The big polling story of the year is YouGov in the Times reporting a post-budget lead of 13% for the Tories which is greater than the 11.8% vote margin that Johnson’s party achieved at GE2019. But it will be the Daily Mail front page that will most worry Downing Street. The paper’s Simon Walter reports:
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A former Thatcherite, she’s turned into quite the socialist.
And what juicier stuff they have promised the Mail, to get them to run with this fluff as the main headline.
BBC News - Covid-19: Starmer calls for bigger pay rise for NHS 'heroes'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56288237
We’ve discovered neurons in CLIP that respond to the same concept whether presented literally, symbolically, or conceptually. This may explain CLIP’s accuracy in classifying surprising visual renditions of concepts, and is also an important step toward understanding the associations and biases that CLIP and similar models learn.
https://openai.com/blog/multimodal-neurons/
Under 328 / 329
Over 332 / 333
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/cricket/market/1.179793025
Cases of the variant, referred to as VUI-202102/04, were first identified on 15 February through genomic horizon scanning. PHE said on Thursday that all individuals who tested positive and their contacts have been traced and advised to isolate. The variant, which is understood to have originated in the UK, was designated a “variant under investigation” (VUI) on 24 February.
Variants of Covid-19 can be identified as VUIs or “variants of concern” (VOCs). New variants emerge regularly and experts are conducting frequent analysis to see which are of concern, and which are not.
The latest identified variant, also known as B.1.1.318, contains the E484K mutation, which is found in two other VUIs present in the UK, but it does not feature the N501Y mutation that is present in all VOCs, PHE said.
The findings mean there are now four VUIs and four VOCs being tracked by scientists in the UK. Other VUIs include one from Brazil, known as P2, which has had 43 probable or confirmed cases identified in the UK, but is not causing scientists serious concern. PHE said that, as of Wednesday, a total of 26 cases of P2 had been found in England where no travel links could be established.
Two further VUIs – dubbed A.23.1 with E484K and B.1.525 – have seen 78 and 86 probable or confirmed UK cases detected respectively. Both were first detected in the UK in December.
It reports that a group of two dozen scientists have written an open letter calling for a new international inquiry, claiming that the WHO team that was in Wuhan last month had insufficient access to investigate conceivable sources of the virus, including a possible laboratory leak.
I do not know where eg Alex Hanna fits in the various race and gender classification schemes, which seem to be like race phrenology for numpties.
Is this a parallel to the race war we are experiencing between the Labour-style recursive identity politics, and the Tory style appoint-the-good-ones (I am partisan in this debate). See for example the stuff wrt Kemi Badenoch.
Against this background a story about lavish (£200,000 on merely internal redecoration and furnishings???) spending which Boris is clearly trying to palm off on his party or party donors or some rumoured charity, because it’s against the rules to spend so much from the public coffers, presents a clear risk
- because while people may not understand the intricacies of trade rules and international agreements and treasury budgeting, they sure can understand someone with an unexpectedly large credit card Bill desperately trying to get someone else to pay it off.
“It’s everybody else’s fault that the town is in the state it’s in. Elect me to sort it out. I’ll put things right and make a difference.”
It may be a while before it finds a use in political campaigning?
CS is smoking more than just Johnson's cock if she thinks she enjoys a Johnsonian level of impunity with the media and public.
#nutnutmustfall
‘Apparent’ absence?
Nothing ‘apparent’ about it.
Unless you mean ‘ever more apparent.’
None of this will impact upon the core vote, of course. Pensioners won't be affected by most of the tax changes and the gold-plated triple lock hasn't been touched. Working age homeowners will be compensated for paying a bit more tax with house value inflation.
What about Blair? From Ecclestone onwards it was transparent he was not a pretty straight sort of guy afterall.
Strange that she hadn’t thought to check and bring the information with her...
Cyprus has been in the news this morning, where the Government has offered to let UK tourists back in from May if they can provide evidence that they've had both their shots.
Problems:
1. Much of population won't have had both jabs by then; some won't even have had the first. Travel contingent on vaccination will therefore discriminate blatantly against those who haven't yet had it.
2. The aforementioned unvaccinated will then start bombarding surgeries with angry demands to be let to the front of the queue.
3. The NHS doesn't have a system for issuing vaccination passports and doctors obviously don't have the time to be issuing millions and millions of individual certificates.
I think the only way you get around that is with air bridges between the UK and other destinations where the virus is heavily suppressed, where both parties agree not to demand vaccine passports be produced to obtain entry. I'm not sure how workable that's going to be in principle given the current political climate; in practice, there will be precious few destinations available to visit that are likely to be as far advanced in their vaccination programs as the UK is come May/June time.
I'm not at all sure that the Government thought of any of this before it drafted its timetable for dumping the restrictions. It could have to deal with a very large number of furious, thwarted tourists in a few months' time.
Shagger dumped his wife and kids whilst she was having cancer treatment, knocked up the fling, shagged a musician on the side for good measure. And people still think "he's a lad". So there are no stories of basic ethics and morality that can get him. None.
I think what it shows is that merely by keeping such fanatics a long way from power in Labour, Starmer is doing the country sterling service, whatever his other shortcomings.
14-10-11-2
Sensational stuff
But that bugger Rohit’s still there.
We get out of lockdown when we get out of lockdown. 17 May is rule of six indoors, and domestic hotel / B&B. Maybe. If we get through about 3 stages of review etc etc.
GP of the Day is right.
It also leaves you wondering if he might have had an even more illustrious career but for the chronic mismanagement he suffered from 2003 to 2008.
We will miss him a lot when he retires.
Italy relying on "AZ in breach of contract" as an excuse, which they are not.
I mean, it always appears in the Daily Merkle.
The standard protocol is to require 3 other independent & corroborating sources before entertaining the possibility that a DM story is not a 100% made-up bollocks.
Just today, I look at the headlines in the DM & read:
"How Boris and Carrie dined in style on secret gourmet takeaways ..."
"Boris says kebabs are his favourite healthy meal ..."
"Dolphins can catch COVID ..."
"Meghan's friends play the race card ..."
"Meghan, the Duchess of Woke ..."
"Father cuts off daughter's head and carries it through the streets ..."
"Selfish and vindictive property developer burns down home ..."
"Rhinos can catch COVID ..."
"Elsa Patacky snacks on cheetos .."
Still, my favourite today is
"Belgian cyclist who kneed five-year-old girl to the floor for blocking his path is ordered to pay just €1 compensation because of abuse he received on social media"
All good rollicking fun .... but does anyone believe anything in the DM is actually true.
Rather; he serially shagged around and she finally booted him out. By all accounts, relations with his children also broke down.
And the cancer treatment came a bit later.
The Guernsey CMO has observed that with the B.117 variant we’ve seen far more in-household transmission than we did in the first wave.
I'm afraid from the article it's very clear there are plenty of GPs who are clueless when it comes to the vaccine rollout and their role for Group6 in particular.
Boris is our PM though. Thank goodness at least the Mail is trying to hold him to account.
Still, since Geordie Grieg took over as editor at the Daily Merkle, there have been fewer stories along the lines of
"Fury as asylum seeker receives a pair of gold-leaf underpants at public expense".
But, the Merkle coverage has gone through the roof.
One day last week. I counted 15 separate articles on Meghan in just one issue.
The Mail’s main readership is post-menstrual curtain-twitchers who like hating on younger women.
And Big G (for the sudoku).
Tory donors presumably, who will expect their pound of flesh in due course.
Oh and decorated.
A couple of years ago we bought a terrace house in Southwold. Gutted, new kitchen, bathroom, electrics and heating for about £20k.
Oh and decorated.
Ultimately the purpose of a newspaper is to make money. They do a fantastic job of that.
I think your GPT-3 programming needs a reboot. This shouldn't have made it past the filter.
And it has a baleful effect on public life, and makes its readers miserable.
But it is right to call out Princess Nut-nuts’ Marie Antoinette delusions.
I rarely read the mail and to be honest it is competing with the express for gossip stories and a vendetta against Megan justified or not
Your generalisation about its readers is misogynistic and nasty
And it is my wife who does the puzzles and that is the only reason I continue paying the £9.99 per month sub
Heck my parents do as it gives them something to moan about.
Everything is always awful in Daily Mail (and Radio 4) world.
The warning signs are there. Are you going to step back from the edge or go into a full DM descent into darkness?
And the readers’ husbands to dream about their younger days.
Why does a "raised" pond need to be filled in after it has been demolished?
Certainly 200k on a redesign (if that's what it is) no deeper than the paint is extravagant.
Though the Mail are careful to say "may" cost.
I am also retired. It is the consequence of two well paid older individuals who aren't gullible and waste money on overpriced stuff.
Good on her.
And only the headline will appear on Twitter.
How the media works. Innit.
The USA is spending £4 billion on the new Air Force and we get our knickers in a twist on spending £200,000 on the home of our PM.
Which is why I am very dubious about the "it can't be paid for" reasons behind running this story.
I am hoping that we will get some more posts along these lines today.
I restored the battle ramparts on my Grade 1 listed Welsh castle, cleaned the moat, replaced the drawbridge, rebuilt the North Tower, upgraded the stonework on the northern facade and re-plumbed the ancient latrines.
And decorated the Great Hall. All for under 200k.
I realise I am lucky, but I did not waste my money buying drugs and copies of the Daily Merkle.
£200,000 for Carrie
They say power corrupts, but this was quick.
An affiliate marketing trick has always been to tease people to one of their regular sites then get the followup commission.
I've always treated that as a key part of the DM online revenue. They are up to a couple of hundred million a year or more.
;-)
https://twitter.com/rachaelvenables/status/1367746036291223556
https://twitter.com/ScotTories/status/1367542180307435525?s=20
Redecorate? We used to dream of redecorating. We had same carpet for 300 years.
https://twitter.com/HarryYorke1/status/1367750328007942146
Perhaps the DM thing is a pitch for a photoshoot.
But in answer to the specific it was both above and below ground level with a gastly statue in the middle with a fountain that ate electricity. It was set in a large sunken area with rockery around the edge. A new environmentally friendly pond was built elsewhere. The water pumped from one to the others. A bulldozer then transferred the concrete as foundations to the patio and lorry loads of top soil filled the hole.
Surely not.
I don’t know how large their flat is but if it is being totally redone I’m not surprised by the price.