WTF is Reasoned UK - given that Darren Grimes is just the latest right wing "opinion" star.
The move to Salford was not pefect but it opened up jobs to folk across Lancashire, and those from further afield willing to brave the Trans Pennine Express or the M62 in rush hour.
The moves announced yesterday should only enhance that. For too often graduates have drifted to London after University because of the burgeoning jobs market and too often its the same middle class, liberal, rent in Clapham/Walthamstow/Peckham bankrolled by mum and dad sorts applying.
These folk will continue to move to the capital but by moving jobs in the other direction the Beeb should be able to gradually diversify their new intake (providing those handing out the jobs also change their approach).
Have you been to Manchester recently? It's basically London these days and full of the same middle class, liberal, bankrolled by mum and dad sorts.
Used to live there, now live in London. Can guarantee it is nowhere near as bad as London. However can't comment on who the Beeb are giving the jobs too! ITV have a lot of staff in Salford too.
Interestingly, a friend of mine who used to work at the BBC in Salford called the 2016 referendum result right based on his conversation with employees there. He was a presenter - massive remainer, all the views you would expect of a BBC employee, moved from London when the BBC did - but many of the people who worked there - cleaners, make-up artists, concierges etc - were very Salford and had very different views.
You have to remember that every tory policy is now calibrated toward the uneducated and ignorant whims of a notional 54 year old fat white man from Hartlepool who has the suit symbols of playing cards tattooed on his nicotine stained knuckles. Diamond Liz as leader doesn't tick that box.
Indeed, Liz Truss has done a good job with the post Brexit trade deals but she is basically still an Orange Book LD not a conservative, if she was Conservative leader she would lose some voters to Labour because she is too rightwing economically and some voters to UKIP and Reform UK and Fox as she is too socially liberal
Are there any conservatives apart from you? You set a remarkably high bar.
Bolsonaro, Modi, Trump, Salvini, Martin Bormann and IDS. Although he'd probably end up claiming that Bormann is a Lib Dem Orange Booker.
You have to remember that every tory policy is now calibrated toward the uneducated and ignorant whims of a notional 54 year old fat white man from Hartlepool who has the suit symbols of playing cards tattooed on his nicotine stained knuckles. Diamond Liz as leader doesn't tick that box.
Indeed, Liz Truss has done a good job with the post Brexit trade deals but she is basically still an Orange Book LD not a conservative, if she was Conservative leader she would lose some voters to Labour because she is too rightwing economically and some voters to UKIP and Reform UK and Fox as she is too socially liberal
You have to admit it would be interesting to have a republican as PM, especially a Tory republican.
No it wouldn't, the last republican we had as leader was Cromwell.
Corbyn was trounced in 2019 as a republican and even Starmer has said he backs a reformed monarchy.
It should be noted that in 2016 the centre right Liberals in Australia were led by a republican, Malcolm Turnbull who lost the majority his monarchist predecessor Tony Abbott had won in 2013 which his successor, the monarchist Scott Morrison then regained in 2019.
So the omens are not good for the Tories being led by a republican, I expect some traditional Tories would vote UKIP or Reform UK or even for Starmer Labour if the Tories were led by a republican liberal
OT just been jabbed. No plaster, let alone a lollipop. Judging from the waiting room, there is a mopping-up operation targeting elderly Asian patients.
My wife got hers yesterday. Unlike me, absolutely no side affects. She's skipping around the place. Quite annoying.
I didn't get my side effects (mild) until 20 hrs after
Church of England accidentally announces Lutheran reformation, as all statutes and symbols relating to Christ are removed from Churches for fear they cause offence...
It is more statutes linked to slavery, the Anglican church worldwide has a growing black congregation, though ironically it is rather more conservative on social matters than most of the white Anglican clergy
I know what they meant, but they should be careful what they say.
The biblical Jesus offended a lot of people and Christian iconography and other features of worship can and do cause offence.
The report does not mention removing icons of Jesus and the altar and turning the Anglican church Lutheran, it is just statues linked to slavery
Almost any historical figure in the age of Empire - say 1600-1850, can be ‘linked to slavery’. Same goes for many historical figures before then, too.
Anyone famous in the classical world, from Ceasars to philosophers, would have kept slaves. Likewise much of the Muslim world until about 50 years ago?
In some way for many yes but someone like Colston for instance got most of his wealth from slavery and his fame from slavery as his philanthropy came from the funds of slavery
On topic: lay the favourite. It’s easy to be popular when handing out cash under one of the worlds most generous support programs - less so when the bill needs to be paid.
Off topic: New series of Drive to Survive, the F1 documentary, just landed on Netflix. Well worth watching, even if you’re not a fan of the sport itself.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
We didn't have a 50% more transmissive variant in June.
And we didn't have a decent number of people with some protection from vaccinations (or from having had the virus).
It's easy to forget that there was a lot of hope (wishful thinking) that we'd be able to relax and not have to worry about a second wave.
Keeping cafes shut until 17 May seems pretty extraordinary to me I must say. People have gone beyond just being numbed into submission by these measures, it's become more normalised than it was last June. Frightening.
My daughter works a few hours a week in a cafe. They are open for takeaway coffee and stuff. The owner has some plastic chairs stacked outside and a few punters sat on them with their coffees. The other day someone actually took the time and trouble to call the police, who duly showed up and made her store the chairs out of the public's sight.
Lockdown has indeed become normal life. It’s kind of comforting. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything
As I speculated earlier this week, I wonder if we are experiencing a new form of institutionalisation, the same thing that long term prisoners experience. The deadening routine and unchanging stasis has its own consolations.
Many of my friends report similar feelings. They are more reclusive than they need to be. Monosyllabic. Numbed. Not unhappy, just resigned. The days trudge on
Maybe that’s why we accept these intense restrictions so obediently. We’ve lost the will. It may take us quite a while to venture out when unlockdown finally happens; the young will lead the way
I see evidence of this on here – there are several PBers who happily tolerate, even relish, lockdown. Not only are they perfectly relaxed about doing nothing and seeing nobody, they want to present their mentality as some sort of superior, altruist state of being. Their MO is to denounce those who break cover to see their beloved family and friends as "selfish".
Yet I feel completely the opposite. I am going mad indoors. I absolutely hate it. I miss seeing people, my friends, my clients, my colleagues. I have come to loathe Zoom and resent computers themselves. I now see technology as a tool of oppression. It's an extreme reaction. But the world is grey and colourless.
Doesn't anyone else feel like me?
Let me out. Set me free.
About a third of the time I am like you. Raging against the restraints. The rest of the time I am a lifer in the Scrubs. Grey skin. Shuffling about. Resigned to my fate. Don’t even want to leave the cell. Consoled by weird, tiny routines.
I agree on Zoom entirely. Loathe it, now. I’m also crushingly bored of looking like a slob. I desperately want a proper haircut and I want a reason to wear smart clothes.
We didn't have a 50% more transmissive variant in June.
And we didn't have a decent number of people with some protection from vaccinations (or from having had the virus).
It's easy to forget that there was a lot of hope (wishful thinking) that we'd be able to relax and not have to worry about a second wave.
Keeping cafes shut until 17 May seems pretty extraordinary to me I must say. People have gone beyond just being numbed into submission by these measures, it's become more normalised than it was last June. Frightening.
My daughter works a few hours a week in a cafe. They are open for takeaway coffee and stuff. The owner has some plastic chairs stacked outside and a few punters sat on them with their coffees. The other day someone actually took the time and trouble to call the police, who duly showed up and made her store the chairs out of the public's sight.
Lockdown has indeed become normal life. It’s kind of comforting. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything
As I speculated earlier this week, I wonder if we are experiencing a new form of institutionalisation, the same thing that long term prisoners experience. The deadening routine and unchanging stasis has its own consolations.
Many of my friends report similar feelings. They are more reclusive than they need to be. Monosyllabic. Numbed. Not unhappy, just resigned. The days trudge on
Maybe that’s why we accept these intense restrictions so obediently. We’ve lost the will. It may take us quite a while to venture out when unlockdown finally happens; the young will lead the way
I see evidence of this on here – there are several PBers who happily tolerate, even relish, lockdown. Not only are they perfectly relaxed about doing nothing and seeing nobody, they want to present their mentality as some sort of superior, altruist state of being. Their MO is to denounce those who break cover to see their beloved family and friends as "selfish".
Yet I feel completely the opposite. I am going mad indoors. I absolutely hate it. I miss seeing people, my friends, my clients, my colleagues. I have come to loathe Zoom and resent computers themselves. I now see technology as a tool of oppression. It's an extreme reaction. But the world is grey and colourless.
Doesn't anyone else feel like me?
Let me out. Set me free.
About a third of the time I am like you. Raging against the restraints. The rest of the time I am a lifer in the Scrubs. Grey skin. Shuffling about. Resigned to my fate. Don’t even want to leave the cell. Consoled by weird, tiny routines.
I agree on Zoom entirely. Loathe it, now. I’m also crushingly bored of looking like a slob. I desperately want a proper haircut and I want a reason to wear smart clothes.
Get someone to report you for breaking the first lockdown, and you could dress up for the court?
OT just been jabbed. No plaster, let alone a lollipop. Judging from the waiting room, there is a mopping-up operation targeting elderly Asian patients.
My wife got hers yesterday. Unlike me, absolutely no side affects. She's skipping around the place. Quite annoying.
I didn't get my side effects (mild) until 20 hrs after
It seems pretty much random. I know fit healthy young people who had horrible side effects, I know doddery oldsters who had none. But I also know the exact opposite.
All I got was a faint pain in my upper arm, from the jab. Nothing else
Prof Neil Ferguson says we can't possibly keep variants out of the country because we can't close down all travel to Europe. But that's exactly how Australia and New Zealand have kept all variants out of their countries. Why can't we do the same?
OT just been jabbed. No plaster, let alone a lollipop. Judging from the waiting room, there is a mopping-up operation targeting elderly Asian patients.
My wife got hers yesterday. Unlike me, absolutely no side affects. She's skipping around the place. Quite annoying.
I didn't get my side effects (mild) until 20 hrs after
What is the base r0 of B.1.1.7 under a normal unvaccinated (And not locked down) population ?
3 ? 3.5 ?
I mean it's something we'll never fully know but the inverse is basically the herd immunity vaccinated threshold we need to achieve to push Covid out. Our 94% willing to be vaccinated is encouraging in that respect - if you add children to that in a similar proportion that *should* be sufficient.
If Warwick uni's assumptions are true, life is going to be very rough indeed for antivaxxers. Basically we'll probably all get it, even vaccinated in the long run but it'll be milder for those vaccinated.
0.94 (willing pop) * 0.85 (Vaccine efficacy) * ( 1 - 0.213) (Under 18) = 62.88 - so yes r would still be over 1.
If you can get a vaccine approved for children then you can immediately push that up. Infections amongst the vaccinated will push immunity up from the worked on 85% baseline, also infections amongst the unvaccinated. Eventually you'll reach a local herd immunity with a flare up (Probably amongst a particularly unvaxxed cohort....) but it won't transpose fully back to a pandemic. Basically my reading is this means winter 21-22 becomes like a normal (Or hopefully light) endemic winter flu season. And it probably decreases after that. Globally of course it's going to be much worse for a while.
This ignores any children who have had the virus already and are thus immune (to a greater or lesser extent).
Prof Neil Ferguson says we can't possibly keep variants out of the country because we can't close down all travel to Europe. But that's exactly how Australia and New Zealand have kept all variants out of their countries. Why can't we do the same?
Because many people have family and friends and business across the Channel. You can’t prevent them travelling FOREVER. A semi-permanent travel ban would also kill the tourism industry and much of hospitality, and London. Maybe 20% of GDP, gone for good? Millions unemployed?
We didn't have a 50% more transmissive variant in June.
And we didn't have a decent number of people with some protection from vaccinations (or from having had the virus).
It's easy to forget that there was a lot of hope (wishful thinking) that we'd be able to relax and not have to worry about a second wave.
Keeping cafes shut until 17 May seems pretty extraordinary to me I must say. People have gone beyond just being numbed into submission by these measures, it's become more normalised than it was last June. Frightening.
My daughter works a few hours a week in a cafe. They are open for takeaway coffee and stuff. The owner has some plastic chairs stacked outside and a few punters sat on them with their coffees. The other day someone actually took the time and trouble to call the police, who duly showed up and made her store the chairs out of the public's sight.
Lockdown has indeed become normal life. It’s kind of comforting. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything
As I speculated earlier this week, I wonder if we are experiencing a new form of institutionalisation, the same thing that long term prisoners experience. The deadening routine and unchanging stasis has its own consolations.
Many of my friends report similar feelings. They are more reclusive than they need to be. Monosyllabic. Numbed. Not unhappy, just resigned. The days trudge on
Maybe that’s why we accept these intense restrictions so obediently. We’ve lost the will. It may take us quite a while to venture out when unlockdown finally happens; the young will lead the way
Smartphones, computers and broadband internet are to blame. Without those, it would be so unbearable to be stuck in our homes that we probably would have rebelled against the lockdown by now.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
This wholly fallacious argument gets 10 out of 10 for effort. The Tories won this (similar) seat by 182 votes in 1959 and Labour have held it for the last 62 years. It's not an old Labour fiefdom where they weigh the votes (Harlepool and area bear no relation to southern ideas if it) but for an opposition to lose this historically safe seat against this government would be very very bad. It's a free hit for the Tories.
The fact that a leave leaning seat makes it more difficult for Labour is just a small part of the evidence of how rubbish L:abour have been, not a defence for losing the seat. (Which they won't).
Hartlepool is so leave leaning it's almost horizontal. And this political identity - working class leave - is owned by the Tories now. If Labour can win here it will mean the "leave" bit of that identity is in decline. I'm hoping this is the case but my money is on the Tories at evens.
Prof Neil Ferguson says we can't possibly keep variants out of the country because we can't close down all travel to Europe. But that's exactly how Australia and New Zealand have kept all variants out of their countries. Why can't we do the same?
Neither Oz nor NZ had tons of lorry drivers coming off ferries day and night, nor direct trains to other countries, nor a fraction of the international passenger air traffic we have
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You underestimate the attraction and importance of a common language. In building trust, in economic interactions, in cultural interactions.
Also English Common law, Westminster style parliaments, and the monarchy. All shared. CANZUK does make sense as a loose political union combining to project ‘English’ liberal values. A good thing.
Oh dear, it sounds as though my favourite church monument will have to go. It's a plain marble slab from 1828, with no decoration at all but laid out in the indefinable elegance of the Georgian period, the letters beautifully carved, with the simple words: "Major Charles Grant, of the island of St Vincent. Beloved in life, in death lamented".
Was there ever a more dignified monument to anyone? Pity it will have to go in the skip now.
Prof Neil Ferguson says we can't possibly keep variants out of the country because we can't close down all travel to Europe. But that's exactly how Australia and New Zealand have kept all variants out of their countries. Why can't we do the same?
OT just been jabbed. No plaster, let alone a lollipop. Judging from the waiting room, there is a mopping-up operation targeting elderly Asian patients.
My wife got hers yesterday. Unlike me, absolutely no side affects. She's skipping around the place. Quite annoying.
I'm two days after mine and nothing. Sorry to disappoint.
We didn't have a 50% more transmissive variant in June.
And we didn't have a decent number of people with some protection from vaccinations (or from having had the virus).
It's easy to forget that there was a lot of hope (wishful thinking) that we'd be able to relax and not have to worry about a second wave.
Keeping cafes shut until 17 May seems pretty extraordinary to me I must say. People have gone beyond just being numbed into submission by these measures, it's become more normalised than it was last June. Frightening.
My daughter works a few hours a week in a cafe. They are open for takeaway coffee and stuff. The owner has some plastic chairs stacked outside and a few punters sat on them with their coffees. The other day someone actually took the time and trouble to call the police, who duly showed up and made her store the chairs out of the public's sight.
Lockdown has indeed become normal life. It’s kind of comforting. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything
As I speculated earlier this week, I wonder if we are experiencing a new form of institutionalisation, the same thing that long term prisoners experience. The deadening routine and unchanging stasis has its own consolations.
Many of my friends report similar feelings. They are more reclusive than they need to be. Monosyllabic. Numbed. Not unhappy, just resigned. The days trudge on
Maybe that’s why we accept these intense restrictions so obediently. We’ve lost the will. It may take us quite a while to venture out when unlockdown finally happens; the young will lead the way
I see evidence of this on here – there are several PBers who happily tolerate, even relish, lockdown. Not only are they perfectly relaxed about doing nothing and seeing nobody, they want to present their mentality as some sort of superior, altruist state of being. Their MO is to denounce those who break cover to see their beloved family and friends as "selfish".
Yet I feel completely the opposite. I am going mad indoors. I absolutely hate it. I miss seeing people, my friends, my clients, my colleagues. I have come to loathe Zoom and resent computers themselves. I now see technology as a tool of oppression. It's an extreme reaction. But the world is grey and colourless.
Doesn't anyone else feel like me?
Let me out. Set me free.
Agree entirely. Though also agree with Leon. After a year of raging against lockdown - to the detriment of my mental health - I've stopped fighting it. I get an extra half hour in bed in the morning; I hang out with the cats; I note the buses passing; I take a walk around the park. I've stopped drinking. My horizons have reduced. I've become institutionalised. I am neither happy nor sad. But once I get released I intend to go absolutely mental, every night, for about a month.
Church of England accidentally announces Lutheran reformation, as all statutes and symbols relating to Christ are removed from Churches for fear they cause offence...
It is more statutes linked to slavery, the Anglican church worldwide has a growing black congregation, though ironically it is rather more conservative on social matters than most of the white Anglican clergy
I know what they meant, but they should be careful what they say.
The biblical Jesus offended a lot of people and Christian iconography and other features of worship can and do cause offence.
The report does not mention removing icons of Jesus and the altar and turning the Anglican church Lutheran, it is just statues linked to slavery
Almost any historical figure in the age of Empire - say 1600-1850, can be ‘linked to slavery’. Same goes for many historical figures before then, too.
Anyone famous in the classical world, from Ceasars to philosophers, would have kept slaves. Likewise much of the Muslim world until about 50 years ago?
What annoys me most is the theological woolyness of the whole thing. If the men in question were true Christians, and if "the Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual," then how can they be unworthy to be in church but worthy to be in heaven? Are we now saying that involvement with slavery is a sin too weighty to be blotted out by faith - in which case, tant pis for John Newton? Or are we saying that the Archbishop of Canterbury can appoint a commission capable of looking into men's souls and judge whether they had been truly saved, at a distance of 200 years or more?
Police spent millions of pounds replacing helicopters with aircraft that cannot operate in dense urban areas.
Four fixed-wing aircraft, which cost £2.5 million each, were intended to fly across England and Wales but cannot land at most airfields because they need lengthy runways.
Two of the planes are grounded at a purpose-built £2.85 million hangar in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, because pilots do not want to work there.
Well, use the helicopter in 'dense urban areas' then. I assume the problem is line of sight in tall buildings when the plane is circling and the tracking camera isn't able to stay locked. They'll be much cheaper to fly elsewhere though.
It hasn't stopped them buzzing us, so they can't be permanently grounded.
And WTF is wrong with Donny? It has its problems, but you don't have to live in an ex-mining village. Or even go near the town centre.
I'm from around there. There's some nice, semi-rural places in the vicinity if you like that sort of thing. Very tranquil and high quality houses with big gardens etc. The town though ... no. No.
Hi !
Yes, I'd sussed you lived in that NOTW. Bet you don't go into town much.
Me, I remember 6 pints, then "Romeo and Juliets", then either home with a girl or if not the consolation of a bag of chips. Many chips were had.
We didn't have a 50% more transmissive variant in June.
And we didn't have a decent number of people with some protection from vaccinations (or from having had the virus).
It's easy to forget that there was a lot of hope (wishful thinking) that we'd be able to relax and not have to worry about a second wave.
Keeping cafes shut until 17 May seems pretty extraordinary to me I must say. People have gone beyond just being numbed into submission by these measures, it's become more normalised than it was last June. Frightening.
My daughter works a few hours a week in a cafe. They are open for takeaway coffee and stuff. The owner has some plastic chairs stacked outside and a few punters sat on them with their coffees. The other day someone actually took the time and trouble to call the police, who duly showed up and made her store the chairs out of the public's sight.
Lockdown has indeed become normal life. It’s kind of comforting. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything
As I speculated earlier this week, I wonder if we are experiencing a new form of institutionalisation, the same thing that long term prisoners experience. The deadening routine and unchanging stasis has its own consolations.
Many of my friends report similar feelings. They are more reclusive than they need to be. Monosyllabic. Numbed. Not unhappy, just resigned. The days trudge on
Maybe that’s why we accept these intense restrictions so obediently. We’ve lost the will. It may take us quite a while to venture out when unlockdown finally happens; the young will lead the way
I see evidence of this on here – there are several PBers who happily tolerate, even relish, lockdown. Not only are they perfectly relaxed about doing nothing and seeing nobody, they want to present their mentality as some sort of superior, altruist state of being. Their MO is to denounce those who break cover to see their beloved family and friends as "selfish".
Yet I feel completely the opposite. I am going mad indoors. I absolutely hate it. I miss seeing people, my friends, my clients, my colleagues. I have come to loathe Zoom and resent computers themselves. I now see technology as a tool of oppression. It's an extreme reaction. But the world is grey and colourless.
Doesn't anyone else feel like me?
Let me out. Set me free.
Agree entirely. Though also agree with Leon. After a year of raging against lockdown - to the detriment of my mental health - I've stopped fighting it. I get an extra half hour in bed in the morning; I hang out with the cats; I note the buses passing; I take a walk around the park. I've stopped drinking. My horizons have reduced. I've become institutionalised. I am neither happy nor sad. But once I get released I intend to go absolutely mental, every night, for about a month.
We're all trapped in a mental institution. One Flew Over with Whitty in drag as Nurse Ratched.
OT just been jabbed. No plaster, let alone a lollipop. Judging from the waiting room, there is a mopping-up operation targeting elderly Asian patients.
My wife got hers yesterday. Unlike me, absolutely no side affects. She's skipping around the place. Quite annoying.
I didn't get my side effects (mild) until 20 hrs after
Police spent millions of pounds replacing helicopters with aircraft that cannot operate in dense urban areas.
Four fixed-wing aircraft, which cost £2.5 million each, were intended to fly across England and Wales but cannot land at most airfields because they need lengthy runways.
Two of the planes are grounded at a purpose-built £2.85 million hangar in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, because pilots do not want to work there.
Well, use the helicopter in 'dense urban areas' then. I assume the problem is line of sight in tall buildings when the plane is circling and the tracking camera isn't able to stay locked. They'll be much cheaper to fly elsewhere though.
It hasn't stopped them buzzing us, so they can't be permanently grounded.
And WTF is wrong with Donny? It has its problems, but you don't have to live in an ex-mining village. Or even go near the town centre.
I'm from around there. There's some nice, semi-rural places in the vicinity if you like that sort of thing. Very tranquil and high quality houses with big gardens etc. The town though ... no. No.
Hi !
Yes, I'd sussed you lived in that NOTW. Bet you don't go into town much.
Me, I remember 6 pints, then "Romeo and Juliets", then either home with a girl or if not the consolation of a bag of chips. Many chips were had.
Sad to report that I'm getting to the age where I'd prefer the bag of chips.
Hasn't this been a constant everywhere a city lockdown is pre-announced? We had it here and then escapees from London seeded the virus around the rest of the country in the first wave and then again with the Kent variant.
We didn't have a 50% more transmissive variant in June.
And we didn't have a decent number of people with some protection from vaccinations (or from having had the virus).
It's easy to forget that there was a lot of hope (wishful thinking) that we'd be able to relax and not have to worry about a second wave.
Keeping cafes shut until 17 May seems pretty extraordinary to me I must say. People have gone beyond just being numbed into submission by these measures, it's become more normalised than it was last June. Frightening.
My daughter works a few hours a week in a cafe. They are open for takeaway coffee and stuff. The owner has some plastic chairs stacked outside and a few punters sat on them with their coffees. The other day someone actually took the time and trouble to call the police, who duly showed up and made her store the chairs out of the public's sight.
Lockdown has indeed become normal life. It’s kind of comforting. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything
As I speculated earlier this week, I wonder if we are experiencing a new form of institutionalisation, the same thing that long term prisoners experience. The deadening routine and unchanging stasis has its own consolations.
Many of my friends report similar feelings. They are more reclusive than they need to be. Monosyllabic. Numbed. Not unhappy, just resigned. The days trudge on
Maybe that’s why we accept these intense restrictions so obediently. We’ve lost the will. It may take us quite a while to venture out when unlockdown finally happens; the young will lead the way
I see evidence of this on here – there are several PBers who happily tolerate, even relish, lockdown. Not only are they perfectly relaxed about doing nothing and seeing nobody, they want to present their mentality as some sort of superior, altruist state of being. Their MO is to denounce those who break cover to see their beloved family and friends as "selfish".
Yet I feel completely the opposite. I am going mad indoors. I absolutely hate it. I miss seeing people, my friends, my clients, my colleagues. I have come to loathe Zoom and resent computers themselves. I now see technology as a tool of oppression. It's an extreme reaction. But the world is grey and colourless.
Doesn't anyone else feel like me?
Let me out. Set me free.
I thought I was an introvert. I have my knitting. I have lots of indoor hobbies, and I've only ever been on one group cycle ride - waiting for the guy on the Brompton wasn't much fun.
It turns out that I'm not an introvert. I am terribly unhappy to be isolated from other people. Everything on zoom feels so very fake. I hate it.
But I accept this, and will continue to accept this, until I am vaccinated, because I'm not a prat, and I understand the necessity given the situation and the government's failure to find any way (until the vaccines), other than lockdown, to control the spread of infection.
Too many opponents of lockdown have been somewhere on a spectrum from wishful thinking to outright denial of the dangers of the disease for me to side with them. That doesn't mean I like lockdown, but I will endure it until vaccinated.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Presumably the plan is to pitch "1% payrise for Nurses" against "We got Brexit done, but it is still in peril".
Could go either way.
It could. 50/50 on the betting too. Fascinating does not do this one justice. It will tell us whether Leave retains its power as the ultimate wedge issue. If not, Starmer could be on his way to number 10.
Prof Neil Ferguson says we can't possibly keep variants out of the country because we can't close down all travel to Europe. But that's exactly how Australia and New Zealand have kept all variants out of their countries. Why can't we do the same?
Australia & New Zealand don't have 8,000 lorries driven off ferries every day.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
*FEWER*
The Tories are going to seed...
I think "less" is correct given the context - that of an absolute, countable number.
That's fine. It won't crash the NHS. So long as it's not second doses being refused, who cares what any individual does? Sure, I want the government to really push for people to get the jabs, but if individuals want to take their chances with COVID, that's their decision.
The government must have decided it was impossible to stop this happening, even though they really ought to be preventing it if they want to reduce the spread of the virus.
Police spent millions of pounds replacing helicopters with aircraft that cannot operate in dense urban areas.
Four fixed-wing aircraft, which cost £2.5 million each, were intended to fly across England and Wales but cannot land at most airfields because they need lengthy runways.
Two of the planes are grounded at a purpose-built £2.85 million hangar in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, because pilots do not want to work there.
Well, use the helicopter in 'dense urban areas' then. I assume the problem is line of sight in tall buildings when the plane is circling and the tracking camera isn't able to stay locked. They'll be much cheaper to fly elsewhere though.
It hasn't stopped them buzzing us, so they can't be permanently grounded.
And WTF is wrong with Donny? It has its problems, but you don't have to live in an ex-mining village. Or even go near the town centre.
I'm from around there. There's some nice, semi-rural places in the vicinity if you like that sort of thing. Very tranquil and high quality houses with big gardens etc. The town though ... no. No.
Hi !
Yes, I'd sussed you lived in that NOTW. Bet you don't go into town much.
Me, I remember 6 pints, then "Romeo and Juliets", then either home with a girl or if not the consolation of a bag of chips. Many chips were had.
Judging by the goods on offer on the average Friday night, the chips would win every time.
The town centre is a disaster zone but as above, not everything in the borough is. Mind you, the council seems keen on putting monster warehouses on every field.
I am told the current Mayor didn't like seeing sheep on the way in from the motorway because it 'made Doncaster look like a backwater'. The sheep field is now a massive empty warehouse. Well done.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Church of England accidentally announces Lutheran reformation, as all statutes and symbols relating to Christ are removed from Churches for fear they cause offence...
It is more statutes linked to slavery, the Anglican church worldwide has a growing black congregation, though ironically it is rather more conservative on social matters than most of the white Anglican clergy
I know what they meant, but they should be careful what they say.
The biblical Jesus offended a lot of people and Christian iconography and other features of worship can and do cause offence.
The report does not mention removing icons of Jesus and the altar and turning the Anglican church Lutheran, it is just statues linked to slavery
Almost any historical figure in the age of Empire - say 1600-1850, can be ‘linked to slavery’. Same goes for many historical figures before then, too.
Anyone famous in the classical world, from Ceasars to philosophers, would have kept slaves. Likewise much of the Muslim world until about 50 years ago?
What annoys me most is the theological woolyness of the whole thing. If the men in question were true Christians, and if "the Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual," then how can they be unworthy to be in church but worthy to be in heaven? Are we now saying that involvement with slavery is a sin too weighty to be blotted out by faith - in which case, tant pis for John Newton? Or are we saying that the Archbishop of Canterbury can appoint a commission capable of looking into men's souls and judge whether they had been truly saved, at a distance of 200 years or more?
Agree. Making windows into souls is too hard for me and most. Leaving Colston where he is and commission a top quality sculpture as good as the Dying Gaul to be placed alongside it would be the imaginative thing. The same with churches. How many Archbishops of Canterbury or York up to about 1800 were not in some way 'linked' with slavery or other gross evils both ancient and modern.
Is Justin Welby 'linked' with homophobia by being the presiding bishop of a communion parts of which encourage it?
Was Jane Austen complicit because she put sugar in her tea? Was Joe Bloggs? Am I complicit with the the horrors of Tibet or the Uighurs when I buy a Chinese made telly?
I've got eight cars, enough bits to make another eight, twenty bikes, enough bits to make another twenty and two motorbikes so unless I come into oligarch money it's country living for me - split between Zumerzet and Bretagne.
I would like an apartment on La Canebière in Marseille but Mrs DA does not share my deep and abiding love of la cité phocéenne.
Genuine question: how do you accommodate (still less afford) all of that?
How big is your house?
I afford it all the same way as every other rich Leninist affords anything - inheritance. Mrs DA earns a pretty penny overcharging for cosmetic dentistry too.
We've got a 4 bed stone farmhouse with two stone barns. One's a workshop and the others for storage.
The house in France is a smaller new build but its on a 20ha terrain.
Sounds nice. And, you'll be comfortable with the Red Guard taking that and all your toys away come the Revolution too?
He’ll be commanding an armoured train and liquidating counter revolutionaries & Whites within marching distance of the rail network by that point. Life moves on..
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
This wholly fallacious argument gets 10 out of 10 for effort. The Tories won this (similar) seat by 182 votes in 1959 and Labour have held it for the last 62 years. It's not an old Labour fiefdom where they weigh the votes (Harlepool and area bear no relation to southern ideas if it) but for an opposition to lose this historically safe seat against this government would be very very bad. It's a free hit for the Tories.
The fact that a leave leaning seat makes it more difficult for Labour is just a small part of the evidence of how rubbish L:abour have been, not a defence for losing the seat. (Which they won't).
Hartlepool is so leave leaning it's almost horizontal. And this political identity - working class leave - is owned by the Tories now. If Labour can win here it will mean the "leave" bit of that identity is in decline. I'm hoping this is the case but my money is on the Tories at evens.
There is something in that.
In 2019 Labour got a higher voter share in Remain voting Chingford and Woodford Green at 45.9% than the 37.7% it got in Hartlepool for example. The reason the Tories held Chingford with 48.5% of the vote but lost Hartlepool was because the BXP split the Leave vote in the latter with the Tories on 28% and BXP on 25%.
If the Tories gain Hartlepool it will show Boris is still able to keep the Leave voting coalition behind him even with Brexit delivered, however if Labour hold Hartlepool it will show that Brexit Party voters who defected to them from Labour only did so to get Brexit done and now it has been done will return to their traditional Labour allegience, which would be better news for Starmer
Ye gods. Who approved this ludicrous screenplay? Nobody will ever suspend their disbelief long enough to believe it. It's more farfetched than a Sean Thomas novel!
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
This wholly fallacious argument gets 10 out of 10 for effort. The Tories won this (similar) seat by 182 votes in 1959 and Labour have held it for the last 62 years. It's not an old Labour fiefdom where they weigh the votes (Harlepool and area bear no relation to southern ideas if it) but for an opposition to lose this historically safe seat against this government would be very very bad. It's a free hit for the Tories.
The fact that a leave leaning seat makes it more difficult for Labour is just a small part of the evidence of how rubbish L:abour have been, not a defence for losing the seat. (Which they won't).
Hartlepool is so leave leaning it's almost horizontal. And this political identity - working class leave - is owned by the Tories now. If Labour can win here it will mean the "leave" bit of that identity is in decline. I'm hoping this is the case but my money is on the Tories at evens.
Instinctively I think kinbalu's talking slightly mischievous nonsense here. But let's dig in to the arguments about Hartlepool a little deeper: Small town North East has been trending away from Labour for some time now. This was true before long before Brexit was on the agenda. In this, it is only following what happened in small town Midlands a decade or two back. Perhaps Brexit wasn't a blip. Perhaps it was a symptom, not a cause. Realignments don't happen all at once. Look at what happened in the USA - the republicans are now the parties of small unfashionable towns which would have voted solidly Democrat a generation back. This is often dismissed as unique to the USA, because the USA has some hard core Christianity. But again what if this is a symptom and not a cause? If any of these propositions are true, then perhaps 2019 wasn't a high water mark for this realignment. Perhaps it will continue. And 2023 will see the Conservatives gain Wansbeck, Doncaster North, Hemsworth, Torfaen, Stalybridge and Hyde, and so forth. And places like Blyth Valley will move to the status of Tory safe seats like Mansfield. Now based on our gut feeling for politics, this is unthinkable; and 2019 was a one off event. But the unthinkable is always unthinkable until it happens. Of course, if this is true, we would also expect to see the comfortable bits of the South East trending away from the Conservatives next time around. The nation won't be getting bluer and bluer in this or any other scenario. But still - the possibility exists that the Conservative's future core vote is in seats like Cannock and Mansfield. And therefore perhaps Hartlepool. Just as the Republicans can now count on states like West Virginia. I still think Labour will win. In fact I have bunged £20 on it. But is that principally because Con Gain Hartlepool is just so far outside my mental picture of normality? Actually, I'm still pretty confident. Governments just don't make gains at by-elections unless the opposition is led by someone utterly unelectable. SKS might be a bit boring and vague but he is no Corbyn. But still - I don't dismiss the possibility of a Conservative Hartlepool, despite this sounding instinctively preposterous.
Church of England accidentally announces Lutheran reformation, as all statutes and symbols relating to Christ are removed from Churches for fear they cause offence...
If someone was to be mischievous they would complain that all medieval depictions of Jesus as a Caucasian male should be removed
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
This wholly fallacious argument gets 10 out of 10 for effort. The Tories won this (similar) seat by 182 votes in 1959 and Labour have held it for the last 62 years. It's not an old Labour fiefdom where they weigh the votes (Harlepool and area bear no relation to southern ideas if it) but for an opposition to lose this historically safe seat against this government would be very very bad. It's a free hit for the Tories.
The fact that a leave leaning seat makes it more difficult for Labour is just a small part of the evidence of how rubbish L:abour have been, not a defence for losing the seat. (Which they won't).
Hartlepool is so leave leaning it's almost horizontal. And this political identity - working class leave - is owned by the Tories now. If Labour can win here it will mean the "leave" bit of that identity is in decline. I'm hoping this is the case but my money is on the Tories at evens.
There is something in that.
In 2019 Labour got a higher voter share in Remain voting Chingford and Woodford Green at 45.9% than the 37.7% it got in Hartlepool. The reason the Tories held Chingford with 48.5% of the vote but lost Hartlepool was because the BXP split the Leave vote in the latter with the Tories on 28% and BXP on 25%.
If the Tories gain Hartlepool it will show Boris is still able to keep the Leave voting coalition behind him even with Brexit delivered, however if Labour hold Hartlepool it will show that Brexit Party voters who defected to them from Labour only did so to get Brexit done and now it has been done will return to their traditional Labour allegience, which would be better news for Starmer
To pick out the key part of my previous point which probably got lost in the ramblings, what if Brexit is a symptom and not a cause? What if leave is a broad political identity to which we have applied a misleadingly narrow label, rather than a single issue which is now behind us?
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Lol. Holding one of their own seats 11 years into Opposition that even Corbyn managed not to lose would be 'immensely heartening'? How Labour's ambitions have been etiolated by defeat - I remember when they used to be a national party. Now they're barely a regional one...
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You underestimate the attraction and importance of a common language. In building trust, in economic interactions, in cultural interactions.
Probably I do. But I think others sometimes underestimate the extent to which an overt attachment to the white commonwealth can indicate a worldview that is at best nostalgic and at worst racist. And it does seem an odd flag for Grimes to have fluttering at his shoulder.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You underestimate the attraction and importance of a common language. In building trust, in economic interactions, in cultural interactions.
Also English Common law, Westminster style parliaments, and the monarchy. All shared. CANZUK does make sense as a loose political union combining to project ‘English’ liberal values. A good thing.
The UK component of CANZUK seems to be somewhat conflicted over English Common law, Westminster style parliaments, and the monarchy.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
This wholly fallacious argument gets 10 out of 10 for effort. The Tories won this (similar) seat by 182 votes in 1959 and Labour have held it for the last 62 years. It's not an old Labour fiefdom where they weigh the votes (Harlepool and area bear no relation to southern ideas if it) but for an opposition to lose this historically safe seat against this government would be very very bad. It's a free hit for the Tories.
The fact that a leave leaning seat makes it more difficult for Labour is just a small part of the evidence of how rubbish L:abour have been, not a defence for losing the seat. (Which they won't).
Hartlepool is so leave leaning it's almost horizontal. And this political identity - working class leave - is owned by the Tories now. If Labour can win here it will mean the "leave" bit of that identity is in decline. I'm hoping this is the case but my money is on the Tories at evens.
Instinctively I think kinbalu's talking slightly mischievous nonsense here. But let's dig in to the arguments about Hartlepool a little deeper: Small town North East has been trending away from Labour for some time now. This was true before long before Brexit was on the agenda. In this, it is only following what happened in small town Midlands a decade or two back. Perhaps Brexit wasn't a blip. Perhaps it was a symptom, not a cause. Realignments don't happen all at once. Look at what happened in the USA - the republicans are now the parties of small unfashionable towns which would have voted solidly Democrat a generation back. This is often dismissed as unique to the USA, because the USA has some hard core Christianity. But again what if this is a symptom and not a cause? If any of these propositions are true, then perhaps 2019 wasn't a high water mark for this realignment. Perhaps it will continue. And 2023 will see the Conservatives gain Wansbeck, Doncaster North, Hemsworth, Torfaen, Stalybridge and Hyde, and so forth. And places like Blyth Valley will move to the status of Tory safe seats like Mansfield. Now based on our gut feeling for politics, this is unthinkable; and 2019 was a one off event. But the unthinkable is always unthinkable until it happens. Of course, if this is true, we would also expect to see the comfortable bits of the South East trending away from the Conservatives next time around. The nation won't be getting bluer and bluer in this or any other scenario. But still - the possibility exists that the Conservative's future core vote is in seats like Cannock and Mansfield. And therefore perhaps Hartlepool. Just as the Republicans can now count on states like West Virginia. I still think Labour will win. In fact I have bunged £20 on it. But is that principally because Con Gain Hartlepool is just so far outside my mental picture of normality? Actually, I'm still pretty confident. Governments just don't make gains at by-elections unless the opposition is led by someone utterly unelectable. SKS might be a bit boring and vague but he is no Corbyn. But still - I don't dismiss the possibility of a Conservative Hartlepool, despite this sounding instinctively preposterous.
One important caveat. Hartlepool was never mining. It didn't record the 80%+ Labour vote of many places in County Durham. It is therefore less preposterous than some others as it was always safe Labour. But not ultra safe.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
*FEWER*
The Tories are going to seed...
I think "less" is correct given the context - that of an absolute, countable number.
Oh no it isn't...
(Missing panto)
I would love to see the panto where the correct use of 'fewer' is the subject of the traditional energetic cast/audience debate.
What is interesting about the Tories going after Paul Williams with his daft tweets of eons ago is that they didn't feel the need to bother before.
In 2017 they were so assured of victory in Stockton South that Where's Wharton spent the whole campaign elsewhere (so no change to normal). And in 2019 with Paul Williams conceding verbally to Matt Vickers in early in the campaign, they were happy to campaign on daft videos of local boy Matt Vickers where he went to school, had his first fight, threw up his first parmo etc.
This time? Gloves off. Destroy Paul Williams, remove any chance of party loyalty holding the seat, keep Labour voters at home. Though the suggestion that he is a misogynist is utterly laughable...
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
This wholly fallacious argument gets 10 out of 10 for effort. The Tories won this (similar) seat by 182 votes in 1959 and Labour have held it for the last 62 years. It's not an old Labour fiefdom where they weigh the votes (Harlepool and area bear no relation to southern ideas if it) but for an opposition to lose this historically safe seat against this government would be very very bad. It's a free hit for the Tories.
The fact that a leave leaning seat makes it more difficult for Labour is just a small part of the evidence of how rubbish L:abour have been, not a defence for losing the seat. (Which they won't).
Hartlepool is so leave leaning it's almost horizontal. And this political identity - working class leave - is owned by the Tories now. If Labour can win here it will mean the "leave" bit of that identity is in decline. I'm hoping this is the case but my money is on the Tories at evens.
There is something in that.
In 2019 Labour got a higher voter share in Remain voting Chingford and Woodford Green at 45.9% than the 37.7% it got in Hartlepool for example. The reason the Tories held Chingford with 48.5% of the vote but lost Hartlepool was because the BXP split the Leave vote in the latter with the Tories on 28% and BXP on 25%.
If the Tories gain Hartlepool it will show Boris is still able to keep the Leave voting coalition behind him even with Brexit delivered, however if Labour hold Hartlepool it will show that Brexit Party voters who defected to them from Labour only did so to get Brexit done and now it has been done will return to their traditional Labour allegience, which would be better news for Starmer
Absolutely. And for me it's MASSIVE which of these things turns out to be true. If that (tory owned) working class leave identity breaks down, it's game on for GE24. If it doesn't, Labour may as well stay on the bus in the car park.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
This wholly fallacious argument gets 10 out of 10 for effort. The Tories won this (similar) seat by 182 votes in 1959 and Labour have held it for the last 62 years. It's not an old Labour fiefdom where they weigh the votes (Harlepool and area bear no relation to southern ideas if it) but for an opposition to lose this historically safe seat against this government would be very very bad. It's a free hit for the Tories.
The fact that a leave leaning seat makes it more difficult for Labour is just a small part of the evidence of how rubbish L:abour have been, not a defence for losing the seat. (Which they won't).
Hartlepool is so leave leaning it's almost horizontal. And this political identity - working class leave - is owned by the Tories now. If Labour can win here it will mean the "leave" bit of that identity is in decline. I'm hoping this is the case but my money is on the Tories at evens.
Instinctively I think kinbalu's talking slightly mischievous nonsense here. But let's dig in to the arguments about Hartlepool a little deeper: Small town North East has been trending away from Labour for some time now. This was true before long before Brexit was on the agenda. In this, it is only following what happened in small town Midlands a decade or two back. Perhaps Brexit wasn't a blip. Perhaps it was a symptom, not a cause. Realignments don't happen all at once. Look at what happened in the USA - the republicans are now the parties of small unfashionable towns which would have voted solidly Democrat a generation back. This is often dismissed as unique to the USA, because the USA has some hard core Christianity. But again what if this is a symptom and not a cause? If any of these propositions are true, then perhaps 2019 wasn't a high water mark for this realignment. Perhaps it will continue. And 2023 will see the Conservatives gain Wansbeck, Doncaster North, Hemsworth, Torfaen, Stalybridge and Hyde, and so forth. And places like Blyth Valley will move to the status of Tory safe seats like Mansfield. Now based on our gut feeling for politics, this is unthinkable; and 2019 was a one off event. But the unthinkable is always unthinkable until it happens. Of course, if this is true, we would also expect to see the comfortable bits of the South East trending away from the Conservatives next time around. The nation won't be getting bluer and bluer in this or any other scenario. But still - the possibility exists that the Conservative's future core vote is in seats like Cannock and Mansfield. And therefore perhaps Hartlepool. Just as the Republicans can now count on states like West Virginia. I still think Labour will win. In fact I have bunged £20 on it. But is that principally because Con Gain Hartlepool is just so far outside my mental picture of normality? Actually, I'm still pretty confident. Governments just don't make gains at by-elections unless the opposition is led by someone utterly unelectable. SKS might be a bit boring and vague but he is no Corbyn. But still - I don't dismiss the possibility of a Conservative Hartlepool, despite this sounding instinctively preposterous.
One important caveat. Hartlepool was never mining. It didn't record the 80%+ Labour vote of many places in County Durham. It is therefore less preposterous than some others as it was always safe Labour. But not ultra safe.
Hartlepool has had a Labour MP since 1964. They had a Tory MP in 1959 though and plenty more pre-WWII. Not a Labour since the Danelaw seat like some of them in the North East.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
This wholly fallacious argument gets 10 out of 10 for effort. The Tories won this (similar) seat by 182 votes in 1959 and Labour have held it for the last 62 years. It's not an old Labour fiefdom where they weigh the votes (Harlepool and area bear no relation to southern ideas if it) but for an opposition to lose this historically safe seat against this government would be very very bad. It's a free hit for the Tories.
The fact that a leave leaning seat makes it more difficult for Labour is just a small part of the evidence of how rubbish L:abour have been, not a defence for losing the seat. (Which they won't).
Hartlepool is so leave leaning it's almost horizontal. And this political identity - working class leave - is owned by the Tories now. If Labour can win here it will mean the "leave" bit of that identity is in decline. I'm hoping this is the case but my money is on the Tories at evens.
There is something in that.
In 2019 Labour got a higher voter share in Remain voting Chingford and Woodford Green at 45.9% than the 37.7% it got in Hartlepool. The reason the Tories held Chingford with 48.5% of the vote but lost Hartlepool was because the BXP split the Leave vote in the latter with the Tories on 28% and BXP on 25%.
If the Tories gain Hartlepool it will show Boris is still able to keep the Leave voting coalition behind him even with Brexit delivered, however if Labour hold Hartlepool it will show that Brexit Party voters who defected to them from Labour only did so to get Brexit done and now it has been done will return to their traditional Labour allegience, which would be better news for Starmer
To pick out the key part of my previous point which probably got lost in the ramblings, what if Brexit is a symptom and not a cause? What if leave is a broad political identity to which we have applied a misleadingly narrow label, rather than a single issue which is now behind us?
Class is being replaced by age and education, so the trend is what you’d expect.
Oxford and Cambridge both had Tory MPs within living memory. Now the Tories often come in third.
As I.previously commented, its all very Nixonesque. She is beginning to look haunted by it. It will end badly.. let's hope she hangs on and damages the SNP in the elections. No-one is going to trust her after this....
Prof Neil Ferguson says we can't possibly keep variants out of the country because we can't close down all travel to Europe. But that's exactly how Australia and New Zealand have kept all variants out of their countries. Why can't we do the same?
Both History and Geography are waiting down that dark alley to have a quiet word with you. They are carrying big sticks and do not look happy.
Thinking of Zoom. Everyone I know now hates it. I don’t know anyone that ‘likes’ it. Fam and friends have all stopped using it. Unpopular on here as well.
The hatred (which I share) is disproportionate. It’s just a video call app. I wonder if Zoom has become the lightning rod for all our loathing and despair about lockdown? It is the true emblem of lockdown
We didn't have a 50% more transmissive variant in June.
And we didn't have a decent number of people with some protection from vaccinations (or from having had the virus).
It's easy to forget that there was a lot of hope (wishful thinking) that we'd be able to relax and not have to worry about a second wave.
Keeping cafes shut until 17 May seems pretty extraordinary to me I must say. People have gone beyond just being numbed into submission by these measures, it's become more normalised than it was last June. Frightening.
My daughter works a few hours a week in a cafe. They are open for takeaway coffee and stuff. The owner has some plastic chairs stacked outside and a few punters sat on them with their coffees. The other day someone actually took the time and trouble to call the police, who duly showed up and made her store the chairs out of the public's sight.
Lockdown has indeed become normal life. It’s kind of comforting. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything
As I speculated earlier this week, I wonder if we are experiencing a new form of institutionalisation, the same thing that long term prisoners experience. The deadening routine and unchanging stasis has its own consolations.
Many of my friends report similar feelings. They are more reclusive than they need to be. Monosyllabic. Numbed. Not unhappy, just resigned. The days trudge on
Maybe that’s why we accept these intense restrictions so obediently. We’ve lost the will. It may take us quite a while to venture out when unlockdown finally happens; the young will lead the way
I see evidence of this on here – there are several PBers who happily tolerate, even relish, lockdown. Not only are they perfectly relaxed about doing nothing and seeing nobody, they want to present their mentality as some sort of superior, altruist state of being. Their MO is to denounce those who break cover to see their beloved family and friends as "selfish".
Yet I feel completely the opposite. I am going mad indoors. I absolutely hate it. I miss seeing people, my friends, my clients, my colleagues. I have come to loathe Zoom and resent computers themselves. I now see technology as a tool of oppression. It's an extreme reaction. But the world is grey and colourless.
Doesn't anyone else feel like me?
Let me out. Set me free.
Agree entirely. Though also agree with Leon. After a year of raging against lockdown - to the detriment of my mental health - I've stopped fighting it. I get an extra half hour in bed in the morning; I hang out with the cats; I note the buses passing; I take a walk around the park. I've stopped drinking. My horizons have reduced. I've become institutionalised. I am neither happy nor sad. But once I get released I intend to go absolutely mental, every night, for about a month.
You can't go absolutely mental every night for a month at the age of 45.
Thinking of Zoom. Everyone I know now hates it. I don’t know anyone that ‘likes’ it. Fam and friends have all stopped using it. Unpopular on here as well.
The hatred (which I share) is disproportionate. It’s just a video call app. I wonder if Zoom has become the lightning rod for all our loathing and despair about lockdown? It is the true emblem of lockdown
What is interesting about the Tories going after Paul Williams with his daft tweets of eons ago is that they didn't feel the need to bother before.
In 2017 they were so assured of victory in Stockton South that Where's Wharton spent the whole campaign elsewhere (so no change to normal). And in 2019 with Paul Williams conceding verbally to Matt Vickers in early in the campaign, they were happy to campaign on daft videos of local boy Matt Vickers where he went to school, had his first fight, threw up his first parmo etc.
This time? Gloves off. Destroy Paul Williams, remove any chance of party loyalty holding the seat, keep Labour voters at home. Though the suggestion that he is a misogynist is utterly laughable...
I don't really see anything wrong with Paul Williams' tweet - I didn't really pick up at first that this was a hit job. A little coarse, perhaps, and not something I'd necessarily put my name to in an entirely public forum, but still - my first thought was to genuinely consider the question. Anyone here claim never to have considered the question of which from a set of people of the opposite sex is most attractive? I suppose the constantly offended who I understand make up the Hartlepool Labour Party might object, though whether to the objectification, the use of the word 'milf' or the suggestion that a Tory might be attractive is hard to say.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
This wholly fallacious argument gets 10 out of 10 for effort. The Tories won this (similar) seat by 182 votes in 1959 and Labour have held it for the last 62 years. It's not an old Labour fiefdom where they weigh the votes (Harlepool and area bear no relation to southern ideas if it) but for an opposition to lose this historically safe seat against this government would be very very bad. It's a free hit for the Tories.
The fact that a leave leaning seat makes it more difficult for Labour is just a small part of the evidence of how rubbish L:abour have been, not a defence for losing the seat. (Which they won't).
Hartlepool is so leave leaning it's almost horizontal. And this political identity - working class leave - is owned by the Tories now. If Labour can win here it will mean the "leave" bit of that identity is in decline. I'm hoping this is the case but my money is on the Tories at evens.
There is something in that.
In 2019 Labour got a higher voter share in Remain voting Chingford and Woodford Green at 45.9% than the 37.7% it got in Hartlepool for example. The reason the Tories held Chingford with 48.5% of the vote but lost Hartlepool was because the BXP split the Leave vote in the latter with the Tories on 28% and BXP on 25%.
If the Tories gain Hartlepool it will show Boris is still able to keep the Leave voting coalition behind him even with Brexit delivered, however if Labour hold Hartlepool it will show that Brexit Party voters who defected to them from Labour only did so to get Brexit done and now it has been done will return to their traditional Labour allegience, which would be better news for Starmer
Absolutely. And for me it's MASSIVE which of these things turns out to be true. If that (tory owned) working class leave identity breaks down, it's game on for GE24. If it doesn't, Labour may as well stay on the bus in the car park.
True to an extent but remember it is Brexit Party voters who are the key voters in Hartlepool.
If Labour hold Hartlepool it will show they can win back Labour voters from the BXP who wanted Brexit done but could not stomach voting Tory even with Boris, not that they are winning back voters from the Tories as such
This is maybe because the French have comprehensively fucked up their vaccine drive and they REALLY need to jab the vulnerable ASAP. So this is a kind of encouragement to oldsters and a way of using the vaccine where it is most needed. I can’t see any other rationale
What is the base r0 of B.1.1.7 under a normal unvaccinated (And not locked down) population ?
3 ? 3.5 ?
I mean it's something we'll never fully know but the inverse is basically the herd immunity vaccinated threshold we need to achieve to push Covid out. Our 94% willing to be vaccinated is encouraging in that respect - if you add children to that in a similar proportion that *should* be sufficient.
The empirical evidence coming out of Israel seems a bit more positive than that. They've delivered about 2.7 times as many doses per 100 as we have, and with a fairly open economy this is what their R looks like:
This is maybe because the French have comprehensively fucked up their vaccine drive and they REALLY need to jab the vulnerable ASAP. So this is a kind of encouragement to oldsters and a way of using the vaccine where it is most needed. I can’t see any other rationale
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You underestimate the attraction and importance of a common language. In building trust, in economic interactions, in cultural interactions.
Probably I do. But I think others sometimes underestimate the extent to which an overt attachment to the white commonwealth can indicate a worldview that is at best nostalgic and at worst racist. And it does seem an odd flag for Grimes to have fluttering at his shoulder.
I think you're showing your own intolerances there.
Which is more "white" - Europe or CANZUK? Or are they the same?
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You underestimate the attraction and importance of a common language. In building trust, in economic interactions, in cultural interactions.
Probably I do. But I think others sometimes underestimate the extent to which an overt attachment to the white commonwealth can indicate a worldview that is at best nostalgic and at worst racist. And it does seem an odd flag for Grimes to have fluttering at his shoulder.
But CANZUK is significantly less white than the EU! When the UK left the EU, it lost over half of its non-white MEPs. I can see how you might question the geographical sense of CANZUKism (though I think geography is less important in these things than people think). But I don't see how it is in any way racist. Or at least no more racist than an attachment to the EU.
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Corbyn was trounced in 2019 as a republican and even Starmer has said he backs a reformed monarchy.
It should be noted that in 2016 the centre right Liberals in Australia were led by a republican, Malcolm Turnbull who lost the majority his monarchist predecessor Tony Abbott had won in 2013 which his successor, the monarchist Scott Morrison then regained in 2019.
So the omens are not good for the Tories being led by a republican, I expect some traditional Tories would vote UKIP or Reform UK or even for Starmer Labour if the Tories were led by a republican liberal
I agree on Zoom entirely. Loathe it, now. I’m also crushingly bored of looking like a slob. I desperately want a proper haircut and I want a reason to wear smart clothes.
All I got was a faint pain in my upper arm, from the jab. Nothing else
I've already laid Starmer and Sunak for next PM at current odds. (Like Mike I'm on Sunak at 250/1.)
Was there ever a more dignified monument to anyone? Pity it will have to go in the skip now.
Though also agree with Leon. After a year of raging against lockdown - to the detriment of my mental health - I've stopped fighting it. I get an extra half hour in bed in the morning; I hang out with the cats; I note the buses passing; I take a walk around the park. I've stopped drinking. My horizons have reduced. I've become institutionalised. I am neither happy nor sad.
But once I get released I intend to go absolutely mental, every night, for about a month.
Me, I remember 6 pints, then "Romeo and Juliets", then either home with a girl or if not the consolation of a bag of chips. Many chips were had.
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1372880542367064065
It turns out that I'm not an introvert. I am terribly unhappy to be isolated from other people. Everything on zoom feels so very fake. I hate it.
But I accept this, and will continue to accept this, until I am vaccinated, because I'm not a prat, and I understand the necessity given the situation and the government's failure to find any way (until the vaccines), other than lockdown, to control the spread of infection.
Too many opponents of lockdown have been somewhere on a spectrum from wishful thinking to outright denial of the dangers of the disease for me to side with them. That doesn't mean I like lockdown, but I will endure it until vaccinated.
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1372884747442122758
(Missing panto)
The town centre is a disaster zone but as above, not everything in the borough is. Mind you, the council seems keen on putting monster warehouses on every field.
I am told the current Mayor didn't like seeing sheep on the way in from the motorway because it 'made Doncaster look like a backwater'. The sheep field is now a massive empty warehouse. Well done.
Is Justin Welby 'linked' with homophobia by being the presiding bishop of a communion parts of which encourage it?
Was Jane Austen complicit because she put sugar in her tea? Was Joe Bloggs? Am I complicit with the the horrors of Tibet or the Uighurs when I buy a Chinese made telly?
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
In 2019 Labour got a higher voter share in Remain voting Chingford and Woodford Green at 45.9% than the 37.7% it got in Hartlepool for example. The reason the Tories held Chingford with 48.5% of the vote but lost Hartlepool was because the BXP split the Leave vote in the latter with the Tories on 28% and BXP on 25%.
If the Tories gain Hartlepool it will show Boris is still able to keep the Leave voting coalition behind him even with Brexit delivered, however if Labour hold Hartlepool it will show that Brexit Party voters who defected to them from Labour only did so to get Brexit done and now it has been done will return to their traditional Labour allegience, which would be better news for Starmer
Edit sorry for swearing but the stupidity of the EU is getting to me somewhat.
Small town North East has been trending away from Labour for some time now. This was true before long before Brexit was on the agenda. In this, it is only following what happened in small town Midlands a decade or two back.
Perhaps Brexit wasn't a blip. Perhaps it was a symptom, not a cause.
Realignments don't happen all at once.
Look at what happened in the USA - the republicans are now the parties of small unfashionable towns which would have voted solidly Democrat a generation back. This is often dismissed as unique to the USA, because the USA has some hard core Christianity. But again what if this is a symptom and not a cause?
If any of these propositions are true, then perhaps 2019 wasn't a high water mark for this realignment. Perhaps it will continue. And 2023 will see the Conservatives gain Wansbeck, Doncaster North, Hemsworth, Torfaen, Stalybridge and Hyde, and so forth. And places like Blyth Valley will move to the status of Tory safe seats like Mansfield.
Now based on our gut feeling for politics, this is unthinkable; and 2019 was a one off event. But the unthinkable is always unthinkable until it happens.
Of course, if this is true, we would also expect to see the comfortable bits of the South East trending away from the Conservatives next time around. The nation won't be getting bluer and bluer in this or any other scenario. But still - the possibility exists that the Conservative's future core vote is in seats like Cannock and Mansfield. And therefore perhaps Hartlepool. Just as the Republicans can now count on states like West Virginia.
I still think Labour will win. In fact I have bunged £20 on it. But is that principally because Con Gain Hartlepool is just so far outside my mental picture of normality?
Actually, I'm still pretty confident. Governments just don't make gains at by-elections unless the opposition is led by someone utterly unelectable. SKS might be a bit boring and vague but he is no Corbyn. But still - I don't dismiss the possibility of a Conservative Hartlepool, despite this sounding instinctively preposterous.
The EU, via the EMA, have been very clear. As have quite a few EU nations.
https://order-order.com/2021/03/19/labour-women-upset-by-hartlepool-candidates-laddish-banter/?fbclid=IwAR0TP7P4fBHyZfRhhaW9Ui7pRkA4KcgtWQhj7M6GPhi91asFw2XFBGGc7Bs
Macron willing to let others die for him
It didn't record the 80%+ Labour vote of many places in County Durham. It is therefore less preposterous than some others as it was always safe Labour.
But not ultra safe.
In 2017 they were so assured of victory in Stockton South that Where's Wharton spent the whole campaign elsewhere (so no change to normal). And in 2019 with Paul Williams conceding verbally to Matt Vickers in early in the campaign, they were happy to campaign on daft videos of local boy Matt Vickers where he went to school, had his first fight, threw up his first parmo etc.
This time? Gloves off. Destroy Paul Williams, remove any chance of party loyalty holding the seat, keep Labour voters at home. Though the suggestion that he is a misogynist is utterly laughable...
Oxford and Cambridge both had Tory MPs within living memory. Now the Tories often come in third.
The hatred (which I share) is disproportionate. It’s just a video call app. I wonder if Zoom has become the lightning rod for all our loathing and despair about lockdown? It is the true emblem of lockdown
If so, short Zoom
https://twitter.com/olivierveran/status/1372883854747389955
AND TEAMS SUCKS !!!
If Labour hold Hartlepool it will show they can win back Labour voters from the BXP who wanted Brexit done but could not stomach voting Tory even with Boris, not that they are winning back voters from the Tories as such
But, it is a total farce. The land of Pasteur
https://twitter.com/segal_eran/status/1372435352389042181
Which is more "white" - Europe or CANZUK? Or are they the same?