Sitting Priti or Priti Vacant? Will Priti Patel still be in the cabinet on the 1st of March 2021 – p
Sitting Priti or Priti Vacant?Paddy Power are offering 3/1 on Priti Patel not being in the cabinet on the 1st of March 2021 and 1/5 that she is.https://t.co/9d6VqOH5YmMe, I'm taking the 3/1 and I explain here why.https://t.co/n8jtDSRndX pic.twitter.com/o4OW9o7mFM
Comments
-
First!0
-
I've impressed myself with my self restraint that in the thread header I didn't call David Waddington the disgusting human being that he was.1
-
I see VAR is being consistent.0
-
That was following a fairly well-trodden path in the 80s though, wasn’t it? Whitelaw had gone the same way and people saw it as a promotion.
Interesting that there’s a suggestion Raab might get it (although God forbid given how useless he is). Would he keep the deputy PM role?0 -
Why? Don’t know much about him.TheScreamingEagles said:I've impressed myself with my self restraint that in the thread header I didn't call David Waddington the disgusting human being that he was.
Might have been useful in the current negotiations. He holds all the cards...1 -
OMG what has just happened at the Grand Prix?0
-
WTAF is happening in Bahrain???0
-
He was Stefan Kizko's barrister.ydoethur said:
Why? Don’t know much about him.TheScreamingEagles said:I've impressed myself with my self restraint that in the thread header I didn't call David Waddington the disgusting human being that he was.
Might have been useful in the current negotiations. He holds all the cards...0 -
Phew, Grosjean is ok.TheScreamingEagles said:OMG what has just happened at the Grand Prix?
0 -
I think Johnson would be unwise to engineer Patel's exit from the Cabinet. She would be a powerful enemy.1
-
Yes, sat in the medical car. Thank God for that.TheScreamingEagles said:
Phew, Grosjean is ok.TheScreamingEagles said:OMG what has just happened at the Grand Prix?
0 -
For anyone who didn't see it.
https://twitter.com/CraftBeerNSport/status/1333052875048693760
Edit - tweet deleted0 -
Wow it split the car in half.0
-
How is that even possible in modern F1???0
-
Hopefully these tweets aren't deleted
https://twitter.com/_jamesbfc/status/1333054414257590273
https://twitter.com/Alan_Dawson1971/status/13330544628234444800 -
Some prices in a tick, and the Dems bonus over Biden has been taken.
Current Betfair prices:-
Biden 1.04
Democrats 1.04
Biden PV 1.03
Biden PV 49-51.9% 1.05
Trump PV 46-48.9% 1.05
Trump ECV 210-239 1.08
Biden ECV 300-329 1.08
Biden ECV Hcap -48.5 1.06
Biden ECV Hcap -63.5 1.07
Trump ECV Hcap +81.5 1.02
AZ Dem 1.05
GA Dem 1.05
MI Dem 1.05
NV Dem 1.05
PA Dem 1.06
WI Dem 1.06
Trump to leave before end of term NO 1.11
Trump exit date 2021 1.09
0 -
Every time I see that crash I think how has he not been killed?0
-
That's a horrific crash.0
-
That car has been torn apart at the actual cockpit.TheScreamingEagles said:Every time I see that crash I think how has he not been killed?
How the actual fuck has he not merely survived but walked away?0 -
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.0 -
Testament to the safety work F1 put into the cars.ydoethur said:
That car has been torn apart at the actual cockpit.TheScreamingEagles said:Every time I see that crash I think how has he not been killed?
How the actual fuck has he not merely survived but walked away?4 -
That was horrible to watch.TheScreamingEagles said:OMG what has just happened at the Grand Prix?
0 -
The more they show of this the worse it looks.0
-
Just picked up your response on the previous thread to my suggestion that Starmer should come out against the Eastern leg of HS2, by pledging to cancel it and launching instead a consultation on how to better invest the cash released.ydoethur said:
Ummmm...it's Labour politicians in Nottingham and Leeds that are pushing most strongly for that Eastern leg to be built. If he called for its abandonment, particularly at the moment it's most under threat, there would be a great deal of fury.Wulfrun_Phil said:
I agree to a degree that in terms of the wider public, Starmer can bide his time. That said, I do think he needs to do more at this stage to define himself in terms of values, if not yet in terms of detailed policies, if only to ensure that the Tories don't step in and try and define Starmer in a way they would like.Northern_Al said:I agree with much of the header, but I don't accept Starmer has limited time to set out his offer; he has plenty of time. Any Labour policy initiatives presented at the moment would not get a hearing, being drowned out by Covid, Brexit or both. Policy-making is going on behind the scenes in Labour, and what Starmer stands for will gradually become clearer as the current crises abate.
Meanwhile, Labour is content to analyse government policy and point out where it can be improved, while broadly supportive on Covid. And slowly but surely some serious negatives against the government are beginning to stick.
For example, the whiff of cronyism (if not corruption) in contract procurement and doling out jobs does not look good and is being noticed. Divisions within the Tories over Covid restrictions policy are becoming acute. The overall weakness of the cabinet is apparent. Sunak is spending money hand over fist, but it is not always well targeted, as Dodds and others have pointed out. In due course, I expect to see a major reckoning on waste of taxpayers' money: fraud on an industrial scale will emerge, and the generous schemes to help individuals and businesses have too often rewarded those who don't need help and missed those who do. And then there's Brexit, not quite as oven-ready as the public were led to believe. (Of course a successful vaccine rollout may well benefit the government bigly).
So Starmer can bide his time and focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems.
However, although you say that in the meantime he can focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems, I think that defining himself would instead help him see off the far left, who are trying to paint him as another Blair in sheep's clothing.
So how about a speech from Starmer harking back to Aneurin Bevan's "religion of socialism is the language of priorities", along the lines that Labour's traditional values are still relevant in a modern age, while using those values to better define the current theme that the Tories are the party of waste and the wrong priorities.
It would probably help to have one early totemic policy to back that broader theme up. I would suggest that scrapping the Eastern wing of HS2 would be it, and launching a consultation on how people along the route would like the £50bn to instead be spent on things that really would help their daily lives. Invest in things that matter for the masses, not the elite. That would provide a very long shopping list of goodies to tempt voters back in all those former red wall seats.
Your response misses the point:
1. If leading Labour politicians in Leeds and Nottingham want it, leaving aside the others in Yorkshire and the E Midlands who don't it's because they're being given the option of HS2 or nothing. That's the crazy way that our centralised country works. If they were asked to decide what they would prefer to invest the same sum in, instead, they won't choose HS2.
2. It doesn't matter if the Conservatives eventually cancel HS2 East, which they probably will. All the better. Labour is on the right side of the argument from the start, while the Tories are playing catch up. Starmer gets a head start in trying to redefine Labour as the party of responsible, not wasteful public investment. If the Tories do cancel it, Labour's argument will also shift to a focus on why the Tories are not planning to invest the cash in something else.
0 -
It was, I genuinely thought he had died.Sandpit said:
That was horrible to watch.TheScreamingEagles said:OMG what has just happened at the Grand Prix?
Top work by the guys in the medical car.1 -
Leaving aside the minor detail that this money is borrowed and therefore is ringfenced for infrastructure that will yield a profit (e.g. a heavily used high speed rail line) so it is ‘this or nothing,’ what are you suggesting they would want instead?Wulfrun_Phil said:
Just picked up your response on the previous thread to my suggestion that Starmer should come out against the Eastern leg of HS2, by pledging to cancel it and launching instead a consultation on how to better invest the cash released.ydoethur said:
Ummmm...it's Labour politicians in Nottingham and Leeds that are pushing most strongly for that Eastern leg to be built. If he called for its abandonment, particularly at the moment it's most under threat, there would be a great deal of fury.Wulfrun_Phil said:
I agree to a degree that in terms of the wider public, Starmer can bide his time. That said, I do think he needs to do more at this stage to define himself in terms of values, if not yet in terms of detailed policies, if only to ensure that the Tories don't step in and try and define Starmer in a way they would like.Northern_Al said:I agree with much of the header, but I don't accept Starmer has limited time to set out his offer; he has plenty of time. Any Labour policy initiatives presented at the moment would not get a hearing, being drowned out by Covid, Brexit or both. Policy-making is going on behind the scenes in Labour, and what Starmer stands for will gradually become clearer as the current crises abate.
Meanwhile, Labour is content to analyse government policy and point out where it can be improved, while broadly supportive on Covid. And slowly but surely some serious negatives against the government are beginning to stick.
For example, the whiff of cronyism (if not corruption) in contract procurement and doling out jobs does not look good and is being noticed. Divisions within the Tories over Covid restrictions policy are becoming acute. The overall weakness of the cabinet is apparent. Sunak is spending money hand over fist, but it is not always well targeted, as Dodds and others have pointed out. In due course, I expect to see a major reckoning on waste of taxpayers' money: fraud on an industrial scale will emerge, and the generous schemes to help individuals and businesses have too often rewarded those who don't need help and missed those who do. And then there's Brexit, not quite as oven-ready as the public were led to believe. (Of course a successful vaccine rollout may well benefit the government bigly).
So Starmer can bide his time and focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems.
However, although you say that in the meantime he can focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems, I think that defining himself would instead help him see off the far left, who are trying to paint him as another Blair in sheep's clothing.
So how about a speech from Starmer harking back to Aneurin Bevan's "religion of socialism is the language of priorities", along the lines that Labour's traditional values are still relevant in a modern age, while using those values to better define the current theme that the Tories are the party of waste and the wrong priorities.
It would probably help to have one early totemic policy to back that broader theme up. I would suggest that scrapping the Eastern wing of HS2 would be it, and launching a consultation on how people along the route would like the £50bn to instead be spent on things that really would help their daily lives. Invest in things that matter for the masses, not the elite. That would provide a very long shopping list of goodies to tempt voters back in all those former red wall seats.
Your response misses the point:
1. If leading Labour politicians in Leeds and Nottingham want it, leaving aside the others in Yorkshire and the E Midlands who don't it's because they're being given the option of HS2 or nothing. That's the crazy way that our centralised country works. If they were asked to decide what they would prefer to invest the same sum in, instead, they won't choose HS2.
2. It doesn't matter if the Conservatives eventually cancel HS2 East, which they probably will. All the better. Labour is on the right side of the argument from the start, while the Tories are playing catch up. Starmer gets a head start in trying to redefine Labour as the party of responsible, not wasteful public investment. If the Tories do cancel it, Labour's argument will also shift to a focus on why the Tories are not planning to invest the cash in something else.0 -
F1 safety is bloody incredible. To escape from that with a few light burns is actually amazing.1
-
Yes, I can imagine Wooster wrestling the pesky virus to the ground, what?YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.0 -
Jackie Stewart, Bernie Ecclestone and Sid Watkins decided they didn’t like going to funerals every year.TheScreamingEagles said:
Testament to the safety work F1 put into the cars.ydoethur said:
That car has been torn apart at the actual cockpit.TheScreamingEagles said:Every time I see that crash I think how has he not been killed?
How the actual fuck has he not merely survived but walked away?
Thankfully we now have the fastest cars ever built, that can have a driver walk away from an accident like that.
I was one of those who was sceptical about the Halo, but today it undoubtedly saved Romain Grosjean’s life.0 -
Well, Grosjean walked away. Which was a great relief for all concerned I imagine.0
-
He literally walks out of a ball of flames. How is that even possible?!0
-
I think its unwise to bet on any Brexiteer being removed. They were not picked for their competence but their ideology. And ideology is what Boris needs right now.
Hang them, flog them, then hang them again plays well with Johnson's new/old electorate. And May is coming faster than you think.0 -
It was interesting - and caused me to think that it might be a good idea, having like you been a sceptic - that Stewart was very supportive of the halo:Sandpit said:
Jackie Stewart, Bernie Ecclestone and Sid Watkins decided they didn’t like going to funerals every year.TheScreamingEagles said:
Testament to the safety work F1 put into the cars.ydoethur said:
That car has been torn apart at the actual cockpit.TheScreamingEagles said:Every time I see that crash I think how has he not been killed?
How the actual fuck has he not merely survived but walked away?
Thankfully we now have the fastest cars ever built, that can have a driver walk away from an accident like that.
I was one of those who was sceptical about the Halo, but today it undoubtedly saved Romain Grosjean’s life.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/stewart-halo-criticism-1960s-safety-backlash-939179/939179/1 -
YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
Well, I can see Boris in "black footer bags", certainly.YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.0 -
If I have to exterminate ten thousand Republicans, the three million of our people are greater than that ten thousand.Scott_xP said:0 -
That one was higher than a smackhead after happy hour.
Jason Roy fails yet again. Not looking too good for him.0 -
To the ultra-cynics, Priti serves Boris in three capacities:-
1. She is a Brexiteer so gives him cover when a deal is made
2. She is a hanger and flogger so gives cover to Boris's latest crackdown on crime
3. Her very presence protects Boris from racism charges
Where do the rumours come from? Does Michael Gove fancy a new job?1 -
HS2 yield a profit?! It won't even meet its day to day running costs leaving aside the cost of financing the construction. Pre-Covid, the business plan was already a heap of fiction, it's even more so now that Covid has exposed us to the alternative to long distance commuting and business travel.ydoethur said:
Leaving aside the minor detail that this money is borrowed and therefore is ringfenced for infrastructure that will yield a profit (e.g. a heavily used high speed rail line) so it is ‘this or nothing,’ what are you suggesting they would want instead?Wulfrun_Phil said:
Just picked up your response on the previous thread to my suggestion that Starmer should come out against the Eastern leg of HS2, by pledging to cancel it and launching instead a consultation on how to better invest the cash released.ydoethur said:
Ummmm...it's Labour politicians in Nottingham and Leeds that are pushing most strongly for that Eastern leg to be built. If he called for its abandonment, particularly at the moment it's most under threat, there would be a great deal of fury.Wulfrun_Phil said:
I agree to a degree that in terms of the wider public, Starmer can bide his time. That said, I do think he needs to do more at this stage to define himself in terms of values, if not yet in terms of detailed policies, if only to ensure that the Tories don't step in and try and define Starmer in a way they would like.Northern_Al said:I agree with much of the header, but I don't accept Starmer has limited time to set out his offer; he has plenty of time. Any Labour policy initiatives presented at the moment would not get a hearing, being drowned out by Covid, Brexit or both. Policy-making is going on behind the scenes in Labour, and what Starmer stands for will gradually become clearer as the current crises abate.
Meanwhile, Labour is content to analyse government policy and point out where it can be improved, while broadly supportive on Covid. And slowly but surely some serious negatives against the government are beginning to stick.
For example, the whiff of cronyism (if not corruption) in contract procurement and doling out jobs does not look good and is being noticed. Divisions within the Tories over Covid restrictions policy are becoming acute. The overall weakness of the cabinet is apparent. Sunak is spending money hand over fist, but it is not always well targeted, as Dodds and others have pointed out. In due course, I expect to see a major reckoning on waste of taxpayers' money: fraud on an industrial scale will emerge, and the generous schemes to help individuals and businesses have too often rewarded those who don't need help and missed those who do. And then there's Brexit, not quite as oven-ready as the public were led to believe. (Of course a successful vaccine rollout may well benefit the government bigly).
So Starmer can bide his time and focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems.
However, although you say that in the meantime he can focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems, I think that defining himself would instead help him see off the far left, who are trying to paint him as another Blair in sheep's clothing.
So how about a speech from Starmer harking back to Aneurin Bevan's "religion of socialism is the language of priorities", along the lines that Labour's traditional values are still relevant in a modern age, while using those values to better define the current theme that the Tories are the party of waste and the wrong priorities.
It would probably help to have one early totemic policy to back that broader theme up. I would suggest that scrapping the Eastern wing of HS2 would be it, and launching a consultation on how people along the route would like the £50bn to instead be spent on things that really would help their daily lives. Invest in things that matter for the masses, not the elite. That would provide a very long shopping list of goodies to tempt voters back in all those former red wall seats.
Your response misses the point:
1. If leading Labour politicians in Leeds and Nottingham want it, leaving aside the others in Yorkshire and the E Midlands who don't it's because they're being given the option of HS2 or nothing. That's the crazy way that our centralised country works. If they were asked to decide what they would prefer to invest the same sum in, instead, they won't choose HS2.
2. It doesn't matter if the Conservatives eventually cancel HS2 East, which they probably will. All the better. Labour is on the right side of the argument from the start, while the Tories are playing catch up. Starmer gets a head start in trying to redefine Labour as the party of responsible, not wasteful public investment. If the Tories do cancel it, Labour's argument will also shift to a focus on why the Tories are not planning to invest the cash in something else.
The point is it should be up to regional leaders to set their own infrastructure investment priorities for the communities they represent. They will define "profit" in the widest sense, in terms of addressing the costs that arise of doing nothing, and I think that major social housing programmes would be high up their priorities given a choice.
0 -
Johnson's schtick is a third rate pastiche of PG Wodehouse. He is nowhere near as witty or subtle as the original material, which is a work of genius.YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
I think the History Man would have joined the SDP before going full Thatcherite in the mid 80s. By now he would be a Brexiteer and anti-vaxxer.5 -
How much of this leaked story is Boris acquiescing to the Patel is a bully narrative, implying something will be done and then consequently dropping it?0
-
Which given it is a national infrastructure project, is exactly what the government is doing. As for your other claims, they have been persistently debunked. In fact, if it encourages more flexible working over longer distances Covid might actually create more demand for rail travel in the medium term. The reason people reject HS2 is because they don’t like it, not because the ‘business case doesn’t add up.’Wulfrun_Phil said:
HS2 yield a profit?! It won't even meet its day to day running costs leaving aside the cost of financing the construction. Pre-Covid, the business plan was already a heap of fiction, it's even more so now that Covid has exposed us to the alternative to long distance commuting and business travel.ydoethur said:
Leaving aside the minor detail that this money is borrowed and therefore is ringfenced for infrastructure that will yield a profit (e.g. a heavily used high speed rail line) so it is ‘this or nothing,’ what are you suggesting they would want instead?Wulfrun_Phil said:
Just picked up your response on the previous thread to my suggestion that Starmer should come out against the Eastern leg of HS2, by pledging to cancel it and launching instead a consultation on how to better invest the cash released.ydoethur said:
Ummmm...it's Labour politicians in Nottingham and Leeds that are pushing most strongly for that Eastern leg to be built. If he called for its abandonment, particularly at the moment it's most under threat, there would be a great deal of fury.Wulfrun_Phil said:
I agree to a degree that in terms of the wider public, Starmer can bide his time. That said, I do think he needs to do more at this stage to define himself in terms of values, if not yet in terms of detailed policies, if only to ensure that the Tories don't step in and try and define Starmer in a way they would like.Northern_Al said:I agree with much of the header, but I don't accept Starmer has limited time to set out his offer; he has plenty of time. Any Labour policy initiatives presented at the moment would not get a hearing, being drowned out by Covid, Brexit or both. Policy-making is going on behind the scenes in Labour, and what Starmer stands for will gradually become clearer as the current crises abate.
Meanwhile, Labour is content to analyse government policy and point out where it can be improved, while broadly supportive on Covid. And slowly but surely some serious negatives against the government are beginning to stick.
For example, the whiff of cronyism (if not corruption) in contract procurement and doling out jobs does not look good and is being noticed. Divisions within the Tories over Covid restrictions policy are becoming acute. The overall weakness of the cabinet is apparent. Sunak is spending money hand over fist, but it is not always well targeted, as Dodds and others have pointed out. In due course, I expect to see a major reckoning on waste of taxpayers' money: fraud on an industrial scale will emerge, and the generous schemes to help individuals and businesses have too often rewarded those who don't need help and missed those who do. And then there's Brexit, not quite as oven-ready as the public were led to believe. (Of course a successful vaccine rollout may well benefit the government bigly).
So Starmer can bide his time and focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems.
However, although you say that in the meantime he can focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems, I think that defining himself would instead help him see off the far left, who are trying to paint him as another Blair in sheep's clothing.
So how about a speech from Starmer harking back to Aneurin Bevan's "religion of socialism is the language of priorities", along the lines that Labour's traditional values are still relevant in a modern age, while using those values to better define the current theme that the Tories are the party of waste and the wrong priorities.
It would probably help to have one early totemic policy to back that broader theme up. I would suggest that scrapping the Eastern wing of HS2 would be it, and launching a consultation on how people along the route would like the £50bn to instead be spent on things that really would help their daily lives. Invest in things that matter for the masses, not the elite. That would provide a very long shopping list of goodies to tempt voters back in all those former red wall seats.
Your response misses the point:
1. If leading Labour politicians in Leeds and Nottingham want it, leaving aside the others in Yorkshire and the E Midlands who don't it's because they're being given the option of HS2 or nothing. That's the crazy way that our centralised country works. If they were asked to decide what they would prefer to invest the same sum in, instead, they won't choose HS2.
2. It doesn't matter if the Conservatives eventually cancel HS2 East, which they probably will. All the better. Labour is on the right side of the argument from the start, while the Tories are playing catch up. Starmer gets a head start in trying to redefine Labour as the party of responsible, not wasteful public investment. If the Tories do cancel it, Labour's argument will also shift to a focus on why the Tories are not planning to invest the cash in something else.
The point is it should be up to regional leaders to set their own infrastructure investment priorities for the communities they represent. They will define "profit" in the widest sense, in terms of addressing the costs that arise of doing nothing, and I think that major social housing programmes would be high up their priorities given a choice.0 -
Quite right re PGW. The one doesn't have the other's edge, and the other has a character aspect not found in PGW or, say, Bertie. I can't quite imagine Mr J as the cricketing hero of Mike at Wrykyn.OnlyLivingBoy said:
Johnson's schtick is a third rate pastiche of PG Wodehouse. He is nowhere near as witty or subtle as the original material, which is a work of genius.YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
I think the History Man would have joined the SDP before going full Thatcherite in the mid 80s. By now he would be a Brexiteer and anti-vaxxer.
Edit: Above all, Bertie has zero ambition - much to the frustration of certain of his more designing lady friends. And Mike works hard at his cricket IIRC - but that is a different ambition, towards excellence for its own sake, of the kind one sees in a sumo wrestler or Japanese archer.0 -
It was a bit of a disappointment that Private Eye gave up on their "Leaves and Booster" parody after one episode. I can see why, though. Partly, Woodhouse parodies are hard work to do well, but also- BoJo isn't Wooster.YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
Bertie is an idiot, but he means well. Johnson isn't an idiot, but neither does he mean well.0 -
Max Hastings, Boris's editor at the Telegraph, used Gussie Fink-Nottle as the comparator.kinabalu said:
Yes, I can imagine Wooster wrestling the pesky virus to the ground, what?YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.1 -
If we're going to insist on literary analogues then there's really only one, who provides a rather better fit than a stunted sociology lecturer. George MacDonald Fraser's antiheroic epitome of every public schoolboy fantasy made flesh, leaping from bed to bed, and honour to honour...YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.0 -
More Roderick Spode.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Max Hastings, Boris's editor at the Telegraph, used Gussie Fink-Nottle as the comparator.kinabalu said:
Yes, I can imagine Wooster wrestling the pesky virus to the ground, what?YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.0 -
Buttler served that up on the proverbial plate.0
-
Good grief, you are quite right ... albeit as a front?DecrepiterJohnL said:
Max Hastings, Boris's editor at the Telegraph, used Gussie Fink-Nottle as the comparator.kinabalu said:
Yes, I can imagine Wooster wrestling the pesky virus to the ground, what?YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/04/straight-out-wodehouse-could-boris-johnson-be-roderick-spode-disguised-bertie
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/mar/30/boris.livingstone
"I first met whatshisname, aka Boris Johnson, when I spoke at the Oxford Union as Daily Telegraph editor while he was its president. I remember feeling cross, that the evening seemed a benefit match for the presidential ego. No, let us be frank: I realised that this callow white lump in formal evening dress was a lot better at playing an audience than I was. A while later, Boris joined the Telegraph. Following a spell as a leader writer, he became our EU correspondent. Over the next few years, he developed the persona which has become famous today, a façade resembling that of PG Wodehouse's Gussie Finknottle, allied to wit, charm, brilliance and startling flashes of instability."1 -
This is a really important piece which is the current lead on NBC news website.
It might be more important than the Georgia run-offs.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/most-important-relationship-d-c-biden-mcconnell-have-history-n1248830
0 -
Flashman doesn't dress like a Westminster version of McAuslan in civvies in the Gallowgate Glasgow.BluestBlue said:
If we're going to insist on literary analogues then there's really only one, who provides a rather better fit than a stunted sociology lecturer. George MacDonald Fraser's antiheroic epitome of every public schoolboy fantasy made flesh, leaping from bed to bed, and honour to honour...YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.0 -
Mrs Thatcher had a few ex-communists around her, most notably Sir Alfred Sherman, so it is no great stretch to see Howard Kirk moving from far left to authoritarian right.OnlyLivingBoy said:
Johnson's schtick is a third rate pastiche of PG Wodehouse. He is nowhere near as witty or subtle as the original material, which is a work of genius.YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
I think the History Man would have joined the SDP before going full Thatcherite in the mid 80s. By now he would be a Brexiteer and anti-vaxxer.0 -
Luke 15:7 applies to Sherman.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Mrs Thatcher had a few ex-communists around her, most notably Sir Alfred Sherman, so it is no great stretch to see Howard Kirk moving from far left to authoritarian right.OnlyLivingBoy said:
Johnson's schtick is a third rate pastiche of PG Wodehouse. He is nowhere near as witty or subtle as the original material, which is a work of genius.YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
I think the History Man would have joined the SDP before going full Thatcherite in the mid 80s. By now he would be a Brexiteer and anti-vaxxer.1 -
Oh, Bairstow...0
-
I tend to think of that bounder who managed to blag a spot on the last lifeboat off the Titanic.BluestBlue said:
If we're going to insist on literary analogues then there's really only one, who provides a rather better fit than a stunted sociology lecturer. George MacDonald Fraser's antiheroic epitome of every public schoolboy fantasy made flesh, leaping from bed to bed, and honour to honour...YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.1 -
The gist is that McConnell and Biden have a history of deal-making during the Obama presidency. Important perhaps but is it urgent? Is it news?Mysticrose said:This is a really important piece which is the current lead on NBC news website.
It might be more important than the Georgia run-offs.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/most-important-relationship-d-c-biden-mcconnell-have-history-n12488300 -
Thinking about it, I can imagine Kirk finding a berth on the contrarian right... A column in Spiked leading to chairing a panel on so something for Number 10.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Mrs Thatcher had a few ex-communists around her, most notably Sir Alfred Sherman, so it is no great stretch to see Howard Kirk moving from far left to authoritarian right.OnlyLivingBoy said:
Johnson's schtick is a third rate pastiche of PG Wodehouse. He is nowhere near as witty or subtle as the original material, which is a work of genius.YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
I think the History Man would have joined the SDP before going full Thatcherite in the mid 80s. By now he would be a Brexiteer and anti-vaxxer.1 -
Johnson's wit, charm and brilliance are often over-sold. His greatest asset however is his self-salesmanship.Carnyx said:
Good grief, you are quite right ... albeit as a front?DecrepiterJohnL said:
Max Hastings, Boris's editor at the Telegraph, used Gussie Fink-Nottle as the comparator.kinabalu said:
Yes, I can imagine Wooster wrestling the pesky virus to the ground, what?YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/04/straight-out-wodehouse-could-boris-johnson-be-roderick-spode-disguised-bertie
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/mar/30/boris.livingstone
"I first met whatshisname, aka Boris Johnson, when I spoke at the Oxford Union as Daily Telegraph editor while he was its president. I remember feeling cross, that the evening seemed a benefit match for the presidential ego. No, let us be frank: I realised that this callow white lump in formal evening dress was a lot better at playing an audience than I was. A while later, Boris joined the Telegraph. Following a spell as a leader writer, he became our EU correspondent. Over the next few years, he developed the persona which has become famous today, a façade resembling that of PG Wodehouse's Gussie Finknottle, allied to wit, charm, brilliance and startling flashes of instability."0 -
Bit unfair to J Bruce Ismay. Not only did he help to load the lifeboats first, but he was haunted with survivor’s guilt for the rest of his life.kinabalu said:
I tend to think of that bounder who managed to blag a spot on the last lifeboat off the Titanic.BluestBlue said:
If we're going to insist on literary analogues then there's really only one, who provides a rather better fit than a stunted sociology lecturer. George MacDonald Fraser's antiheroic epitome of every public schoolboy fantasy made flesh, leaping from bed to bed, and honour to honour...YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.1 -
Given the last set of County Council elections were held at the zenith of Theresa May's popularity (I understand the words individually but putting them together in the same sentence like that still feels odd), the Conservatives will be expecting some losses to Labour, the LDs and others.MightyAlex said:I think its unwise to bet on any Brexiteer being removed. They were not picked for their competence but their ideology. And ideology is what Boris needs right now.
Hang them, flog them, then hang them again plays well with Johnson's new/old electorate. And May is coming faster than you think.
The problem will only come IF Reform gets and real traction in the New Year and is able to field full slates of candidates across places like Kent and Surrey. In 2013, UKIP won 147 Councillors but lost them all in 2017.
In terms of vote shares, in 2017, in England, the Conservatives on 46.5%, Labour 20% and the LDs 18%.0 -
Howard Kirk is supposed to be based on sociologist and Radio 4 presenter of 'Thinking Aloud' Laurie Taylor.
Taylor has a 'new labour' aura written all over him however the programme last week on gambling 25/11/20 was excellent with interviews with Rebecca Cassidy and Emma Casey both of whom had interesting insights into gambling and anybody who bets on politics is recommended to listen to the programme on BBC sounds.
1 -
Stroll on his roof.0
-
Is that an order or a further F1 cataclysm?RochdalePioneers said:Stroll on his roof.
0 -
Medical car staff having a busy day...ydoethur said:
Is that an order or a further F1 cataclysm?RochdalePioneers said:Stroll on his roof.
0 -
https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1332977442806525954
Perhaps the public needs to start discussing with itself when we need to reopen properly and give up on the scientists and the ministers and their all over the place lock/unlock strategy?
If the severely medically vulnerable, care home residents and the 80+ years olds have been vaccinated, then perhaps we agree that society reopens on that date and we end this before we have nothing left to reopen.
Easter seems about right, but it might be February if the new minister for needles comes good.0 -
Malthouse worth covering for small stakes at 200/1 next PM then? Again with Brexit, you can imagine policing will be prominent in January.0
-
Assuming Boris manages to squat on Reform's lawn much like Macron is trying against the FN. Do you think this will push liberal leaning southerners to finally abandon the New-Conservatives?stodge said:
Given the last set of County Council elections were held at the zenith of Theresa May's popularity (I understand the words individually but putting them together in the same sentence like that still feels odd), the Conservatives will be expecting some losses to Labour, the LDs and others.MightyAlex said:I think its unwise to bet on any Brexiteer being removed. They were not picked for their competence but their ideology. And ideology is what Boris needs right now.
Hang them, flog them, then hang them again plays well with Johnson's new/old electorate. And May is coming faster than you think.
The problem will only come IF Reform gets and real traction in the New Year and is able to field full slates of candidates across places like Kent and Surrey. In 2013, UKIP won 147 Councillors but lost them all in 2017.
In terms of vote shares, in 2017, in England, the Conservatives on 46.5%, Labour 20% and the LDs 18%.0 -
There are three names in the quotation in the header, and my money would be on the middle one flying a kite. Malthouse is already a junior minister in the Home Office so if the Home Office is doing a bad job, why make him Home Secretary?Pro_Rata said:Malthouse worth covering for small stakes at 200/1 next PM then? Again with Brexit, you can imagine policing will be prominent in January.
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister who was Johnson’s deputy mayor for policing in London and is a confidant of the PM, is favourite to take over the job, with Michael Gove and Dominic Raab also in the frame.0 -
What a catch.0
-
Absolute worldie of a catch.ydoethur said:What a catch.
0 -
Gove finally ruined his chances yesterday with his call for MPs to back the new lockdown because every hospital bed will be swamped otherwise. He's blow it once and for all with backbenchers I reckon.DecrepiterJohnL said:
There are three names in the quotation in the header, and my money would be on the middle one flying a kite. Malthouse is already a junior minister in the Home Office so if the Home Office is doing a bad job, why make him Home Secretary?Pro_Rata said:Malthouse worth covering for small stakes at 200/1 next PM then? Again with Brexit, you can imagine policing will be prominent in January.
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister who was Johnson’s deputy mayor for policing in London and is a confidant of the PM, is favourite to take over the job, with Michael Gove and Dominic Raab also in the frame.0 -
So, I was partly right when I wrote "Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4."Metatron said:Howard Kirk is supposed to be based on sociologist and Radio 4 presenter of 'Thinking Aloud' Laurie Taylor.
What is the evidence for Laurie Taylor?
From my viewing post, virtually every Arts & Humanities Professor in Oxbridge in the 1990s was behaving like Howard Kirk.
'The History Man' is a decade or so earlier, but I'd say there was no serious shortage of role models
0 -
England about to choke like South Africa in a world cup.0
-
Why would they cancel HS2 East (assume you mean Sheffield branch)?Wulfrun_Phil said:
Just picked up your response on the previous thread to my suggestion that Starmer should come out against the Eastern leg of HS2, by pledging to cancel it and launching instead a consultation on how to better invest the cash released.ydoethur said:
Ummmm...it's Labour politicians in Nottingham and Leeds that are pushing most strongly for that Eastern leg to be built. If he called for its abandonment, particularly at the moment it's most under threat, there would be a great deal of fury.Wulfrun_Phil said:
I agree to a degree that in terms of the wider public, Starmer can bide his time. That said, I do think he needs to do more at this stage to define himself in terms of values, if not yet in terms of detailed policies, if only to ensure that the Tories don't step in and try and define Starmer in a way they would like.Northern_Al said:I agree with much of the header, but I don't accept Starmer has limited time to set out his offer; he has plenty of time. Any Labour policy initiatives presented at the moment would not get a hearing, being drowned out by Covid, Brexit or both. Policy-making is going on behind the scenes in Labour, and what Starmer stands for will gradually become clearer as the current crises abate.
Meanwhile, Labour is content to analyse government policy and point out where it can be improved, while broadly supportive on Covid. And slowly but surely some serious negatives against the government are beginning to stick.
For example, the whiff of cronyism (if not corruption) in contract procurement and doling out jobs does not look good and is being noticed. Divisions within the Tories over Covid restrictions policy are becoming acute. The overall weakness of the cabinet is apparent. Sunak is spending money hand over fist, but it is not always well targeted, as Dodds and others have pointed out. In due course, I expect to see a major reckoning on waste of taxpayers' money: fraud on an industrial scale will emerge, and the generous schemes to help individuals and businesses have too often rewarded those who don't need help and missed those who do. And then there's Brexit, not quite as oven-ready as the public were led to believe. (Of course a successful vaccine rollout may well benefit the government bigly).
So Starmer can bide his time and focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems.
However, although you say that in the meantime he can focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems, I think that defining himself would instead help him see off the far left, who are trying to paint him as another Blair in sheep's clothing.
So how about a speech from Starmer harking back to Aneurin Bevan's "religion of socialism is the language of priorities", along the lines that Labour's traditional values are still relevant in a modern age, while using those values to better define the current theme that the Tories are the party of waste and the wrong priorities.
It would probably help to have one early totemic policy to back that broader theme up. I would suggest that scrapping the Eastern wing of HS2 would be it, and launching a consultation on how people along the route would like the £50bn to instead be spent on things that really would help their daily lives. Invest in things that matter for the masses, not the elite. That would provide a very long shopping list of goodies to tempt voters back in all those former red wall seats.
Your response misses the point:
1. If leading Labour politicians in Leeds and Nottingham want it, leaving aside the others in Yorkshire and the E Midlands who don't it's because they're being given the option of HS2 or nothing. That's the crazy way that our centralised country works. If they were asked to decide what they would prefer to invest the same sum in, instead, they won't choose HS2.
2. It doesn't matter if the Conservatives eventually cancel HS2 East, which they probably will. All the better. Labour is on the right side of the argument from the start, while the Tories are playing catch up. Starmer gets a head start in trying to redefine Labour as the party of responsible, not wasteful public investment. If the Tories do cancel it, Labour's argument will also shift to a focus on why the Tories are not planning to invest the cash in something else.0 -
It's just such a blatant lie. Gove is a liar and far too treacherous.rottenborough said:
Gove finally ruined his chances yesterday with his call for MPs to back the new lockdown because every hospital bed will be swamped otherwise. He's blow it once and for all with backbenchers I reckon.DecrepiterJohnL said:
There are three names in the quotation in the header, and my money would be on the middle one flying a kite. Malthouse is already a junior minister in the Home Office so if the Home Office is doing a bad job, why make him Home Secretary?Pro_Rata said:Malthouse worth covering for small stakes at 200/1 next PM then? Again with Brexit, you can imagine policing will be prominent in January.
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister who was Johnson’s deputy mayor for policing in London and is a confidant of the PM, is favourite to take over the job, with Michael Gove and Dominic Raab also in the frame.0 -
I'm with you there. But in a few weeks I have no option but to accept 34 is really 'about 35'.RobD said:
I refuse to believe that 33 is not "about 30".justin124 said:
And Thatcher was almost 34.HYUFD said:https://twitter.com/Andrew_Adonis/status/1332960842111979520?s=20
Lord Adonis with a rather dubious statement this morning, especially as it was not true in the case of Reagan, Bush, Trump, Obama, Cameron, May, Chirac, Disraeli or indeed Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer who were all first elected after 30, Starmer indeed not until 52 so a ridiculous 'rule'
0 -
Was this a common experience? Perhaps you need more confidence in yourself, you're not essentially surprised at your accomplishments.TheScreamingEagles said:I've impressed myself....
1 -
PBers who’ve previously commented on the slowness of the State of New York at counting our election results might be interested to learn that the NYC Board of Elections has just missed its November 28th deadline to certify the city’s results (they expect to certify on Tuesday, December 1st). It seems that state legislators are sufficiently embarrassed by this state of affairs that they are proposing legislation to increase early voting locations and to authorize the boards of elections to begin counting absentee ballots on receipt rather than only beginning after polls have closed.
https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-blows-past-deadline-certify-general-election-results-lawmakers-push-reforms0 -
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/transport/hs2-fragile-state-and-may-not-be-built-full-says-labours-jim-mcmahon-3050813MattW said:
Why would they cancel HS2 East (assume you mean Sheffield branch)?Wulfrun_Phil said:
Just picked up your response on the previous thread to my suggestion that Starmer should come out against the Eastern leg of HS2, by pledging to cancel it and launching instead a consultation on how to better invest the cash released.ydoethur said:
Ummmm...it's Labour politicians in Nottingham and Leeds that are pushing most strongly for that Eastern leg to be built. If he called for its abandonment, particularly at the moment it's most under threat, there would be a great deal of fury.Wulfrun_Phil said:
I agree to a degree that in terms of the wider public, Starmer can bide his time. That said, I do think he needs to do more at this stage to define himself in terms of values, if not yet in terms of detailed policies, if only to ensure that the Tories don't step in and try and define Starmer in a way they would like.Northern_Al said:I agree with much of the header, but I don't accept Starmer has limited time to set out his offer; he has plenty of time. Any Labour policy initiatives presented at the moment would not get a hearing, being drowned out by Covid, Brexit or both. Policy-making is going on behind the scenes in Labour, and what Starmer stands for will gradually become clearer as the current crises abate.
Meanwhile, Labour is content to analyse government policy and point out where it can be improved, while broadly supportive on Covid. And slowly but surely some serious negatives against the government are beginning to stick.
For example, the whiff of cronyism (if not corruption) in contract procurement and doling out jobs does not look good and is being noticed. Divisions within the Tories over Covid restrictions policy are becoming acute. The overall weakness of the cabinet is apparent. Sunak is spending money hand over fist, but it is not always well targeted, as Dodds and others have pointed out. In due course, I expect to see a major reckoning on waste of taxpayers' money: fraud on an industrial scale will emerge, and the generous schemes to help individuals and businesses have too often rewarded those who don't need help and missed those who do. And then there's Brexit, not quite as oven-ready as the public were led to believe. (Of course a successful vaccine rollout may well benefit the government bigly).
So Starmer can bide his time and focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems.
However, although you say that in the meantime he can focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems, I think that defining himself would instead help him see off the far left, who are trying to paint him as another Blair in sheep's clothing.
So how about a speech from Starmer harking back to Aneurin Bevan's "religion of socialism is the language of priorities", along the lines that Labour's traditional values are still relevant in a modern age, while using those values to better define the current theme that the Tories are the party of waste and the wrong priorities.
It would probably help to have one early totemic policy to back that broader theme up. I would suggest that scrapping the Eastern wing of HS2 would be it, and launching a consultation on how people along the route would like the £50bn to instead be spent on things that really would help their daily lives. Invest in things that matter for the masses, not the elite. That would provide a very long shopping list of goodies to tempt voters back in all those former red wall seats.
Your response misses the point:
1. If leading Labour politicians in Leeds and Nottingham want it, leaving aside the others in Yorkshire and the E Midlands who don't it's because they're being given the option of HS2 or nothing. That's the crazy way that our centralised country works. If they were asked to decide what they would prefer to invest the same sum in, instead, they won't choose HS2.
2. It doesn't matter if the Conservatives eventually cancel HS2 East, which they probably will. All the better. Labour is on the right side of the argument from the start, while the Tories are playing catch up. Starmer gets a head start in trying to redefine Labour as the party of responsible, not wasteful public investment. If the Tories do cancel it, Labour's argument will also shift to a focus on why the Tories are not planning to invest the cash in something else.0 -
I assumed they had been taking weird days off or something, but apparently that was not the case from that story. Very embarrassing, but at least they seem to be taking action to precent recurrence.rpjs said:PBers who’ve previously commented on the slowness of the State of New York at counting our election results might be interested to learn that the NYC Board of Elections has just missed its November 28th deadline to certify the city’s results (they expect to certify on Tuesday, December 1st). It seems that state legislators are sufficiently embarrassed by this state of affairs that they are proposing legislation to increase early voting locations and to authorize the boards of elections to begin counting absentee ballots on receipt rather than only beginning after polls have closed.
https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-blows-past-deadline-certify-general-election-results-lawmakers-push-reforms0 -
The problem with HS2 East is the route through Sheffield Midland. Sheffield stoppers will lose so much time trundling their way in that the council have made themselves a backwater.TheScreamingEagles said:
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/transport/hs2-fragile-state-and-may-not-be-built-full-says-labours-jim-mcmahon-3050813MattW said:
Why would they cancel HS2 East (assume you mean Sheffield branch)?Wulfrun_Phil said:
Just picked up your response on the previous thread to my suggestion that Starmer should come out against the Eastern leg of HS2, by pledging to cancel it and launching instead a consultation on how to better invest the cash released.ydoethur said:
Ummmm...it's Labour politicians in Nottingham and Leeds that are pushing most strongly for that Eastern leg to be built. If he called for its abandonment, particularly at the moment it's most under threat, there would be a great deal of fury.Wulfrun_Phil said:
I agree to a degree that in terms of the wider public, Starmer can bide his time. That said, I do think he needs to do more at this stage to define himself in terms of values, if not yet in terms of detailed policies, if only to ensure that the Tories don't step in and try and define Starmer in a way they would like.Northern_Al said:I agree with much of the header, but I don't accept Starmer has limited time to set out his offer; he has plenty of time. Any Labour policy initiatives presented at the moment would not get a hearing, being drowned out by Covid, Brexit or both. Policy-making is going on behind the scenes in Labour, and what Starmer stands for will gradually become clearer as the current crises abate.
Meanwhile, Labour is content to analyse government policy and point out where it can be improved, while broadly supportive on Covid. And slowly but surely some serious negatives against the government are beginning to stick.
For example, the whiff of cronyism (if not corruption) in contract procurement and doling out jobs does not look good and is being noticed. Divisions within the Tories over Covid restrictions policy are becoming acute. The overall weakness of the cabinet is apparent. Sunak is spending money hand over fist, but it is not always well targeted, as Dodds and others have pointed out. In due course, I expect to see a major reckoning on waste of taxpayers' money: fraud on an industrial scale will emerge, and the generous schemes to help individuals and businesses have too often rewarded those who don't need help and missed those who do. And then there's Brexit, not quite as oven-ready as the public were led to believe. (Of course a successful vaccine rollout may well benefit the government bigly).
So Starmer can bide his time and focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems.
However, although you say that in the meantime he can focus on sorting out Labour's internal problems, I think that defining himself would instead help him see off the far left, who are trying to paint him as another Blair in sheep's clothing.
So how about a speech from Starmer harking back to Aneurin Bevan's "religion of socialism is the language of priorities", along the lines that Labour's traditional values are still relevant in a modern age, while using those values to better define the current theme that the Tories are the party of waste and the wrong priorities.
It would probably help to have one early totemic policy to back that broader theme up. I would suggest that scrapping the Eastern wing of HS2 would be it, and launching a consultation on how people along the route would like the £50bn to instead be spent on things that really would help their daily lives. Invest in things that matter for the masses, not the elite. That would provide a very long shopping list of goodies to tempt voters back in all those former red wall seats.
Your response misses the point:
1. If leading Labour politicians in Leeds and Nottingham want it, leaving aside the others in Yorkshire and the E Midlands who don't it's because they're being given the option of HS2 or nothing. That's the crazy way that our centralised country works. If they were asked to decide what they would prefer to invest the same sum in, instead, they won't choose HS2.
2. It doesn't matter if the Conservatives eventually cancel HS2 East, which they probably will. All the better. Labour is on the right side of the argument from the start, while the Tories are playing catch up. Starmer gets a head start in trying to redefine Labour as the party of responsible, not wasteful public investment. If the Tories do cancel it, Labour's argument will also shift to a focus on why the Tories are not planning to invest the cash in something else.0 -
On HS2, if the current leader of Bradford council becomes West Yorkshire mayor, then I expect she'll be pushing for Northern Powerhouse Rail, and a new station in Bradford, ahead of the vanity project serving Leeds.
I know I'm the only PBer interested in this election, but I'll keep mentioning it when vaguely relevant.0 -
Is it a lie? I am reasonably certain that without a lockdown or equivalent we will quickly get to a stage where hospitals are seriously overwhelmed, whether or not "every hospital bed" is swamped. Does anyone think otherwise, hoax-believers apart? And if it is a lie what is Gove's real belief and real motivation in telling it?MaxPB said:
It's just such a blatant lie. Gove is a liar and far too treacherous.rottenborough said:
Gove finally ruined his chances yesterday with his call for MPs to back the new lockdown because every hospital bed will be swamped otherwise. He's blow it once and for all with backbenchers I reckon.DecrepiterJohnL said:
There are three names in the quotation in the header, and my money would be on the middle one flying a kite. Malthouse is already a junior minister in the Home Office so if the Home Office is doing a bad job, why make him Home Secretary?Pro_Rata said:Malthouse worth covering for small stakes at 200/1 next PM then? Again with Brexit, you can imagine policing will be prominent in January.
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister who was Johnson’s deputy mayor for policing in London and is a confidant of the PM, is favourite to take over the job, with Michael Gove and Dominic Raab also in the frame.1 -
No not him - that other one who muscled the women and children out of the way. The one who makes you think of Boris Johnson. Epitome of a cad.ydoethur said:
Bit unfair to J Bruce Ismay. Not only did he help to load the lifeboats first, but he was haunted with survivor’s guilt for the rest of his life.kinabalu said:
I tend to think of that bounder who managed to blag a spot on the last lifeboat off the Titanic.BluestBlue said:
If we're going to insist on literary analogues then there's really only one, who provides a rather better fit than a stunted sociology lecturer. George MacDonald Fraser's antiheroic epitome of every public schoolboy fantasy made flesh, leaping from bed to bed, and honour to honour...YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.0 -
It depends whether you believe doctors like Foxy are liars about occupancy in their hospitals or not.IshmaelZ said:
Is it a lie? I am reasonably certain that without a lockdown or equivalent we will quickly get to a stage where hospitals are seriously overwhelmed, whether or not "every hospital bed" is swamped. Does anyone think otherwise, hoax-believers apart? And if it is a lie what is Gove's real belief and real motivation in telling it?MaxPB said:
It's just such a blatant lie. Gove is a liar and far too treacherous.rottenborough said:
Gove finally ruined his chances yesterday with his call for MPs to back the new lockdown because every hospital bed will be swamped otherwise. He's blow it once and for all with backbenchers I reckon.DecrepiterJohnL said:
There are three names in the quotation in the header, and my money would be on the middle one flying a kite. Malthouse is already a junior minister in the Home Office so if the Home Office is doing a bad job, why make him Home Secretary?Pro_Rata said:Malthouse worth covering for small stakes at 200/1 next PM then? Again with Brexit, you can imagine policing will be prominent in January.
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister who was Johnson’s deputy mayor for policing in London and is a confidant of the PM, is favourite to take over the job, with Michael Gove and Dominic Raab also in the frame.
Seems pretty clear - if the upward advance of hospitalisation hadn't stopped, we would have reached and passed the first peak quite rapidly.2 -
He does have a lothario vibe to him, that chap. Interviewed Joan Bakewell a couple of years ago and seemed to be trying it on. But she played a straight bat so unless that was just for show it didn't go anywhere.Metatron said:Howard Kirk is supposed to be based on sociologist and Radio 4 presenter of 'Thinking Aloud' Laurie Taylor.
Taylor has a 'new labour' aura written all over him however the programme last week on gambling 25/11/20 was excellent with interviews with Rebecca Cassidy and Emma Casey both of whom had interesting insights into gambling and anybody who bets on politics is recommended to listen to the programme on BBC sounds.0 -
What is it with people and this denial of how exponential growth works?MaxPB said:
It's just such a blatant lie. Gove is a liar and far too treacherous.rottenborough said:
Gove finally ruined his chances yesterday with his call for MPs to back the new lockdown because every hospital bed will be swamped otherwise. He's blow it once and for all with backbenchers I reckon.DecrepiterJohnL said:
There are three names in the quotation in the header, and my money would be on the middle one flying a kite. Malthouse is already a junior minister in the Home Office so if the Home Office is doing a bad job, why make him Home Secretary?Pro_Rata said:Malthouse worth covering for small stakes at 200/1 next PM then? Again with Brexit, you can imagine policing will be prominent in January.
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister who was Johnson’s deputy mayor for policing in London and is a confidant of the PM, is favourite to take over the job, with Michael Gove and Dominic Raab also in the frame.
Gove was right: with a doubling time of (for the sake of argument) 10 days and a lag between infection and hospital admissions of about two weeks, if you wait for your hospitals to fill up before you impose a lockdown then you are far, far too late: at that point you’ve got roughly another doubling of cases to deal with before the lockdown starts to have any kind of effect.
If instead you don’t lockdown at all, then your health services become completely overwhelmed & non-covid cases start to die needlessly, as is apparently happening in some rural parts of the US right now.
You /have/ to lockdown early, because anything else is too late. That’s the way exponential growth with delayed onset works.4 -
The "Philadelphia Inquirer" looks at how marginal gains especially in suburbia overwhelmed Trump's rural and small town strength to land Pennsylvania for Biden :
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-2020-election-biden-trump-20201129.html0 -
I asked for evidence yesterday that Gove actually said that, and no one could provide any.IshmaelZ said:
Is it a lie? I am reasonably certain that without a lockdown or equivalent we will quickly get to a stage where hospitals are seriously overwhelmed, whether or not "every hospital bed" is swamped. Does anyone think otherwise, hoax-believers apart? And if it is a lie what is Gove's real belief and real motivation in telling it?MaxPB said:
It's just such a blatant lie. Gove is a liar and far too treacherous.rottenborough said:
Gove finally ruined his chances yesterday with his call for MPs to back the new lockdown because every hospital bed will be swamped otherwise. He's blow it once and for all with backbenchers I reckon.DecrepiterJohnL said:
There are three names in the quotation in the header, and my money would be on the middle one flying a kite. Malthouse is already a junior minister in the Home Office so if the Home Office is doing a bad job, why make him Home Secretary?Pro_Rata said:Malthouse worth covering for small stakes at 200/1 next PM then? Again with Brexit, you can imagine policing will be prominent in January.
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister who was Johnson’s deputy mayor for policing in London and is a confidant of the PM, is favourite to take over the job, with Michael Gove and Dominic Raab also in the frame.
Has anyone found any evidence? eg A tape or a direct quote somewhere.0 -
Didn't exists - there were various tabloid tales at the time, but according to the actual history no-one took anyones space on a life boat. In fact the a big problem was getting people into them.kinabalu said:
No not him - that other one who muscled the women and children out of the way. The one who makes you think of Boris Johnson. Epitome of a cad.ydoethur said:
Bit unfair to J Bruce Ismay. Not only did he help to load the lifeboats first, but he was haunted with survivor’s guilt for the rest of his life.kinabalu said:
I tend to think of that bounder who managed to blag a spot on the last lifeboat off the Titanic.BluestBlue said:
If we're going to insist on literary analogues then there's really only one, who provides a rather better fit than a stunted sociology lecturer. George MacDonald Fraser's antiheroic epitome of every public schoolboy fantasy made flesh, leaping from bed to bed, and honour to honour...YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
Why that was, was comprehensively answered when they restaged the lifeboat loadings using the replica lifeboats and davits made for the movie.1 -
You're not the only one, as a Labour member I voted for my preferences earlier this week.SandyRentool said:On HS2, if the current leader of Bradford council becomes West Yorkshire mayor, then I expect she'll be pushing for Northern Powerhouse Rail, and a new station in Bradford, ahead of the vanity project serving Leeds.
I know I'm the only PBer interested in this election, but I'll keep mentioning it when vaguely relevant.1 -
The facts...Phil said:
What is it with people and this denial of how exponential growth works?MaxPB said:
It's just such a blatant lie. Gove is a liar and far too treacherous.rottenborough said:
Gove finally ruined his chances yesterday with his call for MPs to back the new lockdown because every hospital bed will be swamped otherwise. He's blow it once and for all with backbenchers I reckon.DecrepiterJohnL said:
There are three names in the quotation in the header, and my money would be on the middle one flying a kite. Malthouse is already a junior minister in the Home Office so if the Home Office is doing a bad job, why make him Home Secretary?Pro_Rata said:Malthouse worth covering for small stakes at 200/1 next PM then? Again with Brexit, you can imagine policing will be prominent in January.
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister who was Johnson’s deputy mayor for policing in London and is a confidant of the PM, is favourite to take over the job, with Michael Gove and Dominic Raab also in the frame.
Gove was right: with a doubling time of (for the sake of argument) 10 days and a lag between infection and hospital admissions of about two weeks, if you wait for your hospitals to fill up before you impose a lockdown then you are far, far too late: at that point you’ve got roughly another doubling of cases to deal with before the lockdown starts to have any kind of effect.
If instead you don’t lockdown at all, then your health services become completely overwhelmed & non-covid cases start to die needlessly, as is apparently happening in some rural parts of the US right now.
You /have/ to lockdown early, because anything else is too late. That’s the way exponential growth with delayed onset works.
1) during the first wave/lockdown, hospitals reached capacity. Everything was maxed out, and that by essentially stopping the NHS doing anything else.
2) the Nightingale hospitals are very much a last minute resort - to be manned by the retired, the students and and airline stewardesses
3) They nearly got pulled into use, none the less.
4) in the recent second wave, we were a few days away from reaching similar levels of hospital occupancy.
Without the Tiers/Lockdown, there was nothing to stop the same situation as 1) occurring followed by the Nightingale's going into operation, followed by.. extreme triage.... a few days later.4 -
Here's what he wrote in yesterday's Times, Part I of II.MattW said:
I asked for evidence yesterday that Gove actually said that, and no one could provide any.
Has anyone found any evidence? eg A tape or a direct quote somewhere.
It was a decision none of us wanted to take. But it was a decision none of us could avoid. When ministers met just one month ago to consider whether to introduce a second national lockdown we were presented with a Devil’s dilemma.
We were being asked to impose restrictions on individual liberty which went against every instinct we have had all our adult lives. We would be asking friends and families to avoid each other’s company. We would be closing shops, bars and restaurants, and not just denying people the social contact which defines us as human beings but also suppressing the animal spirit which keeps our economy going. We would be asking millions who had already given up so much to sacrifice even more.
So why did those of us gathered round the cabinet table that Friday afternoon decide that we would, indeed, choose to make November 2020 such a difficult month? For the same reason that Emmanuel Macron in France, Sebastian Kurz in Austria, Micheál Martin in Ireland, Mark Rutte in the Netherlands, Angela Merkel in Germany, Stefan Löfven in Sweden and so many other democratic leaders chose to restrict their people’s freedoms. And for the same reason that the eight political parties in power in devolved administrations have taken similar steps to the UK government. Because the alternative would have been indefensible.
We had to act, as they did, because if we did not our health service would have been overwhelmed.
That Friday morning I was in Surrey, looking forward to a trip later to an award-winning business in my constituency, the Hogs Back Brewery. But a cloud already hung over my day. I knew that the data coming in from the frontline of the fight against the virus was ominous. So I was not surprised, although I was certainly chilled, by the summons to an action meeting to consider the difficult steps that might now be required. Of course, I’d change my diary: was the meeting tomorrow, or Sunday? No — please get back to London as soon as possible.
More to follow0 -
More from the Gove article, Part II of II.
That afternoon we were confronted with what would happen to our hospitals if the spread of the virus continued at the rate it was growing. Unless we acted, the NHS would be broken.
Infections were doubling fast. The number of days taken to see that increase was open to question. But the trend was not. Infection numbers were growing in areas which had previously seen low prevalence. And as the numbers infected increased so, with iron logic, did the numbers in our hospitals. We could not know exactly when, or how late, we could leave it and still have time to pull the handbrake to avoid disaster, but sooner or later our NHS hospitals would be full.
Not just administratively at full stretch. But physically overwhelmed. Every bed, every ward occupied. All the capacity built in the Nightingales and requisitioned from the private sector too. The NHS could, and would, cancel the operations of patients waiting for hip replacements and other routine procedures to free up more beds. But that wouldn’t be enough. The numbers infected with Covid-19 and requiring a bed would displace all but emergency cases. And then even those. With every NHS bed full, the capacity of the health service to treat new emergency cases — people who had suffered serious accidents, heart attacks, strokes — would go.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lockdown-was-the-only-way-to-stop-the-nhs-being-broken-xq7b2ctpj0 -
1.04 Lewis Hamilton to win the Grand Prix (in running)
1.04 Biden to win the presidency.
0 -
Flashy looked dashing in a pair of 'Cherrypickers' breeks and actually had a rather fine military mind, no doubt as a consequence of all that effort expended in avoiding danger, so not really seeing it. I daresay Flash may have been reduced to hiding in a refrigerator if they'd been available tho..BluestBlue said:
If we're going to insist on literary analogues then there's really only one, who provides a rather better fit than a stunted sociology lecturer. George MacDonald Fraser's antiheroic epitome of every public schoolboy fantasy made flesh, leaping from bed to bed, and honour to honour...YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.0 -
Well, I am prepared to buy that.TheScreamingEagles said:More from the Gove article, Part II of II.
That afternoon we were confronted with what would happen to our hospitals if the spread of the virus continued at the rate it was growing. Unless we acted, the NHS would be broken.
Infections were doubling fast. The number of days taken to see that increase was open to question. But the trend was not. Infection numbers were growing in areas which had previously seen low prevalence. And as the numbers infected increased so, with iron logic, did the numbers in our hospitals. We could not know exactly when, or how late, we could leave it and still have time to pull the handbrake to avoid disaster, but sooner or later our NHS hospitals would be full.
Not just administratively at full stretch. But physically overwhelmed. Every bed, every ward occupied. All the capacity built in the Nightingales and requisitioned from the private sector too. The NHS could, and would, cancel the operations of patients waiting for hip replacements and other routine procedures to free up more beds. But that wouldn’t be enough. The numbers infected with Covid-19 and requiring a bed would displace all but emergency cases. And then even those. With every NHS bed full, the capacity of the health service to treat new emergency cases — people who had suffered serious accidents, heart attacks, strokes — would go.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lockdown-was-the-only-way-to-stop-the-nhs-being-broken-xq7b2ctpj
“Following a month of skyrocketing Covid-19 cases, the US has reached its highest number yet of hospitalizations due to the virus. The US surpassed 80,000 daily hospitalizations on November 19 and set new records steadily for 17 days straight until Friday, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Then on Saturday, the number reached 91,635”
https://www.chronicle-tribune.com/lifestyles/health/26-states-set-records-for-coronavirus-hospitalizations-thanksgiving-week/video_fb4e26ac-4e37-5411-bdd7-56a1514c510a.html
Let's see where the USA is on 10 December when the Thanksgiving cases start getting hospitalised, and then ask whether there is any reason to think that couldn't happen here.0 -
As the author had served in the British Army in Burman in WW2 I'm not surprised his creation had at lest some of those attributes.Theuniondivvie said:
Flashy looked dashing in a pair of 'Cherrypickers' trousers and actually had a rather fine military mind, no doubt as a consequence of all that effort expended in avoiding danger, so not really seeing it. I daresay Flash may have been reduced to hiding in a refrigerator if they'd been available tho..BluestBlue said:
If we're going to insist on literary analogues then there's really only one, who provides a rather better fit than a stunted sociology lecturer. George MacDonald Fraser's antiheroic epitome of every public schoolboy fantasy made flesh, leaping from bed to bed, and honour to honour...YBarddCwsc said:
I am not sure Howard Kirk is the best literary analogue of Boris Johnson.Stuartinromford said:
I was thinking more about his winding up of the Telegraph reading masses with Brussels balls in the 1990s, opportunism in the referendum and riling MPs against TMay.
Like Howard Kirk, Johnson expects gratitude for solving a problem he largely created.
But a bright sort like you knew that, didn't you?
He is dislikeable enough, for sure. I was never convinced that "Howard Kirk voted Conservative in 1979" as the TV adaption would have it. Much more likely, Prof Howard Kirk would have ended up his shagging career as a left-wing Master of an Oxbridge College and a talking head on Radio 4.
For Johnson's canvassing style, we would surely find it hard to beat Bertie Wooster in "Much Obliged, Jeeves", who I recollect used the immortal line
"Do you want to see our foreign policy humped up?"
Wooster's canvassing patter, "steady hand on the helm of the Great Ship of State" is pure Boris Johnson. But Bertie was essentially unambitious, so maybe it is Lord Sidcup?
Certainly, Boris seems to have escaped from the pages of a PG Wodehouse novel. It would be very nice to return him there.
I also find from Wiki that:
'P. G. Wodehouse said of Flashman, "If ever there was a time when I felt that 'watcher-of-the-skies-when-a-new-planet' stuff, it was when I read the first Flashman."'0 -
While I wholeheartedly agree with most of this, for (1) I believe it should say some hospitals reached capacity. Just as in this wave, the burden is not evenly spread. Unfortunately while the tougher versions of tier three were working, the lower tiers were not, and cases were rising almost across the board. I think it would have been possible to ramp the tiers, but the decision to lockdown-lite has done the job so far. What happens after this week will be interesting.Malmesbury said:
The facts...Phil said:
What is it with people and this denial of how exponential growth works?MaxPB said:
It's just such a blatant lie. Gove is a liar and far too treacherous.rottenborough said:
Gove finally ruined his chances yesterday with his call for MPs to back the new lockdown because every hospital bed will be swamped otherwise. He's blow it once and for all with backbenchers I reckon.DecrepiterJohnL said:
There are three names in the quotation in the header, and my money would be on the middle one flying a kite. Malthouse is already a junior minister in the Home Office so if the Home Office is doing a bad job, why make him Home Secretary?Pro_Rata said:Malthouse worth covering for small stakes at 200/1 next PM then? Again with Brexit, you can imagine policing will be prominent in January.
Kit Malthouse, the policing minister who was Johnson’s deputy mayor for policing in London and is a confidant of the PM, is favourite to take over the job, with Michael Gove and Dominic Raab also in the frame.
Gove was right: with a doubling time of (for the sake of argument) 10 days and a lag between infection and hospital admissions of about two weeks, if you wait for your hospitals to fill up before you impose a lockdown then you are far, far too late: at that point you’ve got roughly another doubling of cases to deal with before the lockdown starts to have any kind of effect.
If instead you don’t lockdown at all, then your health services become completely overwhelmed & non-covid cases start to die needlessly, as is apparently happening in some rural parts of the US right now.
You /have/ to lockdown early, because anything else is too late. That’s the way exponential growth with delayed onset works.
1) during the first wave/lockdown, hospitals reached capacity. Everything was maxed out, and that by essentially stopping the NHS doing anything else.
2) the Nightingale hospitals are very much a last minute resort - to be manned by the retired, the students and and airline stewardesses
3) They nearly got pulled into use, none the less.
4) in the recent second wave, we were a few days away from reaching similar levels of hospital occupancy.
Without the Tiers/Lockdown, there was nothing to stop the same situation as 1) occurring followed by the Nightingale's going into operation, followed by.. extreme triage.... a few days later.
0 -
Please do keep mentioning it. And I hope she does, because it’s an absolute joke that there isn’t a decent line connecting Leeds, Manchester and a Liverpool. But please also be aware that Northern Powerhouse Rail relies on HS2 for its existence. In particular, NPR relies on HS2’s new tunnel into Manchester.SandyRentool said:On HS2, if the current leader of Bradford council becomes West Yorkshire mayor, then I expect she'll be pushing for Northern Powerhouse Rail, and a new station in Bradford, ahead of the vanity project serving Leeds.
I know I'm the only PBer interested in this election, but I'll keep mentioning it when vaguely relevant.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/04/northern-powerhouse-rail-backers-say-hs2-vital-success0
