He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Once again - he wasn't
The opposition is there to oppose and May's attitude to Brexit made it impossible for any opposition to do anything else..
Well that's news.
Certainly the opposition is there to oppose, but its also there to make sensible legislation pass. If all it does is oppose for the sake of opposing , we're heading for the type of constitutional constipation that is afflicting the US.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Your boys at the ERG turned it down too. Have you forgotten that. I thought May's deal was poor, and I wouldn't have supported it. With the benefit of hindsight bearing in mind the dogs dinner Johnson came up with I might now consider that to be an error.
The ERG turned it down because they wanted it harder. They got what they wanted.
The only alternative to a Remainer backed Brexit was an ERG backed Brexit. As a Remainer May negotiated a very soft Brexit the ERG rejected, Remainers rejected it too thus leaving an ERG Brexit as the only and inevitable alternative.
Re the internal market bill as a conservative I could not vote for it and it will be interesting to see just how many conservative mps vote against
I suspect that Tory constituency chairman are even now being contacted with a view to warning them that MP's who do not support the Government should not be reselected.
I still could not vote to break an international treaty
Says the man who once upon a time could not vote for Boris, or even stay in a party that he led.
Note not a single Govt Minister has resigned from the Govt over any of the endless debacles that have happened this year.Either about a bunch of gutless careerists or just plain stupid.
Just had to reboot the work laptop twice because Windows 10 can't do something simple like auto-hide the taskbar without flappage. I don't have this problem on my very shiny new Chromebook...
As I have set up my own business what OS to run on suitable hardware wasn't a lengthy debate. Windows 10 on an Ultrabook costing £1,500 with the joys of Office 365? Or Chrome OS on a £700 Chromebook and G Suite?
Chrome and Google all the way. As Apple afficionados say about their system, it just works. The sooner that the Windows as the default mindset is broken the better. Windows has always had this "why can't I do x" problem which has got progressively worse since they killed off 2000 Pro.
Boris is the sort of man who believes Churchill’s speeches won WW2.
The careful planning, intelligence, logistics and sacrifice of millions had nothing to do with it. That all just happened automatically and was incidental.
For someone who was born during the war Churchill's speeches inspired the nation to win the war
Boris is no Churchill
Have you not read Johnson's book, The Churchill factor? Johnson and Churchill, almost one and the same.
I do not need to read his book to know Boris is not Churchill
Churchill was also no Boris.
Churchill lost 2 general elections in 1945 and 1950 and in the only general election he won in 1951 it was with a majority of just 16 and he lost the popular vote.
Boris got a majority of 80 and won the popular vote at GE19.
Now obviously Churchill was our greatest wartime PM but his elections record and domestic policy record was mixed, we wait and see what Boris' record will be policy wise over the next few years
Churchill got most things wrong, and his career would have ended as a maverick footnote in history had events not conspired to present a unique opportunity that matched his skills. It is hard to see any such similar opportunity arising for the comedian currently in office. He has however perfected the getting most things wrong bit.
Boris has delivered Brexit, whatever else he does that gives him a place in history even if it is not quite comparable to Churchill's in leading the nation in defeating the Nazis
Lord North, PM 1770-82 has a place in history too!
You can't trust anything he says because he is a man without trust. How many times does he have to get sacked for lying or leave behind a string of ex-wives ex-lovers and abandoned children before some accept he's not suitable for the job? As has become increasingly clear he hasn't a clue what is going on out there or how to fix it.
Operation Spaff at the Moon is just delusional - when he says "Moonshot" what he means is that the world-beating test and trace system will soon be advising people their nearest testing centre that can see them is on the Sea of Tranquility.
Operation "moonshot" came across as the fantasy ramblings of a space cadet. It would have sounded highly ambitious from the tongue of a true statesman, but coming out of the mouth of Johnson it just sounded like more old bollocks.
Nice high rounded numbers for the headlines often are bollocks. A leak to BMJ suggests that it is weapons grade bollocks.
"And he said that "in the near future" he wanted to start using testing "to identify people who are negative - who don't have coronavirus and who are not infectious - so we can allow them to behave in a more normal way, in the knowledge they cannot infect anyone else"."
is the only way to return to normal absent an injection for immunity that is retreating over the horizon. It IS a Plan B. It would have been a better Plan B if started months back. But there does seem to be a lot of unwarranted rubbishing of it simply because it was announced by the PM.
Identify the infected, keep them incentivised to stay home (and seriously sanctioned if they don't) is the way to beat Covid in a world without a vaccine. Yay - at last, somebody gets it.
Has SKS come up with a Plan B? None that I have heard.
I don’t disagree with the idea - indeed I have been pushing it for several weeks. What’s entirely unclear are the details - if the reports that “the technology does not exist yet” are correct, then they’re probably looking in the wrong place. (Though that reported comment doesn’t really square with them running the reported pilot. Odd.) And the price tag looks an order of magnitude too high.
A rapid, cheap, mass test deployed on this scale doesn’t need to be 100% sensitive. My fear is that they are going to over complicate it in pursuit of unnecessary perfection, and deliver it late and overpriced.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Your boys at the ERG turned it down too. Have you forgotten that. I thought May's deal was poor, and I wouldn't have supported it. With the benefit of hindsight bearing in mind the dogs dinner Johnson came up with I might now consider that to be an error.
The ERG turned it down because they wanted it harder. They got what they wanted.
The only alternative to a Remainer backed Brexit was an ERG backed Brexit. As a Remainer May negotiated a very soft Brexit the ERG rejected, Remainers rejected it too thus leaving an ERG Brexit as the only and inevitable alternative.
No it wasn't. Mrs may set out her poor deal and it was spunky rejected by Parliament. Instead of going back and compromising she kept returning the same old dross, time and time again. She could have looked at EEA alternatives, she could have tried to negotiate a single market minus with the EU. It was a dire deal, it is just unfortunate Johnson's was even worse. Even Johnson understands that now.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
Brexit only prospers as a dyadic venture; it has value as long as it is opposed. Johnson is best placed to stoke that opposition with his Kulturkrieg. Without that nationalist-populist figurehead Brexit just becomes a story of a nation incompetently making itself poorer.
The nation's relationship with Johnson intrigues me. However abject his behaviour or performance he is defended as the beacon of hope and optimism.
It reminds me of the abused wife or husband who takes back their abusive partner in the vain hope things will be better in future
Boris is our most charismatic PM since Blair, leaders with charisma have a kind of teflon plate
Voters are morons.
Particularly in infantilised countries with failing education systems and an oligarchical press.
Go on Westminster, give them their "once in a generation" referendum.
It's not as if the SNP could exactly complain. Oh, what's that you say? They can?
That is so ironic and believable
I am sure Malc will be along to demand they are given their referendum in the name of the Shetlander's democracy
No one objects to Shetland or Orkeny having an independence referendum if they want one.
Bit early in the indy ref narrative for the Shetland goes independent guff? These lads will run out of bullets if they're not careful.
At least they're (so far) not bothering with suggesting O&S become an enclave of the glorious rUK, presumably because they've realised that a) who the fcuk would want to attach themselves to that bin fire and b) as an enclave Shetland would lose most of its offshore oil and gas rights.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Your boys at the ERG turned it down too. Have you forgotten that. I thought May's deal was poor, and I wouldn't have supported it. With the benefit of hindsight bearing in mind the dogs dinner Johnson came up with I might now consider that to be an error.
My boys? Labour had the perfect opportunity to respect the vote of the 2016 referendum and to make the Tory Party tear itself apart. They decided to take the short term vanity project of appearing on the news every night and to try and prevent Brexit. A completely mad move witch led to an 80 seat Tory majority.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
Brexit only prospers as a dyadic venture; it has value as long as it is opposed. Johnson is best placed to stoke that opposition with his Kulturkrieg. Without that nationalist-populist figurehead Brexit just becomes a story of a nation incompetently making itself poorer.
The nation's relationship with Johnson intrigues me. However abject his behaviour or performance he is defended as the beacon of hope and optimism.
It reminds me of the abused wife or husband who takes back their abusive partner in the vain hope things will be better in future
Boris is our most charismatic PM since Blair, leaders with charisma have a kind of teflon plate
Voters are morons.
Particularly in infantilised countries with failing education systems and an oligarchical press.
Note not a single Govt Minister has resigned from the Govt over any of the endless debacles that have happened this year.Either about a bunch of gutless careerists or just plain stupid.
Lots of intersection in the Venn diagram I would say.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
Exactly - a deal between the UK and the EU.
Are you going to take my £5 bet?
But there won't be a deal between the UK and the EU as Boris is in the process of destroying all trust because (let me repeat this again) it seems that Boris and Co don't want a deal - they just want a situation where they can claim the No Deal end point was not their fault.
So now I've eliminated the sensible solution what else is left.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
Exactly - a deal between the UK and the EU.
Are you going to take my £5 bet?
But there won't be a deal between the UK and the EU as Boris is in the process of destroying all trust because (let me repeat this again) it seems that Boris and Co don't want a deal - they just want a situation where they can claim the No Deal end point was not their fault.
So now I've eliminated the sensible solution what else is left.
Oh it won't be a deal that is negotiated between the UK and the EU. It will be a deal that is the only one available and which we will accept.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Your boys at the ERG turned it down too. Have you forgotten that. I thought May's deal was poor, and I wouldn't have supported it. With the benefit of hindsight bearing in mind the dogs dinner Johnson came up with I might now consider that to be an error.
My boys? Labour had the perfect opportunity to respect the vote of the 2016 referendum and to make the Tory Party tear itself apart. They decided to take the short term vanity project of appearing on the news every night and to try and prevent Brexit. A completely mad move witch led to an 80 seat Tory majority.
But now you are implying Brexit will be crap and it is our fault (former Remainers) because we fought on for what we hoped would be a better outcome, unfortunately by fighting on we were presented with a disastrous outcome
This argument is like the rapist's defence that the victim asked for it because she was wearing a short skirt.
Go on Westminster, give them their "once in a generation" referendum.
It's not as if the SNP could exactly complain. Oh, what's that you say? They can?
That is so ironic and believable
I am sure Malc will be along to demand they are given their referendum in the name of the Shetlander's democracy
No one objects to Shetland or Orkeny having an independence referendum if they want one.
Bit early in the indy ref narrative for the Shetland goes independent guff? These lads will run out of bullets if they're not careful.
At least they're (so far) not bothering with suggesting O&S become an enclave of the glorious rUK, presumably because they've realised that a) who the fcuk would want to attach themselves to that bin fire and b) as an enclave Shetland would lose most of its offshore oil and gas rights.
Hence my "Revert to Norway" suggestion. Not as frivolous as it sounds.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Once again - he wasn't
The opposition is there to oppose and May's attitude to Brexit made it impossible for any opposition to do anything else..
Well that's news.
Certainly the opposition is there to oppose, but its also there to make sensible legislation pass. If all it does is oppose for the sake of opposing , we're heading for the type of constitutional constipation that is afflicting the US.
What was sensible about May's original deal? It only looks sensible now we see what the ERG really wanted but at the time it was way worse than the EEC type deal Labour wanted.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Your boys at the ERG turned it down too. Have you forgotten that. I thought May's deal was poor, and I wouldn't have supported it. With the benefit of hindsight bearing in mind the dogs dinner Johnson came up with I might now consider that to be an error.
My boys? Labour had the perfect opportunity to respect the vote of the 2016 referendum and to make the Tory Party tear itself apart. They decided to take the short term vanity project of appearing on the news every night and to try and prevent Brexit. A completely mad move witch led to an 80 seat Tory majority.
What's happening on PB this morning? Tories busy blaming others for the mess they've got themselves into, again. Ho, hum.
(Washington Post) ... Trump reflected on his relationships with authoritarian leaders generally, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them,” he told Woodward. “You know? Explain that to me someday, okay?”...
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Your boys at the ERG turned it down too. Have you forgotten that. I thought May's deal was poor, and I wouldn't have supported it. With the benefit of hindsight bearing in mind the dogs dinner Johnson came up with I might now consider that to be an error.
The ERG turned it down because they wanted it harder. They got what they wanted.
The only alternative to a Remainer backed Brexit was an ERG backed Brexit. As a Remainer May negotiated a very soft Brexit the ERG rejected, Remainers rejected it too thus leaving an ERG Brexit as the only and inevitable alternative.
No it wasn't. Mrs may set out her poor deal and it was spunky rejected by Parliament. Instead of going back and compromising she kept returning the same old dross, time and time again. She could have looked at EEA alternatives, she could have tried to negotiate a single market minus with the EU. It was a dire deal, it is just unfortunate Johnson's was even worse. Even Johnson understands that now.
I am not entirely sure why my phone's autocorrect would change "soundly" to "spunky"?
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Your boys at the ERG turned it down too. Have you forgotten that. I thought May's deal was poor, and I wouldn't have supported it. With the benefit of hindsight bearing in mind the dogs dinner Johnson came up with I might now consider that to be an error.
The ERG turned it down because they wanted it harder. They got what they wanted.
The only alternative to a Remainer backed Brexit was an ERG backed Brexit. As a Remainer May negotiated a very soft Brexit the ERG rejected, Remainers rejected it too thus leaving an ERG Brexit as the only and inevitable alternative.
No it wasn't. Mrs may set out her poor deal and it was spunky rejected by Parliament. Instead of going back and compromising she kept returning the same old dross, time and time again. She could have looked at EEA alternatives, she could have tried to negotiate a single market minus with the EU. It was a dire deal, it is just unfortunate Johnson's was even worse. Even Johnson understands that now.
I am not entirely sure why my phone's autocorrect would change "soundly" to "spunky"?
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
Just had to reboot the work laptop twice because Windows 10 can't do something simple like auto-hide the taskbar without flappage. I don't have this problem on my very shiny new Chromebook...
As I have set up my own business what OS to run on suitable hardware wasn't a lengthy debate. Windows 10 on an Ultrabook costing £1,500 with the joys of Office 365? Or Chrome OS on a £700 Chromebook and G Suite?
Chrome and Google all the way. As Apple afficionados say about their system, it just works. The sooner that the Windows as the default mindset is broken the better. Windows has always had this "why can't I do x" problem which has got progressively worse since they killed off 2000 Pro.
MacBooks are the best.
Are those the colouring books you get with a Happy Meal?
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Once again - he wasn't
The opposition is there to oppose and May's attitude to Brexit made it impossible for any opposition to do anything else..
Well that's news.
Certainly the opposition is there to oppose, but its also there to make sensible legislation pass. If all it does is oppose for the sake of opposing , we're heading for the type of constitutional constipation that is afflicting the US.
What was sensible about May's original deal? It only looks sensible now we see what the ERG really wanted but at the time it was way worse than the EEC type deal Labour wanted.
The remain inclined had a majority in Mays parliamentt, but couldnt agree a deal among themselves.
May struggled to compromise Corbyn thought it more important to fight his class war Starmer wanted to play screw the Tories The LDs wanted the referendum ignored.
As NH has pointed out we are where we are today because the people who thought they shoiuld be running the country couldnt.
The whole Brexit saga is one where various coalitions could have been made to stop or change any deal, but screwing the other side proved to be more of a priority for MPs than agreeing on a relationship with the EU.
Interesting article in the Spectator on the Tories "stubborn" polling
It suggests this is made up of a coalition of those who want
1. Brexit an ANY cost 2. Brexit to go away and never hear about it again. They thought BoZo would do this by delivering his oven ready deal.
If we crash out with No Deal, the “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” will be delighted (until they finally figure out what it means), but the rest will be dismayed as supply chains lead the news for another 6 months...
Go on Westminster, give them their "once in a generation" referendum.
It's not as if the SNP could exactly complain. Oh, what's that you say? They can?
That is so ironic and believable
I am sure Malc will be along to demand they are given their referendum in the name of the Shetlander's democracy
No one objects to Shetland or Orkeny having an independence referendum if they want one.
Bit early in the indy ref narrative for the Shetland goes independent guff? These lads will run out of bullets if they're not careful.
At least they're (so far) not bothering with suggesting O&S become an enclave of the glorious rUK, presumably because they've realised that a) who the fcuk would want to attach themselves to that bin fire and b) as an enclave Shetland would lose most of its offshore oil and gas rights.
Hence my "Revert to Norway" suggestion. Not as frivolous as it sounds.
Yep, in that scenario a Norway-Shetland union WOULD become the Saudi Arabia (in the more traditional sense) of the North/Norwegian Sea.
My aunt who is German does a fair bit of translation work. A couple of years ago she translated a book on the inception and establishment of the N.Sea oil industry which of course necessitated her reading it. She said the interviews with the big oil operators were striking in that they said by far the toughest negotiators were the the Shetland local pols, much more so than eg HMG.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
They say they are doing so. But even they, even they would not be as absolutely insane actually to be doing so.
But we shall see. I have a crisp fiver ready to back up my views, if only @Philip_Thompson would respond on the matter.
We get a deal, it will be a deal which will be a(nother) cave, and it will be spun as something completely different.
Lisa Nandy was good on R4 this morning, clarifying the Labour line. She said people were 'sick and tired' of hearing about Brexit, and just wanted the government to get on with it and do a deal (get Brexit done, indeed). Disapproved of breaking international law, but not making a big thing of it - people just want it sorted, they're not interested in the detail.
So I think the politics is right - letting the government stew in their own juice, and a determination not to reopen old debates (unlike here on PB!).
Now obviously Churchill was our greatest wartime PM but his elections record and domestic policy record was mixed, we wait and see what Boris' record will be policy wise over the next few years
IDS really does make Johnson look and sound like a Churchillian statesman.
Whatever one thinks of the underlying principle, Brexit truly is a project led by the Richard Burgons of the Conservative Party. It won't end well, not because the principles or motivations aren't understandable, perhaps even laudable, but because the people leading the charge are monumentally thick fantasists.
Project Moonshot is I guess the only way Bozza can see all his progeny on Christmas Day.
Alternatively he could grow a fucking backbone, sack Hancock, Whitty and Vallance, and start to treat the country like grown ups.
The thing that gets me about today`s tightening in restrictions is that R is thought to be at 1. Therefore the virus isn`t increasing in prevalance. The increase in infections must - I think - therefore be due to testing finding a higher proportion of infected people, perhaps because testing rates are skewed toward problem areas of the country. (Unless R is, in fact, higher than 1.)
We were being told repeatedly at the end of the 12 week lockdown when the numbers were finally bottoming out because the country had all stayed indoors and only ventured out for food that R was still around 0.9. It never really got much less than that, nationally at least (regionally it might have been a bit lower).
There's no way it's not more than 1 now, not with the attempts in the last couple of months to try and have most things opened up again.
And ultimately 1.1, 1.5, does it make much difference? They're still exponential growth, just different speeds.
Well, if it is more than 1, but the majority of cases are not being picked up because there are no/only mild symptoms and so are unreported AND hospitalisations are not rising then does is matter?
This could develop into a key question over then next few weeks. (I know hospitalisations increased last week, but from a very low base after months of dramatic falls.)
The issue is that younger people who are now infecting each other with enthusiasm do in fact live with older people who will get the infections next and are more likely to die or become seriously ill.
That`s why I added the rider that hospitalisations are not increasing. The point I`m making is that if the virus has mutated into a less serious strain the fact that more people are catching it with no or very little ill-effects and hospitalisation rates are not increasing then does it matter?
It would, but AFAIK it is still the same deadly strain. We have got better at treating the disease. If you go into hospital with it you are less likely to die. (Which is why the early lockdown countries made the right call. Even if the virus picks up again everywhere, those countries will still see less death over the whole epidemic)
Not a huge amount of benefit if we are still taking counter COVID measures, at huge economic and non-COVID related health costs, on the basis that it is as deadly as it always was.
We can't afford and don't want another lockdown. We can't afford and definitely don't want an out of control epidemic.
The solution is in the boring stuff: tip-top hygiene; always wear masks in public unless transmission risk is low; wash or disinfect hands at every opportunity; maintain distance; eliminate activities and practices that bring unnecessary infection risk. These will allow us to do more of our normal activities that are important to us, while keeping the epidemic under control.
It really does seem like Dom is a sci-fi geek who should be writing blogs in his Mum's basement instead of failing to run the country.
Normally, I would be the first to have a go at Cummings and his clique of unwashed basement weirdos who seem to be running the country in lieu of a functioning prime minister.
In this case though, I seem to recall Tony Blair proposed something similar. Or was there some subtle difference?
IDS really does make Johnson look and sound like a Churchillian statesman.
Whatever one thinks of the underlying principle, Brexit truly is a project led by the Richard Burgons of the Conservative Party. It won't end well, not because the principles or motivations aren't understandable, perhaps even laudable, but because the people leading the charge are monumentally thick fantasists.
52% of voters voted for Brexit, rather more than just the Richard Burgons
Now obviously Churchill was our greatest wartime PM but his elections record and domestic policy record was mixed, we wait and see what Boris' record will be policy wise over the next few years
Very good point from David Spiegelhalter on R4 this morning about mass testing inevitably leading to mass false-positives. It seems to me that this alone rather torpedoes the moonshot plan.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
Exactly - a deal between the UK and the EU.
Are you going to take my £5 bet?
No because I think the EU will compromise if we back them into a corner. So why would I bet they won't?
IDS really does make Johnson look and sound like a Churchillian statesman.
Whatever one thinks of the underlying principle, Brexit truly is a project led by the Richard Burgons of the Conservative Party. It won't end well, not because the principles or motivations aren't understandable, perhaps even laudable, but because the people leading the charge are monumentally thick fantasists.
52% of voters voted for Brexit, rather more than just the Richard Burgons
That doesn’t alter the leadership of the brexit project, I think you have used the wrong pre written answer on this one.
I believe the polls will tighten but not enough for Trump to win. Unlike 2016 I want to take my profit before the night, not let it ride.
When the polls tighten the betting markets are going to massively over react in the direction of Trump.
I will not be able to exit at a profit before election night.
Ergo I should cash out now.
Latest RCP Numbers
Nationally Biden is up by 7.5% on average.
However in the swing states it is much closer.
In Florida Biden leads by 1.2% on average, in North Carolina by 1.5%, in Pennsylvania by 4.3%, in Michigan by 3.2%, in Wisconsin by 6.4%, in Minnesota by 5%, in Ohio by 2.4% and in Nevada by 4% and in Arizona by 5.4%.
Trump leads by 1.7% in Iowa, by 1.3% in Georgia and by 3.5% in Texas.
So it only takes a 2% swing nationally to Trump after the debates for example and it would be neck and neck in the EC even if Biden would still be ahead by 3.5% in the popular vote nationally
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
They say they are doing so. But even they, even they would not be as absolutely insane actually to be doing so.
But we shall see. I have a crisp fiver ready to back up my views, if only @Philip_Thompson would respond on the matter.
We get a deal, it will be a deal which will be a(nother) cave, and it will be spun as something completely different.
= no hard border anywhere.
It was always my expectation that the people running the UK would eventually give up on the Brexit contradiction of wanting control but being controlled, and then lapse into a version of the Vassal State because it's less tiring.
Interesting article in the Spectator on the Tories "stubborn" polling
It suggests this is made up of a coalition of those who want
1. Brexit an ANY cost 2. Brexit to go away and never hear about it again. They thought BoZo would do this by delivering his oven ready deal.
If we crash out with No Deal, the “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” will be delighted (until they finally figure out what it means), but the rest will be dismayed as supply chains lead the news for another 6 months...
I think they understand it could well be very, very bad which is why we are already seeing the excuses coming in thick and fast.
A disastrous Brexit has been the fault of Blair/Brown/Cameron/Osborne/May/Hammond/Grieve/Soubry/ Starmer/Sturgeon/Drakeford/Corbyn/Swinson/Clegg/Ted Heath/Barnier/Gary Lineker/France/Germany/Brussels/Strasbourg/the EU/the ECJ/Labour/the LDs/the SNP/Migrants/Foreigners/BLM/the BBC (delete as appropriate).
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
They say they are doing so. But even they, even they would not be as absolutely insane actually to be doing so.
But we shall see. I have a crisp fiver ready to back up my views, if only @Philip_Thompson would respond on the matter.
We get a deal, it will be a deal which will be a(nother) cave, and it will be spun as something completely different.
= no hard border anywhere.
It was always my expectation that the people running the UK would eventually give up on the Brexit contradiction of wanting control but being controlled, and then lapse into a version of the Vassal State because it's less tiring.
This lot seem adamant however.
There is no contradiction, we will not be controlled and we will have control.
What kind of perverted twisted world do you think this is that free countries can be "controlled"? Do you think we will be subjected to the "EU Empire"? 🙄
Go on Westminster, give them their "once in a generation" referendum.
It's not as if the SNP could exactly complain. Oh, what's that you say? They can?
That is so ironic and believable
I am sure Malc will be along to demand they are given their referendum in the name of the Shetlander's democracy
No one objects to Shetland or Orkeny having an independence referendum if they want one.
Bit early in the indy ref narrative for the Shetland goes independent guff? These lads will run out of bullets if they're not careful.
At least they're (so far) not bothering with suggesting O&S become an enclave of the glorious rUK, presumably because they've realised that a) who the fcuk would want to attach themselves to that bin fire and b) as an enclave Shetland would lose most of its offshore oil and gas rights.
The Scottish Borders is already on the cards as an enclave for rUK, not that Boris will grant indyref2 anyway but if Shetland and Orkney want to go their own way if Scotland ever became independent fair enough
Now obviously Churchill was our greatest wartime PM but his elections record and domestic policy record was mixed, we wait and see what Boris' record will be policy wise over the next few years
Lisa Nandy was good on R4 this morning, clarifying the Labour line. She said people were 'sick and tired' of hearing about Brexit, and just wanted the government to get on with it and do a deal (get Brexit done, indeed). Disapproved of breaking international law, but not making a big thing of it - people just want it sorted, they're not interested in the detail.
So I think the politics is right - letting the government stew in their own juice, and a determination not to reopen old debates (unlike here on PB!).
Yes, it makes political sense for Labour to act as though the impending chaos is due to Tory incompetence rather than being the inevitable result of Brexit. It's a little duplicitous of them, but you can understand the reasoning.
IDS really does make Johnson look and sound like a Churchillian statesman.
Whatever one thinks of the underlying principle, Brexit truly is a project led by the Richard Burgons of the Conservative Party. It won't end well, not because the principles or motivations aren't understandable, perhaps even laudable, but because the people leading the charge are monumentally thick fantasists.
52% of voters voted for Brexit, rather more than just the Richard Burgons
I'm not talking about support for it. There are some extremely smart people who favour Brexit, and whatever your views people did vote for it - it should be delivered in some form. The problem is, its greatest champions in parliament are, generally speaking, morons.
Kay Burley: Tony Abbott says that men are better suited to leadership roles than women do you agree? Grant Schapps: No; one of our greatest Prime Ministers was a woman Kay Burley: Probably two.
No Kay, Schapps said greatest Prime Ministers, he meant one.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
They say they are doing so. But even they, even they would not be as absolutely insane actually to be doing so.
But we shall see. I have a crisp fiver ready to back up my views, if only @Philip_Thompson would respond on the matter.
We get a deal, it will be a deal which will be a(nother) cave, and it will be spun as something completely different.
= no hard border anywhere.
It was always my expectation that the people running the UK would eventually give up on the Brexit contradiction of wanting control but being controlled, and then lapse into a version of the Vassal State because it's less tiring.
This lot seem adamant however.
There is no contradiction, we will not be controlled and we will have control.
What kind of perverted twisted world do you think this is that free countries can be "controlled"? Do you think we will be subjected to the "EU Empire"? 🙄
Us breaking the law is precisely because the "EU Empire" (not my term by the way) has controls on us that we as enthusiastic or press-ganged Brexiteers don't like, on principle. This will happen again and again.
I believe the polls will tighten but not enough for Trump to win. Unlike 2016 I want to take my profit before the night, not let it ride.
When the polls tighten the betting markets are going to massively over react in the direction of Trump.
I will not be able to exit at a profit before election night.
Ergo I should cash out now.
Latest RCP Numbers
Nationally Biden is up by 7.5% on average.
However in the swing states it is much closer.
In Florida Biden leads by 1.2% on average, in North Carolina by 1.5%, in Pennsylvania by 4.3%, in Michigan by 3.2%, in Wisconsin by 6.4%, in Minnesota by 5%, in Ohio by 2.4% and in Nevada by 4% and in Arizona by 5.4%.
Trump leads by 1.7% in Iowa, by 1.3% in Georgia and by 3.5% in Texas.
So it only takes a 2% swing nationally to Trump after the debates for example and it would be neck and neck in the EC even if Biden would still be ahead by 3.5% in the popular vote nationally
You’re assuming the Woodward revelations don’t shift the dial further against Trump. And Biden can now throw Trump’s own words back at him in the debates. Fake news doesn’t cut it anymore.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
They say they are doing so. But even they, even they would not be as absolutely insane actually to be doing so.
But we shall see. I have a crisp fiver ready to back up my views, if only @Philip_Thompson would respond on the matter.
We get a deal, it will be a deal which will be a(nother) cave, and it will be spun as something completely different.
= no hard border anywhere.
It was always my expectation that the people running the UK would eventually give up on the Brexit contradiction of wanting control but being controlled, and then lapse into a version of the Vassal State because it's less tiring.
This lot seem adamant however.
There is no contradiction, we will not be controlled and we will have control.
What kind of perverted twisted world do you think this is that free countries can be "controlled"? Do you think we will be subjected to the "EU Empire"? 🙄
Us breaking the law is precisely because the "EU Empire" (not my term by the way) has controls on us that we as enthusiastic or press-ganged Brexiteers don't like, on principle. This will happen again and again.
Us "breaking the law" is precisely because the EU lacks any controls on us so we can walk away. If the EU had control it would ensure we couldn't "break the law".
Go on Westminster, give them their "once in a generation" referendum.
It's not as if the SNP could exactly complain. Oh, what's that you say? They can?
That is so ironic and believable
I am sure Malc will be along to demand they are given their referendum in the name of the Shetlander's democracy
No one objects to Shetland or Orkeny having an independence referendum if they want one.
Bit early in the indy ref narrative for the Shetland goes independent guff? These lads will run out of bullets if they're not careful.
At least they're (so far) not bothering with suggesting O&S become an enclave of the glorious rUK, presumably because they've realised that a) who the fcuk would want to attach themselves to that bin fire and b) as an enclave Shetland would lose most of its offshore oil and gas rights.
The Scottish Borders is already on the cards as an enclave for rUK, not that Boris will grant indyref2 anyway but if Shetland and Orkney want to go their own way if Scotland ever became independent fair enough
No it's not. Of all your absolute bonkers fantasies the Scottish Borders will not vote to separate from Scotland in the event of Scottish independence.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Once again - he wasn't
The opposition is there to oppose and May's attitude to Brexit made it impossible for any opposition to do anything else..
Well that's news.
Certainly the opposition is there to oppose, but its also there to make sensible legislation pass. If all it does is oppose for the sake of opposing , we're heading for the type of constitutional constipation that is afflicting the US.
What was sensible about May's original deal? It only looks sensible now we see what the ERG really wanted but at the time it was way worse than the EEC type deal Labour wanted.
The remain inclined had a majority in Mays parliamentt, but couldnt agree a deal among themselves.
May struggled to compromise Corbyn thought it more important to fight his class war Starmer wanted to play screw the Tories The LDs wanted the referendum ignored.
As NH has pointed out we are where we are today because the people who thought they shoiuld be running the country couldnt.
The whole Brexit saga is one where various coalitions could have been made to stop or change any deal, but screwing the other side proved to be more of a priority for MPs than agreeing on a relationship with the EU.
The EU itself gets a free pass in this summary. Which it does not deserve. For decades it has got the UK wrong. But spectaculalry so in the past five. It tried to fuck over Cameron's "renegotiation", seeming to have no comprehension that it could lead to Brexit. It then imposed a rigid framework for negotiations, where the things that needed to be discussed first were discussed/imposed last. Again, it seems to have had no comprehension that this could lead to a no-deal Brexit. It listened solely to the Remain voices, all of whom got it wrong.
There has been serious reputational damage for the EU with third parties, who have looked on thinking "clown troupe.....".
IDS really does make Johnson look and sound like a Churchillian statesman.
Whatever one thinks of the underlying principle, Brexit truly is a project led by the Richard Burgons of the Conservative Party. It won't end well, not because the principles or motivations aren't understandable, perhaps even laudable, but because the people leading the charge are monumentally thick fantasists.
52% of voters voted for Brexit, rather more than just the Richard Burgons
I'm not talking about support for it. There are some extremely smart people who favour Brexit, and whatever your views people did vote for it - it should be delivered in some form. The problem is, its greatest champions in parliament are, generally speaking, morons.
Who are the intellectuals of Brexit ? Patrick Minford is not a great intellectual, by most people's standards.
Larry Elliott of the Guardian is reasonably bright. Anyone else ? I struggle to think of them.
Kay Burley: Tony Abbott says that men are better suited to leadership roles than women do you agree? Grant Schapps: No; one of our greatest Prime Ministers was a woman Kay Burley: Probably two.
No Kay, Schapps said greatest Prime Ministers, he meant one.
Very good point from David Spiegelhalter on R4 this morning about mass testing inevitably leading to mass false-positives. It seems to me that this alone rather torpedoes the moonshot plan.
It doesn't torpedo it; rather, as someone pointed out to me yesterday, there were very, very considerable difficulties. As they said, it's not like a pregnancy test, where you need a specific, easily identifiable hormone. What is needed is a reagent specific to one virus. And that might happen before a mission to set up a farm on the moon, but it might not.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
We can have integrity of the United Kingdom and divergence. The entire UK can diverge together.
If there's smuggling as a result, then there's smuggling as a result. That's not the worst thing in the world. Why is smuggling worse than violence?
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
They say they are doing so. But even they, even they would not be as absolutely insane actually to be doing so.
But we shall see. I have a crisp fiver ready to back up my views, if only @Philip_Thompson would respond on the matter.
We get a deal, it will be a deal which will be a(nother) cave, and it will be spun as something completely different.
= no hard border anywhere.
It was always my expectation that the people running the UK would eventually give up on the Brexit contradiction of wanting control but being controlled, and then lapse into a version of the Vassal State because it's less tiring.
This lot seem adamant however.
There is no contradiction, we will not be controlled and we will have control.
What kind of perverted twisted world do you think this is that free countries can be "controlled"? Do you think we will be subjected to the "EU Empire"? 🙄
Us breaking the law is precisely because the "EU Empire" (not my term by the way) has controls on us that we as enthusiastic or press-ganged Brexiteers don't like, on principle. This will happen again and again.
Us "breaking the law" is precisely because the EU lacks any controls on us so we can walk away. If the EU had control it would ensure we couldn't "break the law".
You live by Mafia rules. Just saying...
And if we do go down that route, the big guys always take out the little guys.
Lisa Nandy was good on R4 this morning, clarifying the Labour line. She said people were 'sick and tired' of hearing about Brexit, and just wanted the government to get on with it and do a deal (get Brexit done, indeed). Disapproved of breaking international law, but not making a big thing of it - people just want it sorted, they're not interested in the detail.
So I think the politics is right - letting the government stew in their own juice, and a determination not to reopen old debates (unlike here on PB!).
She is right that punters don't know or care about the detail. Problem is that governments have to know and care about the detail and ours doesn't.
It was always the unsquareable circle - the intra-Irish border. We have to maintain a fully open porous border on the Island. Yet we want to change the customs and tariffs arrangements of the norther part. You can have one or the other, but as "both" are incompatible that isn't an option.
And so we find ourselves here. We can't compromise the GFA so the border will have to go down the Irish Sea. "We aren't putting a border down the Irish Sea" ejaculates Shagger until someone waves at him the spaff-covered agreement he signed and fought an election over. "Cripes!" he says and tries to tear the agreement up.
It is not up to the EU to compromise its external border. Sovereignty means the right to make your own border arrangements and they have been clear and consistent throughout. Nor is it up to the EU or indeed Ireland to find a solution. Surely the UK government having set out down this road would have understood the nature of the UK in the sense of part of it having a land border with the EU post Brexit and a binding peace treaty to keep that border open. Surely it would have proposed a settlement that makes said border work. Sadly they haven't a clue about the detail.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Your boys at the ERG turned it down too. Have you forgotten that. I thought May's deal was poor, and I wouldn't have supported it. With the benefit of hindsight bearing in mind the dogs dinner Johnson came up with I might now consider that to be an error.
My boys? Labour had the perfect opportunity to respect the vote of the 2016 referendum and to make the Tory Party tear itself apart. They decided to take the short term vanity project of appearing on the news every night and to try and prevent Brexit. A completely mad move witch led to an 80 seat Tory majority.
For "Labour", read Corbyn and his small cabal who were dictating terms the whole time. Regardless, that was then, this is now. Certainly at this point Starmer does have the perfect opportunity to both respect the vote of the 2016 referendum (as confirmed in 2019) and to allow the Tory Party to once again tear itself apart. So far he seems to be playing his hand very well indeed on both counts.
Go on Westminster, give them their "once in a generation" referendum.
It's not as if the SNP could exactly complain. Oh, what's that you say? They can?
That is so ironic and believable
I am sure Malc will be along to demand they are given their referendum in the name of the Shetlander's democracy
No one objects to Shetland or Orkeny having an independence referendum if they want one.
Bit early in the indy ref narrative for the Shetland goes independent guff? These lads will run out of bullets if they're not careful.
At least they're (so far) not bothering with suggesting O&S become an enclave of the glorious rUK, presumably because they've realised that a) who the fcuk would want to attach themselves to that bin fire and b) as an enclave Shetland would lose most of its offshore oil and gas rights.
The Scottish Borders is already on the cards as an enclave for rUK, not that Boris will grant indyref2 anyway but if Shetland and Orkney want to go their own way if Scotland ever became independent fair enough
No it's not. Of all your absolute bonkers fantasies the Scottish Borders will not vote to separate from Scotland in the event of Scottish independence.
Source: Me, born and bred Borderer.
Every seat in the Borders is currently held by the Tories, you are not a typical Borderer, they are called the Borders precisely because they are closer to Cumbria than to Inverness and Glasgow
IDS really does make Johnson look and sound like a Churchillian statesman.
Whatever one thinks of the underlying principle, Brexit truly is a project led by the Richard Burgons of the Conservative Party. It won't end well, not because the principles or motivations aren't understandable, perhaps even laudable, but because the people leading the charge are monumentally thick fantasists.
52% of voters voted for Brexit, rather more than just the Richard Burgons
I hesitate to get into a psephological debate with you HYUFD because you seem to have some kind of super database of every poll and election ever that gives you the information you seek seemingly in seconds, but wouldn't it be more accurate to say that 52% of people who voted in the referendum voted for Brexit? If I remember correctly wasn't it something like 37% of voters overall if you include those who, for whatever reason, didn't vote?
I take your point though, perhaps I am being overly pedantic.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Your boys at the ERG turned it down too. Have you forgotten that. I thought May's deal was poor, and I wouldn't have supported it. With the benefit of hindsight bearing in mind the dogs dinner Johnson came up with I might now consider that to be an error.
My boys? Labour had the perfect opportunity to respect the vote of the 2016 referendum and to make the Tory Party tear itself apart. They decided to take the short term vanity project of appearing on the news every night and to try and prevent Brexit. A completely mad move witch led to an 80 seat Tory majority.
But now you are implying Brexit will be crap and it is our fault (former Remainers) because we fought on for what we hoped would be a better outcome, unfortunately by fighting on we were presented with a disastrous outcome
This argument is like the rapist's defence that the victim asked for it because she was wearing a short skirt.
I have no idea whether Brexit will be crap. I voted remain but once the Country voted for Brexit then as we live in a democracy it had to be done. My comment was entirely about Labour's actions last year. SKS was the Shadow Brexit Secretary so he is most at fault for Labour's mad 2019 policy on Brexit.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Once again - he wasn't
The opposition is there to oppose and May's attitude to Brexit made it impossible for any opposition to do anything else..
Well that's news.
Certainly the opposition is there to oppose, but its also there to make sensible legislation pass. If all it does is oppose for the sake of opposing , we're heading for the type of constitutional constipation that is afflicting the US.
What was sensible about May's original deal? It only looks sensible now we see what the ERG really wanted but at the time it was way worse than the EEC type deal Labour wanted.
EEC wasn't on the table. Leavers had unambiguously promised an end to free movement as a part of Brexit and that is incompatible with EEC.
May promised a soft Brexit that kept us following EU rules while we were in the backstop; we would be getting free trade with the EU indefinitely until a new arrangement was agreed. The ERG never hid what they wanted, they were explicit about it so the option was either the Government reached an agreement with "moderates" across Parliament, or the Government reached an agreement with the ERG.
The "moderates" refused to compromise, so the Government went to the ERG by default.
He really is dangerous. Not necessarily in a malign way, like Trump, but in a casual, lazy way that has accidentally got thousands of people unnecessarily killed by Covid-19 already.
This is the bit that confuses me about the Brexiteers.
They love BoZo because he will "get it done", but he's going to fuck it up.
Brexit will be shit, and they will get the blame.
If you really want Brexit to have any chance of success, you need to ditch BoZo
We wouldn’t have Bozo if Mrs M’s ‘strength and stability’ had got us anywhere. All she had to do was reach out across the house and aim for some soft Brexit solution - as many on here thought she would do - and the current fiasco would never have arisen.
Labour mps had it in their hands to pass her deal and many regret not doing so as admitted by Gloria Del Piero this week
I do regret that TM deal fell, we would be in a very different place today if it had passed
SKS bears the most responsibility for it not passing. He loved going on the news each night saying how terrible it was.
How can you blame Starmer? It is a fantastic "oven ready" deal. Surely if Starmer facilitated this fantastic oven ready deal, even by accident, he should be congratulated.
He was to blame for May's deal not passing, Labour should have backed it. It was the worst political decision in decades and as Shadow Brexit Secretary he was at the heart of that decision.
Your boys at the ERG turned it down too. Have you forgotten that. I thought May's deal was poor, and I wouldn't have supported it. With the benefit of hindsight bearing in mind the dogs dinner Johnson came up with I might now consider that to be an error.
My boys? Labour had the perfect opportunity to respect the vote of the 2016 referendum and to make the Tory Party tear itself apart. They decided to take the short term vanity project of appearing on the news every night and to try and prevent Brexit. A completely mad move witch led to an 80 seat Tory majority.
For "Labour", read Corbyn and his small cabal who were dictating terms the whole time. Regardless, that was then, this is now. Certainly at this point Starmer does have the perfect opportunity to both respect the vote of the 2016 referendum (as confirmed in 2019) and to allow the Tory Party to once again tear itself apart. So far he seems to be playing his hand very well indeed on both counts.
Starmer is doing excellently. His strategy also apportions the vast majority of blame for any form of Brexit exactly where it should be ; on the shoulders of the conservative party.
Very good point from David Spiegelhalter on R4 this morning about mass testing inevitably leading to mass false-positives. It seems to me that this alone rather torpedoes the moonshot plan.
That is another possible advantage of a cheap, lower sensitivity antigen test - you're less likely to get false positives. And you can tolerate a certain amount of false negatives if you're testing people who wouldn't otherwise be tested - particularly as the false negatives are likely to be the less infectious individuals.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
They say they are doing so. But even they, even they would not be as absolutely insane actually to be doing so.
But we shall see. I have a crisp fiver ready to back up my views, if only @Philip_Thompson would respond on the matter.
We get a deal, it will be a deal which will be a(nother) cave, and it will be spun as something completely different.
= no hard border anywhere.
It was always my expectation that the people running the UK would eventually give up on the Brexit contradiction of wanting control but being controlled, and then lapse into a version of the Vassal State because it's less tiring.
This lot seem adamant however.
There is no contradiction, we will not be controlled and we will have control.
What kind of perverted twisted world do you think this is that free countries can be "controlled"? Do you think we will be subjected to the "EU Empire"? 🙄
Us breaking the law is precisely because the "EU Empire" (not my term by the way) has controls on us that we as enthusiastic or press-ganged Brexiteers don't like, on principle. This will happen again and again.
Us "breaking the law" is precisely because the EU lacks any controls on us so we can walk away. If the EU had control it would ensure we couldn't "break the law".
You live by Mafia rules. Just saying...
And if we do go down that route, the big guys always take out the little guys.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
The EU have been totally absolutist about point 5 of course, even though said border is hundreds of miles from the 26 other EU countries on an island in the Atlantic Ocean.
If you eliminated tariffs on the vast majority of trade ( as both sides wish to do), sheer shipping costs would provide a barrier for the rest of the EU and any large scale fraud would surely be relatively easily policed given you’d have very limited entry points both to and from the island of Ireland and you’d have the willing and enthusiastic cooperation of the U.K.
Now, it involves compromising the single market in ROI a tad ( ie 1% of the single market) but you get a genuinely friendly cooperative neighbour in return.
However, ROI abetted by the EU, went for the no compromise, let’s hope we can get Brexit reverses/softened to the point of not mattering, and sod the Brits. Fair enough it’s their perogative, but actions have consequences as M Barnier never tires of lecturing us.
Maybe, just compromising a bit on the integrity of 1% of the Single Marjet might’ve been an option not just dismissed out of hand??
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
They say they are doing so. But even they, even they would not be as absolutely insane actually to be doing so.
But we shall see. I have a crisp fiver ready to back up my views, if only @Philip_Thompson would respond on the matter.
We get a deal, it will be a deal which will be a(nother) cave, and it will be spun as something completely different.
= no hard border anywhere.
It was always my expectation that the people running the UK would eventually give up on the Brexit contradiction of wanting control but being controlled, and then lapse into a version of the Vassal State because it's less tiring.
This lot seem adamant however.
There is no contradiction, we will not be controlled and we will have control.
What kind of perverted twisted world do you think this is that free countries can be "controlled"? Do you think we will be subjected to the "EU Empire"? 🙄
Us breaking the law is precisely because the "EU Empire" (not my term by the way) has controls on us that we as enthusiastic or press-ganged Brexiteers don't like, on principle. This will happen again and again.
Us "breaking the law" is precisely because the EU lacks any controls on us so we can walk away. If the EU had control it would ensure we couldn't "break the law".
You live by Mafia rules. Just saying...
And if we do go down that route, the big guys always take out the little guys.
The whole world lives by those rules and no the "big guys" do not always win. Organised and small works better than sclerotic and spread out.
I believe the polls will tighten but not enough for Trump to win. Unlike 2016 I want to take my profit before the night, not let it ride.
When the polls tighten the betting markets are going to massively over react in the direction of Trump.
I will not be able to exit at a profit before election night.
Ergo I should cash out now.
Latest RCP Numbers
Nationally Biden is up by 7.5% on average.
However in the swing states it is much closer.
In Florida Biden leads by 1.2% on average, in North Carolina by 1.5%, in Pennsylvania by 4.3%, in Michigan by 3.2%, in Wisconsin by 6.4%, in Minnesota by 5%, in Ohio by 2.4% and in Nevada by 4% and in Arizona by 5.4%.
Trump leads by 1.7% in Iowa, by 1.3% in Georgia and by 3.5% in Texas.
So it only takes a 2% swing nationally to Trump after the debates for example and it would be neck and neck in the EC even if Biden would still be ahead by 3.5% in the popular vote nationally
You’re assuming the Woodward revelations don’t shift the dial further against Trump. And Biden can now throw Trump’s own words back at him in the debates. Fake news doesn’t cut it anymore.
Most of Trumps' voters are anti lockdown and his words that he did not want to spread chaos really will not make much difference to the average voter.
Plus of course if the average polls in the rustbelt are as out as 2016 Trump barely needs much swing there to win at all
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
We can have integrity of the United Kingdom and divergence. The entire UK can diverge together.
If there's smuggling as a result, then there's smuggling as a result. That's not the worst thing in the world. Why is smuggling worse than violence?
All UK divergence literally blows up the Irish border. The Good Friday Agreement is an exercise in ambiguity. It doesn't remove the border but it allows you to be aware if it is important to you (Unionists) and mentally erase it if it's an egregious slash through your nation (Republicans).
There isn't as far as I am aware an uncontrolled border anywhere, with the substantially minimised exceptions of borders between EU members.
To be fair to Johnson's government, they haven't suggested officially that the Irish shouldn't be the priority.
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
The EU have been totally absolutist about point 5 of course, even though said border is hundreds of miles from the 26 other EU countries on an island in the Atlantic Ocean.
If you eliminated tariffs on the vast majority of trade ( as both sides wish to do), sheer shipping costs would provide a barrier for the rest of the EU and any large scale fraud would surely be relatively easily policed given you’d have very limited entry points both to and from the island of Ireland and you’d have the willing and enthusiastic cooperation of the U.K.
Now, it involves compromising the single market in ROI a tad ( ie 1% of the single market) but you get a genuinely friendly cooperative neighbour in return.
However, ROI abetted by the EU, went for the no compromise, let’s hope we can get Brexit reverses/softened to the point of not mattering, and sod the Brits. Fair enough it’s their perogative, but actions have consequences as M Barnier never tires of lecturing us.
Maybe, just compromising a bit on the integrity of 1% of the Single Marjet might’ve been an option not just dismissed out of hand??
It really does seem like Dom is a sci-fi geek who should be writing blogs in his Mum's basement instead of failing to run the country.
Normally, I would be the first to have a go at Cummings and his clique of unwashed basement weirdos who seem to be running the country in lieu of a functioning prime minister.
In this case though, I seem to recall Tony Blair proposed something similar. Or was there some subtle difference?
Nothing wrong with moonshot as an objective. We should be looking at spending much less than £100bn on it, however if hypothetically it was available today with a £100bn price tag we should take it, so its not a ridiculous number.
You wont go far wrong, assuming the opposite of whatever Dan Hodges says.
I know the Mail comment section on US news isn't a precise focus group but the Comment scores below the line not good for Trump. North Carolina data so far is intriguing, people not exactly banging down the doors to vote early for Trump so far.
So, last summer, Tory leadership secured and now PM but with no majority, he needed a Brexit election and to win it he needed a deal - since he knew that although the public wanted shot of the whole Brexit issue No Deal had only minority support and frightened many.
He couldn't accept the May deal for obvious reasons. It had to be a Boris deal. It also had to be agreed quickly so he took the line of least resistance, he agreed to the EU's original and first choice proposal - GB could diverge from the EU but NI would stay aligned to prevent a border in Ireland and there would be a border in the Irish Sea to protect the integrity of the SM.
Now Mrs May had said that this latter was something "no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And she was right. Because Johnson only pretended to accept it. He lied in other words. He needed the deal to get a winning platform for the election. So he lied to the EU to get the deal. Next step the public. They had to believe the deal - this Boris deal - was done and dusted and the end of the matter. It was "oven ready" and it "got Brexit done". So Johnson lied to them too.
Worked a dream. Landslide victory. Hail King Boris.
Now to renege with power secured. Inform the EU that, deal or no deal, treaty or no treaty, there will NOT be a border in the Irish Sea. Of course there won't. It's something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept. Negotiations thrown into disarray, EU upset and discombobulated because they realize we are not acting in good faith, UK domestic leave audience reengaged and happy with the new "ruthless take no prisoners" vibe. This is where we are.
But where are we going? Same destination as ever. No WTO terms. No border in Ireland. No border in the Irish Sea. Therefore the whole of the UK to stay closely aligned to the EU for the foreseeable future. I don't know what exact legal form this agreement will take, I don't know how Johnson will badge or sell it - the exact lies he will tell or the specific people and groups he will tell them to - but this, my fellow PBers, is where we're heading.
Now obviously Churchill was our greatest wartime PM but his elections record and domestic policy record was mixed, we wait and see what Boris' record will be policy wise over the next few years
Removing a border between GB and NI will actually appease Unionists while the UK government will still keep no hard border with the Republic of Ireland to appease Nationalists
Indeed. There are 5 not 3 options for the NI border.
Risk a return to violence
A hard border between GB and NI
A hard border between NI and the Republic
Erase the border between the UK and the EU by alignment
Compromise the integrity of the border between the EU and the UK
Once you've eliminated the impossible we have the outcome. Without either side being willing to compromise there is only one viable option.
It' actually a choice between priorities. Do you prioritise Brexit and the ability to diverge from the European Union? Or do you prioritise the viability of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom?
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
We can have integrity of the United Kingdom and divergence. The entire UK can diverge together.
If there's smuggling as a result, then there's smuggling as a result. That's not the worst thing in the world. Why is smuggling worse than violence?
All UK divergence literally blows up the Irish border. The Good Friday Agreement is an exercise in ambiguity. It doesn't remove the border but it allows you to be aware if it is important to you (Unionists) and mentally erase it if it's an egregious slash through your nation (Republicans).
There isn't as far as I am aware an uncontrolled border anywhere, with the substantially minimised exceptions of borders between EU members.
To be fair to Johnson's government, they haven't suggested officially that the Irish shouldn't be the priority.
Divergence doesn't blow up the Irish border. We just accept the fact there's divergence and get on with it.
The problem is the EU's obsession on the "integrity of the Single Market". That is incompatible with divergence, peace is not.
I know the Mail comment section on US news isn't a precise focus group but the Comment scores below the line not good for Trump. North Carolina data so far is intriguing, people not exactly banging down the doors to vote early for Trump so far.
Just looked at those Mail comments and they were all British apart from 1 American who supported Trump.
Most Republicans as the polls show will vote on the day
I believe the polls will tighten but not enough for Trump to win. Unlike 2016 I want to take my profit before the night, not let it ride.
When the polls tighten the betting markets are going to massively over react in the direction of Trump.
I will not be able to exit at a profit before election night.
Ergo I should cash out now.
Latest RCP Numbers
Nationally Biden is up by 7.5% on average.
However in the swing states it is much closer.
In Florida Biden leads by 1.2% on average, in North Carolina by 1.5%, in Pennsylvania by 4.3%, in Michigan by 3.2%, in Wisconsin by 6.4%, in Minnesota by 5%, in Ohio by 2.4% and in Nevada by 4% and in Arizona by 5.4%.
Trump leads by 1.7% in Iowa, by 1.3% in Georgia and by 3.5% in Texas.
So it only takes a 2% swing nationally to Trump after the debates for example and it would be neck and neck in the EC even if Biden would still be ahead by 3.5% in the popular vote nationally
You’re assuming the Woodward revelations don’t shift the dial further against Trump. And Biden can now throw Trump’s own words back at him in the debates. Fake news doesn’t cut it anymore.
Most of Trumps' voters are anti lockdown and his words that he did not want to spread chaos really will not make much difference to the average voter.
Plus of course if the average polls in the rustbelt are as out as 2016 Trump barely needs much swing there to win at all
Do you not think that an average Trump voter may feel differently if they know someone who has been ill with the virus or has died? There must be an increasing band of such people.
I know the Mail comment section on US news isn't a precise focus group but the Comment scores below the line not good for Trump. North Carolina data so far is intriguing, people not exactly banging down the doors to vote early for Trump so far.
I'm keeping my position for now. If the Trump price collapses - as I think it will - I will close half of it.
I believe the polls will tighten but not enough for Trump to win. Unlike 2016 I want to take my profit before the night, not let it ride.
When the polls tighten the betting markets are going to massively over react in the direction of Trump.
I will not be able to exit at a profit before election night.
Ergo I should cash out now.
Latest RCP Numbers
Nationally Biden is up by 7.5% on average.
However in the swing states it is much closer.
In Florida Biden leads by 1.2% on average, in North Carolina by 1.5%, in Pennsylvania by 4.3%, in Michigan by 3.2%, in Wisconsin by 6.4%, in Minnesota by 5%, in Ohio by 2.4% and in Nevada by 4% and in Arizona by 5.4%.
Trump leads by 1.7% in Iowa, by 1.3% in Georgia and by 3.5% in Texas.
So it only takes a 2% swing nationally to Trump after the debates for example and it would be neck and neck in the EC even if Biden would still be ahead by 3.5% in the popular vote nationally
You’re assuming the Woodward revelations don’t shift the dial further against Trump. And Biden can now throw Trump’s own words back at him in the debates. Fake news doesn’t cut it anymore.
Most of Trumps' voters are anti lockdown and his words that he did not want to spread chaos really will not make much difference to the average voter.
Plus of course if the average polls in the rustbelt are as out as 2016 Trump barely needs much swing there to win at all
Do you not think that an average Trump voter may feel differently if they know someone who has been ill with the virus or has died? There must be an increasing band of such people.
Texas is now a toss up state and is one of the worst affected states in recent weeks.
If Trump loses Texas he isn't President, it is as simple as that.
Comments
Certainly the opposition is there to oppose, but its also there to make sensible legislation pass. If all it does is oppose for the sake of opposing , we're heading for the type of constitutional constipation that is afflicting the US.
The only alternative to a Remainer backed Brexit was an ERG backed Brexit. As a Remainer May negotiated a very soft Brexit the ERG rejected, Remainers rejected it too thus leaving an ERG Brexit as the only and inevitable alternative.
https://twitter.com/hector_drummond/status/1303787241983168512/photo/1
What’s entirely unclear are the details - if the reports that “the technology does not exist yet” are correct, then they’re probably looking in the wrong place. (Though that reported comment doesn’t really square with them running the reported pilot. Odd.)
And the price tag looks an order of magnitude too high.
A rapid, cheap, mass test deployed on this scale doesn’t need to be 100% sensitive. My fear is that they are going to over complicate it in pursuit of unnecessary perfection, and deliver it late and overpriced.
Are you going to take my £5 bet?
Particularly in infantilised countries with failing education systems and an oligarchical press.
At least they're (so far) not bothering with suggesting O&S become an enclave of the glorious rUK, presumably because they've realised that a) who the fcuk would want to attach themselves to that bin fire and b) as an enclave Shetland would lose most of its offshore oil and gas rights.
So now I've eliminated the sensible solution what else is left.
This argument is like the rapist's defence that the victim asked for it because she was wearing a short skirt.
(Washington Post)
... Trump reflected on his relationships with authoritarian leaders generally, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them,” he told Woodward. “You know? Explain that to me someday, okay?”...
Edit: IPhone or Android? Plus what do you usually write in texts???
https://twitter.com/MarinaNigrelli/status/1290932219196911616
The Brexit Party (Conservative Party Holdings), CEO after takeover: B Johnson, chooses Brexit and divergence from the European Union over the interests of Northern Ireland and the integrity of the United Kingdom.
None of us should be surprised that they make this choice, but let's be clear they are doing so.
May struggled to compromise
Corbyn thought it more important to fight his class war
Starmer wanted to play screw the Tories
The LDs wanted the referendum ignored.
As NH has pointed out we are where we are today because the people who thought they shoiuld be running the country couldnt.
The whole Brexit saga is one where various coalitions could have been made to stop or change any deal, but screwing the other side proved to be more of a priority for MPs than agreeing on a relationship with the EU.
It suggests this is made up of a coalition of those who want
1. Brexit an ANY cost
2. Brexit to go away and never hear about it again. They thought BoZo would do this by delivering his oven ready deal.
If we crash out with No Deal, the “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” will be delighted (until they finally figure out what it means), but the rest will be dismayed as supply chains lead the news for another 6 months...
My aunt who is German does a fair bit of translation work. A couple of years ago she translated a book on the inception and establishment of the N.Sea oil industry which of course necessitated her reading it. She said the interviews with the big oil operators were striking in that they said by far the toughest negotiators were the the Shetland local pols, much more so than eg HMG.
But we shall see. I have a crisp fiver ready to back up my views, if only @Philip_Thompson would respond on the matter.
We get a deal, it will be a deal which will be a(nother) cave, and it will be spun as something completely different.
= no hard border anywhere.
So I think the politics is right - letting the government stew in their own juice, and a determination not to reopen old debates (unlike here on PB!).
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1303964585716846592
It really does seem like Dom is a sci-fi geek who should be writing blogs in his Mum's basement instead of failing to run the country.
I believe the polls will tighten but not enough for Trump to win. Unlike 2016 I want to take my profit before the night, not let it ride.
When the polls tighten the betting markets are going to massively over react in the direction of Trump.
I will not be able to exit at a profit before election night.
Ergo I should cash out now.
The solution is in the boring stuff: tip-top hygiene; always wear masks in public unless transmission risk is low; wash or disinfect hands at every opportunity; maintain distance; eliminate activities and practices that bring unnecessary infection risk. These will allow us to do more of our normal activities that are important to us, while keeping the epidemic under control.
In this case though, I seem to recall Tony Blair proposed something similar. Or was there some subtle difference?
Nationally Biden is up by 7.5% on average.
However in the swing states it is much closer.
In Florida Biden leads by 1.2% on average, in North Carolina by 1.5%, in Pennsylvania by 4.3%, in Michigan by 3.2%, in Wisconsin by 6.4%, in Minnesota by 5%, in Ohio by 2.4% and in Nevada by 4% and in Arizona by 5.4%.
Trump leads by 1.7% in Iowa, by 1.3% in Georgia and by 3.5% in Texas.
So it only takes a 2% swing nationally to Trump after the debates for example and it would be neck and neck in the EC even if Biden would still be ahead by 3.5% in the popular vote nationally
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/
This lot seem adamant however.
A disastrous Brexit has been the fault of Blair/Brown/Cameron/Osborne/May/Hammond/Grieve/Soubry/ Starmer/Sturgeon/Drakeford/Corbyn/Swinson/Clegg/Ted Heath/Barnier/Gary Lineker/France/Germany/Brussels/Strasbourg/the EU/the ECJ/Labour/the LDs/the SNP/Migrants/Foreigners/BLM/the BBC (delete as appropriate).
What kind of perverted twisted world do you think this is that free countries can be "controlled"? Do you think we will be subjected to the "EU Empire"? 🙄
Kay Burley: Tony Abbott says that men are better suited to leadership roles than women do you agree?
Grant Schapps: No; one of our greatest Prime Ministers was a woman
Kay Burley: Probably two.
No Kay, Schapps said greatest Prime Ministers, he meant one.
And Biden can now throw Trump’s own words back at him in the debates. Fake news doesn’t cut it anymore.
Source: Me, born and bred Borderer.
There has been serious reputational damage for the EU with third parties, who have looked on thinking "clown troupe.....".
Larry Elliott of the Guardian is reasonably bright. Anyone else ? I struggle to think of them.
It doesn't torpedo it; rather, as someone pointed out to me yesterday, there were very, very considerable difficulties. As they said, it's not like a pregnancy test, where you need a specific, easily identifiable hormone. What is needed is a reagent specific to one virus.
And that might happen before a mission to set up a farm on the moon, but it might not.
If there's smuggling as a result, then there's smuggling as a result. That's not the worst thing in the world. Why is smuggling worse than violence?
And if we do go down that route, the big guys always take out the little guys.
It was always the unsquareable circle - the intra-Irish border. We have to maintain a fully open porous border on the Island. Yet we want to change the customs and tariffs arrangements of the norther part. You can have one or the other, but as "both" are incompatible that isn't an option.
And so we find ourselves here. We can't compromise the GFA so the border will have to go down the Irish Sea. "We aren't putting a border down the Irish Sea" ejaculates Shagger until someone waves at him the spaff-covered agreement he signed and fought an election over. "Cripes!" he says and tries to tear the agreement up.
It is not up to the EU to compromise its external border. Sovereignty means the right to make your own border arrangements and they have been clear and consistent throughout. Nor is it up to the EU or indeed Ireland to find a solution. Surely the UK government having set out down this road would have understood the nature of the UK in the sense of part of it having a land border with the EU post Brexit and a binding peace treaty to keep that border open. Surely it would have proposed a settlement that makes said border work. Sadly they haven't a clue about the detail.
I take your point though, perhaps I am being overly pedantic.
May promised a soft Brexit that kept us following EU rules while we were in the backstop; we would be getting free trade with the EU indefinitely until a new arrangement was agreed. The ERG never hid what they wanted, they were explicit about it so the option was either the Government reached an agreement with "moderates" across Parliament, or the Government reached an agreement with the ERG.
The "moderates" refused to compromise, so the Government went to the ERG by default.
And you can tolerate a certain amount of false negatives if you're testing people who wouldn't otherwise be tested - particularly as the false negatives are likely to be the less infectious individuals.
If you eliminated tariffs on the vast majority of trade ( as both sides wish to do), sheer shipping costs would provide a barrier for the rest of the EU and any large scale fraud would surely be relatively easily policed given you’d have very limited entry points both to and from the island of Ireland and you’d have the willing and enthusiastic cooperation of the U.K.
Now, it involves compromising the single market in ROI a tad ( ie 1% of the single market) but you get a genuinely friendly cooperative neighbour in return.
However, ROI abetted by the EU, went for the no compromise, let’s hope we can get Brexit reverses/softened to the point of not mattering, and sod the Brits. Fair enough it’s their perogative, but actions have consequences as M Barnier never tires of lecturing us.
Maybe, just compromising a bit on the integrity of 1% of the Single Marjet might’ve been an option not just dismissed out of hand??
Plus of course if the average polls in the rustbelt are as out as 2016 Trump barely needs much swing there to win at all
There isn't as far as I am aware an uncontrolled border anywhere, with the substantially minimised exceptions of borders between EU members.
To be fair to Johnson's government, they haven't suggested officially that the Irish shouldn't be the priority.
You wont go far wrong, assuming the opposite of whatever Dan Hodges says.
Immediately Trump seems to have an issue with the Woodward revelations,
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8715673/Trump-ADMITS-downplayed-coronavirus-bombshell-Woodward-tapes-reveal-KNEW-deadly.html
I know the Mail comment section on US news isn't a precise focus group but the Comment scores below the line not good for Trump. North Carolina data so far is intriguing, people not exactly banging down the doors to vote early for Trump so far.
So, last summer, Tory leadership secured and now PM but with no majority, he needed a Brexit election and to win it he needed a deal - since he knew that although the public wanted shot of the whole Brexit issue No Deal had only minority support and frightened many.
He couldn't accept the May deal for obvious reasons. It had to be a Boris deal. It also had to be agreed quickly so he took the line of least resistance, he agreed to the EU's original and first choice proposal - GB could diverge from the EU but NI would stay aligned to prevent a border in Ireland and there would be a border in the Irish Sea to protect the integrity of the SM.
Now Mrs May had said that this latter was something "no UK Prime Minister could ever accept". And she was right. Because Johnson only pretended to accept it. He lied in other words. He needed the deal to get a winning platform for the election. So he lied to the EU to get the deal. Next step the public. They had to believe the deal - this Boris deal - was done and dusted and the end of the matter. It was "oven ready" and it "got Brexit done". So Johnson lied to them too.
Worked a dream. Landslide victory. Hail King Boris.
Now to renege with power secured. Inform the EU that, deal or no deal, treaty or no treaty, there will NOT be a border in the Irish Sea. Of course there won't. It's something no UK Prime Minister could ever accept. Negotiations thrown into disarray, EU upset and discombobulated because they realize we are not acting in good faith, UK domestic leave audience reengaged and happy with the new "ruthless take no prisoners" vibe. This is where we are.
But where are we going? Same destination as ever. No WTO terms. No border in Ireland. No border in the Irish Sea. Therefore the whole of the UK to stay closely aligned to the EU for the foreseeable future. I don't know what exact legal form this agreement will take, I don't know how Johnson will badge or sell it - the exact lies he will tell or the specific people and groups he will tell them to - but this, my fellow PBers, is where we're heading.
Cheers and beers.
The problem is the EU's obsession on the "integrity of the Single Market". That is incompatible with divergence, peace is not.
Most Republicans as the polls show will vote on the day
If Trump loses Texas he isn't President, it is as simple as that.
New thread