Years ago when I as an English Tory said that I supported Scottish independence I was treated with incredulity and like I was insane. Such a combination was considered impossible.
I still get treated like I'm insane sometimes for my beliefs here, but not because of that anymore it seems. The idea of the English, even English Tories, thinking that Scottish independence would be a good idea does seem to be becoming more and more accepted as a more mainstream idea and not batshit crazy.
I still support the Union as we are stronger together but yes some English Tories are attracted to Scotland leaving the UK as it would make it almost impossible for a non Blairite Labour party to ever win a general election again
It would not make it impossible, the Labour Party would just need to adapt to be more attractive to the English. The pendulum will always swing eventually.
And they would have to adapt by becoming Blairite again.
Not since 1966 has Labour won a majority in England without Blair as leader and Cameron in 2010 and May in 2017 won comfortable Tory majorities in England alone
Leave won 68.5% of English seats, how is a Brexit blocker like Starmer going to appeal?
to the 45% of English that voted Remain, to Leave voters who are not obsessed with Brexit, but rather prioritise other issues like competency, and also those who realise that Leave was a mistake. Between all those it is quite possible to have a substantial majority
Two observations.
First, Starmer has very sensibly said very little about Brexit since becoming leader, because it's understandably obvious that Johnson wants to return to that conversation.
Second, we don't know how Brexit is going to turn out. It's the elephant in the room that's yet to land. Though if the "let's sign up for everything including the Euro and speaking French" campaign were to run the UK's preparations, I'm not sure they could sabotage the process more than the government is.
If Brexit goes well, BoJo is PM for as long as he wants, irrespective of everything else. If it goes meh, or is an omnishambles, that leave majority could melt away pretty quickly, and nobody will be able to call SKS Captain Hindsight ever again.
When it comes to an election he wont be able to just ignore it. I would suppose the Tories will hammer the point home, in Leave voting areas, that Starmer was a Remainer who tried to stop the result being implemented
This Government is destroying the Union day by day.
We've got to get those soft unionists back and come up with a new constitutional settlement for the UK.
I don't see how that's possible. Ultimately a majority of Scottish people now no longer feel the ties that bind England and Scotland together. What the two nations achieved in 300 years of the Union has been replaced by grievances and mistrust of each other. There doesn't seem a way back from that.
Years ago when I as an English Tory said that I supported Scottish independence I was treated with incredulity and like I was insane. Such a combination was considered impossible.
I still get treated like I'm insane sometimes for my beliefs here, but not because of that anymore it seems. The idea of the English, even English Tories, thinking that Scottish independence would be a good idea does seem to be becoming more and more accepted as a more mainstream idea and not batshit crazy.
I still support the Union as we are stronger together but yes some English Tories are attracted to Scotland leaving the UK as it would make it almost impossible for a non Blairite Labour party to ever win a general election again
It would not make it impossible, the Labour Party would just need to adapt to be more attractive to the English. The pendulum will always swing eventually.
And they would have to adapt by becoming Blairite again.
Not since 1966 has Labour won a majority in England without Blair as leader and Cameron in 2010 and May in 2017 won comfortable Tory majorities in England alone
Leave won 68.5% of English seats, how is a Brexit blocker like Starmer going to appeal?
to the 45% of English that voted Remain, to Leave voters who are not obsessed with Brexit, but rather prioritise other issues like competency, and also those who realise that Leave was a mistake. Between all those it is quite possible to have a substantial majority
Two observations.
First, Starmer has very sensibly said very little about Brexit since becoming leader, because it's understandably obvious that Johnson wants to return to that conversation.
Second, we don't know how Brexit is going to turn out. It's the elephant in the room that's yet to land. Though if the "let's sign up for everything including the Euro and speaking French" campaign were to run the UK's preparations, I'm not sure they could sabotage the process more than the government is.
If Brexit goes well, BoJo is PM for as long as he wants, irrespective of everything else. If it goes meh, or is an omnishambles, that leave majority could melt away pretty quickly, and nobody will be able to call SKS Captain Hindsight ever again.
When it comes to an election he wont be able to just ignore it. I would suppose the Tories will hammer the point home, in Leave voting areas, that Starmer was a Remainer who tried to stop the result being implemented
It's a fair point but if Brexit is still that relevant in 2024 the Tories have presumably kept it around and not delivered it either
Fascinating interview with one of the most successful Republican operatives of the last few decades, who seems to have had something of a Damascene moment...
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/19/interview-stuart-stevens-republican-case-against-trump-397918 ... Look, in July, Trump was already talking about suspending the elections. What do you think he’s going to do in October? Tell me what’s wrong with this scenario: It’s November 1, he’s losing, there are reports of voter irregularities in Florida, like there always are, and he sends those guys in camouflage into Miami-Dade County to seize the ballot boxes. Who’s going to stop him? The county security guards? They’re not going to phone ahead. What are the courts going to do? Order another election? Throw out Dade County? I don’t know. Who would object? [Attorney General William] Barr would go right along with it. The inability to imagine Trump has always been his greatest advantage. Normal people expect people who are acting abnormally to revert to normality. Trump understands that and he’s not a normal person. With the United States government, you’ve given Tony Soprano the paving contract and you’re acting shocked that he doesn’t seem interested in getting the road paved...
Terrifying concept.
It is absolutely the thing that people like SeaShanty are displaying. Normalcey bias I think someone called it.
In 2000 the Dems quietly went along with the election being stolen and we got 8 years of criminal government by Bush Jr.
I fully expect the Dems to bend over again if Trump attempts to actively steal the election.
For me the whole idea of a free election in a country with the rule of law being 'stolen' is completely the wrong way to look at it. All it does is put your party in a comfort zone where it does not have to change or review anything it did last time around, when in fact the election was not stolen, that party was just beaten.
That's where the democrats are now, for me. IN a massive comfort zone of self indulgence where nothing they did last time around was wrong, and indeed they can double down on their pet ideas and beliefs.
Referencing Hitler in this way, and the habit left wingers have of calling people they disagree with "Nazis", in a throwaway fashion, is probably more offensive to Jews than anything Corbyn and his Motley Crew say about Israel
I am sure CCHQ sorry HYUFD will find a way to explain these away!
Still close to 50 50 including Don't Knows but of course Boris will likely block indyref2 anyway.
If he does not and it is Yes then as I said that means customs posts at the Scottish border, tariffs on Scottish exports to the UK and almost permanent Tory rule once Scottish MPs go, without them Starmer has near zero chance of becoming PM
When a Westminster poll gets posted, why then do you not include don't knows?
As they matter more in referendums, see Quebec in 1995 where don't knows went No and No got 51% despite a Yes lead.
In general elections they can go multiple ways
LOL total bollocks
Honestly it isn't. There is definitely a "pause and have a really hard think in the polling booth" swing that is very hard to measure. With independence I'd wager it favours the Union because independence is a step into the unknown, I don't think it's worth 5-7 points, however. Possibly 3-4 though.
Ed Miliband got hit hard by this effect. People who said they would vote Labour went into the polling booth and thought "do I really want this guy to be PM?" the answer for too many people was no, and there was a 4 point Lab -> Con swing on the day.
Fascinating interview with one of the most successful Republican operatives of the last few decades, who seems to have had something of a Damascene moment...
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/19/interview-stuart-stevens-republican-case-against-trump-397918 ... Look, in July, Trump was already talking about suspending the elections. What do you think he’s going to do in October? Tell me what’s wrong with this scenario: It’s November 1, he’s losing, there are reports of voter irregularities in Florida, like there always are, and he sends those guys in camouflage into Miami-Dade County to seize the ballot boxes. Who’s going to stop him? The county security guards? They’re not going to phone ahead. What are the courts going to do? Order another election? Throw out Dade County? I don’t know. Who would object? [Attorney General William] Barr would go right along with it. The inability to imagine Trump has always been his greatest advantage. Normal people expect people who are acting abnormally to revert to normality. Trump understands that and he’s not a normal person. With the United States government, you’ve given Tony Soprano the paving contract and you’re acting shocked that he doesn’t seem interested in getting the road paved...
Terrifying concept.
That’s the kind of electoral malpractice that could quite conceivably be attempted, and very difficult then to deal with.
Perhaps the 2nd Amendment might actually get used...?
Oh look, Aberdonians being preening special snowflakes. There is a shock.
It really is time that people started consistently calling the Scottish government out on its ridiculous over reactions, excess of caution and indifference to our economy. This is a good start.
And don't get me started on that yellow card crap for Scottish football.
Years ago when I as an English Tory said that I supported Scottish independence I was treated with incredulity and like I was insane. Such a combination was considered impossible.
I still get treated like I'm insane sometimes for my beliefs here, but not because of that anymore it seems. The idea of the English, even English Tories, thinking that Scottish independence would be a good idea does seem to be becoming more and more accepted as a more mainstream idea and not batshit crazy.
I still support the Union as we are stronger together but yes some English Tories are attracted to Scotland leaving the UK as it would make it almost impossible for a non Blairite Labour party to ever win a general election again
It would not make it impossible, the Labour Party would just need to adapt to be more attractive to the English. The pendulum will always swing eventually.
And they would have to adapt by becoming Blairite again.
Not since 1966 has Labour won a majority in England without Blair as leader and Cameron in 2010 and May in 2017 won comfortable Tory majorities in England alone
Leave won 68.5% of English seats, how is a Brexit blocker like Starmer going to appeal?
to the 45% of English that voted Remain, to Leave voters who are not obsessed with Brexit, but rather prioritise other issues like competency, and also those who realise that Leave was a mistake. Between all those it is quite possible to have a substantial majority
Two observations.
First, Starmer has very sensibly said very little about Brexit since becoming leader, because it's understandably obvious that Johnson wants to return to that conversation.
Second, we don't know how Brexit is going to turn out. It's the elephant in the room that's yet to land. Though if the "let's sign up for everything including the Euro and speaking French" campaign were to run the UK's preparations, I'm not sure they could sabotage the process more than the government is.
If Brexit goes well, BoJo is PM for as long as he wants, irrespective of everything else. If it goes meh, or is an omnishambles, that leave majority could melt away pretty quickly, and nobody will be able to call SKS Captain Hindsight ever again.
When it comes to an election he wont be able to just ignore it. I would suppose the Tories will hammer the point home, in Leave voting areas, that Starmer was a Remainer who tried to stop the result being implemented
That only works if it turns into a stonking success, which remains to be seen. (And if it is a success, there's not much anyone will be able to do to prise Johnson out of No 10.)
If it's a clustershambles (you have to admit, it's possible) then Starmer has enough of a record of trying to prevent disaster to get the credit.
If it's a mediocre success or failure, then Starmer wants to make sure that Johnson's fingerprints are over the compromises. Not that there's much Starmer can do anyway.
Seriously- if this goes wrong, who are the Conservatives going to blame? The voters for making them do this terrible thing?
'McKinsey (the consultants invariably brought in by those CEOs and others too unimaginative to think for themselves, too scared to make their own decisions or just looking for someone else to blame).'
This was exactly my experience with them. They would come to you room, spend a lot of time finding out what you did and how you did it. They would type it up and report this to the CEO, leaving you wondering why the CEO didn't just ask you himself. The result of all this earnest research was the recommendation that the firm (which was profitable and successful) should carry on pretty much as before.
Naturally they were paid a huge sum for this timeless advice.
There is a reason for that which is (a) objectivity and (b) independence.
On the first, most staff will tell the CEO what they want to hear or what they think will make themselves look good in front of the CEO or advance their own agendas to the CEO. CEO doesn't know which to believe. He or she also doesn't know who's stayed quiet about what's really going on: everything gets filtered by chinese whispers & agendas through the chain of command.
On the second, the name of a McKinsey or Big4 firm carries weight as an independent assessor/auditor thus lending credibility to the findings.
That's why so many hire management consultants: to tell them the state of play in their own company, benchmark it against others in the industry (they'll have done the same elsewhere) and use their brand-name as credibility for the findings so they can take action.
That's no excuse for offering simple or poor advice, or subject to confirmation bias, and that's what differentiates good consultants from bad ones.
Years ago when I as an English Tory said that I supported Scottish independence I was treated with incredulity and like I was insane. Such a combination was considered impossible.
I still get treated like I'm insane sometimes for my beliefs here, but not because of that anymore it seems. The idea of the English, even English Tories, thinking that Scottish independence would be a good idea does seem to be becoming more and more accepted as a more mainstream idea and not batshit crazy.
I still support the Union as we are stronger together but yes some English Tories are attracted to Scotland leaving the UK as it would make it almost impossible for a non Blairite Labour party to ever win a general election again
It would not make it impossible, the Labour Party would just need to adapt to be more attractive to the English. The pendulum will always swing eventually.
And they would have to adapt by becoming Blairite again.
Not since 1966 has Labour won a majority in England without Blair as leader and Cameron in 2010 and May in 2017 won comfortable Tory majorities in England alone
Leave won 68.5% of English seats, how is a Brexit blocker like Starmer going to appeal?
to the 45% of English that voted Remain, to Leave voters who are not obsessed with Brexit, but rather prioritise other issues like competency, and also those who realise that Leave was a mistake. Between all those it is quite possible to have a substantial majority
Two observations.
First, Starmer has very sensibly said very little about Brexit since becoming leader, because it's understandably obvious that Johnson wants to return to that conversation.
Second, we don't know how Brexit is going to turn out. It's the elephant in the room that's yet to land. Though if the "let's sign up for everything including the Euro and speaking French" campaign were to run the UK's preparations, I'm not sure they could sabotage the process more than the government is.
If Brexit goes well, BoJo is PM for as long as he wants, irrespective of everything else. If it goes meh, or is an omnishambles, that leave majority could melt away pretty quickly, and nobody will be able to call SKS Captain Hindsight ever again.
When it comes to an election he wont be able to just ignore it. I would suppose the Tories will hammer the point home, in Leave voting areas, that Starmer was a Remainer who tried to stop the result being implemented
That only works if it turns into a stonking success, which remains to be seen. (And if it is a success, there's not much anyone will be able to do to prise Johnson out of No 10.)
If it's a clustershambles (you have to admit, it's possible) then Starmer has enough of a record of trying to prevent disaster to get the credit.
If it's a mediocre success or failure, then Starmer wants to make sure that Johnson's fingerprints are over the compromises. Not that there's much Starmer can do anyway.
Seriously- if this goes wrong, who are the Conservatives going to blame? The voters for making them do this terrible thing?
I disagree that it only works if its a stonking success. It's my view that Brexit was all about immigration, and trade deals or what have you wont really affect most Leave voter's opinions. Someone who listened to the people that demanded change will have their ear regardless, when the opposition is someone who disagreed with them, then refused to accept the result.
I am sure CCHQ sorry HYUFD will find a way to explain these away!
Still close to 50 50 including Don't Knows but of course Boris will likely block indyref2 anyway.
If he does not and it is Yes then as I said that means customs posts at the Scottish border, tariffs on Scottish exports to the UK and almost permanent Tory rule once Scottish MPs go, without them Starmer has near zero chance of becoming PM
When a Westminster poll gets posted, why then do you not include don't knows?
As they matter more in referendums, see Quebec in 1995 where don't knows went No and No got 51% despite a Yes lead.
In general elections they can go multiple ways
LOL total bollocks
Honestly it isn't. There is definitely a "pause and have a really hard think in the polling booth" swing that is very hard to measure. With independence I'd wager it favours the Union because independence is a step into the unknown, I don't think it's worth 5-7 points, however. Possibly 3-4 though.
Ed Miliband got hit hard by this effect. People who said they would vote Labour went into the polling booth and thought "do I really want this guy to be PM?" the answer for too many people was no, and there was a 4 point Lab -> Con swing on the day.
Nationalists will laugh (and they made, sadly, be proved to be right) but just as there was a big swing towards Yes in 2014 doesn't mean that these current absolute leads for Yes are rock solid, and they can't swing back.
They are terrifying numbers though. Those alone should be reason for Boris to go.
This Government is destroying the Union day by day.
We've got to get those soft unionists back and come up with a new constitutional settlement for the UK.
I don't see how that's possible. Ultimately a majority of Scottish people now no longer feel the ties that bind England and Scotland together. What the two nations achieved in 300 years of the Union has been replaced by grievances and mistrust of each other. There doesn't seem a way back from that.
That's surrendering without a fight. Why should we do that?
Interestingly, I note that some arch-Remainers have shifted from hoping the EU inflicts extreme punishment on the UK for Brexit to now hoping that Scottish independence does it instead, which they clearly think is the more fruitful seam to mine for revenge.
Referencing Hitler in this way, and the habit left wingers have of calling people they disagree with "Nazis", in a throwaway fashion, is probably more offensive to Jews than anything Corbyn and his Motley Crew say about Israel
I wasn't calling anyone Nazis, I was simply saying that attacking companies as a head of state and demanding people don't buy their products is something Hitler did.
We can say lots of dictators have said things like these.
And with Trump's rhetoric of not following the verdict of the election, is tending to autocratic tendencies.
Why you needed to bring up the Jewish people or anything else seems irrelevant.
Oh look, Aberdonians being preening special snowflakes. There is a shock.
It really is time that people started consistently calling the Scottish government out on its ridiculous over reactions, excess of caution and indifference to our economy. This is a good start.
I hope Johnson will come to his senses soon and accept an EEA-style relationship, he has the majority to push it through and would have nothing but respect from me!
Years ago when I as an English Tory said that I supported Scottish independence I was treated with incredulity and like I was insane. Such a combination was considered impossible.
I still get treated like I'm insane sometimes for my beliefs here, but not because of that anymore it seems. The idea of the English, even English Tories, thinking that Scottish independence would be a good idea does seem to be becoming more and more accepted as a more mainstream idea and not batshit crazy.
I still support the Union as we are stronger together but yes some English Tories are attracted to Scotland leaving the UK as it would make it almost impossible for a non Blairite Labour party to ever win a general election again
It would not make it impossible, the Labour Party would just need to adapt to be more attractive to the English. The pendulum will always swing eventually.
And they would have to adapt by becoming Blairite again.
Not since 1966 has Labour won a majority in England without Blair as leader and Cameron in 2010 and May in 2017 won comfortable Tory majorities in England alone
Leave won 68.5% of English seats, how is a Brexit blocker like Starmer going to appeal?
to the 45% of English that voted Remain, to Leave voters who are not obsessed with Brexit, but rather prioritise other issues like competency, and also those who realise that Leave was a mistake. Between all those it is quite possible to have a substantial majority
Two observations.
First, Starmer has very sensibly said very little about Brexit since becoming leader, because it's understandably obvious that Johnson wants to return to that conversation.
Second, we don't know how Brexit is going to turn out. It's the elephant in the room that's yet to land. Though if the "let's sign up for everything including the Euro and speaking French" campaign were to run the UK's preparations, I'm not sure they could sabotage the process more than the government is.
If Brexit goes well, BoJo is PM for as long as he wants, irrespective of everything else. If it goes meh, or is an omnishambles, that leave majority could melt away pretty quickly, and nobody will be able to call SKS Captain Hindsight ever again.
When it comes to an election he wont be able to just ignore it. I would suppose the Tories will hammer the point home, in Leave voting areas, that Starmer was a Remainer who tried to stop the result being implemented
Leave voting areas had substantial numbers of Remainers. Few places were more than 60/40 either way, and most 55/45.
A lot will depend on whether Brexit miraculously resolves the issues that bothered these Leave folks. If it flops, or merely fails to deliver a revival of places that have been on the slide for decades, re-running that Brexit bullshit won't wash.
The extra high peak around the 10th was the Northampton outbreak. The question is, whether we are see a reversion to the slow, steady increase, or something else.
I hope Johnson will come to his senses soon and accept an EEA-style relationship, he has the majority to push it through and would have nothing but respect from me!
Johnson's pay masters don't want it though so it's never going to happen.
This Government is destroying the Union day by day.
People on here were warning about this back in 2016 and that was with a more Conservative govt than the UKIP-lite we have now.
You are a beautiful example of the phenomena I've just posted about in response to @MaxPB
You have been driven mad by Brexit, and are now delighted that there's a new course of revenge that's potentially about to get served up on the table.
I do find it ironic that people insist that taking back control is ok regardless of the economic costs but it's not OK to give control back to a different group of people.
On quarantine for arrivals from different countries, our 20 per 100k in a week is a rubbish measure and relies on other countries actually doing the kind of testing. I think we should move it to number of people hospitalised per week which I think is a much fairer comparison.
Years ago when I as an English Tory said that I supported Scottish independence I was treated with incredulity and like I was insane. Such a combination was considered impossible.
I still get treated like I'm insane sometimes for my beliefs here, but not because of that anymore it seems. The idea of the English, even English Tories, thinking that Scottish independence would be a good idea does seem to be becoming more and more accepted as a more mainstream idea and not batshit crazy.
I still support the Union as we are stronger together but yes some English Tories are attracted to Scotland leaving the UK as it would make it almost impossible for a non Blairite Labour party to ever win a general election again
It would not make it impossible, the Labour Party would just need to adapt to be more attractive to the English. The pendulum will always swing eventually.
And they would have to adapt by becoming Blairite again.
Not since 1966 has Labour won a majority in England without Blair as leader and Cameron in 2010 and May in 2017 won comfortable Tory majorities in England alone
Leave won 68.5% of English seats, how is a Brexit blocker like Starmer going to appeal?
to the 45% of English that voted Remain, to Leave voters who are not obsessed with Brexit, but rather prioritise other issues like competency, and also those who realise that Leave was a mistake. Between all those it is quite possible to have a substantial majority
Two observations.
First, Starmer has very sensibly said very little about Brexit since becoming leader, because it's understandably obvious that Johnson wants to return to that conversation.
Second, we don't know how Brexit is going to turn out. It's the elephant in the room that's yet to land. Though if the "let's sign up for everything including the Euro and speaking French" campaign were to run the UK's preparations, I'm not sure they could sabotage the process more than the government is.
If Brexit goes well, BoJo is PM for as long as he wants, irrespective of everything else. If it goes meh, or is an omnishambles, that leave majority could melt away pretty quickly, and nobody will be able to call SKS Captain Hindsight ever again.
When it comes to an election he wont be able to just ignore it. I would suppose the Tories will hammer the point home, in Leave voting areas, that Starmer was a Remainer who tried to stop the result being implemented
That only works if it turns into a stonking success, which remains to be seen. (And if it is a success, there's not much anyone will be able to do to prise Johnson out of No 10.)
If it's a clustershambles (you have to admit, it's possible) then Starmer has enough of a record of trying to prevent disaster to get the credit.
If it's a mediocre success or failure, then Starmer wants to make sure that Johnson's fingerprints are over the compromises. Not that there's much Starmer can do anyway.
Seriously- if this goes wrong, who are the Conservatives going to blame? The voters for making them do this terrible thing?
I disagree that it only works if its a stonking success. It's my view that Brexit was all about immigration, and trade deals or what have you wont really affect most Leave voter's opinions. Someone who listened to the people that demanded change will have their ear regardless, when the opposition is someone who disagreed with them, then refused to accept the result.
That's what we're about to find out. No question that immigration (control from Europe) was a big issue. But so was fish. So was control of regulations. So was the cost to be a member. There are various potential benefits from Brexit, to set against the extra faff for people and businesses by leaving the single market.
What we don't know (which is mad; 4 months from now, the world will be shutting down for Christmas) what the future arrangements for all this will be. What are the tradeoffs? What will get better? What will get worse? Will the price for having control be worth paying?
Because if the costs are high and unexpected, telling people "this is what you said you wanted" isn't going to be much of a defence.
There are currently 2 people in ICUs in the whole of Scotland. And yesterday we recorded our first death for a few weeks but it turns out to be someone who actually died in April. And all the gyms are shut. All the pools are shut as are many of the hotels that have pools. All the spas are shut. The Courts are not working at even 10% of normal capacity. People are still not allowed to work in offices unless this is deemed "essential". We still have to listen to Nicola wittering for half an hour a day in a party political broadcast.
This nonsense may be good for the SNP poll ratings but its absolutely disastrous for the country. It needs to stop.
There are currently 2 people in ICUs in the whole of Scotland. And yesterday we recorded our first death for a few weeks but it turns out to be someone who actually died in April. And all the gyms are shut. All the pools are shut as are many of the hotels that have pools. All the spas are shut. The Courts are not working at even 10% of normal capacity. People are still not allowed to work in offices unless this is deemed "essential". We still have to listen to Nicola wittering for half an hour a day in a party political broadcast.
This nonsense may be good for the SNP poll ratings but its absolutely disastrous for the country. It needs to stop.
While she has England's treasury paying for her economic damage then it won't.
This Government is destroying the Union day by day.
People on here were warning about this back in 2016 and that was with a more Conservative govt than the UKIP-lite we have now.
You are a beautiful example of the phenomena I've just posted about in response to @MaxPB
You have been driven mad by Brexit, and are now delighted that there's a new course of revenge that's potentially about to get served up on the table.
I do find it ironic that people insist that taking back control is ok regardless of the economic costs but it's not OK to give control back to a different group of people.
The only person I can think of on this site who is adamant there should be no second referendum even if the Scots vote to hold one is HYUFD - and he's a Remainer.
This Government is destroying the Union day by day.
People on here were warning about this back in 2016 and that was with a more Conservative govt than the UKIP-lite we have now.
You are a beautiful example of the phenomena I've just posted about in response to @MaxPB
You have been driven mad by Brexit, and are now delighted that there's a new course of revenge that's potentially about to get served up on the table.
I do find it ironic that people insist that taking back control is ok regardless of the economic costs but it's not OK to give control back to a different group of people.
The only person I can think of on this site who is adamant there should be no second referendum even if the Scots vote to hold one is HYUFD - and he's a Remainer.
'McKinsey (the consultants invariably brought in by those CEOs and others too unimaginative to think for themselves, too scared to make their own decisions or just looking for someone else to blame).'
This was exactly my experience with them. They would come to you room, spend a lot of time finding out what you did and how you did it. They would type it up and report this to the CEO, leaving you wondering why the CEO didn't just ask you himself. The result of all this earnest research was the recommendation that the firm (which was profitable and successful) should carry on pretty much as before.
Naturally they were paid a huge sum for this timeless advice.
There is a reason for that which is (a) objectivity and (b) independence.
On the first, most staff will tell the CEO what they want to hear or what they think will make themselves look good in front of the CEO or advance their own agendas to the CEO. CEO doesn't know which to believe. He or she also doesn't know who's stayed quiet about what's really going on: everything gets filtered by chinese whispers & agendas through the chain of command.
On the second, the name of a McKinsey or Big4 firm carries weight as an independent assessor/auditor thus lending credibility to the findings.
That's why so many hire management consultants: to tell them the state of play in their own company, benchmark it against others in the industry (they'll have done the same elsewhere) and use their brand-name as credibility for the findings so they can take action.
That's no excuse for offering simple or poor advice, or subject to confirmation bias, and that's what differentiates good consultants from bad ones.
I did IT Consultancy for a while. A couple interesting things -
- Coming in from outside, we would often have to build documentation for a rats nest of systems. Often I would be told that my diagram (entirely created so I could understand it) was immensely valuable to the client. They often had no idea what was connecting to what.....
- Large companies/organisations are often a jumble of fiefdoms. They will tell you what protects their little patch. Quite often we had to get direct access to systems and work round the incumbent teams to find out what the hell was going on.
- Defiance. You might think that the CEO orders something to happen and... well stuff happens. In fact, when it effects their fiefdoms (see above), the incumbents will often defend their patch to the point of insubordination. And beyond.
All of the above is part of the reason that change is very very hard in large organisations. To the point where, it is necessary to burn the whole thing down and start again, every so often.
'McKinsey (the consultants invariably brought in by those CEOs and others too unimaginative to think for themselves, too scared to make their own decisions or just looking for someone else to blame).'
This was exactly my experience with them. They would come to you room, spend a lot of time finding out what you did and how you did it. They would type it up and report this to the CEO, leaving you wondering why the CEO didn't just ask you himself. The result of all this earnest research was the recommendation that the firm (which was profitable and successful) should carry on pretty much as before.
Naturally they were paid a huge sum for this timeless advice.
There is a reason for that which is (a) objectivity and (b) independence.
On the first, most staff will tell the CEO what they want to hear or what they think will make themselves look good in front of the CEO or advance their own agendas to the CEO. CEO doesn't know which to believe. He or she also doesn't know who's stayed quiet about what's really going on: everything gets filtered by chinese whispers & agendas through the chain of command.
On the second, the name of a McKinsey or Big4 firm carries weight as an independent assessor/auditor thus lending credibility to the findings.
That's why so many hire management consultants: to tell them the state of play in their own company, benchmark it against others in the industry (they'll have done the same elsewhere) and use their brand-name as credibility for the findings so they can take action.
That's no excuse for offering simple or poor advice, or subject to confirmation bias, and that's what differentiates good consultants from bad ones.
There's a certain value to that in the private sector. When it comes to government, it's harder to see (or demonstrate) that - and of course no commercial realities to act as a constraint.
As the prevalence of the disease and the number of people getting seriously ill from it declines, so the paranoia about its return increases, the less evidence is required to support theories of resurgence, and the more extreme will be the measures used to contain it.
By the end of the year virtually nobody will have Covid - and we'll all be made to wear masks every time we leave the house, the shielders and the elderly will be under full lockdown, pubs and possibly restaurants and gyms as well will have been shut again, and it'll once more be technically illegal for anyone to visit anybody else's house, even for Christmas dinner. Watch.
On Harding, all that really needs to be said is that she is an analogue person being put in charge of all the national health data. It's a recipe for disaster. PHE surely needs to be reformed, but she isn't the right person to do it. All of the other guff about McKinsey is for the birds. Frankly anyone who believes that £500k to McKinsey counts as anything more than a footnote in some finance assistant's daily write up needs their head examining. McKinsey has its fingers in basically every pie going, believe me I am intimately acquainted to how they operate (the lady wife was a consultant for them for many years). They spit at £500k, it's chicken feed.
Indeed. But as a I pointed out upthread (& which the media do not seem to have noticed), they were a little earlier awarded a contract of quite another kind:
https://www.consultancy.uk/news/25175/mckinsey-to-evaluate-british-nhs-test-and-trace-programme ...As the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) looks to improve the service, the Health Service Journal has revealed that McKinsey & Company has been tasked with reviewing the governance of the NHS Test and Trace programme. The consultancy will now consider which level of state management would facilitate the best provision of its future services – be that remaining under the direct control of the DHSC, gain greater operational independence, or be merged with another entity of the DHSC, such as Public Health England... (27th July)
Tip of iceberg ?
Tbh, McKinsey are everywhere. Lots of people say Goldman Sachs is the vampire squid, but I'd give that title to McKinsey. They are an inevitability in public (and private) sector consultancy services. Honestly, just take a look at the decisions they've been involved in.
I really like the way you seamlessly segue from "nothing to see here" to "they're everywhere, but it's perfectly normal"...
'McKinsey (the consultants invariably brought in by those CEOs and others too unimaginative to think for themselves, too scared to make their own decisions or just looking for someone else to blame).'
This was exactly my experience with them. They would come to you room, spend a lot of time finding out what you did and how you did it. They would type it up and report this to the CEO, leaving you wondering why the CEO didn't just ask you himself. The result of all this earnest research was the recommendation that the firm (which was profitable and successful) should carry on pretty much as before.
Naturally they were paid a huge sum for this timeless advice.
There is a reason for that which is (a) objectivity and (b) independence.
On the first, most staff will tell the CEO what they want to hear or what they think will make themselves look good in front of the CEO or advance their own agendas to the CEO. CEO doesn't know which to believe. He or she also doesn't know who's stayed quiet about what's really going on: everything gets filtered by chinese whispers & agendas through the chain of command.
On the second, the name of a McKinsey or Big4 firm carries weight as an independent assessor/auditor thus lending credibility to the findings.
That's why so many hire management consultants: to tell them the state of play in their own company, benchmark it against others in the industry (they'll have done the same elsewhere) and use their brand-name as credibility for the findings so they can take action.
That's no excuse for offering simple or poor advice, or subject to confirmation bias, and that's what differentiates good consultants from bad ones.
There's a certain value to that in the private sector. When it comes to government, it's harder to see (or demonstrate) that - and of course no commercial realities to act as a constraint.
I don't think you will find much difference in the socio-political behaviour of large organisations, private or public.
As the prevalence of the disease and the number of people getting seriously ill from it declines, so the paranoia about its return increases, the less evidence is required to support theories of resurgence, and the more extreme will be the measures used to contain it.
By the end of the year virtually nobody will have Covid - and we'll all be made to wear masks every time we leave the house, the shielders and the elderly will be under full lockdown, pubs and possibly restaurants and gyms as well will have been shut again, and it'll once more be technically illegal for anyone to visit anybody else's house, even for Christmas dinner. Watch.
By the end of the year virtually nobody will have Covid
Before any of you nasty people have a go at poor Richard, this line is straight from Starmer Towers.
I don't think there's any electoral sense in Labour abandoning unionism, but there might be some in not going into the election with Leonard. I'm sure he's a nice guy, can't say much either way for his competence, but he's English. An English politician cannot be successful as the leader of a political party in Scotland, bottom line, at present. It would be nice to envisage a time when it might be possible, but right now it isn't.
Years ago when I as an English Tory said that I supported Scottish independence I was treated with incredulity and like I was insane. Such a combination was considered impossible.
I still get treated like I'm insane sometimes for my beliefs here, but not because of that anymore it seems. The idea of the English, even English Tories, thinking that Scottish independence would be a good idea does seem to be becoming more and more accepted as a more mainstream idea and not batshit crazy.
I still support the Union as we are stronger together but yes some English Tories are attracted to Scotland leaving the UK as it would make it almost impossible for a non Blairite Labour party to ever win a general election again
It would not make it impossible, the Labour Party would just need to adapt to be more attractive to the English. The pendulum will always swing eventually.
And they would have to adapt by becoming Blairite again.
Not since 1966 has Labour won a majority in England without Blair as leader and Cameron in 2010 and May in 2017 won comfortable Tory majorities in England alone
Leave won 68.5% of English seats, how is a Brexit blocker like Starmer going to appeal?
to the 45% of English that voted Remain, to Leave voters who are not obsessed with Brexit, but rather prioritise other issues like competency, and also those who realise that Leave was a mistake. Between all those it is quite possible to have a substantial majority
Two observations.
First, Starmer has very sensibly said very little about Brexit since becoming leader, because it's understandably obvious that Johnson wants to return to that conversation.
Second, we don't know how Brexit is going to turn out. It's the elephant in the room that's yet to land. Though if the "let's sign up for everything including the Euro and speaking French" campaign were to run the UK's preparations, I'm not sure they could sabotage the process more than the government is.
If Brexit goes well, BoJo is PM for as long as he wants, irrespective of everything else. If it goes meh, or is an omnishambles, that leave majority could melt away pretty quickly, and nobody will be able to call SKS Captain Hindsight ever again.
When it comes to an election he wont be able to just ignore it. I would suppose the Tories will hammer the point home, in Leave voting areas, that Starmer was a Remainer who tried to stop the result being implemented
That only works if it turns into a stonking success, which remains to be seen. (And if it is a success, there's not much anyone will be able to do to prise Johnson out of No 10.)
If it's a clustershambles (you have to admit, it's possible) then Starmer has enough of a record of trying to prevent disaster to get the credit.
If it's a mediocre success or failure, then Starmer wants to make sure that Johnson's fingerprints are over the compromises. Not that there's much Starmer can do anyway.
Seriously- if this goes wrong, who are the Conservatives going to blame? The voters for making them do this terrible thing?
I disagree that it only works if its a stonking success. It's my view that Brexit was all about immigration, and trade deals or what have you wont really affect most Leave voter's opinions. Someone who listened to the people that demanded change will have their ear regardless, when the opposition is someone who disagreed with them, then refused to accept the result.
That's what we're about to find out. No question that immigration (control from Europe) was a big issue. But so was fish. So was control of regulations. So was the cost to be a member. There are various potential benefits from Brexit, to set against the extra faff for people and businesses by leaving the single market.
What we don't know (which is mad; 4 months from now, the world will be shutting down for Christmas) what the future arrangements for all this will be. What are the tradeoffs? What will get better? What will get worse? Will the price for having control be worth paying?
Because if the costs are high and unexpected, telling people "this is what you said you wanted" isn't going to be much of a defence.
Yes I suppose we will see. I am pretty convinced that if net migration is seen to be falling, most Leave voters will be ok
Markets clearly not worried about a Chinese backlash on Apple products.
So glad I bought me some Apple prior to the latest earnings.
Congrats to anyone that jumped on in March!
Yes, the FAANG strategy is working well, only Netflix has been a bit disappointing given their appeal to lockdowners, should have gone for MS instead. I also picked up SNE for cheap in late ($53) Feb which I think will pay off very nicely next year when the PS5 smashes all kinds of records.
I am sure CCHQ sorry HYUFD will find a way to explain these away!
Still close to 50 50 including Don't Knows but of course Boris will likely block indyref2 anyway.
If he does not and it is Yes then as I said that means customs posts at the Scottish border, tariffs on Scottish exports to the UK and almost permanent Tory rule once Scottish MPs go, without them Starmer has near zero chance of becoming PM
When a Westminster poll gets posted, why then do you not include don't knows?
As they matter more in referendums, see Quebec in 1995 where don't knows went No and No got 51% despite a Yes lead.
In general elections they can go multiple ways
LOL total bollocks
Honestly it isn't. There is definitely a "pause and have a really hard think in the polling booth" swing that is very hard to measure. With independence I'd wager it favours the Union because independence is a step into the unknown, I don't think it's worth 5-7 points, however. Possibly 3-4 though.
Ed Miliband got hit hard by this effect. People who said they would vote Labour went into the polling booth and thought "do I really want this guy to be PM?" the answer for too many people was no, and there was a 4 point Lab -> Con swing on the day.
Nationalists will laugh (and they made, sadly, be proved to be right) but just as there was a big swing towards Yes in 2014 doesn't mean that these current absolute leads for Yes are rock solid, and they can't swing back.
They are terrifying numbers though. Those alone should be reason for Boris to go.
The swing to Yes in 2014 came from DKs converting to Yes.
Markets clearly not worried about a Chinese backlash on Apple products.
So glad I bought me some Apple prior to the latest earnings.
Congrats to anyone that jumped on in March!
Yes, the FAANG strategy is working well, only Netflix has been a bit disappointing given their appeal to lockdowners, should have gone for MS instead. I also picked up SNE for cheap in late ($53) Feb which I think will pay off very nicely next year when the PS5 smashes all kinds of records.
Tech is where it's at my friend, good buys all round.
There are currently 2 people in ICUs in the whole of Scotland. And yesterday we recorded our first death for a few weeks but it turns out to be someone who actually died in April. And all the gyms are shut. All the pools are shut as are many of the hotels that have pools. All the spas are shut. The Courts are not working at even 10% of normal capacity. People are still not allowed to work in offices unless this is deemed "essential". We still have to listen to Nicola wittering for half an hour a day in a party political broadcast.
This nonsense may be good for the SNP poll ratings but its absolutely disastrous for the country. It needs to stop.
It's doing what it's intended to do. The Union was dying anyway, but Covid has killed it stone dead.
On Harding, all that really needs to be said is that she is an analogue person being put in charge of all the national health data. It's a recipe for disaster. PHE surely needs to be reformed, but she isn't the right person to do it. All of the other guff about McKinsey is for the birds. Frankly anyone who believes that £500k to McKinsey counts as anything more than a footnote in some finance assistant's daily write up needs their head examining. McKinsey has its fingers in basically every pie going, believe me I am intimately acquainted to how they operate (the lady wife was a consultant for them for many years). They spit at £500k, it's chicken feed.
Indeed. But as a I pointed out upthread (& which the media do not seem to have noticed), they were a little earlier awarded a contract of quite another kind:
https://www.consultancy.uk/news/25175/mckinsey-to-evaluate-british-nhs-test-and-trace-programme ...As the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) looks to improve the service, the Health Service Journal has revealed that McKinsey & Company has been tasked with reviewing the governance of the NHS Test and Trace programme. The consultancy will now consider which level of state management would facilitate the best provision of its future services – be that remaining under the direct control of the DHSC, gain greater operational independence, or be merged with another entity of the DHSC, such as Public Health England... (27th July)
Tip of iceberg ?
Tbh, McKinsey are everywhere. Lots of people say Goldman Sachs is the vampire squid, but I'd give that title to McKinsey. They are an inevitability in public (and private) sector consultancy services. Honestly, just take a look at the decisions they've been involved in.
I really like the way you seamlessly segue from "nothing to see here" to "they're everywhere, but it's perfectly normal"...
The second point is why the first is true! Now whether we want them to be doing everything is another discussion, but them getting this contract isn't exactly a huge shock.
It was their Chief Executive, no less, that had written the article linked to yesterday which said, amongst other things, that the Supreme Court and the Court of Session are of equal rank and that when they disagree it gets "tricky". Pig ignorant doesn't even begin to describe it.
This Government is destroying the Union day by day.
People on here were warning about this back in 2016 and that was with a more Conservative govt than the UKIP-lite we have now.
You are a beautiful example of the phenomena I've just posted about in response to @MaxPB
You have been driven mad by Brexit, and are now delighted that there's a new course of revenge that's potentially about to get served up on the table.
I do find it ironic that people insist that taking back control is ok regardless of the economic costs but it's not OK to give control back to a different group of people.
The only person I can think of on this site who is adamant there should be no second referendum even if the Scots vote to hold one is HYUFD - and he's a Remainer.
He's a Tory plant, he does what CCHQ tell him
You keep wielding this assertion about many people but I don't believe it about anyone. Far more likely everybody here is just a partisan obsessive.
HYUFD is far too embarrassing to be representing CCHQ. If he was any parties plant he would be a false flag plant from Labour, designed as an offensive caricature of what a heartless Tory looks like.
Years ago when I as an English Tory said that I supported Scottish independence I was treated with incredulity and like I was insane. Such a combination was considered impossible.
I still get treated like I'm insane sometimes for my beliefs here, but not because of that anymore it seems. The idea of the English, even English Tories, thinking that Scottish independence would be a good idea does seem to be becoming more and more accepted as a more mainstream idea and not batshit crazy.
I still support the Union as we are stronger together but yes some English Tories are attracted to Scotland leaving the UK as it would make it almost impossible for a non Blairite Labour party to ever win a general election again
It would not make it impossible, the Labour Party would just need to adapt to be more attractive to the English. The pendulum will always swing eventually.
And they would have to adapt by becoming Blairite again.
Not since 1966 has Labour won a majority in England without Blair as leader and Cameron in 2010 and May in 2017 won comfortable Tory majorities in England alone
Leave won 68.5% of English seats, how is a Brexit blocker like Starmer going to appeal?
to the 45% of English that voted Remain, to Leave voters who are not obsessed with Brexit, but rather prioritise other issues like competency, and also those who realise that Leave was a mistake. Between all those it is quite possible to have a substantial majority
Two observations.
First, Starmer has very sensibly said very little about Brexit since becoming leader, because it's understandably obvious that Johnson wants to return to that conversation.
Second, we don't know how Brexit is going to turn out. It's the elephant in the room that's yet to land. Though if the "let's sign up for everything including the Euro and speaking French" campaign were to run the UK's preparations, I'm not sure they could sabotage the process more than the government is.
If Brexit goes well, BoJo is PM for as long as he wants, irrespective of everything else. If it goes meh, or is an omnishambles, that leave majority could melt away pretty quickly, and nobody will be able to call SKS Captain Hindsight ever again.
When it comes to an election he wont be able to just ignore it. I would suppose the Tories will hammer the point home, in Leave voting areas, that Starmer was a Remainer who tried to stop the result being implemented
That only works if it turns into a stonking success, which remains to be seen. (And if it is a success, there's not much anyone will be able to do to prise Johnson out of No 10.)
If it's a clustershambles (you have to admit, it's possible) then Starmer has enough of a record of trying to prevent disaster to get the credit.
If it's a mediocre success or failure, then Starmer wants to make sure that Johnson's fingerprints are over the compromises. Not that there's much Starmer can do anyway.
Seriously- if this goes wrong, who are the Conservatives going to blame? The voters for making them do this terrible thing?
I disagree that it only works if its a stonking success. It's my view that Brexit was all about immigration, and trade deals or what have you wont really affect most Leave voter's opinions. Someone who listened to the people that demanded change will have their ear regardless, when the opposition is someone who disagreed with them, then refused to accept the result.
That's what we're about to find out. No question that immigration (control from Europe) was a big issue. But so was fish. So was control of regulations. So was the cost to be a member. There are various potential benefits from Brexit, to set against the extra faff for people and businesses by leaving the single market.
What we don't know (which is mad; 4 months from now, the world will be shutting down for Christmas) what the future arrangements for all this will be. What are the tradeoffs? What will get better? What will get worse? Will the price for having control be worth paying?
Because if the costs are high and unexpected, telling people "this is what you said you wanted" isn't going to be much of a defence.
Yes I suppose we will see. I am pretty convinced that if net migration is seen to be falling, most Leave voters will be ok
Polling for "there is too much immigration" is pretty much constant irregardless of net migration.
In the 80s when there was negative net migration the majority of people thought there was too much immigration.
The extra high peak around the 10th was the Northampton outbreak. The question is, whether we are see a reversion to the slow, steady increase, or something else.
According to the main gov.uk dashboard, the seven day average of confirmed positive tests has now levelled off. Too early to know if that's the new normal, but it's mildly encouraging.
Years ago when I as an English Tory said that I supported Scottish independence I was treated with incredulity and like I was insane. Such a combination was considered impossible.
I still get treated like I'm insane sometimes for my beliefs here, but not because of that anymore it seems. The idea of the English, even English Tories, thinking that Scottish independence would be a good idea does seem to be becoming more and more accepted as a more mainstream idea and not batshit crazy.
I still support the Union as we are stronger together but yes some English Tories are attracted to Scotland leaving the UK as it would make it almost impossible for a non Blairite Labour party to ever win a general election again
It would not make it impossible, the Labour Party would just need to adapt to be more attractive to the English. The pendulum will always swing eventually.
And they would have to adapt by becoming Blairite again.
Not since 1966 has Labour won a majority in England without Blair as leader and Cameron in 2010 and May in 2017 won comfortable Tory majorities in England alone
Leave won 68.5% of English seats, how is a Brexit blocker like Starmer going to appeal?
to the 45% of English that voted Remain, to Leave voters who are not obsessed with Brexit, but rather prioritise other issues like competency, and also those who realise that Leave was a mistake. Between all those it is quite possible to have a substantial majority
Two observations.
First, Starmer has very sensibly said very little about Brexit since becoming leader, because it's understandably obvious that Johnson wants to return to that conversation.
Second, we don't know how Brexit is going to turn out. It's the elephant in the room that's yet to land. Though if the "let's sign up for everything including the Euro and speaking French" campaign were to run the UK's preparations, I'm not sure they could sabotage the process more than the government is.
If Brexit goes well, BoJo is PM for as long as he wants, irrespective of everything else. If it goes meh, or is an omnishambles, that leave majority could melt away pretty quickly, and nobody will be able to call SKS Captain Hindsight ever again.
When it comes to an election he wont be able to just ignore it. I would suppose the Tories will hammer the point home, in Leave voting areas, that Starmer was a Remainer who tried to stop the result being implemented
That only works if it turns into a stonking success, which remains to be seen. (And if it is a success, there's not much anyone will be able to do to prise Johnson out of No 10.)
If it's a clustershambles (you have to admit, it's possible) then Starmer has enough of a record of trying to prevent disaster to get the credit.
If it's a mediocre success or failure, then Starmer wants to make sure that Johnson's fingerprints are over the compromises. Not that there's much Starmer can do anyway.
Seriously- if this goes wrong, who are the Conservatives going to blame? The voters for making them do this terrible thing?
I disagree that it only works if its a stonking success. It's my view that Brexit was all about immigration, and trade deals or what have you wont really affect most Leave voter's opinions. Someone who listened to the people that demanded change will have their ear regardless, when the opposition is someone who disagreed with them, then refused to accept the result.
That's what we're about to find out. No question that immigration (control from Europe) was a big issue. But so was fish. So was control of regulations. So was the cost to be a member. There are various potential benefits from Brexit, to set against the extra faff for people and businesses by leaving the single market.
What we don't know (which is mad; 4 months from now, the world will be shutting down for Christmas) what the future arrangements for all this will be. What are the tradeoffs? What will get better? What will get worse? Will the price for having control be worth paying?
Because if the costs are high and unexpected, telling people "this is what you said you wanted" isn't going to be much of a defence.
Yes I suppose we will see. I am pretty convinced that if net migration is seen to be falling, most Leave voters will be ok
Polling for "there is too much immigration" is pretty much constant irregardless of net migration.
In the 80s when there was negative net migration the majority of people thought there was too much immigration.
Net migration and immigration are technically too different things.
This Government is destroying the Union day by day.
People on here were warning about this back in 2016 and that was with a more Conservative govt than the UKIP-lite we have now.
You are a beautiful example of the phenomena I've just posted about in response to @MaxPB
You have been driven mad by Brexit, and are now delighted that there's a new course of revenge that's potentially about to get served up on the table.
I do find it ironic that people insist that taking back control is ok regardless of the economic costs but it's not OK to give control back to a different group of people.
The only person I can think of on this site who is adamant there should be no second referendum even if the Scots vote to hold one is HYUFD - and he's a Remainer.
He's a Tory plant, he does what CCHQ tell him
I am adamant there should be no second referendum for a generation - about 20 years from now - unless there is a clear UK wide desire to test the unity of the UK union and take a chance on destroying the union. The Scots going alone have had their go and clearly said 'No' for a generation. England, Wales and NI may have views too about wanting independence from Scotland, and the chance to force it on us without any say should not be repeated. I for one don't want England/Wales independence from Scotland, a nation I admire and respect deeply, and I want it to be part of my UK.
The extra high peak around the 10th was the Northampton outbreak. The question is, whether we are see a reversion to the slow, steady increase, or something else.
According to the main gov.uk dashboard, the seven day average of confirmed positive tests has now levelled off. Too early to know if that's the new normal, but it's mildly encouraging.
That's using reporting date - the above is using specimen date.
As I mentioned, what we are seeing is aftermath of the Northampton spike. The question is whether we are back on the slow increase seen previously.
Oh look, Aberdonians being preening special snowflakes. There is a shock.
Aberdonians the wrong kind of Scots?
Not true Scots?
They're a Tory/suspended-from-Lab coalition, they love to 'differentiate' from the SG. Since they okayed turning Union St into a beer garden before the outbreak, their Covid record speaks for itself.
Fascinating interview with one of the most successful Republican operatives of the last few decades, who seems to have had something of a Damascene moment...
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/19/interview-stuart-stevens-republican-case-against-trump-397918 ... Look, in July, Trump was already talking about suspending the elections. What do you think he’s going to do in October? Tell me what’s wrong with this scenario: It’s November 1, he’s losing, there are reports of voter irregularities in Florida, like there always are, and he sends those guys in camouflage into Miami-Dade County to seize the ballot boxes. Who’s going to stop him? The county security guards? They’re not going to phone ahead. What are the courts going to do? Order another election? Throw out Dade County? I don’t know. Who would object? [Attorney General William] Barr would go right along with it. The inability to imagine Trump has always been his greatest advantage. Normal people expect people who are acting abnormally to revert to normality. Trump understands that and he’s not a normal person. With the United States government, you’ve given Tony Soprano the paving contract and you’re acting shocked that he doesn’t seem interested in getting the road paved...
Terrifying concept.
That’s the kind of electoral malpractice that could quite conceivably be attempted, and very difficult then to deal with.
Florida always always always has electoral controversy in the general
Quite. But what is being postulated here is a mass seizure of ballots in a heavily Democratic county, sufficient to turn the entire state, not just the usual attempts to hinder turnout etc. Tell me what’s wrong with this scenario: It’s November 1, he’s losing, there are reports of voter irregularities in Florida, like there always are, and he sends those guys in camouflage into Miami-Dade County to seize the ballot boxes. Who’s going to stop him? The county security guards? They’re not going to phone ahead. What are the courts going to do? Order another election? Throw out Dade County? I don’t know. Who would object? [Attorney General William] Barr would go right along with it...
Something like this, but on a much larger scale. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/11/us/how-johnson-won-election-he-d-lost.html ...Mr. Caro maintains that although ballot fraud was common in the late 1940's in some parts of Texas, the Johnson campaign of 1948 raised it to a new level. Mr. Caro supports his charge with an interview with Luis Salas, an election judge in Jim Wells County who said he acknowledged his role only after all others involved in the theft had died. It has been alleged for years that Johnson captured his Senate seat through fraud, but Mr. Caro goes into great detail to tell how the future President overcame a 20,000-vote deficit to achieve his famous 87-vote victory in the 1948 Democratic runoff primary against a former Governor, Coke Stevenson...
The strange thing about that was for years the controversy over the election turned on a single ballot box (the Supreme Court having gone along with the fix): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_13_scandal
There are currently 2 people in ICUs in the whole of Scotland. And yesterday we recorded our first death for a few weeks but it turns out to be someone who actually died in April. And all the gyms are shut. All the pools are shut as are many of the hotels that have pools. All the spas are shut. The Courts are not working at even 10% of normal capacity. People are still not allowed to work in offices unless this is deemed "essential". We still have to listen to Nicola wittering for half an hour a day in a party political broadcast.
This nonsense may be good for the SNP poll ratings but its absolutely disastrous for the country. It needs to stop.
So how do the SNP supporters on this site react to this?
This Government is destroying the Union day by day.
People on here were warning about this back in 2016 and that was with a more Conservative govt than the UKIP-lite we have now.
You are a beautiful example of the phenomena I've just posted about in response to @MaxPB
You have been driven mad by Brexit, and are now delighted that there's a new course of revenge that's potentially about to get served up on the table.
I do find it ironic that people insist that taking back control is ok regardless of the economic costs but it's not OK to give control back to a different group of people.
The only person I can think of on this site who is adamant there should be no second referendum even if the Scots vote to hold one is HYUFD - and he's a Remainer.
He's a Tory plant, he does what CCHQ tell him
I am adamant there should be no second referendum for a generation - about 20 years from now - unless there is a clear UK wide desire to test the unity of the UK union and take a chance on destroying the union. The Scots going alone have had their go and clearly said 'No' for a generation. England, Wales and NI may have views too about wanting independence from Scotland, and the chance to force it on us without any say should not be repeated. I for one don't want England/Wales independence from Scotland, a nation I admire and respect deeply, and I want it to be part of my UK.
Unfortunately for you, there's only one person who cares about your opinion on the matter.
Oh look, Aberdonians being preening special snowflakes. There is a shock.
Aberdonians the wrong kind of Scots?
Not true Scots?
They're a Tory/suspended-from-Lab coalition, they love to 'differentiate' from the SG. Since they okayed turning Union St into a beer garden before the outbreak, their Covid record speaks for itself.
Beer gardens being a good thing as they're outdoors so reduce transmission? I take it that's what you mean?
It was their Chief Executive, no less, that had written the article linked to yesterday which said, amongst other things, that the Supreme Court and the Court of Session are of equal rank and that when they disagree it gets "tricky". Pig ignorant doesn't even begin to describe it.
Rob is a solicitor, Managing Director and Founder of Scottish law firm, Aberdeins and Managing Director of specialist debt recovery firm, Alston Law.
Rob sits on the Law Society of Scotland Specialist Debt and Asset Recovery Panel and is a Law Society of Scotland Accredited Legal Technologist. He is also a Registered Foreign Lawyer in England and Wales.
Would be embarrassed by MacIntyre-Kemp's musings.....perhaps someone should ask him?
I would imagine that is a very serious interruption to commerce
There are three (IIRC) passenger routes between the two cities even in normal times, so there is - fortunately - some redundancy. IIRC also the other two lines are electrified (through Bathgate and Motherwell respectively) bvut I am sure the experts will correct me.
I used to think most of the people running the UK government were more intelligent than average. These days I'm not longer so sure. No wonder so many people in Scotland support independence.
Oh look, Aberdonians being preening special snowflakes. There is a shock.
Aberdonians the wrong kind of Scots?
Not true Scots?
They're a Tory/suspended-from-Lab coalition, they love to 'differentiate' from the SG. Since they okayed turning Union St into a beer garden before the outbreak, their Covid record speaks for itself.
Beer gardens being a good thing as they're outdoors so reduce transmission? I take it that's what you mean?
Union Street is a pale shadow of its former self since the oil price crash a couple of years ago now with many restaurants shut and many of the remaining businesses and pubs hanging on by a thread so anything that boosted their custom would clearly be welcomed? Maybe that was the problem?
The extra high peak around the 10th was the Northampton outbreak. The question is, whether we are see a reversion to the slow, steady increase, or something else.
According to the main gov.uk dashboard, the seven day average of confirmed positive tests has now levelled off. Too early to know if that's the new normal, but it's mildly encouraging.
That's using reporting date - the above is using specimen date.
As I mentioned, what we are seeing is aftermath of the Northampton spike. The question is whether we are back on the slow increase seen previously.
From the colour coding it doesn't look like a Northampton spike alone. The green, bright blue and others seem to be increasing too.
On Harding, all that really needs to be said is that she is an analogue person being put in charge of all the national health data. It's a recipe for disaster. PHE surely needs to be reformed, but she isn't the right person to do it. All of the other guff about McKinsey is for the birds. Frankly anyone who believes that £500k to McKinsey counts as anything more than a footnote in some finance assistant's daily write up needs their head examining. McKinsey has its fingers in basically every pie going, believe me I am intimately acquainted to how they operate (the lady wife was a consultant for them for many years). They spit at £500k, it's chicken feed.
Indeed. But as a I pointed out upthread (& which the media do not seem to have noticed), they were a little earlier awarded a contract of quite another kind:
https://www.consultancy.uk/news/25175/mckinsey-to-evaluate-british-nhs-test-and-trace-programme ...As the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) looks to improve the service, the Health Service Journal has revealed that McKinsey & Company has been tasked with reviewing the governance of the NHS Test and Trace programme. The consultancy will now consider which level of state management would facilitate the best provision of its future services – be that remaining under the direct control of the DHSC, gain greater operational independence, or be merged with another entity of the DHSC, such as Public Health England... (27th July)
Tip of iceberg ?
Tbh, McKinsey are everywhere. Lots of people say Goldman Sachs is the vampire squid, but I'd give that title to McKinsey. They are an inevitability in public (and private) sector consultancy services. Honestly, just take a look at the decisions they've been involved in.
I really like the way you seamlessly segue from "nothing to see here" to "they're everywhere, but it's perfectly normal"...
The second point is why the first is true! Now whether we want them to be doing everything is another discussion....
I'm not seeing it as 'another discussion'. It was precisely the discussion I was trying to start in the first place.
Cyclefree, I am writing from relative ignorance, but what you say makes sense to me. There ought to be a word to describe the tendentious twisting of logic and science to one's own ends. Are we getting worse in this aspect ?
Oh look, Aberdonians being preening special snowflakes. There is a shock.
Aberdonians the wrong kind of Scots?
Not true Scots?
They're a Tory/suspended-from-Lab coalition, they love to 'differentiate' from the SG. Since they okayed turning Union St into a beer garden before the outbreak, their Covid record speaks for itself.
Beer gardens being a good thing as they're outdoors so reduce transmission? I take it that's what you mean?
Years ago when I as an English Tory said that I supported Scottish independence I was treated with incredulity and like I was insane. Such a combination was considered impossible.
I still get treated like I'm insane sometimes for my beliefs here, but not because of that anymore it seems. The idea of the English, even English Tories, thinking that Scottish independence would be a good idea does seem to be becoming more and more accepted as a more mainstream idea and not batshit crazy.
I still support the Union as we are stronger together but yes some English Tories are attracted to Scotland leaving the UK as it would make it almost impossible for a non Blairite Labour party to ever win a general election again
It would not make it impossible, the Labour Party would just need to adapt to be more attractive to the English. The pendulum will always swing eventually.
And they would have to adapt by becoming Blairite again.
Not since 1966 has Labour won a majority in England without Blair as leader and Cameron in 2010 and May in 2017 won comfortable Tory majorities in England alone
Leave won 68.5% of English seats, how is a Brexit blocker like Starmer going to appeal?
to the 45% of English that voted Remain, to Leave voters who are not obsessed with Brexit, but rather prioritise other issues like competency, and also those who realise that Leave was a mistake. Between all those it is quite possible to have a substantial majority
Two observations.
First, Starmer has very sensibly said very little about Brexit since becoming leader, because it's understandably obvious that Johnson wants to return to that conversation.
Second, we don't know how Brexit is going to turn out. It's the elephant in the room that's yet to land. Though if the "let's sign up for everything including the Euro and speaking French" campaign were to run the UK's preparations, I'm not sure they could sabotage the process more than the government is.
If Brexit goes well, BoJo is PM for as long as he wants, irrespective of everything else. If it goes meh, or is an omnishambles, that leave majority could melt away pretty quickly, and nobody will be able to call SKS Captain Hindsight ever again.
When it comes to an election he wont be able to just ignore it. I would suppose the Tories will hammer the point home, in Leave voting areas, that Starmer was a Remainer who tried to stop the result being implemented
That only works if it turns into a stonking success, which remains to be seen. (And if it is a success, there's not much anyone will be able to do to prise Johnson out of No 10.)
If it's a clustershambles (you have to admit, it's possible) then Starmer has enough of a record of trying to prevent disaster to get the credit.
If it's a mediocre success or failure, then Starmer wants to make sure that Johnson's fingerprints are over the compromises. Not that there's much Starmer can do anyway.
Seriously- if this goes wrong, who are the Conservatives going to blame? The voters for making them do this terrible thing?
I disagree that it only works if its a stonking success. It's my view that Brexit was all about immigration, and trade deals or what have you wont really affect most Leave voter's opinions. Someone who listened to the people that demanded change will have their ear regardless, when the opposition is someone who disagreed with them, then refused to accept the result.
That's what we're about to find out. No question that immigration (control from Europe) was a big issue. But so was fish. So was control of regulations. So was the cost to be a member. There are various potential benefits from Brexit, to set against the extra faff for people and businesses by leaving the single market.
What we don't know (which is mad; 4 months from now, the world will be shutting down for Christmas) what the future arrangements for all this will be. What are the tradeoffs? What will get better? What will get worse? Will the price for having control be worth paying?
Because if the costs are high and unexpected, telling people "this is what you said you wanted" isn't going to be much of a defence.
Yes I suppose we will see. I am pretty convinced that if net migration is seen to be falling, most Leave voters will be ok
Polling for "there is too much immigration" is pretty much constant irregardless of net migration.
In the 80s when there was negative net migration the majority of people thought there was too much immigration.
Yes, the public have never wanted it, yet all governments seem to consider that fact irrelevant, and any politician that mentions it as unrepresentative of the public.
Before any of you nasty people have a go at poor Richard, this line is straight from Starmer Towers.
I don't think there's any electoral sense in Labour abandoning unionism, but there might be some in not going into the election with Leonard. I'm sure he's a nice guy, can't say much either way for his competence, but he's English. An English politician cannot be successful as the leader of a political party in Scotland, bottom line, at present. It would be nice to envisage a time when it might be possible, but right now it isn't.
I have honestly never heard that put as an objection to him - except by his opponents in SLAB atr the time of the leadership election.
Oh look, Aberdonians being preening special snowflakes. There is a shock.
Aberdonians the wrong kind of Scots?
Not true Scots?
They're a Tory/suspended-from-Lab coalition, they love to 'differentiate' from the SG. Since they okayed turning Union St into a beer garden before the outbreak, their Covid record speaks for itself.
Beer gardens being a good thing as they're outdoors so reduce transmission? I take it that's what you mean?
Oh look, Aberdonians being preening special snowflakes. There is a shock.
Aberdonians the wrong kind of Scots?
Not true Scots?
They're a Tory/suspended-from-Lab coalition, they love to 'differentiate' from the SG. Since they okayed turning Union St into a beer garden before the outbreak, their Covid record speaks for itself.
Beer gardens being a good thing as they're outdoors so reduce transmission? I take it that's what you mean?
It's northern Scotland though so while being outside is good the issue was that you need to gather close (like penguins) to stay warm..
As the prevalence of the disease and the number of people getting seriously ill from it declines, so the paranoia about its return increases, the less evidence is required to support theories of resurgence, and the more extreme will be the measures used to contain it.
By the end of the year virtually nobody will have Covid - and we'll all be made to wear masks every time we leave the house, the shielders and the elderly will be under full lockdown, pubs and possibly restaurants and gyms as well will have been shut again, and it'll once more be technically illegal for anyone to visit anybody else's house, even for Christmas dinner. Watch.
By the end of the year virtually nobody will have Covid
That's a bold assumption.
It's no more outrageous than the suggestion that we'll be coughing and spluttering our way through this enormous second wave that everyone keeps wetting about. I mean, we might be, but it seems very far from a foregone conclusion.
All we can say more-or-less for certain right now is that Covid appears to be down to very low levels in most of the country. Crush it out of the places where it's still prevalent and the conditions for maintaining minimal prevalence nationwide then exist.
Indeed, I would go as far as to say that the entire notion of the massive second wave is predicated on things going wrong when the schools come back, or when the weather gets cold. I'm not aware of there being strong established links between schools returning and massive explosions of Covid in countries where the kids have already gone back (or in Sweden, where they never stopped in the first place,) and the cold weather panic seems to be predicated mainly on people doing a lot more socialising indoors in the Winter.
Now, if the public spends the Winter sat in their own little homes in front of Netflix, loads of people keep on working from home, and lots of oldies, medically vulnerable people and worried well keep on behaving as if its April and have very little to do with anybody, then why should there be a Winter-induced second wave either?
Actually listening to Hancock's vapid rhetoric.. Today I am announcing that we are forming the National Institute for Health Protection. This will have a single & relentless mission: protecting people from external threats to this country’s health, bringing the UK’s world-class science and scale into one coherent organisation.
...If the 'single and relentless mission" is to protect against external threats, what becomes of the rest of public health tasks ?
There are currently 2 people in ICUs in the whole of Scotland. And yesterday we recorded our first death for a few weeks but it turns out to be someone who actually died in April. And all the gyms are shut. All the pools are shut as are many of the hotels that have pools. All the spas are shut. The Courts are not working at even 10% of normal capacity. People are still not allowed to work in offices unless this is deemed "essential". We still have to listen to Nicola wittering for half an hour a day in a party political broadcast.
This nonsense may be good for the SNP poll ratings but its absolutely disastrous for the country. It needs to stop.
Good post.
In England too. I know someone who works in Torbay hospital and she said today that there is currently only 1 covid patient there. The hospital serves, I guess, over 1/3rd of Devon.
Actually listening to Hancock's vapid rhetoric.. Today I am announcing that we are forming the National Institute for Health Protection. This will have a single & relentless mission: protecting people from external threats to this country’s health, bringing the UK’s world-class science and scale into one coherent organisation.
...If the 'single and relentless mission" is to protect against external threats, what becomes of the rest of public health tasks ?
Also what about internal threats? Like food companies pushing fat and salt?
Cyclefree, I am writing from relative ignorance, but what you say makes sense to me. There ought to be a word to describe the tendentious twisting of logic and science to one's own ends. Are we getting worse in this aspect ?
Perhaps the word you seek is "Rationalisation". If you want something stronger then "Blind Faith" or "Denial" might work.....
Comments
Inappropriate.
I think Hitler did stuff like this
Ed Miliband got hit hard by this effect. People who said they would vote Labour went into the polling booth and thought "do I really want this guy to be PM?" the answer for too many people was no, and there was a 4 point Lab -> Con swing on the day.
And don't get me started on that yellow card crap for Scottish football.
If it's a clustershambles (you have to admit, it's possible) then Starmer has enough of a record of trying to prevent disaster to get the credit.
If it's a mediocre success or failure, then Starmer wants to make sure that Johnson's fingerprints are over the compromises. Not that there's much Starmer can do anyway.
Seriously- if this goes wrong, who are the Conservatives going to blame? The voters for making them do this terrible thing?
On the first, most staff will tell the CEO what they want to hear or what they think will make themselves look good in front of the CEO or advance their own agendas to the CEO. CEO doesn't know which to believe. He or she also doesn't know who's stayed quiet about what's really going on: everything gets filtered by chinese whispers & agendas through the chain of command.
On the second, the name of a McKinsey or Big4 firm carries weight as an independent assessor/auditor thus lending credibility to the findings.
That's why so many hire management consultants: to tell them the state of play in their own company, benchmark it against others in the industry (they'll have done the same elsewhere) and use their brand-name as credibility for the findings so they can take action.
That's no excuse for offering simple or poor advice, or subject to confirmation bias, and that's what differentiates good consultants from bad ones.
They are terrifying numbers though. Those alone should be reason for Boris to go.
Interestingly, I note that some arch-Remainers have shifted from hoping the EU inflicts extreme punishment on the UK for Brexit to now hoping that Scottish independence does it instead, which they clearly think is the more fruitful seam to mine for revenge.
We can say lots of dictators have said things like these.
And with Trump's rhetoric of not following the verdict of the election, is tending to autocratic tendencies.
Why you needed to bring up the Jewish people or anything else seems irrelevant.
You have been driven mad by Brexit, and are now delighted that there's a new course of revenge that's potentially about to get served up on the table.
https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1295360045446823936?s=20
https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1295360046847725568?s=20
A lot will depend on whether Brexit miraculously resolves the issues that bothered these Leave folks. If it flops, or merely fails to deliver a revival of places that have been on the slide for decades, re-running that Brexit bullshit won't wash.
The extra high peak around the 10th was the Northampton outbreak. The question is, whether we are see a reversion to the slow, steady increase, or something else.
https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1296031903691288576?s=20
You are generally right though, people on the left do like to call the Tories nazis. I don't agree with that at all.
What we don't know (which is mad; 4 months from now, the world will be shutting down for Christmas) what the future arrangements for all this will be. What are the tradeoffs? What will get better? What will get worse? Will the price for having control be worth paying?
Because if the costs are high and unexpected, telling people "this is what you said you wanted" isn't going to be much of a defence.
And all the gyms are shut.
All the pools are shut as are many of the hotels that have pools.
All the spas are shut.
The Courts are not working at even 10% of normal capacity.
People are still not allowed to work in offices unless this is deemed "essential".
We still have to listen to Nicola wittering for half an hour a day in a party political broadcast.
This nonsense may be good for the SNP poll ratings but its absolutely disastrous for the country. It needs to stop.
Congrats to anyone that jumped on in March!
They may take our temperatures, but they'll never take our.....
- Coming in from outside, we would often have to build documentation for a rats nest of systems. Often I would be told that my diagram (entirely created so I could understand it) was immensely valuable to the client. They often had no idea what was connecting to what.....
- Large companies/organisations are often a jumble of fiefdoms. They will tell you what protects their little patch. Quite often we had to get direct access to systems and work round the incumbent teams to find out what the hell was going on.
- Defiance. You might think that the CEO orders something to happen and... well stuff happens. In fact, when it effects their fiefdoms (see above), the incumbents will often defend their patch to the point of insubordination. And beyond.
All of the above is part of the reason that change is very very hard in large organisations. To the point where, it is necessary to burn the whole thing down and start again, every so often.
When it comes to government, it's harder to see (or demonstrate) that - and of course no commercial realities to act as a constraint.
By the end of the year virtually nobody will have Covid - and we'll all be made to wear masks every time we leave the house, the shielders and the elderly will be under full lockdown, pubs and possibly restaurants and gyms as well will have been shut again, and it'll once more be technically illegal for anyone to visit anybody else's house, even for Christmas dinner. Watch.
That's a bold assumption.
https://twitter.com/ExStrategist/status/1296107677068689413?s=20
Not true Scots?
I had some Netflix too, sold it, was very poor.
HYUFD is far too embarrassing to be representing CCHQ. If he was any parties plant he would be a false flag plant from Labour, designed as an offensive caricature of what a heartless Tory looks like.
In the 80s when there was negative net migration the majority of people thought there was too much immigration.
As I mentioned, what we are seeing is aftermath of the Northampton spike. The question is whether we are back on the slow increase seen previously.
But what is being postulated here is a mass seizure of ballots in a heavily Democratic county, sufficient to turn the entire state, not just the usual attempts to hinder turnout etc.
Tell me what’s wrong with this scenario: It’s November 1, he’s losing, there are reports of voter irregularities in Florida, like there always are, and he sends those guys in camouflage into Miami-Dade County to seize the ballot boxes. Who’s going to stop him? The county security guards? They’re not going to phone ahead. What are the courts going to do? Order another election? Throw out Dade County? I don’t know. Who would object? [Attorney General William] Barr would go right along with it...
Something like this, but on a much larger scale.
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/11/us/how-johnson-won-election-he-d-lost.html
...Mr. Caro maintains that although ballot fraud was common in the late 1940's in some parts of Texas, the Johnson campaign of 1948 raised it to a new level. Mr. Caro supports his charge with an interview with Luis Salas, an election judge in Jim Wells County who said he acknowledged his role only after all others involved in the theft had died.
It has been alleged for years that Johnson captured his Senate seat through fraud, but Mr. Caro goes into great detail to tell how the future President overcame a 20,000-vote deficit to achieve his famous 87-vote victory in the 1948 Democratic runoff primary against a former Governor, Coke Stevenson...
The strange thing about that was for years the controversy over the election turned on a single ballot box (the Supreme Court having gone along with the fix):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_13_scandal
Why does nobody seem to want to ask Labour about that?
https://chokkablog.blogspot.com/2016/05/business-for-scotland-where-are-they-now.html?m=1
You'd think the Chairman, Rob Aberdein, Chairman
Rob is a solicitor, Managing Director and Founder of Scottish law firm, Aberdeins and Managing Director of specialist debt recovery firm, Alston Law.
Rob sits on the Law Society of Scotland Specialist Debt and Asset Recovery Panel and is a Law Society of Scotland Accredited Legal Technologist. He is also a Registered Foreign Lawyer in England and Wales.
Would be embarrassed by MacIntyre-Kemp's musings.....perhaps someone should ask him?
It was precisely the discussion I was trying to start in the first place.
You seem to have missed my posts where I say that Brexit has to happen and that, frankly my dear, I don't give a d*mn.
I am sitting here on the sidelines watching the sh*tshow with wry amusement.
All we can say more-or-less for certain right now is that Covid appears to be down to very low levels in most of the country. Crush it out of the places where it's still prevalent and the conditions for maintaining minimal prevalence nationwide then exist.
Indeed, I would go as far as to say that the entire notion of the massive second wave is predicated on things going wrong when the schools come back, or when the weather gets cold. I'm not aware of there being strong established links between schools returning and massive explosions of Covid in countries where the kids have already gone back (or in Sweden, where they never stopped in the first place,) and the cold weather panic seems to be predicated mainly on people doing a lot more socialising indoors in the Winter.
Now, if the public spends the Winter sat in their own little homes in front of Netflix, loads of people keep on working from home, and lots of oldies, medically vulnerable people and worried well keep on behaving as if its April and have very little to do with anybody, then why should there be a Winter-induced second wave either?
But anyway, time will tell.
Today I am announcing that we are forming the National Institute for Health Protection.
This will have a single & relentless mission: protecting people from external threats to this country’s health, bringing the UK’s world-class science and scale into one coherent organisation.
...If the 'single and relentless mission" is to protect against external threats, what becomes of the rest of public health tasks ?
In England too. I know someone who works in Torbay hospital and she said today that there is currently only 1 covid patient there. The hospital serves, I guess, over 1/3rd of Devon.