So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
We should expect a large leap in the totals come tomorrow when the daily reporting starts.
The 80s boy in me really wants this to be done in the style of a giant Blue Peter totaliser!
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
The only way out for Labour is to make the convincing argument that a no deal in the short term would have been worse and at least the deal gives them a lifeline to re-apply and that's what they intend to do if they win the next election.
(Allowing for absence making the heart grow fonder that should see them comfortably over the line)
Starmer had a good go at trying to push the "it was vote for the deal or accept no deal" line. It wasn't convincing because it wasn't just not true but he knew it was untrue.
"We had to vote for this otherwise the government with its huge majority wouldn't have got its deal through" isn't convincing.
I tend to agree with Starmer. Parties and people should both vote as if their vote mattered.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
We should expect a large leap in the totals come tomorrow when the daily reporting starts.
The 80s boy in me really wants this to be done in the style of a giant Blue Peter totaliser!
Better still, 4 giant totalisers -- one each for E, W, S and NI
We will all benefit from some healthy competition. Especially Wales
I've been chatting to people, esp youngsters ref breaking lockdown rules. Loads of people are not following them. As mentioned on here at the time, it was the Dominic Cummings moment which shattered the bond between people and politicians. Up until then the country was pulling together, united. A plethora of u-turns and bodges on top of the failure to censure Cummings disintegrated our common purpose.
Which, if true, shows how utterly irresponsible the British media have been throughout this crisis. They preferred to risk widespread public distrust of government, to satisfy their personal witch-hunt of someone barely known outside the Westminster Village.
You'll be blaming crime stats on victims reporting incidents next, rather than the criminals who commit the offences.
The undoubted damage caused by Cummings' actions were the fault of Cummmings for doing it and Johnson for not sacking him. No one else.
Except that Durham police, after several investigations, concluded he did nothing wrong.
There was no reason for the media to spend a week talking about a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, except for their Brexit-related vendetta against him.
You cannot have it both ways. Why would a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, get to hold a press conference in the Downing Street garden?
That was after his name had been on the front pages for a week.
Your memory is playing tricks on you, or the fact you're in the Middle East and weren't paying attention.
The press conference wasn't after a week after Cummings had been on the front pages for a week, it was two days after the story broke,
I was told by a few pollsters who were carrying regular focus groups at the time, the moment the country felt a real disconnect between the powers that be and themselves.
Prior to that the voters weren't impressed by the government when the government was telling the country to do x/y/z but managed to get a massive outbreak inside Downing Street but the schism came when ministers started saying shit like this.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
My 81 year old father gets his first jab this thursday. Hopefully my slightly younger mum fairly soon after.
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
Or as was pointed out by others on here in December - if Labour had voted no the result was attacks that they never wanted us to Leave.
It really was a no win choice for Labour - but I did say continually that they should have just taken the day off and left the Tories to it.
Sadly because of the Covid announcements that wasn't an option.
I suggest that in a few years time 'You never wanted us to Leave' is going to be far less damaging than 'You voted for it".
It would be even better if in a few years no one is ever talking about Brexit again.
Yours, A former Remainer.
Does 'A former Remainer' = 'now a Rejoiner'?
They need to get onto that pretty quickly. 'Rejoiner' sounds too much like a branch of plumbing. Something with a little more je ne sais quoi is required.
I've been chatting to people, esp youngsters ref breaking lockdown rules. Loads of people are not following them. As mentioned on here at the time, it was the Dominic Cummings moment which shattered the bond between people and politicians. Up until then the country was pulling together, united. A plethora of u-turns and bodges on top of the failure to censure Cummings disintegrated our common purpose.
Which, if true, shows how utterly irresponsible the British media have been throughout this crisis. They preferred to risk widespread public distrust of government, to satisfy their personal witch-hunt of someone barely known outside the Westminster Village.
You'll be blaming crime stats on victims reporting incidents next, rather than the criminals who commit the offences.
The undoubted damage caused by Cummings' actions were the fault of Cummmings for doing it and Johnson for not sacking him. No one else.
Except that Durham police, after several investigations, concluded he did nothing wrong.
There was no reason for the media to spend a week talking about a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, except for their Brexit-related vendetta against him.
Actually they "concluded that there might have been a minor breach of the Regulations that would have warranted police intervention" but decided not to do so retrospectively.
But that is to miss the point. The impression created was "one rule for them, another rule for the rest of us", which inevitably undermined public commitment to follow the rules.
Because Bozo needed him then, and kept him on despite his being in the wrong.
The irony being that Bozo dispensed with him later when (and possibly because, according to rumour) he was in the right.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
We should expect a large leap in the totals come tomorrow when the daily reporting starts.
Yet Lord Patten at 72 was on LBC bragging about how he had just made it to get his jab. Usual Tories, one rule for them and one for the rest.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
My 81 year old father gets his first jab this thursday. Hopefully my slightly younger mum fairly soon after.
A macabre thought struck me in the night. I expect others on here have had it.
Following the riots and seeing the visceral anger of the mob, captured brilliantly by ITN's Robert Moore, I hope Joe Biden has phenomenal protection for his term in office. A right-wing assassination attempt seems to me pretty likely. Obviously I hope it doesn't happen.
Ghoulish, macabre and distatestful it may be but a bet on Kamala Harris might be prudent.
I agree - but there is no betting market for "next President" up yet is there? (There are markets for who wins in 2024, but that is different.)
I just checked and I think there is. Ladbrokes have:
'Kamala Harris to become POTUS (not acting Potus) before the end of 2024" at 3/1
Given Biden's age it's maybe worth a punt anyway but the odds seem a little mean to me. I think I will put a little on it.
That`s just a Ladbrokes` special on Harris. Under that book, "Acting Potus" doesn`t count. Can I confirm - if Biden handed over to Harris prior to 2024 would Harris be designated acting or full president?
To pay out under the terms of that book would she have to become POTUS via an election?
If he died or resigned, she'd be permanent. If he had a stroke or something and hoped to possibly return, she'd be acting. Indeed, that's under 25th Amendment, which has actually been used a few times for medical procedures - the controversial 4th section of the 25th deals with that where the President himself doesn't consent, but the 3rd is basically just him saying he's unwell or under planned general anaesthetic and unable to act, maybe just for a few hours.
Thanks for that - I`m mulling over whether 3/1 about Harris holds any value. It pays out if Biden passes the baton to her or dies before 2024 or if she is selected as Dem nominee and then wins in 2024.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
My 81 year old father gets his first jab this thursday. Hopefully my slightly younger mum fairly soon after.
The only way out for Labour is to make the convincing argument that a no deal in the short term would have been worse and at least the deal gives them a lifeline to re-apply and that's what they intend to do if they win the next election.
(Allowing for absence making the heart grow fonder that should see them comfortably over the line)
Starmer had a good go at trying to push the "it was vote for the deal or accept no deal" line. It wasn't convincing because it wasn't just not true but he knew it was untrue.
"We had to vote for this otherwise the government with its huge majority wouldn't have got its deal through" isn't convincing.
Particularly as it wasn't a binding vote - the government had the power to agree the treaty (and indeed had effectively done so) without parliament. Parliament was simply being asked to express a view. You can speculate what might have happened had parliament voted that the deal was unsatisfactory; I am betting this wouldn't have been straight to no deal.
Having been amused by the events of the last few weeks from the safe distance of several thousand miles I was struck by two things.
The first is how much power a President has.It's easy to compare them to our PM and think that on paper they're similar. They're not. Filling the Cabinet with his family would have seen him off on day one. Vesting so much power in the hands of one person sane or not. Directly voted or not is not a good idea
The second is how much I miss the sanctity of the EU. It's easy to think the days of going to war with our neighbours is long gone so keeping the peace is no longer an issue but if you wanted the non belligerent security of any grouping in the world you would choose it to be the EU.
The issue for the EU is not whether it is belligerent either internally or externally, it is whether it would have the will, the means or the powers to defend itself.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
We should expect a large leap in the totals come tomorrow when the daily reporting starts.
Yet Lord Patten at 72 was on LBC bragging about how he had just made it to get his jab. Usual Tories, one rule for them and one for the rest.
Stop embarrassing yourself, he's on the vulnerable list due to him having had major heart surgery in the past.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
We should expect a large leap in the totals come tomorrow when the daily reporting starts.
Yet Lord Patten at 72 was on LBC bragging about how he had just made it to get his jab. Usual Tories, one rule for them and one for the rest.
I've been chatting to people, esp youngsters ref breaking lockdown rules. Loads of people are not following them. As mentioned on here at the time, it was the Dominic Cummings moment which shattered the bond between people and politicians. Up until then the country was pulling together, united. A plethora of u-turns and bodges on top of the failure to censure Cummings disintegrated our common purpose.
Which, if true, shows how utterly irresponsible the British media have been throughout this crisis. They preferred to risk widespread public distrust of government, to satisfy their personal witch-hunt of someone barely known outside the Westminster Village.
You'll be blaming crime stats on victims reporting incidents next, rather than the criminals who commit the offences.
The undoubted damage caused by Cummings' actions were the fault of Cummmings for doing it and Johnson for not sacking him. No one else.
Except that Durham police, after several investigations, concluded he did nothing wrong.
There was no reason for the media to spend a week talking about a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, except for their Brexit-related vendetta against him.
You cannot have it both ways. Why would a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, get to hold a press conference in the Downing Street garden?
That was after his name had been on the front pages for a week.
Your memory is playing tricks on you, or the fact you're in the Middle East and weren't paying attention.
The press conference wasn't after a week after Cummings had been on the front pages for a week, it was two days after the story broke,
I was told by a few pollsters who were carrying regular focus groups at the time, the moment the country felt a real disconnect between the powers that be and themselves.
Prior to that the voters weren't impressed by the government when the government was telling the country to do x/y/z but managed to get a massive outbreak inside Downing Street but the schism came when ministers started saying shit like this.
One thing you miss is that Mclaren have a Mercedes engine this year rather than a Renault.
That will mean larger chassis changes to accommodate a different engine which will be either a good thing (sending them up the pack) or a complete failure. I suspect we will know where Mclaren end up by the end of the first race.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
We should expect a large leap in the totals come tomorrow when the daily reporting starts.
Yet Lord Patten at 72 was on LBC bragging about how he had just made it to get his jab. Usual Tories, one rule for them and one for the rest.
Stop embarrassing yourself, he's on the vulnerable list due to him having had major heart surgery in the past.
Hasn't a lucky PB'er in his 70s without a listed condition already been done?
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
We should expect a large leap in the totals come tomorrow when the daily reporting starts.
Yet Lord Patten at 72 was on LBC bragging about how he had just made it to get his jab. Usual Tories, one rule for them and one for the rest.
Stop embarrassing yourself, he's on the vulnerable list due to him having had major heart surgery in the past.
Hasn't a lucky PB'er in his 70s without a listed condition already been done?
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
My 81 year old father gets his first jab this thursday. Hopefully my slightly younger mum fairly soon after.
When people get the jab, do they also get a stern warning not to change their behaviour and continue to stick to the rules?
Unless you've had your second Pfizer jab and a couple of weeks have passed, there's still a very substantial risk both to yourself and to people you come in contact with.
Even the 5% unlucky enough not to be protected after two Pfizer jabs could still do a lot of damage while most of the population remains unvaccinated.
Too many people treating the vaccination as a freedom pass could actually make the situation worse rather than better, at least in the short to medium term.
The thing that puzzles me is that given a border down the Irish Sea is something no Prime Minister could ever sign up to, why is the Belfast Telegraph calling the current situation, er, a border in the Irish Sea?
"Poots in storm as Michael Gove warns Irish Sea Brexit border chaos will get worse"
I've been chatting to people, esp youngsters ref breaking lockdown rules. Loads of people are not following them. As mentioned on here at the time, it was the Dominic Cummings moment which shattered the bond between people and politicians. Up until then the country was pulling together, united. A plethora of u-turns and bodges on top of the failure to censure Cummings disintegrated our common purpose.
Which, if true, shows how utterly irresponsible the British media have been throughout this crisis. They preferred to risk widespread public distrust of government, to satisfy their personal witch-hunt of someone barely known outside the Westminster Village.
You'll be blaming crime stats on victims reporting incidents next, rather than the criminals who commit the offences.
The undoubted damage caused by Cummings' actions were the fault of Cummmings for doing it and Johnson for not sacking him. No one else.
Except that Durham police, after several investigations, concluded he did nothing wrong.
There was no reason for the media to spend a week talking about a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, except for their Brexit-related vendetta against him.
You cannot have it both ways. Why would a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, get to hold a press conference in the Downing Street garden?
That was after his name had been on the front pages for a week.
Your memory is playing tricks on you, or the fact you're in the Middle East and weren't paying attention.
The press conference wasn't after a week after Cummings had been on the front pages for a week, it was two days after the story broke,
I was told by a few pollsters who were carrying regular focus groups at the time, the moment the country felt a real disconnect between the powers that be and themselves.
Prior to that the voters weren't impressed by the government when the government was telling the country to do x/y/z but managed to get a massive outbreak inside Downing Street but the schism came when ministers started saying shit like this.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
We should expect a large leap in the totals come tomorrow when the daily reporting starts.
Yet Lord Patten at 72 was on LBC bragging about how he had just made it to get his jab. Usual Tories, one rule for them and one for the rest.
Stop embarrassing yourself, he's on the vulnerable list due to him having had major heart surgery in the past.
Hasn't a lucky PB'er in his 70s without a listed condition already been done?
The thing that puzzles me is that given a border down the Irish Sea is something no Prime Minister could ever sign up to, why is the Belfast Telegraph calling the current situation, er, a border in the Irish Sea?
"Poots in storm as Michael Gove warns Irish Sea Brexit border chaos will get worse"
I've been chatting to people, esp youngsters ref breaking lockdown rules. Loads of people are not following them. As mentioned on here at the time, it was the Dominic Cummings moment which shattered the bond between people and politicians. Up until then the country was pulling together, united. A plethora of u-turns and bodges on top of the failure to censure Cummings disintegrated our common purpose.
Which, if true, shows how utterly irresponsible the British media have been throughout this crisis. They preferred to risk widespread public distrust of government, to satisfy their personal witch-hunt of someone barely known outside the Westminster Village.
Cummings was very well known and very much disliked and distrusted outside the ‘Westminster village’ before the scandal.
Part of the problem, on top of the lawbreaking, the hypocrisy and the extraordinary dishonesty was simply that people hated him and were therefore especially furious with the way he had behaved, and at the same time, feeling he had confirmed everything they had ever said about him.
Cummings was also at war with the Civil Service - and they were losing scalps. It will be interesting to see when the books of this period get written, the extent of the animosity between Dominic Cummings and Mark Sedwill, with the ongoing situation between Priti Patel and Sir Philip Rutnam having left his job also playing out.
There were also, shall we say, differing approaches to the Brexit negotiations when Boris was in the ICU with Covid. It was said there were attempts to bounce the UK into a 3 year extension to the Withdrawal Agreement whilst he was out the picture. Cummings scotched that, to very considerable consternation.
There was plenty going on in the background. Who knew what, when, and how long before the Durham road-trip stuff came out - that would be fascinating to know.
From Alastair's initial paragraph I thought he was going to inveigh against dog walkers. They appear to be increasing exponentially. All too often I seem to be the only dog-free person in the park and therefore an object of deep suspicion. "Where's your little bag of poo?" their accusing eyes seem to say, "Where's your mangey tennis ball, and that stupid stick thing to launch it with? Where's your 20m leash for snaring passers-by? It's alright, he won't hurt you, he just wants to be friendly."
I think we're right to view you with deep suspicion if that's your attitude.
Oh I dunno. I'm a dog owner and I totally get it. There was a tongue-in-cheek article last year about viewing walkers who don't have a dog at their heel as, basically, rapists in the wings.
I am a dog owner. I see individuals walking and never think of them as rapists in the wings. If you think that I suggest the problem isnt with the non dog owner.
I am much more uncomfortable with people not wearing masks.
Pre-COVID, I would have been uncomfortable with walkers wearing masks.
The thing that puzzles me is that given a border down the Irish Sea is something no Prime Minister could ever sign up to, why is the Belfast Telegraph calling the current situation, er, a border in the Irish Sea?
"Poots in storm as Michael Gove warns Irish Sea Brexit border chaos will get worse"
It's not a border, it is a customs declaration demarcation boundary.
We could declare GB a separate space from NI/Ireland to keep out Covid, if it was so decided. Does anyone think if there was a foot and mouth outbreak on the island of Ireland, that GB would just have to succumb to it too because otherwise it would look like a border? Of course not. It would be incredibly tightly policed in that case.
- Alberta government minister Tracy Allard broke rules to spend a family Christmas in Hawaii, arriving home to "Aloha Allard" placards on local buildings, and has resigned from the cabinet; - - Ontario finance minister Rod Phillips broadcast a video message on Christmas Eve thanking his constituents for observing the lockdown, which it transpired had been pre-recorded as he was on holiday in the Caribbean for Christmas. He too has resigned.
Mr. Rose, I think that's bollocks, as an excuse. I agree it's entirely possible some people thought that way, but if they did they're bloody idiots.
"Well, that guy got away with it so I will too" is a moronic approach when dealing with an infectious disease.
That's not to say the PM handled it anything like well. As with so many things, he did not. But his incompetence is no excuse for individuals to abandon the concept of responsibility (for self-preservation, no less!) in favour of an infantile strop.
Not so, Mr D. The point about lockdowns is that they impose upon us what are essentially irrational restrictions, in the name of the common good. The detail of the rules and guidance are not sensible lines to defend in the context of fighting the virus - the length of your exercise, how many times a day you go out, whether you buy this or that, precisely how many people you meet - they are but simply arbitrary compromises between locking everyone indoors permanently, and having no restrictions at all.
Willingness to go along with such depends heavily on the feeling that we are all in the same boat. The emotions stirred up by Cummings’s behaviour - not just the breach but the patent pack of lies he told to explain it and the lack of any punishment or sanction - were surely akin to those stirred up under wartime rationing on finding that some local bigwig is getting extra eggs on the black market, and nothing is being done about it.
Most of us prefer to make our own judgements (as some PB’ers did from the outset) and that is where most people are now.
Quite, Mr 82. Plenty of people in high, and not so high, places have been 'caught' breaking lockdown, have 'fessed up and the matter has been, if not forgotten, reduced to background noise. However, someone n a high place not only 'offended' but lied about it, and then, when the lies were exposed, was defended by his boss, one of the highest in the land, with what might well be described as 'an inverted pyramid of piffle'. As someone once said. The fact that, nearly nine months we still worry about it, and worse, make jokes about it means that it was pushed high into public awareness. Which it wouldn't have been if all concerned had not been at pains to make silly and unbelievable excuses.
Rather like Trump effectively saying the other day 'That's enough, be good now and go home!' when lives were clearly at risk.
And Good Morning everyone.
Good morning OKC, hope all went well with your hospital visit yesterday. The amount of people ignoring lockdown and saying hospitals are empty is absolutely crazy. The UK really has gone to the dogs.
Hiya, Malc. Yes the visit went fine, medically/procedurally, although I was mildly irritated that the visit, for a procedure which takes about 45-50 minutes, took us 5 minutes over the units one hour free parking limit and meant a charge of £3. Trust your good lady continues to improve.
The thing that puzzles me is that given a border down the Irish Sea is something no Prime Minister could ever sign up to, why is the Belfast Telegraph calling the current situation, er, a border in the Irish Sea?
"Poots in storm as Michael Gove warns Irish Sea Brexit border chaos will get worse"
I've been chatting to people, esp youngsters ref breaking lockdown rules. Loads of people are not following them. As mentioned on here at the time, it was the Dominic Cummings moment which shattered the bond between people and politicians. Up until then the country was pulling together, united. A plethora of u-turns and bodges on top of the failure to censure Cummings disintegrated our common purpose.
Which, if true, shows how utterly irresponsible the British media have been throughout this crisis. They preferred to risk widespread public distrust of government, to satisfy their personal witch-hunt of someone barely known outside the Westminster Village.
Cummings was very well known and very much disliked and distrusted outside the ‘Westminster village’ before the scandal.
Part of the problem, on top of the lawbreaking, the hypocrisy and the extraordinary dishonesty was simply that people hated him and were therefore especially furious with the way he had behaved, and at the same time, feeling he had confirmed everything they had ever said about him.
Cummings was also at war with the Civil Service - and they were losing scalps. It will be interesting to see when the books of this period get written, the extent of the animosity between Dominic Cummings and Mark Sedwill, with the ongoing situation between Priti Patel and Sir Philip Rutnam having left his job also playing out.
There were also, shall we say, differing approaches to the Brexit negotiations when Boris was in the ICU with Covid. It was said there were attempts to bounce the UK into a 3 year extension to the Withdrawal Agreement whilst he was out the picture. Cummings scotched that, to very considerable consternation.
There was plenty going on in the background. Who knew what, when, and how long before the Durham road-trip stuff came out - that would be fascinating to know.
Exactly. There was an awful lot more to the story than was ever talked about at the time.
Only 98...if that's the line in the sand, twitter is screwed.
People are going to have to realise businesses dont need to be fair or consistent. If they dont want to be associated with treasonous scum that is within their right. It is not much different from the pub landlord can bar who they like.
Well that’s not entirely accurate. There are laws which require at least a degree of fairness and consistency from businesses, though in this case, possibly not. And the comparison of multinational quasi monopoly businesses with a local pub isn’t a very useful way of looking at what’s a real problem.
I wouldn’t argue with Twitter’s actions, but I’m rather more troubled. about infrastructure businesses like AWS setting themselves up as censors.
The thing that puzzles me is that given a border down the Irish Sea is something no Prime Minister could ever sign up to, why is the Belfast Telegraph calling the current situation, er, a border in the Irish Sea?
"Poots in storm as Michael Gove warns Irish Sea Brexit border chaos will get worse"
It's not a border, it is a customs declaration demarcation boundary.
We could declare GB a separate space from NI/Ireland to keep out Covid, if it was so decided. Does anyone think if there was a foot and mouth outbreak on the island of Ireland, that GB would just have to succumb to it too because otherwise it would look like a border? Of course not. It would be incredibly tightly policed in that case.
So what you're saying is the Brexit deal is just like foot and mouth disease.
- Alberta government minister Tracy Allard broke rules to spend a family Christmas in Hawaii, arriving home to "Aloha Allard" placards on local buildings, and has resigned from the cabinet; - - Ontario finance minister Rod Phillips broadcast a video message on Christmas Eve thanking his constituents for observing the lockdown, which it transpired had been pre-recorded as he was on holiday in the Caribbean for Christmas. He too has resigned.
At least, once caught, they resigned. I like the Aloha placards, though!
A macabre thought struck me in the night. I expect others on here have had it.
Following the riots and seeing the visceral anger of the mob, captured brilliantly by ITN's Robert Moore, I hope Joe Biden has phenomenal protection for his term in office. A right-wing assassination attempt seems to me pretty likely. Obviously I hope it doesn't happen.
Ghoulish, macabre and distatestful it may be but a bet on Kamala Harris might be prudent.
The security around US Presidents is so heavy and so tight now Biden should be OK.
In any case from a Trumpites perspective a President Harris would be even worse for them than President Biden will be
A macabre thought struck me in the night. I expect others on here have had it.
Following the riots and seeing the visceral anger of the mob, captured brilliantly by ITN's Robert Moore, I hope Joe Biden has phenomenal protection for his term in office. A right-wing assassination attempt seems to me pretty likely. Obviously I hope it doesn't happen.
Ghoulish, macabre and distatestful it may be but a bet on Kamala Harris might be prudent.
I agree - but there is no betting market for "next President" up yet is there? (There are markets for who wins in 2024, but that is different.)
I just checked and I think there is. Ladbrokes have:
'Kamala Harris to become POTUS (not acting Potus) before the end of 2024" at 3/1
Given Biden's age it's maybe worth a punt anyway but the odds seem a little mean to me. I think I will put a little on it.
That`s just a Ladbrokes` special on Harris. Under that book, "Acting Potus" doesn`t count. Can I confirm - if Biden handed over to Harris prior to 2024 would Harris be designated acting or full president?
To pay out under the terms of that book would she have to become POTUS via an election?
If he died or resigned, she'd be permanent. If he had a stroke or something and hoped to possibly return, she'd be acting. Indeed, that's under 25th Amendment, which has actually been used a few times for medical procedures - the controversial 4th section of the 25th deals with that where the President himself doesn't consent, but the 3rd is basically just him saying he's unwell or under planned general anaesthetic and unable to act, maybe just for a few hours.
Thanks for that - I`m mulling over whether 3/1 about Harris holds any value. It pays out if Biden passes the baton to her or dies before 2024 or if she is selected as Dem nominee and then wins in 2024.
I think I`d want more than 3/1 to be tempted.
Cancel that. I`ve just looked again at the Ladbrokes rules and it says "Before End 2024". So a Harris win at next election does not count.
I've been chatting to people, esp youngsters ref breaking lockdown rules. Loads of people are not following them. As mentioned on here at the time, it was the Dominic Cummings moment which shattered the bond between people and politicians. Up until then the country was pulling together, united. A plethora of u-turns and bodges on top of the failure to censure Cummings disintegrated our common purpose.
Which, if true, shows how utterly irresponsible the British media have been throughout this crisis. They preferred to risk widespread public distrust of government, to satisfy their personal witch-hunt of someone barely known outside the Westminster Village.
Cummings was very well known and very much disliked and distrusted outside the ‘Westminster village’ before the scandal.
Part of the problem, on top of the lawbreaking, the hypocrisy and the extraordinary dishonesty was simply that people hated him and were therefore especially furious with the way he had behaved, and at the same time, feeling he had confirmed everything they had ever said about him.
Cummings was also at war with the Civil Service - and they were losing scalps. It will be interesting to see when the books of this period get written, the extent of the animosity between Dominic Cummings and Mark Sedwill, with the ongoing situation between Priti Patel and Sir Philip Rutnam having left his job also playing out.
There were also, shall we say, differing approaches to the Brexit negotiations when Boris was in the ICU with Covid. It was said there were attempts to bounce the UK into a 3 year extension to the Withdrawal Agreement whilst he was out the picture. Cummings scotched that, to very considerable consternation.
There was plenty going on in the background. Who knew what, when, and how long before the Durham road-trip stuff came out - that would be fascinating to know.
Exactly. There was an awful lot more to the story than was ever talked about at the time.
AIUI there's a lot of animosity between Cummings and almost anyone you care to name. Al;though he seems to be happily married. There's obviously a difference between the 'work' and 'home' personas.
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
The latest poll from Opinium this weekend does not suggest that and suggests Starmer made the right call.
Labour having voted for the Deal are on 40%, up 8% on their GE19 voteshare, the LDs having voted against the Deal are on just 6%, down 5% on their GE19 voteshare.
The only way out for Labour is to make the convincing argument that a no deal in the short term would have been worse and at least the deal gives them a lifeline to re-apply and that's what they intend to do if they win the next election.
(Allowing for absence making the heart grow fonder that should see them comfortably over the line)
Starmer had a good go at trying to push the "it was vote for the deal or accept no deal" line. It wasn't convincing because it wasn't just not true but he knew it was untrue.
"We had to vote for this otherwise the government with its huge majority wouldn't have got its deal through" isn't convincing.
I agree. Starmer did what he needed before the deal in saying he wouldn’t vote against one. He gave Johnson the space to ignore his wilder backbenchers and get it done. An abstention on the basis that this obviously wasn’t Labour’s preferred solution (whatever that might have been ?), but was far preferable to no deal, would have been entirely sensible.
Starmer refuses to say he will reintroduce free movement if he wins the next general election on Marr and although the Deal is thin it will be the Treaty an incoming Labour government has to make work.
The thing that puzzles me is that given a border down the Irish Sea is something no Prime Minister could ever sign up to, why is the Belfast Telegraph calling the current situation, er, a border in the Irish Sea?
"Poots in storm as Michael Gove warns Irish Sea Brexit border chaos will get worse"
A macabre thought struck me in the night. I expect others on here have had it.
Following the riots and seeing the visceral anger of the mob, captured brilliantly by ITN's Robert Moore, I hope Joe Biden has phenomenal protection for his term in office. A right-wing assassination attempt seems to me pretty likely. Obviously I hope it doesn't happen.
Ghoulish, macabre and distatestful it may be but a bet on Kamala Harris might be prudent.
The security around US Presidents is so heavy and so tight now Biden should be OK.
In any case from a Trumpites perspective a President Harris would be even worse for them than President Biden will be
The inference from the last point in the mind of someone willing to kill Biden would not be to spare Biden ...
I think classifying Trump as a scumbag is quite sufficient and it is then possible to move on. As Alastair says angsting over what particular kind of scumbag he is doesn't seem enormously productive (unless you are using it as the basis of your thesis in political science, which no doubt many will do).
My strong impression is that despite the desperation of several more liberal media outlets to find ever more extreme ways of shouting about how shocking last Wednesday's coup was the response in America seems largely meh.
Why? I think that the completely disorganised and incompetent nature of the Capitol invasion didn't look anything like a conventional coup. It was not a complete joke, some people died including a police officer doing his duty but even there people who died of medical emergencies were counted amongst the dead to try and dramatise it. The studios competed into the night, the participants were "terrorists", "rioters" (quick, think of another emotive word) but they looked like bozos wearing ridiculous costumes and acting like arseholes. It was hard to take such idiots seriously.
This by no means indicates that those that triggered this shambles should not bear the consequences. Trump should be impeached and banned from public office. He should go to jail (but probably won't). The Republic is less secure than it was on Tuesday. The envelope of the possible has been extended, the Rubicon has been crossed. It is no longer as inconceivable that a leader will try to use a mob to effect political change as it was on Tuesday. This is a very bad thing, no question. But Trump simply remains a scumbag, he is not genuinely worthy of our attention no matter how much he craves it.
On topic: "Donald Trump has whipped up his supporters into a frenzy with baseless claims that the election was in some way stolen from him."
Does Trump actually think: 1) that the election was rigged and fraudulent and therefore stolen from him or 2) he would have won if it wasn`t for Covid and this isn't fair and so it was stolen from him.
I`m not quite sure which one (or both?) he truly believes.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
We should expect a large leap in the totals come tomorrow when the daily reporting starts.
As long as there are not large supplies of vaccine sitting around waiting for the Government to get its arse in gear, we wil be doing the best we can to fight Covid. Fingers crossed. The planning for the roll-out does seem to have had plenty of thought. If our best efforts are at the end rather than at the start, then that is probably the way you want it.
You wouldn't want Norway to be a big win and D-Day a big disaster....
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
Or as was pointed out by others on here in December - if Labour had voted no the result was attacks that they never wanted us to Leave.
It really was a no win choice for Labour - but I did say continually that they should have just taken the day off and left the Tories to it.
Sadly because of the Covid announcements that wasn't an option.
I suggest that in a few years time 'You never wanted us to Leave' is going to be far less damaging than 'You voted for it".
It would be even better if in a few years no one is ever talking about Brexit again.
Yours, A former Remainer.
Does 'A former Remainer' = 'now a Rejoiner'?
They need to get onto that pretty quickly. 'Rejoiner' sounds too much like a branch of plumbing. Something with a little more je ne sais quoi is required.
Bloody hell if that is correctly reported. I thought AZN had only provided 1 million total vaccine so far...550k at start of Jan, another batch followed shortly after, but wouldn't have another 2-3 million for a while.
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
The latest poll from Opinium this weekend does not suggest that and suggests Starmer made the right call.
Labour having voted for the Deal are on 40%, up 8% on their GE19 voteshare, the LDs having voted against the Deal are on just 6%, down 5% on their GE19 voteshare.
There is a lot of water to flow before there's an election. And the stories beginning to percolate through about fishermen's and traders problems haven't really impinged yet, especially given Covid and Trump.
A macabre thought struck me in the night. I expect others on here have had it.
Following the riots and seeing the visceral anger of the mob, captured brilliantly by ITN's Robert Moore, I hope Joe Biden has phenomenal protection for his term in office. A right-wing assassination attempt seems to me pretty likely. Obviously I hope it doesn't happen.
Ghoulish, macabre and distatestful it may be but a bet on Kamala Harris might be prudent.
The security around US Presidents is so heavy and so tight now Biden should be OK.
In any case from a Trumpites perspective a President Harris would be even worse for them than President Biden will be
The inference from the last point in the mind of someone willing to kill Biden would not be to spare Biden ...
In which case in the very unlikely but horrific circumstance of Biden and Harris being assassinated the next in line after both would be Pelosi who would be even worse than both for a Trumpite
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
Or as was pointed out by others on here in December - if Labour had voted no the result was attacks that they never wanted us to Leave.
It really was a no win choice for Labour - but I did say continually that they should have just taken the day off and left the Tories to it.
Sadly because of the Covid announcements that wasn't an option.
I suggest that in a few years time 'You never wanted us to Leave' is going to be far less damaging than 'You voted for it".
It would be even better if in a few years no one is ever talking about Brexit again.
Yours, A former Remainer.
Does 'A former Remainer' = 'now a Rejoiner'?
No.
We all need to move on from Brexit. I'm done with it. It's over.
That might be one of the idaho/nevada militias classed as domestic terrorists listed in the article I posted at the bottom of this year. They've been protecting individuals and corporations from federal environmental regulations on an ultra-libertarian agenda for years, and have been involved in lots of stand-offs.
Alternately, and quite plausibly, it could be a newly organised group of white nationalists, as Kovler who predicted the events I think said was the other main, most organised strain of the groups there.
I've been chatting to people, esp youngsters ref breaking lockdown rules. Loads of people are not following them. As mentioned on here at the time, it was the Dominic Cummings moment which shattered the bond between people and politicians. Up until then the country was pulling together, united. A plethora of u-turns and bodges on top of the failure to censure Cummings disintegrated our common purpose.
Which, if true, shows how utterly irresponsible the British media have been throughout this crisis. They preferred to risk widespread public distrust of government, to satisfy their personal witch-hunt of someone barely known outside the Westminster Village.
You'll be blaming crime stats on victims reporting incidents next, rather than the criminals who commit the offences.
The undoubted damage caused by Cummings' actions were the fault of Cummmings for doing it and Johnson for not sacking him. No one else.
Except that Durham police, after several investigations, concluded he did nothing wrong.
There was no reason for the media to spend a week talking about a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, except for their Brexit-related vendetta against him.
You cannot have it both ways. Why would a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, get to hold a press conference in the Downing Street garden?
Wasn't that because the media were jumping up and down demanding access and answers?
On topic: "Donald Trump has whipped up his supporters into a frenzy with baseless claims that the election was in some way stolen from him."
Does Trump actually think: 1) that the election was rigged and fraudulent and therefore stolen from him or 2) he would have won if it wasn`t for Covid and this isn't fair and so it was stolen from him.
I`m not quite sure which one (or both?) he truly believes.
Doesn't really matter, the disaster of Covid in the US is largely down to his failing to get the country behind measures needed to control it. He reaped the whirlwind.
One thought about all this deplatforming. It does add a string to Republican usual claims about you need to vote for us otherwise "they" will take away your guns, now they can add in they will take away your free speech.
Bloody hell if that is correctly reported. I thought AZN had only provided 1 million total vaccine so far...550k at start of Jan, another batch followed shortly after, but wouldn't have another 2-3 million for a while.
By the end of the month hospital admissions by age group might have crossed over.
Bloody hell if that is correctly reported. I thought AZN had only provided 1 million total vaccine so far...550k at start of Jan, another batch followed shortly after, but wouldn't have another 2-3 million for a while.
If we managed to inoculate 2m people in the last week whilst still building up and improving supply it really shouldn't take until Autumn to inoculate all of us.
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
The latest poll from Opinium this weekend does not suggest that and suggests Starmer made the right call.
Labour having voted for the Deal are on 40%, up 8% on their GE19 voteshare, the LDs having voted against the Deal are on just 6%, down 5% on their GE19 voteshare.
Your post deliberately implies that the difference between election and polling is down to how they voted at the end of last year. You had to leave it as an implication because if you said it outright you'd be laughed out of the room.
Apparently we did about 2 million vaccinations last week. And we’re all to be offered the jab by autumn.
Are you sure, that doesn't sound right....up to 2 million now given a vaccine in total seems more like it.
I doubt we're quite at 2 million yet.
The last official figure was either 1.1m at 3 Jan, or 1.3m at 3 Jan, depending on which gov.uk page you are looking at. With 300k having been added during the week prior.
So, we now discover that the Welsh Government has already got 270,000 COVID doses
And used only 50,000 of them. They have so far used only 18 per cent of what has been delivered.
Sir "Round the Clock Vaccinations" has forgotten to mention to his Welsh colleagues that there is a great urgency to get jabs in arms.
If Wales has proportionality the same percentage of the vaccine as its percentage of the population then that would imply that there are nearly six million shots in the system.
Have there been any numbers released for the other home nations?
It would also mean that there are almost 40% of the jabs needed to hit the 15m head target already produced and ready to go.
So we’re back to distribution. Which I guess will be the media’s theme for the week.
Hancock just said 200k / day are now being vaccinated and a 1/3 of over 80s have been given at least first jab.
We should expect a large leap in the totals come tomorrow when the daily reporting starts.
Yet Lord Patten at 72 was on LBC bragging about how he had just made it to get his jab. Usual Tories, one rule for them and one for the rest.
Stop embarrassing yourself, he's on the vulnerable list due to him having had major heart surgery in the past.
Hasn't a lucky PB'er in his 70s without a listed condition already been done?
Who?
Not sure but I have long harboured the suspicion that JackW is the Duke of Edinburgh in disguise.
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
Or as was pointed out by others on here in December - if Labour had voted no the result was attacks that they never wanted us to Leave.
It really was a no win choice for Labour - but I did say continually that they should have just taken the day off and left the Tories to it.
Sadly because of the Covid announcements that wasn't an option.
I suggest that in a few years time 'You never wanted us to Leave' is going to be far less damaging than 'You voted for it".
It would be even better if in a few years no one is ever talking about Brexit again.
Yours, A former Remainer.
Does 'A former Remainer' = 'now a Rejoiner'?
No.
We all need to move on from Brexit. I'm done with it. It's over.
On topic: "Donald Trump has whipped up his supporters into a frenzy with baseless claims that the election was in some way stolen from him."
Does Trump actually think: 1) that the election was rigged and fraudulent and therefore stolen from him or 2) he would have won if it wasn`t for Covid and this isn't fair and so it was stolen from him.
I`m not quite sure which one (or both?) he truly believes.
It's a bit more complicated than that.
All told, he would have won the election had he not scared off his voters from using absentee/postal ballots, a massive mistake in normal circumstances, but even more pronounced when there's a pandemic on.
Meanwhile his opponents increased their use of absentee/postal votes.
Trump's mistake is on a par if the Tories banned postal voting.
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
Or as was pointed out by others on here in December - if Labour had voted no the result was attacks that they never wanted us to Leave.
It really was a no win choice for Labour - but I did say continually that they should have just taken the day off and left the Tories to it.
Sadly because of the Covid announcements that wasn't an option.
I suggest that in a few years time 'You never wanted us to Leave' is going to be far less damaging than 'You voted for it".
It would be even better if in a few years no one is ever talking about Brexit again.
Yours, A former Remainer.
Does 'A former Remainer' = 'now a Rejoiner'?
No.
We all need to move on from Brexit. I'm done with it. It's over.
For me, a pragmatic remainer, the EU has always put us in a dilemma, stay outside or reluctantly be part of it and manage it from within. On balance I`ve always sided with the latter.
So - as a pragmatic former remainer - does it follow that the best thing for the UK is to hope that the EU fades or dissolves, and encourage countries that have similar difficulties with the concept if the EU?
Something doesn't quite add up. If we can get from bugger all to 2 million in a week, why is Hancock saying it will be Autumn until every adult has been offered a vaccine slot. You would have thought if first statement is true and we will have 3-4 different vaccines supplying us by April, we can get to 3-4 million capacity and be done by summer.
The thing that puzzles me is that given a border down the Irish Sea is something no Prime Minister could ever sign up to, why is the Belfast Telegraph calling the current situation, er, a border in the Irish Sea?
"Poots in storm as Michael Gove warns Irish Sea Brexit border chaos will get worse"
It's not a border, it is a customs declaration demarcation boundary.
We could declare GB a separate space from NI/Ireland to keep out Covid, if it was so decided. Does anyone think if there was a foot and mouth outbreak on the island of Ireland, that GB would just have to succumb to it too because otherwise it would look like a border? Of course not. It would be incredibly tightly policed in that case.
So what you're saying is the Brexit deal is just like foot and mouth disease.
For the willfully hard of understanding, in the context of "borders", I'm saying Covid is.
Apparently we did about 2 million vaccinations last week. And we’re all to be offered the jab by autumn.
Are you sure, that doesn't sound right....up to 2 million now given a vaccine in total seems more like it.
Even if it's 2 million in total, that would put the daily rate at about 100,000, which is a good improvement over the last week. Just at that rate alone there would be about 5.5 million people jabbed by Feb 15th.
That might be one of the idaho/nevada militias classed as domestic terrorists listed in the article I posted at the bottom of this year. They've been protecting individuals and corporations from federal environmental regulations on an ultra-libertarian agenda for years, and have been involved in lots of stand-offs.
Alternately, and quite plausibly, it could be a newly organised group of white nationalists, as Kovler who predicted the events I think said was the other main, most organised strain of the groups there.
There must be a story to be told about how the Capital was cleared, that afternoon, with people like that inside.
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
Or as was pointed out by others on here in December - if Labour had voted no the result was attacks that they never wanted us to Leave.
It really was a no win choice for Labour - but I did say continually that they should have just taken the day off and left the Tories to it.
Sadly because of the Covid announcements that wasn't an option.
I suggest that in a few years time 'You never wanted us to Leave' is going to be far less damaging than 'You voted for it".
It would be even better if in a few years no one is ever talking about Brexit again.
Yours, A former Remainer.
Does 'A former Remainer' = 'now a Rejoiner'?
No.
We all need to move on from Brexit. I'm done with it. It's over.
To a poorer and much diminished future?
It may be but it is what it is.
I find some of my embittered fellow remainers a rather sad spectacle. What's done is done and it's pointless jabbering at the margins like demented has-beens.
It's over. For good or ill we have a new relationship with Europe and the world and we need to get on with it.
The thing that puzzles me is that given a border down the Irish Sea is something no Prime Minister could ever sign up to, why is the Belfast Telegraph calling the current situation, er, a border in the Irish Sea?
"Poots in storm as Michael Gove warns Irish Sea Brexit border chaos will get worse"
It's not a border, it is a customs declaration demarcation boundary.
We could declare GB a separate space from NI/Ireland to keep out Covid, if it was so decided. Does anyone think if there was a foot and mouth outbreak on the island of Ireland, that GB would just have to succumb to it too because otherwise it would look like a border? Of course not. It would be incredibly tightly policed in that case.
So what you're saying is the Brexit deal is just like foot and mouth disease.
For the willfully hard of understanding, in the context of "borders", I'm saying Covid is.
But when Covid-19 is gone we'll still have this tightly policed border in the Irish Sea.
Would you like me to show whats Boris Johnson used to say about a border in the Irish Sea?
That might be one of the idaho/nevada militias classed as domestic terrorists listed in the article I posted at the bottom of this year. They've been protecting individuals and corporations from federal environmental regulations on an ultra-libertarian agenda for years, and have been involved in lots of stand-offs.
Alternately, and quite plausibly, it could be a newly organised group of white nationalists, as Kovler who predicted the events I think said was the other main, most organised strain of the groups there.
There must be a story to be told about how the Capital was cleared, that afternoon, with people like that inside.
All the gear and no idea....bit like me doing Crossfit !!!
That might be one of the idaho/nevada militias classed as domestic terrorists listed in the article I posted at the bottom of this year. They've been protecting individuals and corporations from federal environmental regulations on an ultra-libertarian agenda for years, and have been involved in lots of stand-offs.
Alternately, and quite plausibly, it could be a newly organised group of white nationalists, as Kovler who predicted the events I think said was the other main, most organised strain of the groups there.
There must be a story to be told about how the Capital was cleared, that afternoon, with people like that inside.
With remarkable ease, it appeared, once a decision to act had been taken. Being in fancy dress doesn't make you serious. They seem to have had very few, if any, actual objectives and once they had wandered around the building a bit and shown that they could they seem to have been reasonably open to being moved on.
Off topic or not, this is one of the little nuggets I love about PB. Someone else does the research for stories one would otherwise have missed. A great story it is too.
Mr Meeks' header, as is often the case, hits the target from an unusual angle. The Napoleon commentary in particular I found alarming. With thoughts of a resurgent Trump winning in 2024, declaring himself Emperor, what if he added an hereditary element that passes it on to Don Jnr. ? Now there's a thought. To
I think classifying Trump as a scumbag is quite sufficient and it is then possible to move on. As Alastair says angsting over what particular kind of scumbag he is doesn't seem enormously productive (unless you are using it as the basis of your thesis in political science, which no doubt many will do).
My strong impression is that despite the desperation of several more liberal media outlets to find ever more extreme ways of shouting about how shocking last Wednesday's coup was the response in America seems largely meh.
Why? I think that the completely disorganised and incompetent nature of the Capitol invasion didn't look anything like a conventional coup. It was not a complete joke, some people died including a police officer doing his duty but even there people who died of medical emergencies were counted amongst the dead to try and dramatise it. The studios competed into the night, the participants were "terrorists", "rioters" (quick, think of another emotive word) but they looked like bozos wearing ridiculous costumes and acting like arseholes. It was hard to take such idiots seriously.
This by no means indicates that those that triggered this shambles should not bear the consequences. Trump should be impeached and banned from public office. He should go to jail (but probably won't). The Republic is less secure than it was on Tuesday. The envelope of the possible has been extended, the Rubicon has been crossed. It is no longer as inconceivable that a leader will try to use a mob to effect political change as it was on Tuesday. This is a very bad thing, no question. But Trump simply remains a scumbag, he is not genuinely worthy of our attention no matter how much he craves it.
I don't know what a "conventional" coup looks like, as they're all different and many attempts are full of stupidity, miscalculation and weird accidents. But the allegation is:
1) Trump whipped up people with (false) claims that the election was stolen 2) He purged the Pentagon after the election and put minions in key positions 3) He prepared his people to think something would happen on Jan 6th that would result in him staying 4) He told his people to march on Congress 5) He celebrated the intrusion into Congress when it was happening 6) The people he'd placed in step (2) denied authorization for a response
The key part of this is (2) and (6). If they're correct, as they seem to be, I think it's very clearly a straightforward coup attempt, even if parts of the plan seem to have come out of the underpants-collecting gnomes powerpoint.
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
The latest poll from Opinium this weekend does not suggest that and suggests Starmer made the right call.
Labour having voted for the Deal are on 40%, up 8% on their GE19 voteshare, the LDs having voted against the Deal are on just 6%, down 5% on their GE19 voteshare.
Your post deliberately implies that the difference between election and polling is down to how they voted at the end of last year. You had to leave it as an implication because if you said it outright you'd be laughed out of the room.
Well that is the key fact parties are judged on, their performance from election to election.
On this poll there would be a 6% swing from the Tories to Labour since GE19 if there were an election now but there would also be a 0.5% swing from the LDs to the Tories.
So the Tories could even gain seats from the Liberal Democrats despite losing seats to Labour.
The thing that puzzles me is that given a border down the Irish Sea is something no Prime Minister could ever sign up to, why is the Belfast Telegraph calling the current situation, er, a border in the Irish Sea?
"Poots in storm as Michael Gove warns Irish Sea Brexit border chaos will get worse"
It's not a border, it is a customs declaration demarcation boundary.
We could declare GB a separate space from NI/Ireland to keep out Covid, if it was so decided. Does anyone think if there was a foot and mouth outbreak on the island of Ireland, that GB would just have to succumb to it too because otherwise it would look like a border? Of course not. It would be incredibly tightly policed in that case.
So what you're saying is the Brexit deal is just like foot and mouth disease.
For the willfully hard of understanding, in the context of "borders", I'm saying Covid is.
But when Covid-19 is gone we'll still have this tightly policed border in the Irish Sea.
Would you like me to show whats Boris Johnson used to say about a border in the Irish Sea?
I've been chatting to people, esp youngsters ref breaking lockdown rules. Loads of people are not following them. As mentioned on here at the time, it was the Dominic Cummings moment which shattered the bond between people and politicians. Up until then the country was pulling together, united. A plethora of u-turns and bodges on top of the failure to censure Cummings disintegrated our common purpose.
Which, if true, shows how utterly irresponsible the British media have been throughout this crisis. They preferred to risk widespread public distrust of government, to satisfy their personal witch-hunt of someone barely known outside the Westminster Village.
You'll be blaming crime stats on victims reporting incidents next, rather than the criminals who commit the offences.
The undoubted damage caused by Cummings' actions were the fault of Cummmings for doing it and Johnson for not sacking him. No one else.
Except that Durham police, after several investigations, concluded he did nothing wrong.
There was no reason for the media to spend a week talking about a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, except for their Brexit-related vendetta against him.
You cannot have it both ways. Why would a civil servant holding no elected office, who never made public statements, get to hold a press conference in the Downing Street garden?
Wasn't that because the media were jumping up and down demanding access and answers?
So why do you have to give in to them? And how do you do so without implicitly conceding the validity of their questions and their right to ask them?
A macabre thought struck me in the night. I expect others on here have had it.
Following the riots and seeing the visceral anger of the mob, captured brilliantly by ITN's Robert Moore, I hope Joe Biden has phenomenal protection for his term in office. A right-wing assassination attempt seems to me pretty likely. Obviously I hope it doesn't happen.
Ghoulish, macabre and distatestful it may be but a bet on Kamala Harris might be prudent.
The security around US Presidents is so heavy and so tight now Biden should be OK.
In any case from a Trumpites perspective a President Harris would be even worse for them than President Biden will be
Objective analysis of the consequences of their actions clearly being the Trump Army's forte?
Twitter really do seem have shut down Trump, so far. He's made no impact since his last statement on the POTUS account, which they removed - that statement in itself will have opened up a new can of sympathy among his supporters, and some waverers on the right too, though - so all in all, a very mixed blessing.
A story which rather tellingly isn't being told in the right wing press. Various trade bodies who represent significant swathes of the economy saying the new rules are so unworkable that the government need to reopen negotiations. This quote from the CEO of Make UK is key:
"“There are customs experts with 30 years’ experience who are baffled by what the new regulations mean, let alone small- and medium-sized businesses who have never had to deal with the kind of paperwork that is now required. The great fear is that for many it will prove too much and they will simply choose not to export to the EU.”"
The government didn't understand how trade works and have ended up with a deal which they don't understand. Having soent years saying fuck business and branding warnings as Project Fear it'll be a painful revelation to find out that manufacturing and logistics experts actually did know what they were talking about after all.
This isn't just "apply the same paperwork as you would for anywhere else what's the problem?" as some parrots on here have re-squawked. This is a deal which does not work at a fundamental practical level for the supply chain of the UK.
Final observation. However bad this gets for the government, Labour will struggle to profit. As the omnishambles deal collapses and the stupidity of both it's structure and the details is laid bare, Labour attacks will be batted aside with a simple line. "You voted for it". Bravo Keith, bravo.
Hardly - the final vote was between leaving without a deal or leaving with a deal.
Both versions introduced whole piles of paperwork the only thing the deal avoided was tariffs on top of the paperwork.
Sadly politicians (and the general public) think it's tariffs that creates issues but as anyone who has exported things will know it's the paperwork that takes time and kills you.
The Tories have a majority of 80. The deal was going to pass regardless of whether the opposition gave their consent or not. So the vote was the deal with our agreement or the deal without the agreement.
An important lesson Labour didn't learn from the Coalition. The coalition did a lot of positive things and a whole pile of negative things. Tory bills backed by LibDem MPs are still hung around the neck of the LibDems years later. "You voted for it". This is the fate that Labour have chosen.
Or as was pointed out by others on here in December - if Labour had voted no the result was attacks that they never wanted us to Leave.
It really was a no win choice for Labour - but I did say continually that they should have just taken the day off and left the Tories to it.
Sadly because of the Covid announcements that wasn't an option.
I suggest that in a few years time 'You never wanted us to Leave' is going to be far less damaging than 'You voted for it".
It would be even better if in a few years no one is ever talking about Brexit again.
Yours, A former Remainer.
Does 'A former Remainer' = 'now a Rejoiner'?
No.
We all need to move on from Brexit. I'm done with it. It's over.
Listening to Starmer on Marr he rejects reintroducing free movement of Labour which of course would see the UK rejoining the single market and customs union, but he said he would want to improve on this 'thin' deal.
Marr pointed out that he had told the Daily Mirror he would bring back free movement of Labour and that his many supporters will be angered by his answer. He reiterated he would not bring free movement of Labour and it must follow that those who support closer ties or rejoining can only have one home and it is not Labour
I think classifying Trump as a scumbag is quite sufficient and it is then possible to move on. As Alastair says angsting over what particular kind of scumbag he is doesn't seem enormously productive (unless you are using it as the basis of your thesis in political science, which no doubt many will do).
My strong impression is that despite the desperation of several more liberal media outlets to find ever more extreme ways of shouting about how shocking last Wednesday's coup was the response in America seems largely meh.
Why? I think that the completely disorganised and incompetent nature of the Capitol invasion didn't look anything like a conventional coup. It was not a complete joke, some people died including a police officer doing his duty but even there people who died of medical emergencies were counted amongst the dead to try and dramatise it. The studios competed into the night, the participants were "terrorists", "rioters" (quick, think of another emotive word) but they looked like bozos wearing ridiculous costumes and acting like arseholes. It was hard to take such idiots seriously.
This by no means indicates that those that triggered this shambles should not bear the consequences. Trump should be impeached and banned from public office. He should go to jail (but probably won't). The Republic is less secure than it was on Tuesday. The envelope of the possible has been extended, the Rubicon has been crossed. It is no longer as inconceivable that a leader will try to use a mob to effect political change as it was on Tuesday. This is a very bad thing, no question. But Trump simply remains a scumbag, he is not genuinely worthy of our attention no matter how much he craves it.
I don't know what a "conventional" coup looks like, as they're all different and many attempts are full of stupidity, miscalculation and weird accidents. But the allegation is:
1) Trump whipped up people with (false) claims that the election was stolen 2) He purged the Pentagon after the election and put minions in key positions 3) He prepared his people to think something would happen on Jan 6th that would result in him staying 4) He told his people to march on Congress 5) He celebrated the intrusion into Congress when it was happening 6) The people he'd placed in step (2) denied authorization for a response
The key part of this is (2) and (6). If they're correct, as they seem to be, I think it's very clearly a straightforward coup attempt, even if parts of the plan seem to have come out of the underpants-collecting gnomes powerpoint.
Agree with this. The 10 ex Def Secs going into print was a seriously ballsy move by them. The fact that they made it is very good evidence that 2 and 6 are actually the case.
That might be one of the idaho/nevada militias classed as domestic terrorists listed in the article I posted at the bottom of this year. They've been protecting individuals and corporations from federal environmental regulations on an ultra-libertarian agenda for years, and have been involved in lots of stand-offs.
Alternately, and quite plausibly, it could be a newly organised group of white nationalists, as Kovler who predicted the events I think said was the other main, most organised strain of the groups there.
There must be a story to be told about how the Capital was cleared, that afternoon, with people like that inside.
With remarkable ease, it appeared, once a decision to act had been taken. Being in fancy dress doesn't make you serious. They seem to have had very few, if any, actual objectives and once they had wandered around the building a bit and shown that they could they seem to have been reasonably open to being moved on.
Probably so.
But it does appear that some of them had some sort of a plan to capture some of the politicians and then...well, one can only speculate.
The key appears to have been evacuating the Senate and barricading the House, leaving the organised elements of the rioters with no Plan B.
I think classifying Trump as a scumbag is quite sufficient and it is then possible to move on. As Alastair says angsting over what particular kind of scumbag he is doesn't seem enormously productive (unless you are using it as the basis of your thesis in political science, which no doubt many will do).
My strong impression is that despite the desperation of several more liberal media outlets to find ever more extreme ways of shouting about how shocking last Wednesday's coup was the response in America seems largely meh.
Why? I think that the completely disorganised and incompetent nature of the Capitol invasion didn't look anything like a conventional coup. It was not a complete joke, some people died including a police officer doing his duty but even there people who died of medical emergencies were counted amongst the dead to try and dramatise it. The studios competed into the night, the participants were "terrorists", "rioters" (quick, think of another emotive word) but they looked like bozos wearing ridiculous costumes and acting like arseholes. It was hard to take such idiots seriously.
This by no means indicates that those that triggered this shambles should not bear the consequences. Trump should be impeached and banned from public office. He should go to jail (but probably won't). The Republic is less secure than it was on Tuesday. The envelope of the possible has been extended, the Rubicon has been crossed. It is no longer as inconceivable that a leader will try to use a mob to effect political change as it was on Tuesday. This is a very bad thing, no question. But Trump simply remains a scumbag, he is not genuinely worthy of our attention no matter how much he craves it.
I started to feel quite angry reading your post, so I read it again and felt a bit calmer because you do save yourself in the last paragraph and much of what you say is right. But there's one bit I can't leave unaddressed:
"The studios competed into the night, the participants were "terrorists", "rioters" (quick, think of another emotive word) but they looked like bozos wearing ridiculous costumes and acting like arseholes. It was hard to take such idiots seriously."
Yes, someone wearing a fur hood and horns does look ridiculous, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take those revolting against democracy seriously. A clown with a loaded gun is still a person with a loaded gun. This has actually been a recurring theme of the past few years. Breathless media descriptions of the "alt right" focusing on their sharp suits. People taking Trump as a joke because he's orange and has ridiculous hair. A lesson for a a wannabe dictator is to adopt some style that is slightly comical, because you can get attention from it, which helps you get your message across.
But the message is the important thing. And, more tellingly, the armour-clad fascists behind the clown, they're the ones who will do the damage.
It's not good enough to focus only on the grinning idiot carrying a lectern when the place was crawling with people who literally wanted to kill senators and the vice-president. We cannot allow fascism to walk behind a fluffy mascot.
Comments
The reality of the situation for Scottish exporters post-Brexit is clear
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2021/01/10/state-broadcaster-throws-word-safety-net-around-state/
We will all benefit from some healthy competition. Especially Wales
Enjoy, or not, some rambly thoughts on 2021:
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/01/2021-f1-season-preamble.html
The press conference wasn't after a week after Cummings had been on the front pages for a week, it was two days after the story broke,
I was told by a few pollsters who were carrying regular focus groups at the time, the moment the country felt a real disconnect between the powers that be and themselves.
Prior to that the voters weren't impressed by the government when the government was telling the country to do x/y/z but managed to get a massive outbreak inside Downing Street but the schism came when ministers started saying shit like this.
https://twitter.com/SuellaBraverman/status/1264174355975671810
That somehow Cummings was a better parent that those who stuck to the lockdown rules.
Note that statement was hours after the story broke.
The irony being that Bozo dispensed with him later when (and possibly because, according to rumour) he was in the right.
I think I`d want more than 3/1 to be tempted.
https://twitter.com/robbie_andrew/status/1347866954569232384
Still no news on a first jab for my 83 year old mum (Hastings) or my 88 year old father-in-law* (Somerset).
(*In fact he did have an appt for 22nd December but that was cancelled due to 'supply issues')
That will mean larger chassis changes to accommodate a different engine which will be either a good thing (sending them up the pack) or a complete failure. I suspect we will know where Mclaren end up by the end of the first race.
Unless you've had your second Pfizer jab and a couple of weeks have passed, there's still a very substantial risk both to yourself and to people you come in contact with.
Even the 5% unlucky enough not to be protected after two Pfizer jabs could still do a lot of damage while most of the population remains unvaccinated.
Too many people treating the vaccination as a freedom pass could actually make the situation worse rather than better, at least in the short to medium term.
"Poots in storm as Michael Gove warns Irish Sea Brexit border chaos will get worse"
https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/
There were also, shall we say, differing approaches to the Brexit negotiations when Boris was in the ICU with Covid. It was said there were attempts to bounce the UK into a 3 year extension to the Withdrawal Agreement whilst he was out the picture. Cummings scotched that, to very considerable consternation.
There was plenty going on in the background. Who knew what, when, and how long before the Durham road-trip stuff came out - that would be fascinating to know.
- Alberta government minister Tracy Allard broke rules to spend a family Christmas in Hawaii, arriving home to "Aloha Allard" placards on local buildings, and has resigned from the cabinet;
-
- Ontario finance minister Rod Phillips broadcast a video message on Christmas Eve thanking his constituents for observing the lockdown, which it transpired had been pre-recorded as he was on holiday in the Caribbean for Christmas. He too has resigned.
Trust your good lady continues to improve.
Bravo, Alastair. We truly are not worthy.
And the comparison of multinational quasi monopoly businesses with a local pub isn’t a very useful way of looking at what’s a real problem.
I wouldn’t argue with Twitter’s actions, but I’m rather more troubled. about infrastructure businesses like AWS setting themselves up as censors.
In any case from a Trumpites perspective a President Harris would be even worse for them than President Biden will be
On that basis, 3/1 is poor value IMO.
Labour having voted for the Deal are on 40%, up 8% on their GE19 voteshare, the LDs having voted against the Deal are on just 6%, down 5% on their GE19 voteshare.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1347996566083182592?s=20
Starmer did what he needed before the deal in saying he wouldn’t vote against one. He gave Johnson the space to ignore his wilder backbenchers and get it done.
An abstention on the basis that this obviously wasn’t Labour’s preferred solution (whatever that might have been ?), but was far preferable to no deal, would have been entirely sensible.
/bloody hell - looks organised there
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55605009?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5ffacf71e81bcc02ea0f72ed&Every adult to be offered Covid vaccine by autumn - Hancock&2021-01-10T09:58:53.567Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:86173fce-4b27-4f6e-b410-4be8fc1f47b8&pinned_post_asset_id=5ffacf71e81bcc02ea0f72ed&pinned_post_type=share
Just heard Marr declare that we may have the1 hour limit on exercise reimposed 'like last time'.
That was never a legal limit.
My strong impression is that despite the desperation of several more liberal media outlets to find ever more extreme ways of shouting about how shocking last Wednesday's coup was the response in America seems largely meh.
Why? I think that the completely disorganised and incompetent nature of the Capitol invasion didn't look anything like a conventional coup. It was not a complete joke, some people died including a police officer doing his duty but even there people who died of medical emergencies were counted amongst the dead to try and dramatise it. The studios competed into the night, the participants were "terrorists", "rioters" (quick, think of another emotive word) but they looked like bozos wearing ridiculous costumes and acting like arseholes. It was hard to take such idiots seriously.
This by no means indicates that those that triggered this shambles should not bear the consequences. Trump should be impeached and banned from public office. He should go to jail (but probably won't). The Republic is less secure than it was on Tuesday. The envelope of the possible has been extended, the Rubicon has been crossed. It is no longer as inconceivable that a leader will try to use a mob to effect political change as it was on Tuesday. This is a very bad thing, no question. But Trump simply remains a scumbag, he is not genuinely worthy of our attention no matter how much he craves it.
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1348080234265006082
Does Trump actually think: 1) that the election was rigged and fraudulent and therefore stolen from him or 2) he would have won if it wasn`t for Covid and this isn't fair and so it was stolen from him.
I`m not quite sure which one (or both?) he truly believes.
You wouldn't want Norway to be a big win and D-Day a big disaster....
We all need to move on from Brexit. I'm done with it. It's over.
Alternately, and quite plausibly, it could be a newly organised group of white nationalists, as Kovler who predicted the events I think said was the other main, most organised strain of the groups there.
The last official figure was either 1.1m at 3 Jan, or 1.3m at 3 Jan, depending on which gov.uk page you are looking at. With 300k having been added during the week prior.
The rest waffle. Verbosity and flowery language doesn't = quality. With a decent and ruthless editor most of the contributors would be half decent.
Credentials for saying this? Plenty.
All told, he would have won the election had he not scared off his voters from using absentee/postal ballots, a massive mistake in normal circumstances, but even more pronounced when there's a pandemic on.
Meanwhile his opponents increased their use of absentee/postal votes.
Trump's mistake is on a par if the Tories banned postal voting.
So - as a pragmatic former remainer - does it follow that the best thing for the UK is to hope that the EU fades or dissolves, and encourage countries that have similar difficulties with the concept if the EU?
I find some of my embittered fellow remainers a rather sad spectacle. What's done is done and it's pointless jabbering at the margins like demented has-beens.
It's over. For good or ill we have a new relationship with Europe and the world and we need to get on with it.
Would you like me to show whats Boris Johnson used to say about a border in the Irish Sea?
Mr Meeks' header, as is often the case, hits the target from an unusual angle. The Napoleon commentary in particular I found alarming. With thoughts of a resurgent Trump winning in 2024, declaring himself Emperor, what if he added an hereditary element that passes it on to Don Jnr. ? Now there's a thought. To
Lock him up! (Trump, not Mr Meeks!)
1) Trump whipped up people with (false) claims that the election was stolen
2) He purged the Pentagon after the election and put minions in key positions
3) He prepared his people to think something would happen on Jan 6th that would result in him staying
4) He told his people to march on Congress
5) He celebrated the intrusion into Congress when it was happening
6) The people he'd placed in step (2) denied authorization for a response
The key part of this is (2) and (6). If they're correct, as they seem to be, I think it's very clearly a straightforward coup attempt, even if parts of the plan seem to have come out of the underpants-collecting gnomes powerpoint.
On this poll there would be a 6% swing from the Tories to Labour since GE19 if there were an election now but there would also be a 0.5% swing from the LDs to the Tories.
So the Tories could even gain seats from the Liberal Democrats despite losing seats to Labour.
Marr pointed out that he had told the Daily Mirror he would bring back free movement of Labour and that his many supporters will be angered by his answer. He reiterated he would not bring free movement of Labour and it must follow that those who support closer ties or rejoining can only have one home and it is not Labour
Step forward the Lib Dems or SNP in Scotland
But it does appear that some of them had some sort of a plan to capture some of the politicians and then...well, one can only speculate.
The key appears to have been evacuating the Senate and barricading the House, leaving the organised elements of the rioters with no Plan B.
It could have turned out so very much worse.
"The studios competed into the night, the participants were "terrorists", "rioters" (quick, think of another emotive word) but they looked like bozos wearing ridiculous costumes and acting like arseholes. It was hard to take such idiots seriously."
Yes, someone wearing a fur hood and horns does look ridiculous, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take those revolting against democracy seriously. A clown with a loaded gun is still a person with a loaded gun.
This has actually been a recurring theme of the past few years. Breathless media descriptions of the "alt right" focusing on their sharp suits. People taking Trump as a joke because he's orange and has ridiculous hair.
A lesson for a a wannabe dictator is to adopt some style that is slightly comical, because you can get attention from it, which helps you get your message across.
But the message is the important thing. And, more tellingly, the armour-clad fascists behind the clown, they're the ones who will do the damage.
It's not good enough to focus only on the grinning idiot carrying a lectern when the place was crawling with people who literally wanted to kill senators and the vice-president. We cannot allow fascism to walk behind a fluffy mascot.