit. Run for the exits people, get out any way you can, the country is going down the plughole.
"NHS has been testing both systems against each other, over the course of the past month. The centralised version trialled on the Isle of Wight worked well at assessing the distance between two users, but was poor at recognising Apple's iPhones. Specifically, the software registered about 75% of nearby Android handsets but only 4% of iPhones. By contrast, the Apple-Google model logged iPhones but its distance calculations were weaker. In some instances, it could not differentiate between a phone in a user's pocket 1m (3.3ft) away and a phone in a user's hand 3m (9.8ft) away."
That is the real problem with all these apps - thanks to the variable accuracy of location tracking, you either set them to catch any possible contact (in which case you cab end up with so large a list that you might as well not bother), or you filter more and potentially miss a number of contacts.
They are not a panacea, or a substitute for teams of experienced/well trained contact tracers.
That's why the decentralised method doesn't really work that well.
You don't get to know whether it is working or not, or whether it is overdoing (or underdoing) the contacts.
I suppose that once someone is contacted via the Google/Apple method, they could be asked to register this with the tracers, and then the interaction can probably be de-anonymised. A bit pointless anonymising it in the first place though...
As a human being ,Johnson is showing himself to be every bit as compulsive a liar as Adolf Hitler. Whilst the consequences for Europe and the wider world will be nothing like as destructive, his word to others is to be taken no more seriously than that given to Chamberlain at Munich in 1938. People increasingly recognise the reality of that as the scales drop from their eyes.
Hitler lied deliberately. Johnson just tells every audience what they want to hear, wings it all the time, never studies his briefs, and has the memory of a demented goldfish. His lies are without purpose, and easily exposed.
Johnson is a man child. He has no real plan for government, he just wanted to be PM so that he could play with the toys. He wants to redecorate the plane, play tennis at the Palace, and spend weeks at Chequers dodging work.
While the app is an obvious fiasco, the manual part of Track and Trace is equally crap.
Remember all that boasting of 18 000 trackers? Well in three weeks they have only been able to contact a little over 10 000 positive patients, and an average of three contacts each.
Instead of a competent system that would be key to relaxing lockdown safely, we have a charactestically fuckwitted bit of coronashambles.
These clowns couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, yet we are supposed to believe in their Global Britain bullshit. Run for the exits people, get out any way you can, the country is going down the plughole.
As a human being ,Johnson is showing himself to be every bit as compulsive a liar as Adolf Hitler. Whilst the consequences for Europe and the wider world will be nothing like as destructive, his word to others is to be taken no more seriously than that given to Chamberlain at Munich in 1938. People increasingly recognise the reality of that as the scales drop from their eyes.
Hitler lied deliberately. Johnson just tells every audience what they want to hear, wings it all the time, never studies his briefs, and has the memory of a demented goldfish. His lies are without purpose, and easily exposed.
Johnson is a man child. He has no real plan for government, he just wanted to be PM so that he could play with the toys. He wants to redecorate the plane, play tennis at the Palace, and spend weeks at Chequers dodging work.
Tory ineptitude, lies and hubris will get Labour to a steady 35%-36%, but over the coming years the party must also build a positive narrative and demonstrate a decisive break with the far-left. Labour can probably reasonably hope for 40% of the vote at the next election if things fall the right way. But Scotland means it is almost impossible to win that election outright. Depriving the Tories of their overall majority has to be the primary aim.
They'd have the same problem Miliband had in 2015 - what do you offer the SNP for their support? It would drive too many English voters back to the Tories.
Starmer has to make enough headway in Scotland so that he can make such an English backlash look absurd. The next Holyrood elections are critical.
While the app is an obvious fiasco, the manual part of Track and Trace is equally crap.
Remember all that boasting of 18 000 trackers? Well in three weeks they have only been able to contact a little over 10 000 positive patients, and an average of three contacts each.
Instead of a competent system that would be key to relaxing lockdown safely, we have a charactestically fuckwitted bit of coronashambles.
These clowns couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, yet we are supposed to believe in their Global Britain bullshit. Run for the exits people, get out any way you can, the country is going down the plughole.
While the app is an obvious fiasco, the manual part of Track and Trace is equally crap.
Remember all that boasting of 18 000 trackers? Well in three weeks they have only been able to contact a little over 10 000 positive patients, and an average of three contacts each.
Instead of a competent system that would be key to relaxing lockdown safely, we have a charactestically fuckwitted bit of coronashambles.
These clowns couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, yet we are supposed to believe in their Global Britain bullshit. Run for the exits people, get out any way you can, the country is going down the plughole....
"NHS has been testing both systems against each other, over the course of the past month. The centralised version trialled on the Isle of Wight worked well at assessing the distance between two users, but was poor at recognising Apple's iPhones. Specifically, the software registered about 75% of nearby Android handsets but only 4% of iPhones. By contrast, the Apple-Google model logged iPhones but its distance calculations were weaker. In some instances, it could not differentiate between a phone in a user's pocket 1m (3.3ft) away and a phone in a user's hand 3m (9.8ft) away."
So they've been working on both systems simultaneously!
I said if they were sensible this is what they should be doing. When we are spending hundreds of billions of pounds on the pandemic there is no reason to ignore either possible solution.
My first comment for a few months, mainly to say I'm very happy to get these podcasts back. They are the best ones I've found on politics. And the topic was well chosen.
But I can't leave a comment without actually saying anything, so....
I've been very happy with Starmer, despite putting him second to Nandy on my preference list. I agree that Scotland is the most obvious problem for him, and it's a shame that neither Campbell nor Hazarika had any ideas about it.
Maybe Labour should simply announce some time in 2021/22 that a Labour government would devolve powers to call a referendum to the Scottish Parliament. Morally it's right. We all know the harm that referendums can do, but ultimately the Scottish people, alone, should have the right to choose a government that will either provide or withhold one. Electorally it's no worse, and probably better, than the alternatives. In England and Wales, it avoids a repeat of 2015. The controversy would be dealt with well ahead of the election, and few English people will vote against them over this issue once it's so old and tired. Electorally in Scotland, it's trickier, but they're in a lose-lose situation there anyway.
The most logical step if I were Labour would be devo-max combined with Westminster Scottish MPs making up a revising chamber for Scottish laws, and not voting on anything other than foreign policy. England and Wales would have a system of PR or FPTP/PR hybrid which could be gerrymandered to disadvantage Tories. This could all be achieved by a coalition. The Tories will regret not doing constitutional reform other than the obsession with Brexit.
Tory ineptitude, lies and hubris will get Labour to a steady 35%-36%, but over the coming years the party must also build a positive narrative and demonstrate a decisive break with the far-left. Labour can probably reasonably hope for 40% of the vote at the next election if things fall the right way. But Scotland means it is almost impossible to win that election outright. Depriving the Tories of their overall majority has to be the primary aim.
They'd have the same problem Miliband had in 2015 - what do you offer the SNP for their support? It would drive too many English voters back to the Tories.
Starmer has to make enough headway in Scotland so that he can make such an English backlash look absurd. The next Holyrood elections are critical.
My sense is that Miliband was an easier target than Starmer. I also don't think you offer the SNP anything. If the choice is a Labour minority government or a Tory one let them make the choice.
Sky just stated that Churchill wanted the UK and France to become one country
I leave that there with no further comment
That was his offer of Union in June 1940 in an attempt to persuade Paul Reynaud and the French Government not to surrender.
Jean Monnet was involved too.
The background to the June 1940 offer featuring links between Chatham House and the Centre d'Etudes de Politique Etranger that dated back to late 1939 is covered in Avi Shlaim's article "Prelude to Downfall: The British Offer of Union to France, June 1940" (1974).
A union was proposed again in 1956. Shame it wasn't agreed on and put into practice. Once it was binned, France threw their lot in with Germany, while Britain kept the short straw of transatlanticism as if the ocean were some kind of continent.
As a human being ,Johnson is showing himself to be every bit as compulsive a liar as Adolf Hitler. Whilst the consequences for Europe and the wider world will be nothing like as destructive, his word to others is to be taken no more seriously than that given to Chamberlain at Munich in 1938. People increasingly recognise the reality of that as the scales drop from their eyes.
Jesus christ. What compels you to make posts like this?
Do you disagree on the main point?
You are just out of order. No discussion required
No different to suggesting that Corbyn and Hitler had something in common by being vegetarians! I have not suggested that Johnson shares his worldview at all.
As a human being ,Johnson is showing himself to be every bit as compulsive a liar as Adolf Hitler. Whilst the consequences for Europe and the wider world will be nothing like as destructive, his word to others is to be taken no more seriously than that given to Chamberlain at Munich in 1938. People increasingly recognise the reality of that as the scales drop from their eyes.
Hitler lied deliberately. Johnson just tells every audience what they want to hear, wings it all the time, never studies his briefs, and has the memory of a demented goldfish. His lies are without purpose, and easily exposed.
Johnson is a man child. He has no real plan for government, he just wanted to be PM so that he could play with the toys. He wants to redecorate the plane, play tennis at the Palace, and spend weeks at Chequers dodging work.
Johnson is an instinctive liar. It's a reflex with him. If you assume that what he says is untrue you will be right more times than you are wrong.
Looks like there simply aren't that many infections to be found. The ONS estimate out today is 3800/day (England, non-hospital), but that's an average over the last two months, and will be considerably lower now. Also, a sizeable chunk of those will never show symptoms, so won't seek a test.
Yes, and not using the Google/Apple API, I believe. Ditto Norway (although they've now given up on it). So the UK wasn't quite as isolated as people make out, if that's any consolation!
I do wonder though whether the whole idea of an app somehow making a major contribution is wrong in the first place, unless you go the whole S. Korea or Hong Kong route, which would never be acceptable in Europe. I have a sneaking suspicion that in all European countries the apps will end up being quietly dropped.
If there is a second wave the apps could be incredibly useful in avoiding a second lockdown (which we will be desperate to do).
I also think western governments underestimate how willingly people would accept compulsory usage of these apps. We've already accepted an unprecedented mass lockdown and the decimation of our economy.
If the government said "Look, this will help us avoid disaster, it will save thousands of lives and millions of jobs, we need you to download this obligatory app" then I reckon they would get 90% uptake: enough to make it highly effective
I note there has been no criticism of Google/Apple at all.
They decided that they wouldn't support a centralised method 'because privacy'.
And yet Google at least continue to slurp all sorts of sensitive data into their own centralised database by default, including location data.
They could probably track and trace most android users SK style going back years but aren't going to admit it.
I did make that criticism on here weeks ago - but I can forgive you for missing it. In general I think democratic governments should make this sort of decision, rather than unaccountable transnational corporations.
Comments
#namedropping
Surely whether you are 1m or 3m away is much less important than
1) whether you are inside or outside
2) how long the infected person was around
and then what kind of things people were doing, whether masks were worn.
If I was sitting in a restaurant for an hour I would want to know if someone infected was also around, whether they were at the next table or 3 tables away.
The centralised method is actually easier technically (for Google and Apple at least). All that was needed was a permission to keep the bluetooth signal open in a background app with a big red warning on it, and then kicking anything unofficial off their app stores that asked for it for added security.
But no.
Funny that they do bend the rules for some governments (cough, China).
https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1273578282210992128
For me the important bits are 'bomb' and '14', that's shocking enough, I don't need to know (from the headline) about motivation. Should the headlines about Anders Breivik in Norway have included the word 'Christian'? (he was widely reported to be a Christian fundamentalist at the time, although that seems to have not been strictly accurate).
The weirder one is Guy Mollet's in 1956 for a union with The Queen as head of state.
I doubt anything would have come of that either, even if both sides had been enthusiastic.
I suspect that the Tory majorities in seats such as Sedgefield - Don Valley - Grimsby rather flatter to deceive and that that Labour will find it easier to win them back than to gain more marginal seats such as Hendon- Wycombe etc.
The Tories fighting off a non-existant threat from Farage will no doubt be welcomed by Starmer.
You might not want to know about the motivation, I think it is a important aspect of the story. 14 year old convert to Islam wanted to be a suicide bomber, raises a lot of questions, which aren't present if an adult is found to be involved in terrorist acts.
Nevertheless, I agree. A phased withdrawal over 18-24 months (and out by 1948-1949) rather than in less than six would have been more sensible to me.
That seems to fit with what I was saying about the bluetooth advertisments getting throttled on iOS, but broadly working on Android. You need to use the Google/Apple API service on iOS to make advertisments reliable otherwise the OS will kill or throttle your process.
Which seems insane now.
The court was told the boy had converted to Islam.
It is alleged he researched how to make explosives, constructed a series of devices with the aim of making them explosive devices containing shrapnel, and had recorded a video saying he wanted to be a martyr....
Clearly not Ken Clarke.
Which is the Frying Pan and which is the Fire?
The truth is somewhere in the middle probably. I think Labour's huge problems that they've had with over 65s that they've had since 2015 will continue but that a large chunk northern middle aged leave voters could come back to Labour especially those that were just voting Brexit or not voting as a protest as opposed to those actively voting for Johnson.
The Bassetlaw result for example was pretty disastrous for Labour and won't return to Labour at the next election but the size of the collapse was arguably greatly aggravated by candidate selection issues in addition to Brexit and Mann standing down etc
'At the 5 p.m. [French] cabinet meeting, many called it a British "last minute plan" to steal its colonies, and said that "be[ing] a Nazi province" was preferable to becoming a British dominion. Philippe Pétain, a leader of the pro-armistice group, called union "fusion with a corpse." '
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-British_Union
The Bassetlaw result for example was pretty disastrous for Labour and won't return to Labour at the next election but the size of the collapse was arguably greatly aggravated by candidate selection issues in addition to Brexit and Mann standing down etc
Bassetlaw will doubtless have been heavily influenced by Mann's attacks on Corbyn - but that will not be a factor next time.
On the second point, I agree that age is important and should be in the headline (it was) and very different issues to if the person was an adult. It shows that someone without full capacity (that can also apply to adults of course) has been perverted by others, either online or in person. Very important to understand why and try and prevent it. I find it equally shocking whether the peversion was (to take two possible examples) by Islamist extremists or a white supremacist group.
To put it another way, if it was a white supremacist plot to bomb a BLM protest, I wouldn't have had a problem with "white" or "racist" missing from the headline (though relevant facts to include in the article). I also wouldn't have a problem with those facts (or in this case, "Islamist" or "apparent Islamist" or similar, if justified) being put in the headline. I just find it odd that you seem to think the omission is somehow sinister.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8435719/Lord-Sugar-says-UK-lift-lockdown-measures-wife-alive-Florida.html
Has he seen the numbers for coronavirus in Florida over the past week?
I hesitate to critique new news reports, as they tend to get edited pretty quickly after the initial rush to put them up.
They are not a panacea, or a substitute for teams of experienced/well trained contact tracers.
England regional case data, by specimen date:
https://twitter.com/MarionKoopmans/status/1273286472582471682
PPE - some issues, seems fine now
DC infected with Covid-19 - you sure about that?
Test and trace is working - track may arrive
Rashford/free school meals - Labour didn't do this 1997-2010 as I recall
Its very easy to criticise...
But I can't leave a comment without actually saying anything, so....
I've been very happy with Starmer, despite putting him second to Nandy on my preference list. I agree that Scotland is the most obvious problem for him, and it's a shame that neither Campbell nor Hazarika had any ideas about it.
Maybe Labour should simply announce some time in 2021/22 that a Labour government would devolve powers to call a referendum to the Scottish Parliament. Morally it's right. We all know the harm that referendums can do, but ultimately the Scottish people, alone, should have the right to choose a government that will either provide or withhold one. Electorally it's no worse, and probably better, than the alternatives. In England and Wales, it avoids a repeat of 2015. The controversy would be dealt with well ahead of the election, and few English people will vote against them over this issue once it's so old and tired. Electorally in Scotland, it's trickier, but they're in a lose-lose situation there anyway.
COVID-19 case clusters offer lessons and warnings for reopening
Outbreaks in restaurants, offices and other venues could guide strategies for lifting social distancing guidelines
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-case-clusters-lessons-warnings-reopening
...Studying these kinds of transmission clusters as well as common environments where COVID-19 moves easily from person to person provides a glimpse of how to avoid the U-turns. To that end, epidemiologist Gwenan Knight and her colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine compiled a massive database of worldwide COVID-19 case clusters based on media accounts, published scientific studies and government health department reports.
As of June 10, their database included 231 cluster events, or groups of cases tied to the same place. The data are limited to known clusters and to what the patients involved could recall and what they told investigators....
Remember all that boasting of 18 000 trackers? Well in three weeks they have only been able to contact a little over 10 000 positive patients, and an average of three contacts each.
Instead of a competent system that would be key to relaxing lockdown safely, we have a charactestically fuckwitted bit of coronashambles.
These clowns couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, yet we are supposed to believe in their Global Britain bullshit. Run for the exits people, get out any way you can, the country is going down the plughole.
https://twitter.com/CarolineLucas/status/1273599558958931968?s=19
https://twitter.com/Dan_F_Jacobson/status/1273427948541001729
This would be ridiculous from some hack lawyer. That Trump's DOJ applied for this injunction is either hilarious, or rather scary.
You don't get to know whether it is working or not, or whether it is overdoing (or underdoing) the contacts.
I suppose that once someone is contacted via the Google/Apple method, they could be asked to register this with the tracers, and then the interaction can probably be de-anonymised. A bit pointless anonymising it in the first place though...
Johnson is a man child. He has no real plan for government, he just wanted to be PM so that he could play with the toys. He wants to redecorate the plane, play tennis at the Palace, and spend weeks at Chequers dodging work.
Where are all the other people with the virus?
3 contacts sounds about right for most people if they are observing the lockdown.
Starmer has to make enough headway in Scotland so that he can make such an English backlash look absurd. The next Holyrood elections are critical.
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1273631702045294597?s=09
https://twitter.com/Miss_Snuffy/status/1273296637537013761
I said if they were sensible this is what they should be doing. When we are spending hundreds of billions of pounds on the pandemic there is no reason to ignore either possible solution.
The background to the June 1940 offer featuring links between Chatham House and the Centre d'Etudes de Politique Etranger that dated back to late 1939 is covered in Avi Shlaim's article "Prelude to Downfall: The British Offer of Union to France, June 1940" (1974).
A union was proposed again in 1956. Shame it wasn't agreed on and put into practice. Once it was binned, France threw their lot in with Germany, while Britain kept the short straw of transatlanticism as if the ocean were some kind of continent.
...to their shareholders