There’s suddenly a lot of interest in Tory circles in the work of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize-winning psychologist and behaviouralist. They are attracted to the professor’s thesis about how people recall difficult periods in their lives: they disproportionately remember, and therefore place the greatest weight, on how a harrowing episode came to an end. The contention is that even a deeply grim crisis can be thought of positively if the conclusion to it is an uplifting one.
Tory strategists are calculating that this is a trait of human nature that can be exploited to their party’s benefit. They reckon that a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
Someone down thread spoke of straw clutching. I know you try hard to find the silver lining but digging that one up must have taken a research department that would dwarf Saatchi's Worldwide
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
It's just as easy to get to Japan as it is to Germany. You get on an aeroplane.
Takes longer. And you can get a train to Germany.
OK then, two trains.
Or drive yourself.
Wot - no chauffeur?
Not a common situation among the students I've come across. You on the other hand may have a different experience!
Micheal Martin on Marr trying to dance a fine line of lightly scalding the EU without seeming disloyal to the EU vaccine programme or disloyal to the Commission's dispute with AZ. Claiming the EU gave AZ a lot of money for research and production just like the UK.
Sanofi got a downpayment of 324m Euros for their failed vaccine.
The Pasteur Institute - which stopped its unsuccessful Covid vaccine trial this week - benefited from this: "In an unprecedented move last March, President Emmanuel Macron increased France’s scientific research budget by 5 billion euros over the next 10 years and set up an emergency fund of 50 million euros to finance the search for a vaccine against COVID-19.
The EU has had the misfortune of backing nags that keep pulling up lame.
I'll agree with that, but you can't fault any government for chucking money at these companies. By rights all countries with money should be doing this. It's a gamble where the human race wins, hopefully.
Just a reminder that over 25% of all UK Covid deaths have happened in the last month. The various UK administrations fucked up winter so badly I can barely. Contain my anger.
Do you think uniquely fucked up, or just in line with the rest of the west? Genuine question. I think we have made some big errors, but the have been no easy choices. The economy plays a huge role in government thinking. Otherwise lock everything up until 0 cases.
Operation Save Christmas was a huge, predictable mistake.
A paradox: the big countries that have done best at getting vaccination going (UK and US) did really badly at keeping people alive until vaccinations came on stream. Wonder which way the cause/effect thing went?
And now, off to virtual (maybe also virtuous) church.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
It's just as easy to get to Japan as it is to Germany. You get on an aeroplane.
Takes longer. And you can get a train to Germany.
OK then, two trains.
Or drive yourself.
Or even better get your dad to drive you over with a car full of your stuff and then come back to pick you and said stuff up at the end. Hypothetically.
There’s suddenly a lot of interest in Tory circles in the work of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize-winning psychologist and behaviouralist. They are attracted to the professor’s thesis about how people recall difficult periods in their lives: they disproportionately remember, and therefore place the greatest weight, on how a harrowing episode came to an end. The contention is that even a deeply grim crisis can be thought of positively if the conclusion to it is an uplifting one.
Tory strategists are calculating that this is a trait of human nature that can be exploited to their party’s benefit. They reckon that a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
Even if the theory floats, I still can't see the Tories avoiding being holed below the waterline, once Sunak runs out of cheques to write.
That is easy, and has betting implications. A snap election before 2024. The Tories' sweet spot is after Covid is beaten but before the economy fails. Boris retiring would add a new leader's bounce, and Boris himself would go down in history as an electoral colossus who delivered Brexit and conquered Covid.
Ironically the country might do better with Boris in place. We do not need another austerity hawk to close down what is left of the economy.
An interesting idea.
When do the new boundaries come in? The Tories would probably want those in place.
It would be a risky strategy 3 years out from a GE by a Government with an 80 seat majority. I suspect the current volatility would make that unwise, and never has Harold's " a week is a long time in politics" point, been so apt. If they want a few extra years, best to use that majority to vote themselves a bonus.
Mind you, I would like to see the Conservatives chance their arm for an extra couple of years.
Its largely been a game of two halves, hasn't it? In the first half there were some unnecessary errors that cost lives, the moving of infected patients out of hospitals and into care homes, the complete failure to protect our borders, the shambles of the tracing app, the ridiculous complexity of tiers reducing compliance and understanding, overall not great although the scale and effectiveness of the economic interventions in furlough, grants, bounce back loans grants for the self employed etc were good points
In the second half some of the seeds planted in the first have blossomed. The early and massive investment in vaccine and vaccine production in the UK has paid off in a staggering way, after the early shambles our testing is on a massive scale, our roll out of vaccines is proceeding exceptionally, the perception of overall performance is improving albeit we are still screwing up quarantine.
Overall, the success with the vaccines edges me to a B+ or just maybe an A-. Could have been much better, could have been a lot worse.
The communications throughout has been pretty awful, making possibly understandable mistakes indefensible and, as you say, policies that were so complicated that it actively hindered what they were trying to achieve.
They've still not worked out the right approach for it, giving it the weight and sensitivity it warrants but also knocking the many, many nonsenses on the head, promptly and efficiently.
I wouldn't disagree. For every short simple message such as Face space hands there has been conflicting messaging and at times a reluctance to see the obvious because it was unpalatable (eg Christmas). The way schools and exams have been handled both north and south of the borders has bordered on a disgrace. But you don't need to study the likes of Kahneman to realise that a strong finish may well be what counts.
Eat Out To Help Out....is going to take a lot of explaining.
An independent report this week said that it had no effect, not least because restaurants had in place excellent covid measures
Morons may simply be stupid. They're pillocks. Bit more judgement against them with that.
I was watching the final season of Veep last night. There's pretty much a whole episode where the loon far right POTUS candidate Jonah suddenly latches onto the anti-vaxxers as a whole new part of the electorate he can exploit.
Filmed/showed in 2019!!!
"Sticking a disease into you when you haven't even got it already? That can't be right."
"Personally I think if he wishes to stay on Boris will win a crushing victory at the next General Election."
Do people responsible for the pointless deaths of 150k people tend to win crushing election victories?
Yes, the vaccine roll-out is bloody brilliant. And could have been so on the back of a brilliantly-managed pandemic where our infection and death rates were not so stratospheric.
The fight against Covid came with no instruction manual - just a million parts to be assembled.
It has taken politicians and scientists months to work together in a way that delivers an acceptable outcome. Initially, the politicians were thinking the cost of implementing scientists' recommendations was just far too expensive on the economy. The scientists said "find the money - or have huge numbers of dead." So Rishi found the money. But then the politicians said "We can't carry on like this. Lockdown after lockdown. People aren't going to live with these restrictions. Find us the vaccine. Here - have as much money as it takes. Take who you need. But find a way." So the scientists found the vaccine and a way to manufacture it. A combined international effort for sure, but one where the UK was comfortably at the heart of - for a change. The scientists were backed up by a Government taking shrewd decisions on what to do next.
The route to this escape strategy has been somewhat saw-toothed. The monomania of having hospitals cleared ready for patients meant infecting care homes. In the first wave, sometimes that capacity was standing idle as the elderly died outside them. The refusal to close borders - or at least have a working, monitored quarantine system for those coming here - will be long debated. It has allowed a huge number of sources of infections and mutant strains to get a foothold in the population. We did not properly use our island status as part of the strategy to prevent transmission. We kow that issues have been debated and had split camps in Cabinet. Hopefully some now regret their positions as 100,000 dead has been breached - and that still isn't the end-point.
But for all the errors, there have been some seriously wise decisions taken. These decisions have got us to the point where - absent a new strain that undermines all the good work we have been doing on getting folks jabbed - we can already rest easier that many of those most at risk now have a vaccine fighting their corner, keeping them safe from the worst of the horrors of hospitalization. That is a huge step forward. As many as there might be people who have had a close friend or family member die, there are now far, far more who know of a friend, family member, loved one who is in a far better safer place than they were at Christmas.
As Churchill said, "If you're going through hell - keep going." Boris may not yet have delivered the sunlit uplands of Brexit*, but he is delivering the sunlit uplands of a post-Covid Britain. As I have said before, the Government's Covid scorecard will be marked "Good start, wretched middle, strong finish". They'd probably have taken that at the start of this thing.
*he has subcontracted that job to Liz Truss...
He has barely started to think about post-Covid Britain. No-one, other than a few commentators, yet have, and they are bound to be wide of the mark.
Current polling suggests the public has growing appetite for some 1945-style big changes. Whether that desire persists as and when 'normality' returns remains to be seen.
Good thing so many of the Senators have already effectively signalled they won't allow conviction under any circumstances (I don't buy any, let alone sufficient numbers, will simply stay away), given Trump seems to be having issues with his legal team.
Former US President Donald Trump has parted ways with lawyers representing him in his impeachment trial in the Senate, US media report.
The departure of Butch Bowers and Deborah Barberi was reportedly a mutual decision...
Greg Harris and Johnny Gasser, two former federal prosecutors from South Carolina, have also left the team, the Associated Press reports. They were reportedly unwilling to defend Mr Trump on the basis of alleged election fraud.
I'd be unwilling too - why would alleged election fraud be relevant? That would seem more of a basis for a confession of incitement, but arguing it was justified.
There’s suddenly a lot of interest in Tory circles in the work of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize-winning psychologist and behaviouralist. They are attracted to the professor’s thesis about how people recall difficult periods in their lives: they disproportionately remember, and therefore place the greatest weight, on how a harrowing episode came to an end. The contention is that even a deeply grim crisis can be thought of positively if the conclusion to it is an uplifting one.
Tory strategists are calculating that this is a trait of human nature that can be exploited to their party’s benefit. They reckon that a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
Even if the theory floats, I still can't see the Tories avoiding being holed below the waterline, once Sunak runs out of cheques to write.
That is easy, and has betting implications. A snap election before 2024. The Tories' sweet spot is after Covid is beaten but before the economy fails. Boris retiring would add a new leader's bounce, and Boris himself would go down in history as an electoral colossus who delivered Brexit and conquered Covid.
Ironically the country might do better with Boris in place. We do not need another austerity hawk to close down what is left of the economy.
An interesting idea.
When do the new boundaries come in? The Tories would probably want those in place.
Final report is due by July 2023.
So, the Tories have a year to play with?
I think @DecrepitJohnL may be right that -- it could be attractive for the Tories to go early. Autumn 2023 ?
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
It's just as easy to get to Japan as it is to Germany. You get on an aeroplane.
Takes longer. And you can get a train to Germany.
OK then, two trains.
Or drive yourself.
Or even better get your dad to drive you over with a car full of your stuff and then come back to pick you and said stuff up at the end. Hypothetically.
You haven't got your car, though, in which to go sightseeing and whatever else students today do in cars.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
I think that many of tomorrow's students having the opportunity to study in the US will be very grateful for the Turing scheme which takes Erasmus and applies it worldwide
The irony is the EU got a better deal out of the old Erasmus system than the UK did - they sent substantially more students to the UK than the UK sent to the EU. Their demand to substantially increase the price to the UK of them sending students to us was classic imperial over-reach.
Its largely been a game of two halves, hasn't it? In the first half there were some unnecessary errors that cost lives, the moving of infected patients out of hospitals and into care homes, the complete failure to protect our borders, the shambles of the tracing app, the ridiculous complexity of tiers reducing compliance and understanding, overall not great although the scale and effectiveness of the economic interventions in furlough, grants, bounce back loans grants for the self employed etc were good points
In the second half some of the seeds planted in the first have blossomed. The early and massive investment in vaccine and vaccine production in the UK has paid off in a staggering way, after the early shambles our testing is on a massive scale, our roll out of vaccines is proceeding exceptionally, the perception of overall performance is improving albeit we are still screwing up quarantine.
Overall, the success with the vaccines edges me to a B+ or just maybe an A-. Could have been much better, could have been a lot worse.
The communications throughout has been pretty awful, making possibly understandable mistakes indefensible and, as you say, policies that were so complicated that it actively hindered what they were trying to achieve.
They've still not worked out the right approach for it, giving it the weight and sensitivity it warrants but also knocking the many, many nonsenses on the head, promptly and efficiently.
I wouldn't disagree. For every short simple message such as Face space hands there has been conflicting messaging and at times a reluctance to see the obvious because it was unpalatable (eg Christmas). The way schools and exams have been handled both north and south of the borders has bordered on a disgrace. But you don't need to study the likes of Kahneman to realise that a strong finish may well be what counts.
Eat Out To Help Out....is going to take a lot of explaining.
An independent report this week said that it had no effect, not least because restaurants had in place excellent covid measures
At the time on pb there was speculation (not least from YT) that blaming Rishi's Dishes was cover for the virus spread by reopened schools.
Just wait till the dust settles. This narcissist who adores dressing up with more costume changes than Danny La Rue will be out on his arse. Just the tiniest bit of reflection by the voters after the immediate dangers have passed and he'll be lucky if he isn't exiled let alone be permitted to remain PM
Are you talking about Johnson?
He'll face the electorate in 2024 and probably win a very tight race and do another 3/4 of a term is my guess at this point.
Are you talking about Johnson?
Yes. The very same. Happily I seem to have found someone who's ability to predict the political future is even worse than mine..
Well, I was certainly completely wrong about Trump in 2016.
Oh I'd forgotten that as well: I also predicted Trump's 2016 win.
Boris Johnson will win a crushing victory next time if he chooses to stay on.
Rachel Reeves on Sophy trying to justify labour's teacher policy when her Welsh colleague, Mark Drakeford, rejects the policy saying he will only follow JCVI advice
Labour in opposition saying one thing, and Labour in power saying another. Who’d have thought it?
Incidentally, it was very decent and contrite of Johnson to take the rap for 100,000 deaths and all that. And I notice that some pb contributors continue to pile in on him and the Gov't e.g. Alastair below.
However, let's be in no doubt that the British people are also to blame. We don't listen to advice. We don't follow rules. We don't socially distance. We don't obey lockdown. And we don't wear face masks (still) when we should.
The British Gov't can only do so much with a recalcitrant population unless they want to behave like China.
Its largely been a game of two halves, hasn't it? In the first half there were some unnecessary errors that cost lives, the moving of infected patients out of hospitals and into care homes, the complete failure to protect our borders, the shambles of the tracing app, the ridiculous complexity of tiers reducing compliance and understanding, overall not great although the scale and effectiveness of the economic interventions in furlough, grants, bounce back loans grants for the self employed etc were good points
In the second half some of the seeds planted in the first have blossomed. The early and massive investment in vaccine and vaccine production in the UK has paid off in a staggering way, after the early shambles our testing is on a massive scale, our roll out of vaccines is proceeding exceptionally, the perception of overall performance is improving albeit we are still screwing up quarantine.
Overall, the success with the vaccines edges me to a B+ or just maybe an A-. Could have been much better, could have been a lot worse.
The communications throughout has been pretty awful, making possibly understandable mistakes indefensible and, as you say, policies that were so complicated that it actively hindered what they were trying to achieve.
They've still not worked out the right approach for it, giving it the weight and sensitivity it warrants but also knocking the many, many nonsenses on the head, promptly and efficiently.
I wouldn't disagree. For every short simple message such as Face space hands there has been conflicting messaging and at times a reluctance to see the obvious because it was unpalatable (eg Christmas). The way schools and exams have been handled both north and south of the borders has bordered on a disgrace. But you don't need to study the likes of Kahneman to realise that a strong finish may well be what counts.
Eat Out To Help Out....is going to take a lot of explaining.
Eating out wasn’t the issue. Going en-masse to Spain and Italy, and ignoring social distancing, were the issues.
Anyone who has lost a loved one will not like to hear that politicians and their backers are conjecturing that the vaccination programme will be a shot in the arm for the prime minister’s popularity. The hard truth is that lots of Tories are privately talking about it. And so are their opponents.
Any public inquiry worthy of the name is most unlikely to agree with his claim that “we truly did everything we could”. Even senior Tories agree that there will have to be some kind of “reckoning”, as one puts it, for why the UK has the highest death toll in Europe and one of the worst mortality rates in the world..
Public confidence in the government has been very badly corroded and there were points over the past 10 months when it looked as though it might disintegrate entirely, but it never quite did. Mr Johnson has been cushioned by the substantial segment of the public who have always been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Labour MPs report they often come across voters saying things such as “Boris is doing his best” and “anyone would have struggled”.
One Labour frontbencher tells me: “In our focus groups, the more we attack the government, the more people don’t like it.” The accusation that the government has been too slow to take measures to control the virus resonates with the public because they largely agree. “Anywhere else you attack them, you have people saying, ‘That’s not fair.’”
The vaccination programme offers succour to the public that a conclusion to the crisis is in sight. Or, if not an end, at least the prospect of returning to something more resembling normal life. It is also the one international comparator where Britain has an enviable record rather than a ghastly one.
Tory strategists are calculating that..a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
I think that many of tomorrow's students having the opportunity to study in the US will be very grateful for the Turing scheme which takes Erasmus and applies it worldwide
The irony is the EU got a better deal out of the old Erasmus system than the UK did - they sent substantially more students to the UK than the UK sent to the EU. Their demand to substantially increase the price to the UK of them sending students to us was classic imperial over-reach.
Sounds daft, I agree. How did the charges compare, though, with those face by other non-EU countries?
IF you are a person that had to junk a long standing family business for ever, or a single mum with three kids and one computer in a council flat, are you really thinking about the government's covid death count?
No you are thinking about how lockdown destroyed your life, and the lives of those you love.
Its largely been a game of two halves, hasn't it? In the first half there were some unnecessary errors that cost lives, the moving of infected patients out of hospitals and into care homes, the complete failure to protect our borders, the shambles of the tracing app, the ridiculous complexity of tiers reducing compliance and understanding, overall not great although the scale and effectiveness of the economic interventions in furlough, grants, bounce back loans grants for the self employed etc were good points
In the second half some of the seeds planted in the first have blossomed. The early and massive investment in vaccine and vaccine production in the UK has paid off in a staggering way, after the early shambles our testing is on a massive scale, our roll out of vaccines is proceeding exceptionally, the perception of overall performance is improving albeit we are still screwing up quarantine.
Overall, the success with the vaccines edges me to a B+ or just maybe an A-. Could have been much better, could have been a lot worse.
The communications throughout has been pretty awful, making possibly understandable mistakes indefensible and, as you say, policies that were so complicated that it actively hindered what they were trying to achieve.
They've still not worked out the right approach for it, giving it the weight and sensitivity it warrants but also knocking the many, many nonsenses on the head, promptly and efficiently.
I wouldn't disagree. For every short simple message such as Face space hands there has been conflicting messaging and at times a reluctance to see the obvious because it was unpalatable (eg Christmas). The way schools and exams have been handled both north and south of the borders has bordered on a disgrace. But you don't need to study the likes of Kahneman to realise that a strong finish may well be what counts.
Eat Out To Help Out....is going to take a lot of explaining.
An independent report this week said that it had no effect, not least because restaurants had in place excellent covid measures
Even if that's correct it created an environment that told people the problem was over. Life was back to normal and we could all help by behaving normally.
In the light of what has happened since this was a calamitous decision. The second wave has been much more destructive than the first and also in retrospect much more predictable.
No you are thinking about how lockdown destroyed your life, and the lives of those you love.
People I know in this position are extremely grateful for how the Gov't stepped in with massive financial assistance. And most of them I've spoken to were not tory supporters.
There’s suddenly a lot of interest in Tory circles in the work of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize-winning psychologist and behaviouralist. They are attracted to the professor’s thesis about how people recall difficult periods in their lives: they disproportionately remember, and therefore place the greatest weight, on how a harrowing episode came to an end. The contention is that even a deeply grim crisis can be thought of positively if the conclusion to it is an uplifting one.
Tory strategists are calculating that this is a trait of human nature that can be exploited to their party’s benefit. They reckon that a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
Even if the theory floats, I still can't see the Tories avoiding being holed below the waterline, once Sunak runs out of cheques to write.
That is easy, and has betting implications. A snap election before 2024. The Tories' sweet spot is after Covid is beaten but before the economy fails. Boris retiring would add a new leader's bounce, and Boris himself would go down in history as an electoral colossus who delivered Brexit and conquered Covid.
Ironically the country might do better with Boris in place. We do not need another austerity hawk to close down what is left of the economy.
An interesting idea.
When do the new boundaries come in? The Tories would probably want those in place.
Final report is due by July 2023.
So, the Tories have a year to play with?
I think @DecrepitJohnL may be right that -- it could be attractive for the Tories to go early. Autumn 2023 ?
Can Sunak continue to hose money over a grateful electorate until Autumn 2023?
I have Autumn 2023 pencilled in as the date the Tories hit their very lowest thirties polling before picking up some points before GE May 2024.
"Personally I think if he wishes to stay on Boris will win a crushing victory at the next General Election."
Do people responsible for the pointless deaths of 150k people tend to win crushing election victories?
Yes, the vaccine roll-out is bloody brilliant. And could have been so on the back of a brilliantly-managed pandemic where our infection and death rates were not so stratospheric.
The fight against Covid came with no instruction manual - just a million parts to be assembled.
It has taken politicians and scientists months to work together in a way that delivers an acceptable outcome. Initially, the politicians were thinking the cost of implementing scientists' recommendations was just far too expensive on the economy. The scientists said "find the money - or have huge numbers of dead." So Rishi found the money. But then the politicians said "We can't carry on like this. Lockdown after lockdown. People aren't going to live with these restrictions. Find us the vaccine. Here - have as much money as it takes. Take who you need. But find a way." So the scientists found the vaccine and a way to manufacture it. A combined international effort for sure, but one where the UK was comfortably at the heart of - for a change. The scientists were backed up by a Government taking shrewd decisions on what to do next.
The route to this escape strategy has been somewhat saw-toothed. The monomania of having hospitals cleared ready for patients meant infecting care homes. In the first wave, sometimes that capacity was standing idle as the elderly died outside them. The refusal to close borders - or at least have a working, monitored quarantine system for those coming here - will be long debated. It has allowed a huge number of sources of infections and mutant strains to get a foothold in the population. We did not properly use our island status as part of the strategy to prevent transmission. We kow that issues have been debated and had split camps in Cabinet. Hopefully some now regret their positions as 100,000 dead has been breached - and that still isn't the end-point.
But for all the errors, there have been some seriously wise decisions taken. These decisions have got us to the point where - absent a new strain that undermines all the good work we have been doing on getting folks jabbed - we can already rest easier that many of those most at risk now have a vaccine fighting their corner, keeping them safe from the worst of the horrors of hospitalization. That is a huge step forward. As many as there might be people who have had a close friend or family member die, there are now far, far more who know of a friend, family member, loved one who is in a far better safer place than they were at Christmas.
As Churchill said, "If you're going through hell - keep going." Boris may not yet have delivered the sunlit uplands of Brexit*, but he is delivering the sunlit uplands of a post-Covid Britain. As I have said before, the Government's Covid scorecard will be marked "Good start, wretched middle, strong finish". They'd probably have taken that at the start of this thing.
*he has subcontracted that job to Liz Truss...
He has barely started to think about post-Covid Britain. No-one, other than a few commentators, yet have, and they are bound to be wide of the mark.
Current polling suggests the public has growing appetite for some 1945-style big changes. Whether that desire persists as and when 'normality' returns remains to be seen.
Big Stuff is where Boris is in his comfort zone. Especially if it comes with hard hats, hi-viz jackets and diggers.
His biggest frustration with the Covid pandemic is that it has robbed him of 18+ months of his term in which to get things done - and all the money with which to do it. I have no doubt without it, he would have started on an ambitious plan to get delivering for the Red Wall Tories. But as long as he can make a start, it will at least allow him to appeal - "give me another term to fully implement this change."
Its largely been a game of two halves, hasn't it? In the first half there were some unnecessary errors that cost lives, the moving of infected patients out of hospitals and into care homes, the complete failure to protect our borders, the shambles of the tracing app, the ridiculous complexity of tiers reducing compliance and understanding, overall not great although the scale and effectiveness of the economic interventions in furlough, grants, bounce back loans grants for the self employed etc were good points
In the second half some of the seeds planted in the first have blossomed. The early and massive investment in vaccine and vaccine production in the UK has paid off in a staggering way, after the early shambles our testing is on a massive scale, our roll out of vaccines is proceeding exceptionally, the perception of overall performance is improving albeit we are still screwing up quarantine.
Overall, the success with the vaccines edges me to a B+ or just maybe an A-. Could have been much better, could have been a lot worse.
The communications throughout has been pretty awful, making possibly understandable mistakes indefensible and, as you say, policies that were so complicated that it actively hindered what they were trying to achieve.
They've still not worked out the right approach for it, giving it the weight and sensitivity it warrants but also knocking the many, many nonsenses on the head, promptly and efficiently.
I wouldn't disagree. For every short simple message such as Face space hands there has been conflicting messaging and at times a reluctance to see the obvious because it was unpalatable (eg Christmas). The way schools and exams have been handled both north and south of the borders has bordered on a disgrace. But you don't need to study the likes of Kahneman to realise that a strong finish may well be what counts.
Eat Out To Help Out....is going to take a lot of explaining.
Eating out wasn’t the issue. Going en-masse to Spain and Italy, and ignoring social distancing, were the issues.
Those activities have been more or less curtailed since the beginning of November, and yet, as Alistair pointed out, a quarter of the all covid deaths have still happened in the last month. In the depths of a lockdown.
‘one in eight Britons say they have lost a close friend or family member to [Covid-19].’
That works out at c.80 family members/close friends per deceased, which I’m sceptical about.
Data + Journalist = Bollocks.
How about doing some research before spouting your usual bollocks.
It was based on a YouGov poll.
The figures were produced by the statisticians who work for YouGov, some of them have even worked for the ONS, which is pretty good.
It was also backed up by other evidence, such as 'The average number of Facebook friends for an adult is now 338. The median number of Facebook friends is 200.'
I wouldn't call a Facebook friend a 'close friend'. I'm always being invited to make a friend of someone who is a friend of a friend, and I very often can't work out whose friend they might be. And no, I almost never sign them up. I think I know some 25-30 people who have tested positive, but although some are extended family I would only describe two or three as being 'close;'. I know a couple of people who caught the virus in hospital, and died, but they were very ill anyway. (eg 90+ and with a serious heart condition.)
As I said earlier I think this depends on people's interpretation of 'close'.
Dunbar's number is between 100 - 230 (with 150 the commonly detected value) of meaningful human relationships that the neocortex can process.
There’s suddenly a lot of interest in Tory circles in the work of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize-winning psychologist and behaviouralist. They are attracted to the professor’s thesis about how people recall difficult periods in their lives: they disproportionately remember, and therefore place the greatest weight, on how a harrowing episode came to an end. The contention is that even a deeply grim crisis can be thought of positively if the conclusion to it is an uplifting one.
Tory strategists are calculating that this is a trait of human nature that can be exploited to their party’s benefit. They reckon that a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
Even if the theory floats, I still can't see the Tories avoiding being holed below the waterline, once Sunak runs out of cheques to write.
That is easy, and has betting implications. A snap election before 2024. The Tories' sweet spot is after Covid is beaten but before the economy fails. Boris retiring would add a new leader's bounce, and Boris himself would go down in history as an electoral colossus who delivered Brexit and conquered Covid.
Ironically the country might do better with Boris in place. We do not need another austerity hawk to close down what is left of the economy.
An interesting idea.
When do the new boundaries come in? The Tories would probably want those in place.
Final report is due by July 2023.
So, the Tories have a year to play with?
I think @DecrepitJohnL may be right that -- it could be attractive for the Tories to go early. Autumn 2023 ?
Can Sunak continue to hose money over a grateful electorate until Autumn 2023?
I have Autumn 2023 pencilled in as the date the Tories hit their very lowest thirties polling before picking up some points before GE May 2024.
Fancy a bet then?
Tories will take a 10% lead in the polls by this time next year.
"Personally I think if he wishes to stay on Boris will win a crushing victory at the next General Election."
Do people responsible for the pointless deaths of 150k people tend to win crushing election victories?
Yes, the vaccine roll-out is bloody brilliant. And could have been so on the back of a brilliantly-managed pandemic where our infection and death rates were not so stratospheric.
The fight against Covid came with no instruction manual - just a million parts to be assembled.
It has taken politicians and scientists months to work together in a way that delivers an acceptable outcome. Initially, the politicians were thinking the cost of implementing scientists' recommendations was just far too expensive on the economy. The scientists said "find the money - or have huge numbers of dead." So Rishi found the money. But then the politicians said "We can't carry on like this. Lockdown after lockdown. People aren't going to live with these restrictions. Find us the vaccine. Here - have as much money as it takes. Take who you need. But find a way." So the scientists found the vaccine and a way to manufacture it. A combined international effort for sure, but one where the UK was comfortably at the heart of - for a change. The scientists were backed up by a Government taking shrewd decisions on what to do next.
The route to this escape strategy has been somewhat saw-toothed. The monomania of having hospitals cleared ready for patients meant infecting care homes. In the first wave, sometimes that capacity was standing idle as the elderly died outside them. The refusal to close borders - or at least have a working, monitored quarantine system for those coming here - will be long debated. It has allowed a huge number of sources of infections and mutant strains to get a foothold in the population. We did not properly use our island status as part of the strategy to prevent transmission. We kow that issues have been debated and had split camps in Cabinet. Hopefully some now regret their positions as 100,000 dead has been breached - and that still isn't the end-point.
But for all the errors, there have been some seriously wise decisions taken. These decisions have got us to the point where - absent a new strain that undermines all the good work we have been doing on getting folks jabbed - we can already rest easier that many of those most at risk now have a vaccine fighting their corner, keeping them safe from the worst of the horrors of hospitalization. That is a huge step forward. As many as there might be people who have had a close friend or family member die, there are now far, far more who know of a friend, family member, loved one who is in a far better safer place than they were at Christmas.
As Churchill said, "If you're going through hell - keep going." Boris may not yet have delivered the sunlit uplands of Brexit*, but he is delivering the sunlit uplands of a post-Covid Britain. As I have said before, the Government's Covid scorecard will be marked "Good start, wretched middle, strong finish". They'd probably have taken that at the start of this thing.
*he has subcontracted that job to Liz Truss...
He has barely started to think about post-Covid Britain. No-one, other than a few commentators, yet have, and they are bound to be wide of the mark.
Current polling suggests the public has growing appetite for some 1945-style big changes. Whether that desire persists as and when 'normality' returns remains to be seen.
Big Stuff is where Boris is in his comfort zone. Especially if it comes with hard hats, hi-viz jackets and diggers.
His biggest frustration with the Covid pandemic is that it has robbed him of 18+ months of his term in which to get things done - and all the money with which to do it. I have no doubt without it, he would have started on an ambitious plan to get delivering for the Red Wall Tories. But as long as he can make a start, it will at least allow him to appeal - "give me another term to fully implement this change."
Not sure it will work, having lost those 18 months at least, but he has a big cushion to start with so it may be enough.
Watching Marr interviewing the Taoiseach made me want to throw something at the tv. Marr asked him to comment about the poor vaccine programme in EU. The Taoiseach went on a ramble about it being the fault of the failure of AZ to deliver on agreed volumes and that they hadn’t had issues with other companies and Marr just let it ride.
Why are the EU not being pulled up on blaming AZ for their problems - they didn’t even approve it until Friday so the slow roll out is nothing to do with AZ and is down to the EU slow approvals, poor purchasing negotiations and badly coordinated country based vaccination plans.
If the EU had approved AZ in December and no deliveries then fine but no jabs from AZ before Friday are purely the fault of the EU.
On top of this Pfizer and Moderna seem to get a free pass on having reduced their deliveries to EU - they have production issues every bit as valid as AZ.
So AZ have no blame for the EU making a hash of this but it seems to be the narrative and ridiculous how it’s being allowed to pass but Marr and other useful idiots.....
One Labour frontbencher tells me: “In our focus groups, the more we attack the government, the more people don’t like it.” The accusation that the government has been too slow to take measures to control the virus resonates with the public because they largely agree. “Anywhere else you attack them, you have people saying, ‘That’s not fair.’”
Very interesting. My theory is that deep down the public aren’t so pro-lockdown as the polls suggest. Also, I reckon quite a few people think that the people catching it aren’t playing by the rules (i.e. not the fault of the government), That would make sense as I think we all like to think “it couldn’t happen to me.”
Its largely been a game of two halves, hasn't it? In the first half there were some unnecessary errors that cost lives, the moving of infected patients out of hospitals and into care homes, the complete failure to protect our borders, the shambles of the tracing app, the ridiculous complexity of tiers reducing compliance and understanding, overall not great although the scale and effectiveness of the economic interventions in furlough, grants, bounce back loans grants for the self employed etc were good points
In the second half some of the seeds planted in the first have blossomed. The early and massive investment in vaccine and vaccine production in the UK has paid off in a staggering way, after the early shambles our testing is on a massive scale, our roll out of vaccines is proceeding exceptionally, the perception of overall performance is improving albeit we are still screwing up quarantine.
Overall, the success with the vaccines edges me to a B+ or just maybe an A-. Could have been much better, could have been a lot worse.
The communications throughout has been pretty awful, making possibly understandable mistakes indefensible and, as you say, policies that were so complicated that it actively hindered what they were trying to achieve.
They've still not worked out the right approach for it, giving it the weight and sensitivity it warrants but also knocking the many, many nonsenses on the head, promptly and efficiently.
I wouldn't disagree. For every short simple message such as Face space hands there has been conflicting messaging and at times a reluctance to see the obvious because it was unpalatable (eg Christmas). The way schools and exams have been handled both north and south of the borders has bordered on a disgrace. But you don't need to study the likes of Kahneman to realise that a strong finish may well be what counts.
Eat Out To Help Out....is going to take a lot of explaining.
Eating out wasn’t the issue. Going en-masse to Spain and Italy, and ignoring social distancing, were the issues.
Those activities have been more or less curtailed since the beginning of November, and yet, as Alistair pointed out, a quarter of the all covid deaths have still happened in the last month. In the depths of a lockdown.
Obviously the deaths have little to do with the lockdown, as I'm sure you know. There's a time lag which is why deaths are only now starting to fall slowly as the number of infections fall.
Overnight all of Trump's legal team for the senate trial quit.
I am thinking that is not a good sign.
He's going to end up defending himself. He's probably got some vision what he can do with the platform. And in so doing find the one way that will make it genuinely problematic for the Republican senators to vote to acquit.
Popcorn.
Question.
Does a conviction require *two thirds of Senators* to vote in favour or *two thirds of a quorate meeting of the Senate* to vote in favour?
2/3 of a quorum. I don't think it's unlikely that a number of Republicans might decide that their best option is to absent themselves - and then leave it hanging whether Trump wants to challenge the constitutionality in the courts.
As it requires 2/3 of senators actually present to achieve a conviction, and assuming 5 Republican senators vote to convict, then it requires 18 or more Republican Senators to be visiting their dentist on the day to get a conviction. 55/82.
Betfair, at 1.03 for a conviction, implies only a 3% chance of that happening. I reckon it is higher.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
I think that many of tomorrow's students having the opportunity to study in the US will be very grateful for the Turing scheme which takes Erasmus and applies it worldwide
The irony is the EU got a better deal out of the old Erasmus system than the UK did - they sent substantially more students to the UK than the UK sent to the EU. Their demand to substantially increase the price to the UK of them sending students to us was classic imperial over-reach.
Just a reminder that over 25% of all UK Covid deaths have happened in the last month. The various UK administrations fucked up winter so badly I can barely. Contain my anger.
Do you think uniquely fucked up, or just in line with the rest of the west? Genuine question. I think we have made some big errors, but the have been no easy choices. The economy plays a huge role in government thinking. Otherwise lock everything up until 0 cases.
Operation Save Christmas was a huge, predictable mistake.
A paradox: the big countries that have done best at getting vaccination going (UK and US) did really badly at keeping people alive until vaccinations came on stream. Wonder which way the cause/effect thing went?
And now, off to virtual (maybe also virtuous) church.
Well that Sky piece explains why. We learned lessons from the PPE cock-up and put everything into vaccination.
I bet this is going to prove a stroke of genius. I also bet we will not have the highest death rate in Europe a year from now ...
Just a reminder that over 25% of all UK Covid deaths have happened in the last month. The various UK administrations fucked up winter so badly I can barely. Contain my anger.
Do you think uniquely fucked up, or just in line with the rest of the west? Genuine question. I think we have made some big errors, but the have been no easy choices. The economy plays a huge role in government thinking. Otherwise lock everything up until 0 cases.
Operation Save Christmas was a huge, predictable mistake.
A paradox: the big countries that have done best at getting vaccination going (UK and US) did really badly at keeping people alive until vaccinations came on stream. Wonder which way the cause/effect thing went?
And now, off to virtual (maybe also virtuous) church.
Was there anywhere in the western world which did not relax the rules at Xmas -Spain, Portugal, Germany, France .....and in virtually all examples I've seen infections have soared. Plenty of us predicted it I agree, but the UK was hardly the exception here.
‘one in eight Britons say they have lost a close friend or family member to [Covid-19].’
That works out at c.80 family members/close friends per deceased, which I’m sceptical about.
Data + Journalist = Bollocks.
How about doing some research before spouting your usual bollocks.
It was based on a YouGov poll.
The figures were produced by the statisticians who work for YouGov, some of them have even worked for the ONS, which is pretty good.
It was also backed up by other evidence, such as 'The average number of Facebook friends for an adult is now 338. The median number of Facebook friends is 200.'
I wouldn't call a Facebook friend a 'close friend'. I'm always being invited to make a friend of someone who is a friend of a friend, and I very often can't work out whose friend they might be. And no, I almost never sign them up. I think I know some 25-30 people who have tested positive, but although some are extended family I would only describe two or three as being 'close;'. I know a couple of people who caught the virus in hospital, and died, but they were very ill anyway. (eg 90+ and with a serious heart condition.)
As I said earlier I think this depends on people's interpretation of 'close'.
Dunbar's number is between 100 - 230 (with 150 the commonly detected value) of meaningful human relationships that the neocortex can process.
IIRC there's some evidence that Neanderthal's brains couldn't cope with more than about 40, which is why, in fights between a group of Sapiens and one of Neanderthals, the latter always came off worst. Part of the reason they died out. And why the Romans worked on a 'century' as the basic fighting unit.
Yes and I agree with most of it. My reservations are:
That historically counsel giving advice to governments have had the expectation that their advice will remain fully confidential. That meant that they could be entirely candid and express reservations without fear of those reservations coming into the public domain and being used to beat someone with whilst also embarrassing the author. This is an important principle which has implications well beyond the Salmond case.
Whilst I agree with the proposition that defence productions are not covered by privilege there are again good reasons why Crown productions are. These productions would include statements taken by police officer, statements once again given in the expectation that they would not see the light of day. The statements may well contain embarrassing admissions made on that basis.
The sitting on Tuesdays only is of course ridiculous.
Just wait till the dust settles. This narcissist who adores dressing up with more costume changes than Danny La Rue will be out on his arse. Just the tiniest bit of reflection by the voters after the immediate dangers have passed and he'll be lucky if he isn't exiled let alone be permitted to remain PM
Are you talking about Johnson?
He'll face the electorate in 2024 and probably win a very tight race and do another 3/4 of a term is my guess at this point.
Are you talking about Johnson?
Yes. The very same. Happily I seem to have found someone who's ability to predict the political future is even worse than mine..
Well, I was certainly completely wrong about Trump in 2016.
Oh I'd forgotten that as well: I also predicted Trump's 2016 win.
Boris Johnson will win a crushing victory next time if he chooses to stay on.
You have a fine track record of predictions.
How do Johnson and the Tories avoid the economic aftermath of Covid-19?
Will Johnson's sanctification for saving the world from Covid be enough?
Micheal Martin on Marr trying to dance a fine line of lightly scalding the EU without seeming disloyal to the EU vaccine programme or disloyal to the Commission's dispute with AZ. Claiming the EU gave AZ a lot of money for research and production just like the UK.
Sanofi got a downpayment of 324m Euros for their failed vaccine.
The Pasteur Institute - which stopped its unsuccessful Covid vaccine trial this week - benefited from this: "In an unprecedented move last March, President Emmanuel Macron increased France’s scientific research budget by 5 billion euros over the next 10 years and set up an emergency fund of 50 million euros to finance the search for a vaccine against COVID-19.
The EU has had the misfortune of backing nags that keep pulling up lame.
I'll agree with that, but you can't fault any government for chucking money at these companies. By rights all countries with money should be doing this. It's a gamble where the human race wins, hopefully.
Certainly wasn't faulting them for chucking money around. It needed - still needs - doing internationally on an epic scale if we are to prevent Asia from still being locked down through 2022 and Africa through 2023.
More observing how their frustrations on backing the wrong horses caused them to lash out at those who have.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
I think that many of tomorrow's students having the opportunity to study in the US will be very grateful for the Turing scheme which takes Erasmus and applies it worldwide
The irony is the EU got a better deal out of the old Erasmus system than the UK did - they sent substantially more students to the UK than the UK sent to the EU. Their demand to substantially increase the price to the UK of them sending students to us was classic imperial over-reach.
Incidentally, it was very decent and contrite of Johnson to take the rap for 100,000 deaths and all that. And I notice that some pb contributors continue to pile in on him and the Gov't e.g. Alastair below.
However, let's be in no doubt that the British people are also to blame. We don't listen to advice. We don't follow rules. We don't socially distance. We don't obey lockdown. And we don't wear face masks (still) when we should.
The British Gov't can only do so much with a recalcitrant population unless they want to behave like China.
Can't say I disagree. I took a train for the first time in 10 months yesterday (picking up a car I bought online that couldn't be delivered) and the staff on the concourse at Leeds station were just sat in a group chatting away, all maskless and little social distancing.
I've never expected full compliance and of course there's always exceptions but I do expect that in public spaces the staff managing the area set an example for the public. It made me think why bother wearing a mask if these people won't and I'm good at following the rules, so I don't know what someone else who needs extra persuasion to follow the rules would think.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
It's just as easy to get to Japan as it is to Germany. You get on an aeroplane.
Takes longer. And you can get a train to Germany.
OK then, two trains.
Or drive yourself.
Or even better get your dad to drive you over with a car full of your stuff and then come back to pick you and said stuff up at the end. Hypothetically.
I wonder how many of the students from this scheme in any meaningful sense don't have relative;ly comfortably off parents who are being subsidised by the taxpayer for these schemes.
Its largely been a game of two halves, hasn't it? In the first half there were some unnecessary errors that cost lives, the moving of infected patients out of hospitals and into care homes, the complete failure to protect our borders, the shambles of the tracing app, the ridiculous complexity of tiers reducing compliance and understanding, overall not great although the scale and effectiveness of the economic interventions in furlough, grants, bounce back loans grants for the self employed etc were good points
In the second half some of the seeds planted in the first have blossomed. The early and massive investment in vaccine and vaccine production in the UK has paid off in a staggering way, after the early shambles our testing is on a massive scale, our roll out of vaccines is proceeding exceptionally, the perception of overall performance is improving albeit we are still screwing up quarantine.
Overall, the success with the vaccines edges me to a B+ or just maybe an A-. Could have been much better, could have been a lot worse.
The communications throughout has been pretty awful, making possibly understandable mistakes indefensible and, as you say, policies that were so complicated that it actively hindered what they were trying to achieve.
They've still not worked out the right approach for it, giving it the weight and sensitivity it warrants but also knocking the many, many nonsenses on the head, promptly and efficiently.
I wouldn't disagree. For every short simple message such as Face space hands there has been conflicting messaging and at times a reluctance to see the obvious because it was unpalatable (eg Christmas). The way schools and exams have been handled both north and south of the borders has bordered on a disgrace. But you don't need to study the likes of Kahneman to realise that a strong finish may well be what counts.
Eat Out To Help Out....is going to take a lot of explaining.
Eating out wasn’t the issue. Going en-masse to Spain and Italy, and ignoring social distancing, were the issues.
Those activities have been more or less curtailed since the beginning of November, and yet, as Alistair pointed out, a quarter of the all covid deaths have still happened in the last month. In the depths of a lockdown.
I'm getting to the point where the lockdown works or not debate is beyond me.
Look at UK, with a lot of lockdown, certainly since late autumn; it has ≈ 1 death per 680 people.
Whereas Sweden with minimal lockdown and a lot of reliance on people just staying safe out of their own sense ≈ 1 death per 860
But Sweden is less urban someone always says. Except it seems that is just not actually true.
So what is the difference? Care home policies? Skill of ICU nurses? Genetics? Mass obesity?
IF you are a person that had to junk a long standing family business for ever, or a single mum with three kids and one computer in a council flat, are you really thinking about the government's covid death count?
No you are thinking about how lockdown destroyed your life, and the lives of those you love.
I have some fairly young retired friends (ie mid-60s). They talk of a "lost" year, one where they were still young and fit enough to enjoy travelling, music festivals etc and have not been able to do so. They won't get it back. And they have been locked down without anything to do. At least work has kept me sane.
IF you are a person that had to junk a long standing family business for ever, or a single mum with three kids and one computer in a council flat, are you really thinking about the government's covid death count?
No you are thinking about how lockdown destroyed your life, and the lives of those you love.
I agree.
Statistics don't change minds. Personal experiences and vivid stories do.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
It's just as easy to get to Japan as it is to Germany. You get on an aeroplane.
Takes longer. And you can get a train to Germany.
OK then, two trains.
Or drive yourself.
Or even better get your dad to drive you over with a car full of your stuff and then come back to pick you and said stuff up at the end. Hypothetically.
I wonder how many of the students from this scheme in any meaningful sense don't have relative;ly comfortably off parents who are being subsidised by the taxpayer for these schemes.
Don't recall giving any significant sums to either of our sons. And students who came me on exchanges didn't seem to be so supported, either.
Anyone who has lost a loved one will not like to hear that politicians and their backers are conjecturing that the vaccination programme will be a shot in the arm for the prime minister’s popularity. The hard truth is that lots of Tories are privately talking about it. And so are their opponents.
Any public inquiry worthy of the name is most unlikely to agree with his claim that “we truly did everything we could”. Even senior Tories agree that there will have to be some kind of “reckoning”, as one puts it, for why the UK has the highest death toll in Europe and one of the worst mortality rates in the world..
Public confidence in the government has been very badly corroded and there were points over the past 10 months when it looked as though it might disintegrate entirely, but it never quite did. Mr Johnson has been cushioned by the substantial segment of the public who have always been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Labour MPs report they often come across voters saying things such as “Boris is doing his best” and “anyone would have struggled”.
One Labour frontbencher tells me: “In our focus groups, the more we attack the government, the more people don’t like it.” The accusation that the government has been too slow to take measures to control the virus resonates with the public because they largely agree. “Anywhere else you attack them, you have people saying, ‘That’s not fair.’”
The vaccination programme offers succour to the public that a conclusion to the crisis is in sight. Or, if not an end, at least the prospect of returning to something more resembling normal life. It is also the one international comparator where Britain has an enviable record rather than a ghastly one.
Tory strategists are calculating that..a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
Rawnsley comments in this article that we have low expectations of government, part of the reason why Boris and co have not been demolished by the events of the last 12 months. Additionally, I wonder if we give enough consideration to the idea that we are not an altogether easy people to govern. From a leader's point of view we must be a recurring nightmare (read PB comments for a week to confirm this, followed by a dose of popular media).
The fact that Boris is actually loved by huge numbers of people is significant here - just like Mrs Thatcher was. One of the difficulties in perception is that influential commentators cannot comprehend how any of this can be true.
I haven't a clue how the next election will play out, but at this moment Boris is loved and SKS (a truly excellent man) isn't. It's a big factor.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
I think that many of tomorrow's students having the opportunity to study in the US will be very grateful for the Turing scheme which takes Erasmus and applies it worldwide
The irony is the EU got a better deal out of the old Erasmus system than the UK did - they sent substantially more students to the UK than the UK sent to the EU. Their demand to substantially increase the price to the UK of them sending students to us was classic imperial over-reach.
Its largely been a game of two halves, hasn't it? In the first half there were some unnecessary errors that cost lives, the moving of infected patients out of hospitals and into care homes, the complete failure to protect our borders, the shambles of the tracing app, the ridiculous complexity of tiers reducing compliance and understanding, overall not great although the scale and effectiveness of the economic interventions in furlough, grants, bounce back loans grants for the self employed etc were good points
In the second half some of the seeds planted in the first have blossomed. The early and massive investment in vaccine and vaccine production in the UK has paid off in a staggering way, after the early shambles our testing is on a massive scale, our roll out of vaccines is proceeding exceptionally, the perception of overall performance is improving albeit we are still screwing up quarantine.
Overall, the success with the vaccines edges me to a B+ or just maybe an A-. Could have been much better, could have been a lot worse.
The communications throughout has been pretty awful, making possibly understandable mistakes indefensible and, as you say, policies that were so complicated that it actively hindered what they were trying to achieve.
They've still not worked out the right approach for it, giving it the weight and sensitivity it warrants but also knocking the many, many nonsenses on the head, promptly and efficiently.
I wouldn't disagree. For every short simple message such as Face space hands there has been conflicting messaging and at times a reluctance to see the obvious because it was unpalatable (eg Christmas). The way schools and exams have been handled both north and south of the borders has bordered on a disgrace. But you don't need to study the likes of Kahneman to realise that a strong finish may well be what counts.
Eat Out To Help Out....is going to take a lot of explaining.
Eating out wasn’t the issue. Going en-masse to Spain and Italy, and ignoring social distancing, were the issues.
Those activities have been more or less curtailed since the beginning of November, and yet, as Alistair pointed out, a quarter of the all covid deaths have still happened in the last month. In the depths of a lockdown.
I'm getting to the point where the lockdown works or not debate is beyond me.
Look at UK, with a lot of lockdown, certainly since late autumn; it has ≈ 1 death per 680 people.
Whereas Sweden with minimal lockdown and a lot of reliance on people just staying safe out of their own sense ≈ 1 death per 860
But Sweden is less urban someone always says. Except it seems that is just not actually true.
So what is the difference? Care home policies? Skill of ICU nurses? Genetics? Mass obesity?
Also, the way deaths are recorded, and registered.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
I think that many of tomorrow's students having the opportunity to study in the US will be very grateful for the Turing scheme which takes Erasmus and applies it worldwide
The irony is the EU got a better deal out of the old Erasmus system than the UK did - they sent substantially more students to the UK than the UK sent to the EU. Their demand to substantially increase the price to the UK of them sending students to us was classic imperial over-reach.
Anyone who has lost a loved one will not like to hear that politicians and their backers are conjecturing that the vaccination programme will be a shot in the arm for the prime minister’s popularity. The hard truth is that lots of Tories are privately talking about it. And so are their opponents.
Any public inquiry worthy of the name is most unlikely to agree with his claim that “we truly did everything we could”. Even senior Tories agree that there will have to be some kind of “reckoning”, as one puts it, for why the UK has the highest death toll in Europe and one of the worst mortality rates in the world..
Public confidence in the government has been very badly corroded and there were points over the past 10 months when it looked as though it might disintegrate entirely, but it never quite did. Mr Johnson has been cushioned by the substantial segment of the public who have always been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Labour MPs report they often come across voters saying things such as “Boris is doing his best” and “anyone would have struggled”.
One Labour frontbencher tells me: “In our focus groups, the more we attack the government, the more people don’t like it.” The accusation that the government has been too slow to take measures to control the virus resonates with the public because they largely agree. “Anywhere else you attack them, you have people saying, ‘That’s not fair.’”
The vaccination programme offers succour to the public that a conclusion to the crisis is in sight. Or, if not an end, at least the prospect of returning to something more resembling normal life. It is also the one international comparator where Britain has an enviable record rather than a ghastly one.
Tory strategists are calculating that..a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
Rawnsley doesn't seem to note various flaws in his arguments:
- the Opposition has been largely MIA for most of the last year, - when it has been put forward a case, it has usually been with hindsight, and the public has, rightly, been unconvinced - the UK has done other things well besides vaccination (e.g. genetic sequencing of the virus, and ramping up testing very quickly) - the Labour government in Wales hasn't done any better, and in some ways much worse, than Big Brother to the east.
I don't think the government has done particularly well overall, but the opposition has been a joke.
There’s suddenly a lot of interest in Tory circles in the work of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize-winning psychologist and behaviouralist. They are attracted to the professor’s thesis about how people recall difficult periods in their lives: they disproportionately remember, and therefore place the greatest weight, on how a harrowing episode came to an end. The contention is that even a deeply grim crisis can be thought of positively if the conclusion to it is an uplifting one.
Tory strategists are calculating that this is a trait of human nature that can be exploited to their party’s benefit. They reckon that a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
Even if the theory floats, I still can't see the Tories avoiding being holed below the waterline, once Sunak runs out of cheques to write.
That is easy, and has betting implications. A snap election before 2024. The Tories' sweet spot is after Covid is beaten but before the economy fails. Boris retiring would add a new leader's bounce, and Boris himself would go down in history as an electoral colossus who delivered Brexit and conquered Covid.
Ironically the country might do better with Boris in place. We do not need another austerity hawk to close down what is left of the economy.
An interesting idea.
When do the new boundaries come in? The Tories would probably want those in place.
Final report is due by July 2023.
So, the Tories have a year to play with?
I think @DecrepitJohnL may be right that -- it could be attractive for the Tories to go early. Autumn 2023 ?
Can Sunak continue to hose money over a grateful electorate until Autumn 2023?
I have Autumn 2023 pencilled in as the date the Tories hit their very lowest thirties polling before picking up some points before GE May 2024.
Fancy a bet then?
Tories will take a 10% lead in the polls by this time next year.
You're not SeanT in another guise are you? You're certainly as fickle and inconsistent
IF you are a person that had to junk a long standing family business for ever, or a single mum with three kids and one computer in a council flat, are you really thinking about the government's covid death count?
No you are thinking about how lockdown destroyed your life, and the lives of those you love.
I agree.
Statistics don't change minds. Personal experiences and vivid stories do.
Often too, these do not immediately show up in polling. It will take a while.
I believe all the main parties are in for a shock down the line. A big shock. In terms of turnout in particular. Why would a young voter choose any of them? what are they offering? A wintry sea of draconian restrictions, authoritarianism and a massive tax burden. Outlawing all of the benefits of being young.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
It's just as easy to get to Japan as it is to Germany. You get on an aeroplane.
Takes longer. And you can get a train to Germany.
OK then, two trains.
Or drive yourself.
Or even better get your dad to drive you over with a car full of your stuff and then come back to pick you and said stuff up at the end. Hypothetically.
I wonder how many of the students from this scheme in any meaningful sense don't have relative;ly comfortably off parents who are being subsidised by the taxpayer for these schemes.
Don't recall giving any significant sums to either of our sons. And students who came me on exchanges didn't seem to be so supported, either.
Which is the point - the scheme is subsidised - those who can afford to pay full price without the subsidy should do so. That way you can support more genuinely poor students.
Its largely been a game of two halves, hasn't it? In the first half there were some unnecessary errors that cost lives, the moving of infected patients out of hospitals and into care homes, the complete failure to protect our borders, the shambles of the tracing app, the ridiculous complexity of tiers reducing compliance and understanding, overall not great although the scale and effectiveness of the economic interventions in furlough, grants, bounce back loans grants for the self employed etc were good points
In the second half some of the seeds planted in the first have blossomed. The early and massive investment in vaccine and vaccine production in the UK has paid off in a staggering way, after the early shambles our testing is on a massive scale, our roll out of vaccines is proceeding exceptionally, the perception of overall performance is improving albeit we are still screwing up quarantine.
Overall, the success with the vaccines edges me to a B+ or just maybe an A-. Could have been much better, could have been a lot worse.
The communications throughout has been pretty awful, making possibly understandable mistakes indefensible and, as you say, policies that were so complicated that it actively hindered what they were trying to achieve.
They've still not worked out the right approach for it, giving it the weight and sensitivity it warrants but also knocking the many, many nonsenses on the head, promptly and efficiently.
I wouldn't disagree. For every short simple message such as Face space hands there has been conflicting messaging and at times a reluctance to see the obvious because it was unpalatable (eg Christmas). The way schools and exams have been handled both north and south of the borders has bordered on a disgrace. But you don't need to study the likes of Kahneman to realise that a strong finish may well be what counts.
Eat Out To Help Out....is going to take a lot of explaining.
Eating out wasn’t the issue. Going en-masse to Spain and Italy, and ignoring social distancing, were the issues.
Those activities have been more or less curtailed since the beginning of November, and yet, as Alistair pointed out, a quarter of the all covid deaths have still happened in the last month. In the depths of a lockdown.
The effect of the new variant is surely a large part of the reason for the severity of the winter surge. It is 50% more transmissible and 30-40% more deadly. Over the summer and into the autumn we were actually doing quite well, even compared with other European countries - at one point we had a lower infection rate than Germany, and we avoided the serious autumn spikes that some countries had. Maybe we should have handled the new variant better, but the nature of exponential growth is it can be under the radar for some time before apparently exploding out of nowhere. We had B.1.1.7 in September but it didn't really become a problem until December
Its largely been a game of two halves, hasn't it? In the first half there were some unnecessary errors that cost lives, the moving of infected patients out of hospitals and into care homes, the complete failure to protect our borders, the shambles of the tracing app, the ridiculous complexity of tiers reducing compliance and understanding, overall not great although the scale and effectiveness of the economic interventions in furlough, grants, bounce back loans grants for the self employed etc were good points
In the second half some of the seeds planted in the first have blossomed. The early and massive investment in vaccine and vaccine production in the UK has paid off in a staggering way, after the early shambles our testing is on a massive scale, our roll out of vaccines is proceeding exceptionally, the perception of overall performance is improving albeit we are still screwing up quarantine.
Overall, the success with the vaccines edges me to a B+ or just maybe an A-. Could have been much better, could have been a lot worse.
The communications throughout has been pretty awful, making possibly understandable mistakes indefensible and, as you say, policies that were so complicated that it actively hindered what they were trying to achieve.
They've still not worked out the right approach for it, giving it the weight and sensitivity it warrants but also knocking the many, many nonsenses on the head, promptly and efficiently.
I wouldn't disagree. For every short simple message such as Face space hands there has been conflicting messaging and at times a reluctance to see the obvious because it was unpalatable (eg Christmas). The way schools and exams have been handled both north and south of the borders has bordered on a disgrace. But you don't need to study the likes of Kahneman to realise that a strong finish may well be what counts.
Eat Out To Help Out....is going to take a lot of explaining.
Eating out wasn’t the issue. Going en-masse to Spain and Italy, and ignoring social distancing, were the issues.
Those activities have been more or less curtailed since the beginning of November, and yet, as Alistair pointed out, a quarter of the all covid deaths have still happened in the last month. In the depths of a lockdown.
They stopped going to france and Spain, and went to Dubai instead. Spot when the British tourists started turning up, from this graph.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
It's just as easy to get to Japan as it is to Germany. You get on an aeroplane.
Takes longer. And you can get a train to Germany.
OK then, two trains.
Or drive yourself.
Or even better get your dad to drive you over with a car full of your stuff and then come back to pick you and said stuff up at the end. Hypothetically.
I wonder how many of the students from this scheme in any meaningful sense don't have relative;ly comfortably off parents who are being subsidised by the taxpayer for these schemes.
Edinburgh has quite a lot of well heeled students despite their active access programs for those who were badly treated by state provision but in the case of my daughter's experience there I would say that the number taking advantage of such schemes from disadvantaged backgrounds was approximately zero. The reality is that her year abroad cost us several thousand pounds, money we were happy and able to spend. The accommodation was quite expensive and not covered by the grant (which my daughter used entirely as living expenses), books etc tended to be more expensive and inevitably and correctly her social life was very active.
Its a middle class, upper middle class subsidy, no doubt about it. But that does not mean it is a bad thing.
Adding today's Opinium poll into the EMA gives the Tories a 1.4% lead over Labour and leaves them 17 short of an overall majority.
So Starmer probably PM but only with SNP and LD support
Labour have lost their minds. What is their strongest suit? young voters. They have strived over the past year to make the lives of their core constituency just about as unpleasant as they could. They are offering nothing in the future.
Those voters may still favour labour over conservative, but will they turn out?
So it sounds like their argument about not having done it may be akin to saying you've not shot anyone because, unknown to you, the gun was loaded with blanks. It's true, but misses an important element of intent.
There’s suddenly a lot of interest in Tory circles in the work of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize-winning psychologist and behaviouralist. They are attracted to the professor’s thesis about how people recall difficult periods in their lives: they disproportionately remember, and therefore place the greatest weight, on how a harrowing episode came to an end. The contention is that even a deeply grim crisis can be thought of positively if the conclusion to it is an uplifting one.
Tory strategists are calculating that this is a trait of human nature that can be exploited to their party’s benefit. They reckon that a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
Even if the theory floats, I still can't see the Tories avoiding being holed below the waterline, once Sunak runs out of cheques to write.
That is easy, and has betting implications. A snap election before 2024. The Tories' sweet spot is after Covid is beaten but before the economy fails. Boris retiring would add a new leader's bounce, and Boris himself would go down in history as an electoral colossus who delivered Brexit and conquered Covid.
Ironically the country might do better with Boris in place. We do not need another austerity hawk to close down what is left of the economy.
An interesting idea.
When do the new boundaries come in? The Tories would probably want those in place.
Final report is due by July 2023.
So, the Tories have a year to play with?
I think @DecrepitJohnL may be right that -- it could be attractive for the Tories to go early. Autumn 2023 ?
Can Sunak continue to hose money over a grateful electorate until Autumn 2023?
I have Autumn 2023 pencilled in as the date the Tories hit their very lowest thirties polling before picking up some points before GE May 2024.
About the money, I really don't know. I am 100 per cent sure Boris will not take tough, unpopular decisions, though. He'll leave that for his successor.
There is also the public inquiry into Covid -- Boris will want to boot the publication of the report until after the next election. Fortunately, Labour have shown him the blueprint in how to do this. The Iraq War inquiry was announced in 2009 by Gordon Brown and published 7 years later in 2016.
So, let me see .... MexicanPete's nightmare is ... the Shagster puts off announcing any COVID inquiry until 2022, so it won't report till way into the future; he gets his extra seats from the boundaries in 2023; he continues to spaff the electorate with his sticky honey till 2023; he goes to the country and is returned with another majority.
He will have "won London twice, triumphed in the referendum, done Brexit, thrashed COVID & clobbered Labour twice in the Generals".
The Government has recovered a large amount of public goodwill with the vaccination program. That's important going forward, lets hope it's not all lost in another Barnard Castle trip.
Anyone who has lost a loved one will not like to hear that politicians and their backers are conjecturing that the vaccination programme will be a shot in the arm for the prime minister’s popularity. The hard truth is that lots of Tories are privately talking about it. And so are their opponents.
Any public inquiry worthy of the name is most unlikely to agree with his claim that “we truly did everything we could”. Even senior Tories agree that there will have to be some kind of “reckoning”, as one puts it, for why the UK has the highest death toll in Europe and one of the worst mortality rates in the world..
Public confidence in the government has been very badly corroded and there were points over the past 10 months when it looked as though it might disintegrate entirely, but it never quite did. Mr Johnson has been cushioned by the substantial segment of the public who have always been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Labour MPs report they often come across voters saying things such as “Boris is doing his best” and “anyone would have struggled”.
One Labour frontbencher tells me: “In our focus groups, the more we attack the government, the more people don’t like it.” The accusation that the government has been too slow to take measures to control the virus resonates with the public because they largely agree. “Anywhere else you attack them, you have people saying, ‘That’s not fair.’”
The vaccination programme offers succour to the public that a conclusion to the crisis is in sight. Or, if not an end, at least the prospect of returning to something more resembling normal life. It is also the one international comparator where Britain has an enviable record rather than a ghastly one.
Tory strategists are calculating that..a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
Rawnsley comments in this article that we have low expectations of government, part of the reason why Boris and co have not been demolished by the events of the last 12 months. Additionally, I wonder if we give enough consideration to the idea that we are not an altogether easy people to govern. From a leader's point of view we must be a recurring nightmare (read PB comments for a week to confirm this, followed by a dose of popular media).
The fact that Boris is actually loved by huge numbers of people is significant here - just like Mrs Thatcher was. One of the difficulties in perception is that influential commentators cannot comprehend how any of this can be true.
I haven't a clue how the next election will play out, but at this moment Boris is loved and SKS (a truly excellent man) isn't. It's a big factor.
Well we see the arrogance of the 'chattering classes' in journalism and social media all the time. Hilary clinton still cannot understand why she lost the Presidency because the 'deplorables' declined to vote for for her any more than Roger can understand why people from Hartlepool voted for Brexit rather than buying a holiday home in Provence. 'La Toynbee' from the Grauniad, Heseltine....the list goes on with little sign of any of them learning a single lesson from the whole sorry mess. The dissonance which has followed last week's madness from the Commission continues to provide light relief form our awful predicament.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
It's just as easy to get to Japan as it is to Germany. You get on an aeroplane.
Takes longer. And you can get a train to Germany.
OK then, two trains.
Or drive yourself.
Or even better get your dad to drive you over with a car full of your stuff and then come back to pick you and said stuff up at the end. Hypothetically.
I wonder how many of the students from this scheme in any meaningful sense don't have relative;ly comfortably off parents who are being subsidised by the taxpayer for these schemes.
Edinburgh has quite a lot of well heeled students despite their active access programs for those who were badly treated by state provision but in the case of my daughter's experience there I would say that the number taking advantage of such schemes from disadvantaged backgrounds was approximately zero. The reality is that her year abroad cost us several thousand pounds, money we were happy and able to spend. The accommodation was quite expensive and not covered by the grant (which my daughter used entirely as living expenses), books etc tended to be more expensive and inevitably and correctly her social life was very active.
Its a middle class, upper middle class subsidy, no doubt about it. But that does not mean it is a bad thing.
Both my sons had worked for several years prior to going to Uni, although I don't think younger son had saved very much. Very out of character if he had!
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
It's just as easy to get to Japan as it is to Germany. You get on an aeroplane.
Takes longer. And you can get a train to Germany.
OK then, two trains.
Or drive yourself.
Or even better get your dad to drive you over with a car full of your stuff and then come back to pick you and said stuff up at the end. Hypothetically.
I wonder how many of the students from this scheme in any meaningful sense don't have relative;ly comfortably off parents who are being subsidised by the taxpayer for these schemes.
Edinburgh has quite a lot of well heeled students despite their active access programs for those who were badly treated by state provision but in the case of my daughter's experience there I would say that the number taking advantage of such schemes from disadvantaged backgrounds was approximately zero. The reality is that her year abroad cost us several thousand pounds, money we were happy and able to spend. The accommodation was quite expensive and not covered by the grant (which my daughter used entirely as living expenses), books etc tended to be more expensive and inevitably and correctly her social life was very active.
Its a middle class, upper middle class subsidy, no doubt about it. But that does not mean it is a bad thing.
When money is so tight for so many I kinda think it's a pretty bad thing.
The Government has recovered a large amount of public goodwill with the vaccination program. That's important going forward, lets hope it's not all lost in another Barnard Castle trip.
Winston Churchill probably thought he had built up a great deal of good will by defeating the Nazis, then the 1945 election hove into view.
If the tories are expecting the thanks of a grateful nation in May, they are mistaken. Even more so their labour enablers.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
I think that many of tomorrow's students having the opportunity to study in the US will be very grateful for the Turing scheme which takes Erasmus and applies it worldwide
The irony is the EU got a better deal out of the old Erasmus system than the UK did - they sent substantially more students to the UK than the UK sent to the EU. Their demand to substantially increase the price to the UK of them sending students to us was classic imperial over-reach.
Does the jingoism never get tiresome?
Alexa.....another burst of Rule Britannia....
Which facts do you dispute?
I'm sure even Goebbels told the truth sometimes but do we really need this patriotic blather? It's one of the reasons Hartlepudlians think they're too smart to mix with the riff- raff of the EU.
There is always going to be a lag between the delivery of the vaccine to Scotland and putting it in someone's arms. How long that lag is depends upon the efficiency of the logistics. But something is just not working here. We are managing to use about 50% of the vaccine provided. England is doing much, much better. Even if you allow a larger lag for the fact that Scotland's population is more dispirit that lag should not continue to grow.
Nicola needs to think out the box a bit, the box in this case being Health Board bureaucracies very much used to doing things in their own time without external intervention or meaningful supervision. I really hope she does. For us to end up wasting vaccine because of this inefficiency would be unconscionable in a world still desperately short of it.
The story about the St Austell practice that @MarqueeMark linked to downthread is a good example of what can be done.
Watching Marr interviewing the Taoiseach made me want to throw something at the tv. Marr asked him to comment about the poor vaccine programme in EU. The Taoiseach went on a ramble about it being the fault of the failure of AZ to deliver on agreed volumes and that they hadn’t had issues with other companies and Marr just let it ride.
Why are the EU not being pulled up on blaming AZ for their problems - they didn’t even approve it until Friday so the slow roll out is nothing to do with AZ and is down to the EU slow approvals, poor purchasing negotiations and badly coordinated country based vaccination plans.
If the EU had approved AZ in December and no deliveries then fine but no jabs from AZ before Friday are purely the fault of the EU.
On top of this Pfizer and Moderna seem to get a free pass on having reduced their deliveries to EU - they have production issues every bit as valid as AZ.
So AZ have no blame for the EU making a hash of this but it seems to be the narrative and ridiculous how it’s being allowed to pass but Marr and other useful idiots.....
When I have my cycnical head on, I wonder whether this has to do with AZ globally licensing their vaccine so successfully that they now account for 50% of likely global supplies this year. Or 3 billion doses.
There is always going to be a lag between the delivery of the vaccine to Scotland and putting it in someone's arms. How long that lag is depends upon the efficiency of the logistics. But something is just not working here. We are managing to use about 50% of the vaccine provided. England is doing much, much better. Even if you allow a larger lag for the fact that Scotland's population is more dispirit that lag should not continue to grow.
Nicola needs to think out the box a bit, the box in this case being Health Board bureaucracies very much used to doing things in their own time without external intervention or meaningful supervision. I really hope she does. For us to end up wasting vaccine because of this inefficiency would be unconscionable in a world still desperately short of it.
The story about the St Austell practice that @MarqueeMark linked to downthread is a good example of what can be done.
'Made available' is not the same as 'delivered over the border', mind. But on the other points - still open for now.
IF you are a person that had to junk a long standing family business for ever, or a single mum with three kids and one computer in a council flat, are you really thinking about the government's covid death count?
No you are thinking about how lockdown destroyed your life, and the lives of those you love.
I agree.
Statistics don't change minds. Personal experiences and vivid stories do.
Often too, these do not immediately show up in polling. It will take a while.
I believe all the main parties are in for a shock down the line. A big shock. In terms of turnout in particular. Why would a young voter choose any of them? what are they offering? A wintry sea of draconian restrictions, authoritarianism and a massive tax burden. Outlawing all of the benefits of being young.
Who would want to vote for that?
People over 60 vote in massive numbers. They have benefitted from the Government rolling out the vaccine. Their children are relieved their parents are safe.
Youngsters got nothing out of Covid - from either party.
That looks like the makings of a very handy Tory win.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
I think that many of tomorrow's students having the opportunity to study in the US will be very grateful for the Turing scheme which takes Erasmus and applies it worldwide
The irony is the EU got a better deal out of the old Erasmus system than the UK did - they sent substantially more students to the UK than the UK sent to the EU. Their demand to substantially increase the price to the UK of them sending students to us was classic imperial over-reach.
Does the jingoism never get tiresome?
Alexa.....another burst of Rule Britannia....
Which facts do you dispute?
I'm sure even Goebbels told the truth sometimes but do we really need this patriotic blather? It's one of the reasons Hartlepudlians think they're too smart to mix with the riff- raff of the EU.
There is a huge amount of cognitive dissonance going on with the pro-EU lot. They claim to be internationalists but then say we should prioritise association with certain countries close to us, with which we apparently have some sort of particularly close cultural affinity. But if I said we should prioritise association with the Anglophone countries of the world because we have close cultural ties, they would probably call me a racist.
That struck me too - a bit of "playing to the gallery". In these things "less is more" as in the reply given in Arkell vs Pressdram.....
It may be a weird sample, but I've noticed a tendency of US litigation lawyers to write like this, even when their letter isn't intended to be made public.
From my perspective, it's writing the letter your client wants and it should be resisted. As should any suggestion that your client is "surprised" or "disappointed". If they are, you haven't been advising them properly.
OT any libel lawyers around? The BBC has a story of an accountant (who you'd have thought should have known better) being scammed out of £17,000 on Instagram.
The alleged scammer is named and pictured, but although the FCA has added him to its list of naughty boys unauthorised traders, Action Fraud (ie the police) say they are investigating but there is "no criminal inquiry". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55804205
I've no idea what went on but it seems unusual to splash photos around when there is no criminal inquiry, let alone a conviction.
IANAL but if the FCA has added him to a list of unauthorised trades I suspect you’d get away with a “fair comment” defence
There is always going to be a lag between the delivery of the vaccine to Scotland and putting it in someone's arms. How long that lag is depends upon the efficiency of the logistics. But something is just not working here. We are managing to use about 50% of the vaccine provided. England is doing much, much better. Even if you allow a larger lag for the fact that Scotland's population is more dispirit that lag should not continue to grow.
Nicola needs to think out the box a bit, the box in this case being Health Board bureaucracies very much used to doing things in their own time without external intervention or meaningful supervision. I really hope she does. For us to end up wasting vaccine because of this inefficiency would be unconscionable in a world still desperately short of it.
The story about the St Austell practice that @MarqueeMark linked to downthread is a good example of what can be done.
'Made available' is not the same as 'delivered over the border', mind. But on the other points - still open for now.
Economy of scale also works in reverse. And, most GP practices have their patients on computer, and the programmes are set up to select patients for whatever criteria you want. How many asthmatics; set the search right and Bobs your uncle. So, especially if, for ever reason, you've already identified a cohort of one-time nurses to do the work, it's easy.
OT any libel lawyers around? The BBC has a story of an accountant (who you'd have thought should have known better) being scammed out of £17,000 on Instagram.
The alleged scammer is named and pictured, but although the FCA has added him to its list of naughty boys unauthorised traders, Action Fraud (ie the police) say they are investigating but there is "no criminal inquiry". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55804205
I've no idea what went on but it seems unusual to splash photos around when there is no criminal inquiry, let alone a conviction.
IANAL but if the FCA has added him to a list of unauthorised trades I suspect you’d get away with a “fair comment” defence
I believe at the moment about 1% of fraud referrals get investigated, I wouldn't rely on that in my libel claim....
The Government has recovered a large amount of public goodwill with the vaccination program. That's important going forward, lets hope it's not all lost in another Barnard Castle trip.
Winston Churchill probably thought he had built up a great deal of good will by defeating the Nazis, then the 1945 election hove into view.
If the tories are expecting the thanks of a grateful nation in May, they are mistaken. Even more so their labour enablers.
If not Tories or Labour who is going to get elected? It is not as if the LDs are doing well in the polls and their campaigning skills are being hampered currently by you know what.
It will take time for vaccine success to filter through into polling. Around 12 months I reckon. But it will. He also did the right thing about the 100,000 deaths. He said sorry, even though it's not all his fault, and looked and sounded contrite.
The Sunday papers, even the Observer, are supportive. And now Tony Blair has criticised the EU. What with that and the application to join the CPTTP, there's no doubt that the PM is on a roll.
I wonder if it was the departure of Dominic Cummings that was the making of Boris Johnson.
Good morning everybody. Let's hope it's a better day, weatherise here, anyway, than yesterday. Rained all day, quite hard some the time, but at least it didn't snow.
We haven't lost a family member, or a 'close' friend to Covid-19, but we do know quite a few people who have had it, and we do know of people who have died. They tended to have 'something else' as well, though; went into hospital with a heart problem and Covid developed there, for example.
Yes, the vaccine roll-out has been a success. And why? Because the Govt. stood back and let the professionals do it, without bringing their 'friends' in. And, AIUI, the vaccine manufacturers got together right at the start, without being prompted, and developed the vaccines.
Pretty sure that vaccine procurement was did face accusations of "crony appointments" though?
She is married to a Tory MP.
It doesn't follow from a cronyist process that every single appointee will turn out to be useless.
That’s your prejudice showing through.
You say “Kate Bingham is married to a Tory MP and just happens to have done a great job”
I say “Kate has spent 30 years working in the biotechnology sector assessing and building emerging companies. She has all of the qualifications needed. Her husband is a Tory MP”
IF you are a person that had to junk a long standing family business for ever, or a single mum with three kids and one computer in a council flat, are you really thinking about the government's covid death count?
No you are thinking about how lockdown destroyed your life, and the lives of those you love.
I agree.
Statistics don't change minds. Personal experiences and vivid stories do.
Often too, these do not immediately show up in polling. It will take a while.
I believe all the main parties are in for a shock down the line. A big shock. In terms of turnout in particular. Why would a young voter choose any of them? what are they offering? A wintry sea of draconian restrictions, authoritarianism and a massive tax burden. Outlawing all of the benefits of being young.
Who would want to vote for that?
People over 60 vote in massive numbers. They have benefitted from the Government rolling out the vaccine. Their children are relieved their parents are safe.
Youngsters got nothing out of Covid - from either party.
That looks like the makings of a very handy Tory win.
Labour loss, more like. Many tory voters are small business people surely, sole traders etc. They have been royally hammered in the past year. That is the cohort Tice and Farage are targeting.
I would suggest their view of the tory party is at best ambivalent. At very best. But its all guesswork right now.
I have received an actual letter before action written by David Allen Green. It wasn’t all that. He was dabbling a bit in employment law and bullshitting his way through the bits he didn’t understand.
There is always going to be a lag between the delivery of the vaccine to Scotland and putting it in someone's arms. How long that lag is depends upon the efficiency of the logistics. But something is just not working here. We are managing to use about 50% of the vaccine provided. England is doing much, much better. Even if you allow a larger lag for the fact that Scotland's population is more dispirit that lag should not continue to grow.
Nicola needs to think out the box a bit, the box in this case being Health Board bureaucracies very much used to doing things in their own time without external intervention or meaningful supervision. I really hope she does. For us to end up wasting vaccine because of this inefficiency would be unconscionable in a world still desperately short of it.
The story about the St Austell practice that @MarqueeMark linked to downthread is a good example of what can be done.
'Made available' is not the same as 'delivered over the border', mind. But on the other points - still open for now.
They are available in a warehouse to be delivered overnight. The UK government is doing a "fair shares" roll out - so Guernsey, with 0.1% of the UK population gets 0.1% of the doses available. How quickly its delivered is down to the individual governments/health authorities. And this "Scotland is less densely populated" skips the fact that around three quarters live in the Central Belt.
One Labour frontbencher tells me: “In our focus groups, the more we attack the government, the more people don’t like it.” The accusation that the government has been too slow to take measures to control the virus resonates with the public because they largely agree. “Anywhere else you attack them, you have people saying, ‘That’s not fair.’”
Very interesting. My theory is that deep down the public aren’t so pro-lockdown as the polls suggest. Also, I reckon quite a few people think that the people catching it aren’t playing by the rules (i.e. not the fault of the government), That would make sense as I think we all like to think “it couldn’t happen to me.”
I think people are all for lockdown yesterday until they have done it for 2-3 weeks, with the kids at home, nothing is open, etc, then it quickly becomes no fun at all.
It might. On the other hand, it might not. It looks implausible; physical distance, time zones and (for many of the Pacific countries) language issues are reasonable reasons to think that focusing on nearer neighbours is a more fruitful strategy.
We don't know for sure without trying, though. But if it is an experiment, what's the exit strategy?
I endorse joining any free trading association that is just that and does not have the baggage the EU has
Furthermore, once the US joins it will be the largest economic trading block in the world and I do not see why we need an exit strategy
With some exceptions we won't have the cultural ties. One of the reasons I object to leaving the EU is the ease of association and such things as the Erasmus project, Leaving that was just petty.
I do not agree
The EU was asking too high a price and we now have the wider Turing replacement which offers a worldwide programme
Has anyone seen anything about the Turing project apart from an announcement? I was involved with student exchange projects at several times in my working life and, generally speaking, ease of travel and being reasonably nearby was an advantage
I think that many of tomorrow's students having the opportunity to study in the US will be very grateful for the Turing scheme which takes Erasmus and applies it worldwide
The irony is the EU got a better deal out of the old Erasmus system than the UK did - they sent substantially more students to the UK than the UK sent to the EU. Their demand to substantially increase the price to the UK of them sending students to us was classic imperial over-reach.
Does the jingoism never get tiresome?
Alexa.....another burst of Rule Britannia....
Which facts do you dispute?
I'm sure even Goebbels told the truth sometimes but do we really need this patriotic blather? It's one of the reasons Hartlepudlians think they're too smart to mix with the riff- raff of the EU.
Always harping on back to the war. It's just 'de trop' old bean.
Comments
A paradox: the big countries that have done best at getting vaccination going (UK and US) did really badly at keeping people alive until vaccinations came on stream. Wonder which way the cause/effect thing went?
And now, off to virtual (maybe also virtuous) church.
Mind you, I would like to see the Conservatives chance their arm for an extra couple of years.
Filmed/showed in 2019!!!
"Sticking a disease into you when you haven't even got it already? That can't be right."
Current polling suggests the public has growing appetite for some 1945-style big changes. Whether that desire persists as and when 'normality' returns remains to be seen.
Former US President Donald Trump has parted ways with lawyers representing him in his impeachment trial in the Senate, US media report.
The departure of Butch Bowers and Deborah Barberi was reportedly a mutual decision...
Greg Harris and Johnny Gasser, two former federal prosecutors from South Carolina, have also left the team, the Associated Press reports. They were reportedly unwilling to defend Mr Trump on the basis of alleged election fraud.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55876035
I'd be unwilling too - why would alleged election fraud be relevant? That would seem more of a basis for a confession of incitement, but arguing it was justified.
I think @DecrepitJohnL may be right that -- it could be attractive for the Tories to go early. Autumn 2023 ?
Boris Johnson will win a crushing victory next time if he chooses to stay on.
https://www.scottishlegal.com/article/alistair-bonnington-salmond-inquiry-reflects-poorly-on-scotland-s-democratic-traditions
Really well. Hmmm.
However, let's be in no doubt that the British people are also to blame. We don't listen to advice. We don't follow rules. We don't socially distance. We don't obey lockdown. And we don't wear face masks (still) when we should.
The British Gov't can only do so much with a recalcitrant population unless they want to behave like China.
Anyone who has lost a loved one will not like to hear that politicians and their backers are conjecturing that the vaccination programme will be a shot in the arm for the prime minister’s popularity. The hard truth is that lots of Tories are privately talking about it. And so are their opponents.
Any public inquiry worthy of the name is most unlikely to agree with his claim that “we truly did everything we could”. Even senior Tories agree that there will have to be some kind of “reckoning”, as one puts it, for why the UK has the highest death toll in Europe and one of the worst mortality rates in the world..
Public confidence in the government has been very badly corroded and there were points over the past 10 months when it looked as though it might disintegrate entirely, but it never quite did. Mr Johnson has been cushioned by the substantial segment of the public who have always been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Labour MPs report they often come across voters saying things such as “Boris is doing his best” and “anyone would have struggled”.
One Labour frontbencher tells me: “In our focus groups, the more we attack the government, the more people don’t like it.” The accusation that the government has been too slow to take measures to control the virus resonates with the public because they largely agree. “Anywhere else you attack them, you have people saying, ‘That’s not fair.’”
The vaccination programme offers succour to the public that a conclusion to the crisis is in sight. Or, if not an end, at least the prospect of returning to something more resembling normal life. It is also the one international comparator where Britain has an enviable record rather than a ghastly one.
Tory strategists are calculating that..a successful vaccination programme will induce voters to forget the government’s contribution to all the distress and death that came before it. The challenge for the Tories’ opponents will be stopping Boris Johnson from getting away with this.
How did the charges compare, though, with those face by other non-EU countries?
No you are thinking about how lockdown destroyed your life, and the lives of those you love.
In the light of what has happened since this was a calamitous decision. The second wave has been much more destructive than the first and also in retrospect much more predictable.
I have Autumn 2023 pencilled in as the date the Tories hit their very lowest thirties polling before picking up some points before GE May 2024.
His biggest frustration with the Covid pandemic is that it has robbed him of 18+ months of his term in which to get things done - and all the money with which to do it. I have no doubt without it, he would have started on an ambitious plan to get delivering for the Red Wall Tories. But as long as he can make a start, it will at least allow him to appeal - "give me another term to fully implement this change."
Dunbar's number is between 100 - 230 (with 150 the commonly detected value) of meaningful human relationships that the neocortex can process.
Tories will take a 10% lead in the polls by this time next year.
Why are the EU not being pulled up on blaming AZ for their problems - they didn’t even approve it until Friday so the slow roll out is nothing to do with AZ and is down to the EU slow approvals, poor purchasing negotiations and badly coordinated country based vaccination plans.
If the EU had approved AZ in December and no deliveries then fine but no jabs from AZ before Friday are purely the fault of the EU.
On top of this Pfizer and Moderna seem to get a free pass on having reduced their deliveries to EU - they have production issues every bit as valid as AZ.
So AZ have no blame for the EU making a hash of this but it seems to be the narrative and ridiculous how it’s being allowed to pass but Marr and other useful idiots.....
Betfair, at 1.03 for a conviction, implies only a 3% chance of that happening. I reckon it is higher.
Alexa.....another burst of Rule Britannia....
I bet this is going to prove a stroke of genius. I also bet we will not have the highest death rate in Europe a year from now ...
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-rejected-contracts-and-a-hollywood-movie-how-uk-struck-deal-to-guarantee-vaccine-supply-12204044
And why the Romans worked on a 'century' as the basic fighting unit.
That historically counsel giving advice to governments have had the expectation that their advice will remain fully confidential. That meant that they could be entirely candid and express reservations without fear of those reservations coming into the public domain and being used to beat someone with whilst also embarrassing the author. This is an important principle which has implications well beyond the Salmond case.
Whilst I agree with the proposition that defence productions are not covered by privilege there are again good reasons why Crown productions are. These productions would include statements taken by police officer, statements once again given in the expectation that they would not see the light of day. The statements may well contain embarrassing admissions made on that basis.
The sitting on Tuesdays only is of course ridiculous.
How do Johnson and the Tories avoid the economic aftermath of Covid-19?
Will Johnson's sanctification for saving the world from Covid be enough?
More observing how their frustrations on backing the wrong horses caused them to lash out at those who have.
I've never expected full compliance and of course there's always exceptions but I do expect that in public spaces the staff managing the area set an example for the public. It made me think why bother wearing a mask if these people won't and I'm good at following the rules, so I don't know what someone else who needs extra persuasion to follow the rules would think.
https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1355814405443887104
Look at UK, with a lot of lockdown, certainly since late autumn; it has ≈ 1 death per 680 people.
Whereas Sweden with minimal lockdown and a lot of reliance on people just staying safe out of their own sense ≈ 1 death per 860
But Sweden is less urban someone always says. Except it seems that is just not actually true.
So what is the difference? Care home policies? Skill of ICU nurses? Genetics? Mass obesity?
https://twitter.com/soniasodha/status/1355799067121561601?s=20
Statistics don't change minds. Personal experiences and vivid stories do.
The fact that Boris is actually loved by huge numbers of people is significant here - just like Mrs Thatcher was. One of the difficulties in perception is that influential commentators cannot comprehend how any of this can be true.
I haven't a clue how the next election will play out, but at this moment Boris is loved and SKS (a truly excellent man) isn't. It's a big factor.
That struck me too - a bit of "playing to the gallery". In these things "less is more" as in the reply given in Arkell vs Pressdram.....
- the Opposition has been largely MIA for most of the last year,
- when it has been put forward a case, it has usually been with hindsight, and the public has, rightly, been unconvinced
- the UK has done other things well besides vaccination (e.g. genetic sequencing of the virus, and ramping up testing very quickly)
- the Labour government in Wales hasn't done any better, and in some ways much worse, than Big Brother to the east.
I don't think the government has done particularly well overall, but the opposition has been a joke.
I believe all the main parties are in for a shock down the line. A big shock. In terms of turnout in particular. Why would a young voter choose any of them? what are they offering? A wintry sea of draconian restrictions, authoritarianism and a massive tax burden. Outlawing all of the benefits of being young.
Who would want to vote for that?
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1355824268043542528?s=20
Its a middle class, upper middle class subsidy, no doubt about it. But that does not mean it is a bad thing.
Those voters may still favour labour over conservative, but will they turn out?
https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/what-is-article-16-of-the-northern-irish-protocol-and-what-on-earth-was-the-european-commission-thinking-includes-a-copy-of-the-now-deleted-proposed-regulation/
So it sounds like their argument about not having done it may be akin to saying you've not shot anyone because, unknown to you, the gun was loaded with blanks. It's true, but misses an important element of intent.
There is also the public inquiry into Covid -- Boris will want to boot the publication of the report until after the next election. Fortunately, Labour have shown him the blueprint in how to do this. The Iraq War inquiry was announced in 2009 by Gordon Brown and published 7 years later in 2016.
So, let me see .... MexicanPete's nightmare is ... the Shagster puts off announcing any COVID inquiry until 2022, so it won't report till way into the future; he gets his extra seats from the boundaries in 2023; he continues to spaff the electorate with his sticky honey till 2023; he goes to the country and is returned with another majority.
He will have "won London twice, triumphed in the referendum, done Brexit, thrashed COVID & clobbered Labour twice in the Generals".
He can retire a hero. We are finally rid of him.
HYUFD will be in the House of Lords.
And the country will be in ruins.
That's important going forward, lets hope it's not all lost in another Barnard Castle trip.
If the tories are expecting the thanks of a grateful nation in May, they are mistaken. Even more so their labour enablers.
Nicola needs to think out the box a bit, the box in this case being Health Board bureaucracies very much used to doing things in their own time without external intervention or meaningful supervision. I really hope she does. For us to end up wasting vaccine because of this inefficiency would be unconscionable in a world still desperately short of it.
The story about the St Austell practice that @MarqueeMark linked to downthread is a good example of what can be done.
eg SII in India had already made 40-50m doses before New Year.
https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/already-produced-40-50-million-dosages-of-covishield-vaccine-says-serum-institute/article33438655.ece
Youngsters got nothing out of Covid - from either party.
That looks like the makings of a very handy Tory win.
https://twitter.com/adamjohnritchie/status/1355136430402580482
From my perspective, it's writing the letter your client wants and it should be resisted. As should any suggestion that your client is "surprised" or "disappointed". If they are, you haven't been advising them properly.
So, especially if, for ever reason, you've already identified a cohort of one-time nurses to do the work, it's easy.
You say “Kate Bingham is married to a Tory MP and just happens to have done a great job”
I say “Kate has spent 30 years working in the biotechnology sector assessing and building emerging companies. She has all of the qualifications needed. Her husband is a Tory MP”
I would suggest their view of the tory party is at best ambivalent. At very best. But its all guesswork right now.