Doesn't make any sense, by the time those red list venues open the incidence rate is going to be basically zero and vaccination rates will be over 90%.
Under the FTPA the latest an election can be held is the 2nd of July 2024.
Repealing the FTPA isn't as easy as assumed, it's going to be tricky trying to restore a royal prerogative power especially as the government is going to argue the prerogative powers are not judicially reviewable, that's why the government has got the Lords involved at this early stage.
Perhaps you'd care to clarify? - seems out of line with the 'five year term'.
Following the early election, in December 2019, the next election is scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Parliament will be dissolved on 26 March 2024.
and
There is provision for the Prime Minister to make an order to extend this date for a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments. He/she must set out the reasons for the delay, and such an order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can be made. One precedent is the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which delayed local elections by one month. (In 2001, the general election was held on the same day as the delayed local elections.)
Thanks. I hadn't appreciated that May was explicitly favoued.
Ok, so May 2024 is an even more likely date than I'd thought.
I think May 2024 will be the date for GE simply for no other reason that boundary changes recommendations will not be received until July 2023.
The primary legislation has been passed but I suspect there may be issues from the Welsh and the Tories (if the Tories look like they will win Wales) about reducing the Welsh number of MPs by 20%.
The Tories are more likely to favour the reduction in seats because it makes it plausible for them to win Wales. It’s the Valleys where the heaviest cuts will fall and although the Tories have made progress there they’re still not in serious contention to win any seats on current boundaries except possibly Gower and a very long shot at Blaenau Gwent.
Plus the changes if along the lines proposed would exterminate Labour outside the south, cut Plaid Cymru in half by costing them the current Carmarthen East and Ceredigion seats and leave Newport and Llanelli both looking vulnerable to a fairly modest Tory swing.
So I do not see that as a problem. There might be a couple of cases of two Tory MPs fighting for the same seat in the north east but actually there are enough tempting targets to go round to buy off any losers.
I was talking more about the optics, it isn't inconceivable that the Tories win* the Senedd elections next month that creates momentum for them for them in the GE, it'll be easy attack line for Labour to use about the Tories reducing Welsh influence in Parliament when they need it the most.
I do not think that will resonate outside the Cardiff/Swansea/Merthyr triangle, if I’m honest. The immediate riposte is ‘you’ve had influence for years and things keep getting worse. Let’s try influencing the other lot.’
Bear in mind, there is only one seat Labour have never held at any level in Wales. They’ve held all the others at one time or another and done fuck all with it. A trade Union exec once told me with a straight face that Nicholas Edwards had done far more for Wales than ever Peter Hain did (On the one occasion I met him, Edwards himself agreed, incidentally, and wasn’t amused when I tripped him up over one or two of his claims).
So I think there isn’t a problem for the Tories in cutting seats outside the Valleys, and there aren’t many likely to go there anyway, while inside the valleys it will make no difference anyway.
Aren't a number of seats in North Wales to go too? Labour only holds one of them.
The way the boundaries were being drawn, with Anglesey protected, that Labour seat is in effect the only one that goes.
There might be a bit of a scuffle between the MP for Montgomeryshire and one of the Clwyd seats, but elsewhere it’s as you were.
In the south west, helpfully, the redrawn seats pitch incumbent Tories against incumbent PC.
It doesn't appear to me as if there are sufficient seats in the North to go round for the available Tory MPs, even if we assume that the successor to the current Alyn & Deeside flips Lab to Con and that one extra seat is added, relative to the 2019 proposals, since Wales is now to receive 32 rather than 29 MPs. I guess that whoever is left without a chair when the music stops will be sent to try to lift Ceredigion plus whatever gets tacked onto it from Plaid, although then again I'm not sure I'd much fancy their chances. They might actually have more luck trying to prise Llanelli away from Labour, if it ends up having some more rural hinterland tacked onto it.
Stephen Crabbe will be the candidate in Ceredigion and North Pembs unless he retires.
Edit - and I would very much fancy their chances there, on current boundaries it would be a fairly comfortable Tory hold.
Llanelli is another one the Tories might begin to challenge in.
Cardigan has never elected a Tory as far as I know - it was Labour-held by Elystan Morgan 1966 - Feb 1974. Rural North Pembrokeshire tends to be less favourable for the Tories than South Pembrokeshire - with significant pockets of support for Plaid and - periodically - the LDs. Tactical anti - Tory voting there might be more effective than many assume. Crabb is not a natural fit there and most of his current seat would be likely to fall into the residual Pembroke seat. He is a Scot by birth - and not obviously culturally Welsh really.
On the proposed boundaries, in 2019, the figures were Con 30,260 Lab 22,636 and Plaid 17,984.
Plaid simply didn’t register in Preseli while in Ceredigion the Tories managed a solid second place.
That’s a pretty safe Tory seat. I can’t help it if you don’t like the figures, those remain the figures. Even if Stephen Crabbe lost every single vote the Tories won in Ceredigion, he would still win the seat ahead of Labour. He’s that far ahead.
And this time, it really is good night.
With respect, the proposed boundaries imply nothing of the kind! You appear to have simply combined the votes cast in the current Ceredigion and Preseli Pembrokeshie seats and gone on to suggest that the aggeregate figures provide a clear guide as to the likely outcome in the new seat. In reality,however, much of Crabbe's existing Preseli seat would form part of the proposed Pembroke seat. Places such as Haverfordwest and Milford Haven and the west coastal areas including Broad Haven , Solva etc would NOT be in the new seat combined with Ceredigion.Fishguard & Goodwick would certainly be included but is not clear that St Davids would be. A significant part of Crabbe's voting strength in his current seat would be excluded. For that reason the figures quoted mean little - even before considering the possibility of anti-Tory tactical voting.
I would wonder if the government had lost their minds, were it not for the minor detail I never thought they found them in the first place.
That really is going to cause a fabulous number of law suits if they push ahead with it.
No legal requirement to have the app but you are not allowed back into the office without it. Companies try to force people to have the app - which is a change in their terms and conditions. People refuse. Company left with choice. Sack people and face unfair dismissal legal action or back down and people allowed to work from home indefinitely.
The Government are genuinely mad if they try to force this through.
What about people without smartphones? If it's 25% of the population as a whole, it must be over a third of the 40+ population.
So the possibilities. 1 The Johnson government has already reached the "in the bunker detached from reality" phase that Thatcher reached in about 1989 and none of her successors really attained.
2 They know it's a scam, it's never going to happen, but the calculation is that it's in their partisan interest to propose it. Either because it polls well now, or it will allow a " we're so great, we don't need to do this after all" moment in three months' time.
The UK has already done enough jabs to stop pretty much all the foreseeable Covid deaths; say 90%. The EU isn't there yet, but will be there in a few weeks' time.
The UK will hit herd immunity in June and everyone who can be done will be done in July.
The time window where vaxports are needed internally is really short. So the benefits don't outweigh the costs in cash and national cohesion.
Option 3 is there is a small group of anti vaxxers who can be turned by convincing them that life with jabs will be brutish, nasty and short.
I should think the numbers of anti-vaxxers being convinced by any such performance art is close to 0.
Can we agree if nothing else that "vaxport" is a horrible word?
Could be worse. How about the Coronavisa or Cov-ID?
Vaxport is an excellent word. Does exactly what is says on the tin, and reduces two concepts into one word, highly comprehensibly. An absolute model for any new word
You only have to hear it once, or see it, and you get what it probably means
You might almost call it an example of a passportmanteau...
I'm so old I immediately think of a DEC computer interface.
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
Under the FTPA the latest an election can be held is the 2nd of July 2024.
Repealing the FTPA isn't as easy as assumed, it's going to be tricky trying to restore a royal prerogative power especially as the government is going to argue the prerogative powers are not judicially reviewable, that's why the government has got the Lords involved at this early stage.
Perhaps you'd care to clarify? - seems out of line with the 'five year term'.
Following the early election, in December 2019, the next election is scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Parliament will be dissolved on 26 March 2024.
and
There is provision for the Prime Minister to make an order to extend this date for a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments. He/she must set out the reasons for the delay, and such an order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can be made. One precedent is the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which delayed local elections by one month. (In 2001, the general election was held on the same day as the delayed local elections.)
Thanks. I hadn't appreciated that May was explicitly favoued.
Ok, so May 2024 is an even more likely date than I'd thought.
I think May 2024 will be the date for GE simply for no other reason that boundary changes recommendations will not be received until July 2023.
The primary legislation has been passed but I suspect there may be issues from the Welsh and the Tories (if the Tories look like they will win Wales) about reducing the Welsh number of MPs by 20%.
The Tories are more likely to favour the reduction in seats because it makes it plausible for them to win Wales. It’s the Valleys where the heaviest cuts will fall and although the Tories have made progress there they’re still not in serious contention to win any seats on current boundaries except possibly Gower and a very long shot at Blaenau Gwent.
Plus the changes if along the lines proposed would exterminate Labour outside the south, cut Plaid Cymru in half by costing them the current Carmarthen East and Ceredigion seats and leave Newport and Llanelli both looking vulnerable to a fairly modest Tory swing.
So I do not see that as a problem. There might be a couple of cases of two Tory MPs fighting for the same seat in the north east but actually there are enough tempting targets to go round to buy off any losers.
I was talking more about the optics, it isn't inconceivable that the Tories win* the Senedd elections next month that creates momentum for them for them in the GE, it'll be easy attack line for Labour to use about the Tories reducing Welsh influence in Parliament when they need it the most.
I do not think that will resonate outside the Cardiff/Swansea/Merthyr triangle, if I’m honest. The immediate riposte is ‘you’ve had influence for years and things keep getting worse. Let’s try influencing the other lot.’
Bear in mind, there is only one seat Labour have never held at any level in Wales. They’ve held all the others at one time or another and done fuck all with it. A trade Union exec once told me with a straight face that Nicholas Edwards had done far more for Wales than ever Peter Hain did (On the one occasion I met him, Edwards himself agreed, incidentally, and wasn’t amused when I tripped him up over one or two of his claims).
So I think there isn’t a problem for the Tories in cutting seats outside the Valleys, and there aren’t many likely to go there anyway, while inside the valleys it will make no difference anyway.
Aren't a number of seats in North Wales to go too? Labour only holds one of them.
The way the boundaries were being drawn, with Anglesey protected, that Labour seat is in effect the only one that goes.
There might be a bit of a scuffle between the MP for Montgomeryshire and one of the Clwyd seats, but elsewhere it’s as you were.
In the south west, helpfully, the redrawn seats pitch incumbent Tories against incumbent PC.
It doesn't appear to me as if there are sufficient seats in the North to go round for the available Tory MPs, even if we assume that the successor to the current Alyn & Deeside flips Lab to Con and that one extra seat is added, relative to the 2019 proposals, since Wales is now to receive 32 rather than 29 MPs. I guess that whoever is left without a chair when the music stops will be sent to try to lift Ceredigion plus whatever gets tacked onto it from Plaid, although then again I'm not sure I'd much fancy their chances. They might actually have more luck trying to prise Llanelli away from Labour, if it ends up having some more rural hinterland tacked onto it.
Stephen Crabbe will be the candidate in Ceredigion and North Pembs unless he retires.
Edit - and I would very much fancy their chances there, on current boundaries it would be a fairly comfortable Tory hold.
Llanelli is another one the Tories might begin to challenge in.
Cardigan has never elected a Tory as far as I know - it was Labour-held by Elystan Morgan 1966 - Feb 1974. Rural North Pembrokeshire tends to be less favourable for the Tories than South Pembrokeshire - with significant pockets of support for Plaid and - periodically - the LDs. Tactical anti - Tory voting there might be more effective than many assume. Crabb is not a natural fit there and most of his current seat would be likely to fall into the residual Pembroke seat. He is a Scot by birth - and not obviously culturally Welsh really.
On the proposed boundaries, in 2019, the figures were Con 30,260 Lab 22,636 and Plaid 17,984.
Plaid simply didn’t register in Preseli while in Ceredigion the Tories managed a solid second place.
That’s a pretty safe Tory seat. I can’t help it if you don’t like the figures, those remain the figures. Even if Stephen Crabbe lost every single vote the Tories won in Ceredigion, he would still win the seat ahead of Labour. He’s that far ahead.
And this time, it really is good night.
With respect, the proposed boundaries imply nothing of the kind! You appear to have simply combined the votes cast in the current Ceredigion and Preseli Pembrokeshie seats and gone on to suggest that the aggeregate figures provide a clear guide as to the likely outcome in the new seat. In reality,however, much of Crabbe's existing Preseli seat would form part of the proposed Pembroke seat. Places such as Haverfordwest and Milford Haven and the west coastal areas including Broad Haven , Solva etc would NOT be in the new seat combined with Ceredigion.Fishguard & Goodwick would certainly be included but is not clear that St Davids would be. A significant part of Crabbe's voting strength in his current seat would be excluded. For that reason the figures quoted mean little - even before considering the possibility of anti-Tory tactical voting.
Well. No boundaries have yet been proposed anyways, so we don't know. The only thing we do know with Wales is that the seats won't be the same as now, nor like the previous junked proposals. Apart from Ynys Mon of course.
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
I think the "hysteria" is why the policy has changed to exclude pubs. Not here, but on the government benches. Steve Baker and the rest of them have forced them into a u turn, hopefully they will keep going and get rid of them as a concept entirely.
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
I think the "hysteria" is why the policy has changed to exclude pubs. Not here, but on the government benches. Steve Baker and the rest of them have forced them into a u turn, hopefully they will keep going and get rid of them as a concept entirely.
No, you just over-reacted to some social media speculation
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
What is the source for all this? Just more bullsh*t leaking until we see actual proposed legislation/regs changes.
We'll see if we get any kind of announcement on Monday, but it doesn't necessarily follow that he won't change his mind after that.
Hmmmm...
So
1) Website/newspaper announces x will do y 2) Tons of clicks 3) Website/newspaper announces x will not do y 4) Tons of clicks
I think the process is:
We can't quite do nothing at all A general ID/vax requirement is both oppressive and (more important) impossible, unenforceable and (most important) would annoy a good number of older Tory voters Sound important and wait Watch the coalition of both sane and bonkers people (quite a mix) raise hell and do all the heavy lifting for you Announce that the right answer for now is to do as little as possible through compulsion and allow narrow areas of private enforcement (cruises etc) Allow the issue to die quietly at the same speed as the virus normalises.
Under the FTPA the latest an election can be held is the 2nd of July 2024.
Repealing the FTPA isn't as easy as assumed, it's going to be tricky trying to restore a royal prerogative power especially as the government is going to argue the prerogative powers are not judicially reviewable, that's why the government has got the Lords involved at this early stage.
Perhaps you'd care to clarify? - seems out of line with the 'five year term'.
Following the early election, in December 2019, the next election is scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Parliament will be dissolved on 26 March 2024.
and
There is provision for the Prime Minister to make an order to extend this date for a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments. He/she must set out the reasons for the delay, and such an order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can be made. One precedent is the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which delayed local elections by one month. (In 2001, the general election was held on the same day as the delayed local elections.)
Thanks. I hadn't appreciated that May was explicitly favoued.
Ok, so May 2024 is an even more likely date than I'd thought.
I think May 2024 will be the date for GE simply for no other reason that boundary changes recommendations will not be received until July 2023.
The primary legislation has been passed but I suspect there may be issues from the Welsh and the Tories (if the Tories look like they will win Wales) about reducing the Welsh number of MPs by 20%.
The Tories are more likely to favour the reduction in seats because it makes it plausible for them to win Wales. It’s the Valleys where the heaviest cuts will fall and although the Tories have made progress there they’re still not in serious contention to win any seats on current boundaries except possibly Gower and a very long shot at Blaenau Gwent.
Plus the changes if along the lines proposed would exterminate Labour outside the south, cut Plaid Cymru in half by costing them the current Carmarthen East and Ceredigion seats and leave Newport and Llanelli both looking vulnerable to a fairly modest Tory swing.
So I do not see that as a problem. There might be a couple of cases of two Tory MPs fighting for the same seat in the north east but actually there are enough tempting targets to go round to buy off any losers.
I was talking more about the optics, it isn't inconceivable that the Tories win* the Senedd elections next month that creates momentum for them for them in the GE, it'll be easy attack line for Labour to use about the Tories reducing Welsh influence in Parliament when they need it the most.
I do not think that will resonate outside the Cardiff/Swansea/Merthyr triangle, if I’m honest. The immediate riposte is ‘you’ve had influence for years and things keep getting worse. Let’s try influencing the other lot.’
Bear in mind, there is only one seat Labour have never held at any level in Wales. They’ve held all the others at one time or another and done fuck all with it. A trade Union exec once told me with a straight face that Nicholas Edwards had done far more for Wales than ever Peter Hain did (On the one occasion I met him, Edwards himself agreed, incidentally, and wasn’t amused when I tripped him up over one or two of his claims).
So I think there isn’t a problem for the Tories in cutting seats outside the Valleys, and there aren’t many likely to go there anyway, while inside the valleys it will make no difference anyway.
Aren't a number of seats in North Wales to go too? Labour only holds one of them.
The way the boundaries were being drawn, with Anglesey protected, that Labour seat is in effect the only one that goes.
There might be a bit of a scuffle between the MP for Montgomeryshire and one of the Clwyd seats, but elsewhere it’s as you were.
In the south west, helpfully, the redrawn seats pitch incumbent Tories against incumbent PC.
It doesn't appear to me as if there are sufficient seats in the North to go round for the available Tory MPs, even if we assume that the successor to the current Alyn & Deeside flips Lab to Con and that one extra seat is added, relative to the 2019 proposals, since Wales is now to receive 32 rather than 29 MPs. I guess that whoever is left without a chair when the music stops will be sent to try to lift Ceredigion plus whatever gets tacked onto it from Plaid, although then again I'm not sure I'd much fancy their chances. They might actually have more luck trying to prise Llanelli away from Labour, if it ends up having some more rural hinterland tacked onto it.
Stephen Crabbe will be the candidate in Ceredigion and North Pembs unless he retires.
Edit - and I would very much fancy their chances there, on current boundaries it would be a fairly comfortable Tory hold.
Llanelli is another one the Tories might begin to challenge in.
Cardigan has never elected a Tory as far as I know - it was Labour-held by Elystan Morgan 1966 - Feb 1974. Rural North Pembrokeshire tends to be less favourable for the Tories than South Pembrokeshire - with significant pockets of support for Plaid and - periodically - the LDs. Tactical anti - Tory voting there might be more effective than many assume. Crabb is not a natural fit there and most of his current seat would be likely to fall into the residual Pembroke seat. He is a Scot by birth - and not obviously culturally Welsh really.
Quite. If the net effect of the boundary changes is not dissimilar to those previously proposed in 2018, then one would've thought that the two sitting Tories in the South West would go for the Carmarthen and Pembroke seats and leave the Ceredigion one well alone.
The Carmarthen seat would be a likely Plaid hold - and Pembroke would be vulnerable to Labour in a reasonable year as evidenced by the 1992 result there.
You think? Carmarthen East is a marginal and Plaid are nowhere in Carmarthen West & S Pembs.
The Pembroke seat's not going to Labour unless there's a fairly hefty swing (7% at a rough guess.)
Under the FTPA the latest an election can be held is the 2nd of July 2024.
Repealing the FTPA isn't as easy as assumed, it's going to be tricky trying to restore a royal prerogative power especially as the government is going to argue the prerogative powers are not judicially reviewable, that's why the government has got the Lords involved at this early stage.
Perhaps you'd care to clarify? - seems out of line with the 'five year term'.
Following the early election, in December 2019, the next election is scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Parliament will be dissolved on 26 March 2024.
and
There is provision for the Prime Minister to make an order to extend this date for a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments. He/she must set out the reasons for the delay, and such an order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can be made. One precedent is the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which delayed local elections by one month. (In 2001, the general election was held on the same day as the delayed local elections.)
Thanks. I hadn't appreciated that May was explicitly favoued.
Ok, so May 2024 is an even more likely date than I'd thought.
I think May 2024 will be the date for GE simply for no other reason that boundary changes recommendations will not be received until July 2023.
The primary legislation has been passed but I suspect there may be issues from the Welsh and the Tories (if the Tories look like they will win Wales) about reducing the Welsh number of MPs by 20%.
The Tories are more likely to favour the reduction in seats because it makes it plausible for them to win Wales. It’s the Valleys where the heaviest cuts will fall and although the Tories have made progress there they’re still not in serious contention to win any seats on current boundaries except possibly Gower and a very long shot at Blaenau Gwent.
Plus the changes if along the lines proposed would exterminate Labour outside the south, cut Plaid Cymru in half by costing them the current Carmarthen East and Ceredigion seats and leave Newport and Llanelli both looking vulnerable to a fairly modest Tory swing.
So I do not see that as a problem. There might be a couple of cases of two Tory MPs fighting for the same seat in the north east but actually there are enough tempting targets to go round to buy off any losers.
I was talking more about the optics, it isn't inconceivable that the Tories win* the Senedd elections next month that creates momentum for them for them in the GE, it'll be easy attack line for Labour to use about the Tories reducing Welsh influence in Parliament when they need it the most.
I do not think that will resonate outside the Cardiff/Swansea/Merthyr triangle, if I’m honest. The immediate riposte is ‘you’ve had influence for years and things keep getting worse. Let’s try influencing the other lot.’
Bear in mind, there is only one seat Labour have never held at any level in Wales. They’ve held all the others at one time or another and done fuck all with it. A trade Union exec once told me with a straight face that Nicholas Edwards had done far more for Wales than ever Peter Hain did (On the one occasion I met him, Edwards himself agreed, incidentally, and wasn’t amused when I tripped him up over one or two of his claims).
So I think there isn’t a problem for the Tories in cutting seats outside the Valleys, and there aren’t many likely to go there anyway, while inside the valleys it will make no difference anyway.
Aren't a number of seats in North Wales to go too? Labour only holds one of them.
The way the boundaries were being drawn, with Anglesey protected, that Labour seat is in effect the only one that goes.
There might be a bit of a scuffle between the MP for Montgomeryshire and one of the Clwyd seats, but elsewhere it’s as you were.
In the south west, helpfully, the redrawn seats pitch incumbent Tories against incumbent PC.
It doesn't appear to me as if there are sufficient seats in the North to go round for the available Tory MPs, even if we assume that the successor to the current Alyn & Deeside flips Lab to Con and that one extra seat is added, relative to the 2019 proposals, since Wales is now to receive 32 rather than 29 MPs. I guess that whoever is left without a chair when the music stops will be sent to try to lift Ceredigion plus whatever gets tacked onto it from Plaid, although then again I'm not sure I'd much fancy their chances. They might actually have more luck trying to prise Llanelli away from Labour, if it ends up having some more rural hinterland tacked onto it.
Stephen Crabbe will be the candidate in Ceredigion and North Pembs unless he retires.
Edit - and I would very much fancy their chances there, on current boundaries it would be a fairly comfortable Tory hold.
Llanelli is another one the Tories might begin to challenge in.
Cardigan has never elected a Tory as far as I know - it was Labour-held by Elystan Morgan 1966 - Feb 1974. Rural North Pembrokeshire tends to be less favourable for the Tories than South Pembrokeshire - with significant pockets of support for Plaid and - periodically - the LDs. Tactical anti - Tory voting there might be more effective than many assume. Crabb is not a natural fit there and most of his current seat would be likely to fall into the residual Pembroke seat. He is a Scot by birth - and not obviously culturally Welsh really.
Quite. If the net effect of the boundary changes is not dissimilar to those previously proposed in 2018, then one would've thought that the two sitting Tories in the South West would go for the Carmarthen and Pembroke seats and leave the Ceredigion one well alone.
The Carmarthen seat would be a likely Plaid hold - and Pembroke would be vulnerable to Labour in a reasonable year as evidenced by the 1992 result there.
You think? Carmarthen East is a marginal and Plaid are nowhere in Carmarthen West & S Pembs.
The Pembroke seat's not going to Labour unless there's a fairly hefty swing (7% at a rough guess.)
Not necessarily - Pembroke went Labour by 755 in 1992 when the Tories led across GB by 7.6%. Preseli Pembrokeshire nearly fell to Labour in 2017. Plaid is very weak in the S Pembs part of the Carmarthen West seat , but much stronger beyond the Pembrokeshire border.
Doesn't make any sense, by the time those red list venues open the incidence rate is going to be basically zero and vaccination rates will be over 90%.
I think that they are divided roughly into things you make a booking for in advance and things that are more spontaneous, and the ones you book are also generally used less frequently and are less essential. It looks like a reasonably sensible divide, but long term it ought not to be necessary at all.
Doesn't make any sense, by the time those red list venues open the incidence rate is going to be basically zero and vaccination rates will be over 90%.
You are expecting sense from Johnson's covid bunker?
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
I think the "hysteria" is why the policy has changed to exclude pubs. Not here, but on the government benches. Steve Baker and the rest of them have forced them into a u turn, hopefully they will keep going and get rid of them as a concept entirely.
No, you just over-reacted to some social media speculation
The Sun, Times, Guardian, Telegraph and other papers had been briefed that it would be used for pubs. This is a behind the scenes u turn. Gove and Hancock have been slapped down.
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
PB wouldn't be PB without at least a little hysteria and a modicum of absurdity
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
PB wouldn't be PB without at least a little hysteria and a modicum of absurdity
I would wonder if the government had lost their minds, were it not for the minor detail I never thought they found them in the first place.
That really is going to cause a fabulous number of law suits if they push ahead with it.
No legal requirement to have the app but you are not allowed back into the office without it. Companies try to force people to have the app - which is a change in their terms and conditions. People refuse. Company left with choice. Sack people and face unfair dismissal legal action or back down and people allowed to work from home indefinitely.
The Government are genuinely mad if they try to force this through.
What about people without smartphones? If it's 25% of the population as a whole, it must be over a third of the 40+ population.
So the possibilities. 1 The Johnson government has already reached the "in the bunker detached from reality" phase that Thatcher reached in about 1989 and none of her successors really attained.
2 They know it's a scam, it's never going to happen, but the calculation is that it's in their partisan interest to propose it. Either because it polls well now, or it will allow a " we're so great, we don't need to do this after all" moment in three months' time.
The UK has already done enough jabs to stop pretty much all the foreseeable Covid deaths; say 90%. The EU isn't there yet, but will be there in a few weeks' time.
The UK will hit herd immunity in June and everyone who can be done will be done in July.
The time window where vaxports are needed internally is really short. So the benefits don't outweigh the costs in cash and national cohesion.
Option 3 is there is a small group of anti vaxxers who can be turned by convincing them that life with jabs will be brutish, nasty and short.
I should think the numbers of anti-vaxxers being convinced by any such performance art is close to 0.
More the cohort of “I’ll delay a bit and free ride on herd immunity” than the Elle Macphersons of the world
I presume the Prime Minister is picking up from the Conservative grassroots the proposed vaccine passport scheme may not be as popular as when first promulgated.
One might argue it's the sign of an effective Prime Minister that he or she isn't wholly inflexible and is prepared to be persuaded to change a view based on argument.
One might also argue it's the sign of an ineffective Prime Minister who is prepared to dump whatever he or she believed in if it no longer commands a majority.
The new list - *IF* it has been briefed by the Government, rather than being invented - does imply a rationale: the policing of mass attendance events. Though to what effect, Lord alone knows. If one person who rocks up to a football match signs in with this app, and later turns out to have Covid, then will all 50,000 people in the stadium get unwelcome text messages telling them to isolate for a fortnight? And, of course, the fundamental point remains: once the vast bulk of the population has been vaccinated then that should be sufficient to get us to population immunity - whereby chains of transmission from any remaining virus cases are so broken up that new clusters cannot easily form - and all of these measures are rendered entirely useless anyway.
Moreover, it's arguable that the neat division they've arrived at through targeting mass events is illogical. A crowded, raucous boozer or a stinking, airless, cattle truck tube train are both bound to be more hazardous in terms of transmission of a respiratory illness than a football stadium or cinema.
It does all rather suggest that, the Government having first decided that they want to bring in ID cards by the back door, they're now working their way backwards from the objective and trying to find a way to coax the population into it without provoking a revolt.
And they are not wrong to do so. Election fever starts early these days.
What do these people mean by ' early election' though? A similar story ran in the Telegraph a few weeks agobut on reading the article the suggestion was of an election to be held in May 2023 - rather than May 2024.
That's why Mike wont have a bad word said or poll shown about Sir Keir... he's writing his scripts!!
"Starmer said. “But it has been frustrating to spend the first year as leader unable to make a speech to a live audience or shake a single voter’s hand.”"
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
Quite - it's been almost as entertaining as the hype last week when Labour got one vaguely encouraging opinion poll!
I presume the Prime Minister is picking up from the Conservative grassroots the proposed vaccine passport scheme may not be as popular as when first promulgated.
One might argue it's the sign of an effective Prime Minister that he or she isn't wholly inflexible and is prepared to be persuaded to change a view based on argument.
One might also argue it's the sign of an ineffective Prime Minister who is prepared to dump whatever he or she believed in if it no longer commands a majority.
The new list - *IF* it has been briefed by the Government, rather than being invented - does imply a rationale: the policing of mass attendance events. Though to what effect, Lord alone knows. If one person who rocks up to a football match signs in with this app, and later turns out to have Covid, then will all 50,000 people in the stadium get unwelcome text messages telling them to isolate for a fortnight? And, of course, the fundamental point remains: once the vast bulk of the population has been vaccinated then that should be sufficient to get us to population immunity - whereby chains of transmission from any remaining virus cases are so broken up that new clusters cannot easily form - and all of these measures are rendered entirely useless anyway.
Moreover, it's arguable that the neat division they've arrived at through targeting mass events is illogical. A crowded, raucous boozer or a stinking, airless, cattle truck tube train are both bound to be more hazardous in terms of transmission of a respiratory illness than a football stadium or cinema.
It does all rather suggest that, the Government having first decided that they want to bring in ID cards by the back door, they're now working their way backwards from the objective and trying to find a way to coax the population into it without provoking a revolt.
Yes, this is the issue. I don't understand what it is trying to achieve. We're very soon going to be at a stage where 90%+ of adults will have immunity. What's the goal, what are they aiming to do with it.
You'll still need it for sports stadiums, nightclubs, festivals, theatres, cinemas, and concert venues
So all the places young people - who won't have been vaccinated - want to go
For about a month. Until you’re vaccinated. The idea is to smoke out the anti-vaxxers without looking too draconian. They are doing the same in Israel and it is working
‘The green pass, launched last month and eyed as a potential strategy by countries such as Britain, has been credited with helping motivate unvaccinated Israelis to get the jab. At the Jerusalem arena, Avishag Buskila, 26, said the app was why she finally decided to do so.
“My parents were divided. My dad got vaccinated three months ago but my mum wanted to wait and see,” she said. Buskila, a law student, said she wanted to wait, but her university campus will open next week to students with green passes and she did not want to miss out.’
I would wonder if the government had lost their minds, were it not for the minor detail I never thought they found them in the first place.
The Government are genuinely mad if they try to force this through.
What about people without smartphones? If it's 25% of the population as a whole, it must be over a third of the 40+ population.
So the possibilities. 1 The Johnson government has already reached the "in the bunker detached from reality" phase that Thatcher reached in about 1989 and none of her successors really attained.
2 They know it's a scam, it's never going to happen, but the calculation is that it's in their partisan interest to propose it. Either because it polls well now, or it will allow a " we're so great, we don't need to do this after all" moment in three months' time.
The UK has already done enough jabs to stop pretty much all the foreseeable Covid deaths; say 90%. The EU isn't there yet, but will be there in a few weeks' time.
Agree with you on Vaccine Passport.
I don't believe the EU will be at "stop 90% of deaths" point in a few weeks. There are a lot of assumptions in that statement.
If we take the point as 50% of adult population (ie equivalent to our groups 1..9), then for EU that is 180m people jabbed twice, dependant on policy. Or 360m jabs.
Minus 76m done. Leaves 285m to do.
To reach that in 70 days (10 weeks) will be a rate of 0.9% of the population jabbed per day on average.
The best rate so far is 0.25% or so on occasional days,
It is going to take until the end of April to ramp that up at all significantly, and that means it needs to get a lot higher to generate the 10 week date.
So I would say it will be at least the end of May or into June before it gets to that point.
J&J single jab will help. Chaos in the order of jabbing to not follow medical priorities will undermine. More chaotic health info nearly everywhere than UK will hinder.
Plus it needs a month extra for vaccines to get through the system and immunity to build.
So I am not very optimistic.
Except deaths are massively concentrated in a small segment of the population. Each decade of age roughly halves the risk as you go down. From a preventing death point of view (and if you have ICU capacity to spare), the urgent vaccination job is pretty much done once you've done everyone in their 70's.
You can't open up then, because of hospital capacity pressure. But the dynamics are massively different.
The most obvious example is France, where cases have risen a lot recently and ought to have fed through to deaths by now. Deaths haven't risen much, because the poor programme of vaccination seems to have got just enough of the very old just in time.
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
PB wouldn't be PB without at least a little hysteria and a modicum of absurdity
I presume the Prime Minister is picking up from the Conservative grassroots the proposed vaccine passport scheme may not be as popular as when first promulgated.
One might argue it's the sign of an effective Prime Minister that he or she isn't wholly inflexible and is prepared to be persuaded to change a view based on argument.
One might also argue it's the sign of an ineffective Prime Minister who is prepared to dump whatever he or she believed in if it no longer commands a majority.
The new list - *IF* it has been briefed by the Government, rather than being invented - does imply a rationale: the policing of mass attendance events. Though to what effect, Lord alone knows. If one person who rocks up to a football match signs in with this app, and later turns out to have Covid, then will all 50,000 people in the stadium get unwelcome text messages telling them to isolate for a fortnight? And, of course, the fundamental point remains: once the vast bulk of the population has been vaccinated then that should be sufficient to get us to population immunity - whereby chains of transmission from any remaining virus cases are so broken up that new clusters cannot easily form - and all of these measures are rendered entirely useless anyway.
Moreover, it's arguable that the neat division they've arrived at through targeting mass events is illogical. A crowded, raucous boozer or a stinking, airless, cattle truck tube train are both bound to be more hazardous in terms of transmission of a respiratory illness than a football stadium or cinema.
It does all rather suggest that, the Government having first decided that they want to bring in ID cards by the back door, they're now working their way backwards from the objective and trying to find a way to coax the population into it without provoking a revolt.
Sort of makes sense until you look at the busy rush hour packed commuter train, assuming that ever comes back to being a thing again. Edit - as indeed you make the point.
I presume the Prime Minister is picking up from the Conservative grassroots the proposed vaccine passport scheme may not be as popular as when first promulgated.
One might argue it's the sign of an effective Prime Minister that he or she isn't wholly inflexible and is prepared to be persuaded to change a view based on argument.
One might also argue it's the sign of an ineffective Prime Minister who is prepared to dump whatever he or she believed in if it no longer commands a majority.
The new list - *IF* it has been briefed by the Government, rather than being invented - does imply a rationale: the policing of mass attendance events. Though to what effect, Lord alone knows. If one person who rocks up to a football match signs in with this app, and later turns out to have Covid, then will all 50,000 people in the stadium get unwelcome text messages telling them to isolate for a fortnight? And, of course, the fundamental point remains: once the vast bulk of the population has been vaccinated then that should be sufficient to get us to population immunity - whereby chains of transmission from any remaining virus cases are so broken up that new clusters cannot easily form - and all of these measures are rendered entirely useless anyway.
Moreover, it's arguable that the neat division they've arrived at through targeting mass events is illogical. A crowded, raucous boozer or a stinking, airless, cattle truck tube train are both bound to be more hazardous in terms of transmission of a respiratory illness than a football stadium or cinema.
It does all rather suggest that, the Government having first decided that they want to bring in ID cards by the back door, they're now working their way backwards from the objective and trying to find a way to coax the population into it without provoking a revolt.
Sort of makes sense until you look at the busy rush hour packed commuter train, assuming that ever comes back to being a thing again. Edit - as indeed you make the point.
Gove and co should stop wasting their time on this vaccine passport app crap and focus on persuading people to take up the jab.
I would wonder if the government had lost their minds, were it not for the minor detail I never thought they found them in the first place.
That really is going to cause a fabulous number of law suits if they push ahead with it.
No legal requirement to have the app but you are not allowed back into the office without it. Companies try to force people to have the app - which is a change in their terms and conditions. People refuse. Company left with choice. Sack people and face unfair dismissal legal action or back down and people allowed to work from home indefinitely.
The Government are genuinely mad if they try to force this through.
What about people without smartphones? If it's 25% of the population as a whole, it must be over a third of the 40+ population.
So the possibilities. 1 The Johnson government has already reached the "in the bunker detached from reality" phase that Thatcher reached in about 1989 and none of her successors really attained.
2 They know it's a scam, it's never going to happen, but the calculation is that it's in their partisan interest to propose it. Either because it polls well now, or it will allow a " we're so great, we don't need to do this after all" moment in three months' time.
The UK has already done enough jabs to stop pretty much all the foreseeable Covid deaths; say 90%. The EU isn't there yet, but will be there in a few weeks' time.
The UK will hit herd immunity in June and everyone who can be done will be done in July.
The time window where vaxports are needed internally is really short. So the benefits don't outweigh the costs in cash and national cohesion.
Option 3 is there is a small group of anti vaxxers who can be turned by convincing them that life with jabs will be brutish, nasty and short.
Doesn't make any sense, by the time those red list venues open the incidence rate is going to be basically zero and vaccination rates will be over 90%.
So, it's a multi billion pound "solution" for a problem that will exist for about six weeks, that will be delivered long after the six weeks is over.
Doesn't make any sense, by the time those red list venues open the incidence rate is going to be basically zero and vaccination rates will be over 90%.
So, it's a multi billion pound "solution" for a problem that will exist for about six weeks, that will be delivered long after the six weeks is over.
Sounds about right for this government. Money is free you know.
Under the FTPA the latest an election can be held is the 2nd of July 2024.
Repealing the FTPA isn't as easy as assumed, it's going to be tricky trying to restore a royal prerogative power especially as the government is going to argue the prerogative powers are not judicially reviewable, that's why the government has got the Lords involved at this early stage.
Perhaps you'd care to clarify? - seems out of line with the 'five year term'.
Following the early election, in December 2019, the next election is scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Parliament will be dissolved on 26 March 2024.
and
There is provision for the Prime Minister to make an order to extend this date for a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments. He/she must set out the reasons for the delay, and such an order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can be made. One precedent is the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which delayed local elections by one month. (In 2001, the general election was held on the same day as the delayed local elections.)
Thanks. I hadn't appreciated that May was explicitly favoued.
Ok, so May 2024 is an even more likely date than I'd thought.
I think May 2024 will be the date for GE simply for no other reason that boundary changes recommendations will not be received until July 2023.
The primary legislation has been passed but I suspect there may be issues from the Welsh and the Tories (if the Tories look like they will win Wales) about reducing the Welsh number of MPs by 20%.
The Tories are more likely to favour the reduction in seats because it makes it plausible for them to win Wales. It’s the Valleys where the heaviest cuts will fall and although the Tories have made progress there they’re still not in serious contention to win any seats on current boundaries except possibly Gower and a very long shot at Blaenau Gwent.
Plus the changes if along the lines proposed would exterminate Labour outside the south, cut Plaid Cymru in half by costing them the current Carmarthen East and Ceredigion seats and leave Newport and Llanelli both looking vulnerable to a fairly modest Tory swing.
So I do not see that as a problem. There might be a couple of cases of two Tory MPs fighting for the same seat in the north east but actually there are enough tempting targets to go round to buy off any losers.
I was talking more about the optics, it isn't inconceivable that the Tories win* the Senedd elections next month that creates momentum for them for them in the GE, it'll be easy attack line for Labour to use about the Tories reducing Welsh influence in Parliament when they need it the most.
I do not think that will resonate outside the Cardiff/Swansea/Merthyr triangle, if I’m honest. The immediate riposte is ‘you’ve had influence for years and things keep getting worse. Let’s try influencing the other lot.’
Bear in mind, there is only one seat Labour have never held at any level in Wales. They’ve held all the others at one time or another and done fuck all with it. A trade Union exec once told me with a straight face that Nicholas Edwards had done far more for Wales than ever Peter Hain did (On the one occasion I met him, Edwards himself agreed, incidentally, and wasn’t amused when I tripped him up over one or two of his claims).
So I think there isn’t a problem for the Tories in cutting seats outside the Valleys, and there aren’t many likely to go there anyway, while inside the valleys it will make no difference anyway.
Aren't a number of seats in North Wales to go too? Labour only holds one of them.
The way the boundaries were being drawn, with Anglesey protected, that Labour seat is in effect the only one that goes.
There might be a bit of a scuffle between the MP for Montgomeryshire and one of the Clwyd seats, but elsewhere it’s as you were.
In the south west, helpfully, the redrawn seats pitch incumbent Tories against incumbent PC.
It doesn't appear to me as if there are sufficient seats in the North to go round for the available Tory MPs, even if we assume that the successor to the current Alyn & Deeside flips Lab to Con and that one extra seat is added, relative to the 2019 proposals, since Wales is now to receive 32 rather than 29 MPs. I guess that whoever is left without a chair when the music stops will be sent to try to lift Ceredigion plus whatever gets tacked onto it from Plaid, although then again I'm not sure I'd much fancy their chances. They might actually have more luck trying to prise Llanelli away from Labour, if it ends up having some more rural hinterland tacked onto it.
Stephen Crabbe will be the candidate in Ceredigion and North Pembs unless he retires.
Edit - and I would very much fancy their chances there, on current boundaries it would be a fairly comfortable Tory hold.
Llanelli is another one the Tories might begin to challenge in.
Cardigan has never elected a Tory as far as I know - it was Labour-held by Elystan Morgan 1966 - Feb 1974. Rural North Pembrokeshire tends to be less favourable for the Tories than South Pembrokeshire - with significant pockets of support for Plaid and - periodically - the LDs. Tactical anti - Tory voting there might be more effective than many assume. Crabb is not a natural fit there and most of his current seat would be likely to fall into the residual Pembroke seat. He is a Scot by birth - and not obviously culturally Welsh really.
Quite. If the net effect of the boundary changes is not dissimilar to those previously proposed in 2018, then one would've thought that the two sitting Tories in the South West would go for the Carmarthen and Pembroke seats and leave the Ceredigion one well alone.
The Carmarthen seat would be a likely Plaid hold - and Pembroke would be vulnerable to Labour in a reasonable year as evidenced by the 1992 result there.
You think? Carmarthen East is a marginal and Plaid are nowhere in Carmarthen West & S Pembs.
The Pembroke seat's not going to Labour unless there's a fairly hefty swing (7% at a rough guess.)
Under the FTPA the latest an election can be held is the 2nd of July 2024.
Repealing the FTPA isn't as easy as assumed, it's going to be tricky trying to restore a royal prerogative power especially as the government is going to argue the prerogative powers are not judicially reviewable, that's why the government has got the Lords involved at this early stage.
Perhaps you'd care to clarify? - seems out of line with the 'five year term'.
Following the early election, in December 2019, the next election is scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Parliament will be dissolved on 26 March 2024.
and
There is provision for the Prime Minister to make an order to extend this date for a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments. He/she must set out the reasons for the delay, and such an order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can be made. One precedent is the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which delayed local elections by one month. (In 2001, the general election was held on the same day as the delayed local elections.)
Thanks. I hadn't appreciated that May was explicitly favoued.
Ok, so May 2024 is an even more likely date than I'd thought.
I think May 2024 will be the date for GE simply for no other reason that boundary changes recommendations will not be received until July 2023.
The primary legislation has been passed but I suspect there may be issues from the Welsh and the Tories (if the Tories look like they will win Wales) about reducing the Welsh number of MPs by 20%.
The Tories are more likely to favour the reduction in seats because it makes it plausible for them to win Wales. It’s the Valleys where the heaviest cuts will fall and although the Tories have made progress there they’re still not in serious contention to win any seats on current boundaries except possibly Gower and a very long shot at Blaenau Gwent.
Plus the changes if along the lines proposed would exterminate Labour outside the south, cut Plaid Cymru in half by costing them the current Carmarthen East and Ceredigion seats and leave Newport and Llanelli both looking vulnerable to a fairly modest Tory swing.
So I do not see that as a problem. There might be a couple of cases of two Tory MPs fighting for the same seat in the north east but actually there are enough tempting targets to go round to buy off any losers.
I was talking more about the optics, it isn't inconceivable that the Tories win* the Senedd elections next month that creates momentum for them for them in the GE, it'll be easy attack line for Labour to use about the Tories reducing Welsh influence in Parliament when they need it the most.
I do not think that will resonate outside the Cardiff/Swansea/Merthyr triangle, if I’m honest. The immediate riposte is ‘you’ve had influence for years and things keep getting worse. Let’s try influencing the other lot.’
Bear in mind, there is only one seat Labour have never held at any level in Wales. They’ve held all the others at one time or another and done fuck all with it. A trade Union exec once told me with a straight face that Nicholas Edwards had done far more for Wales than ever Peter Hain did (On the one occasion I met him, Edwards himself agreed, incidentally, and wasn’t amused when I tripped him up over one or two of his claims).
So I think there isn’t a problem for the Tories in cutting seats outside the Valleys, and there aren’t many likely to go there anyway, while inside the valleys it will make no difference anyway.
Aren't a number of seats in North Wales to go too? Labour only holds one of them.
The way the boundaries were being drawn, with Anglesey protected, that Labour seat is in effect the only one that goes.
There might be a bit of a scuffle between the MP for Montgomeryshire and one of the Clwyd seats, but elsewhere it’s as you were.
In the south west, helpfully, the redrawn seats pitch incumbent Tories against incumbent PC.
It doesn't appear to me as if there are sufficient seats in the North to go round for the available Tory MPs, even if we assume that the successor to the current Alyn & Deeside flips Lab to Con and that one extra seat is added, relative to the 2019 proposals, since Wales is now to receive 32 rather than 29 MPs. I guess that whoever is left without a chair when the music stops will be sent to try to lift Ceredigion plus whatever gets tacked onto it from Plaid, although then again I'm not sure I'd much fancy their chances. They might actually have more luck trying to prise Llanelli away from Labour, if it ends up having some more rural hinterland tacked onto it.
Stephen Crabbe will be the candidate in Ceredigion and North Pembs unless he retires.
Edit - and I would very much fancy their chances there, on current boundaries it would be a fairly comfortable Tory hold.
Llanelli is another one the Tories might begin to challenge in.
Cardigan has never elected a Tory as far as I know - it was Labour-held by Elystan Morgan 1966 - Feb 1974. Rural North Pembrokeshire tends to be less favourable for the Tories than South Pembrokeshire - with significant pockets of support for Plaid and - periodically - the LDs. Tactical anti - Tory voting there might be more effective than many assume. Crabb is not a natural fit there and most of his current seat would be likely to fall into the residual Pembroke seat. He is a Scot by birth - and not obviously culturally Welsh really.
Quite. If the net effect of the boundary changes is not dissimilar to those previously proposed in 2018, then one would've thought that the two sitting Tories in the South West would go for the Carmarthen and Pembroke seats and leave the Ceredigion one well alone.
The Carmarthen seat would be a likely Plaid hold - and Pembroke would be vulnerable to Labour in a reasonable year as evidenced by the 1992 result there.
You think? Carmarthen East is a marginal and Plaid are nowhere in Carmarthen West & S Pembs.
The Pembroke seat's not going to Labour unless there's a fairly hefty swing (7% at a rough guess.)
Not necessarily - Pembroke went Labour by 755 in 1992 when the Tories led across GB by 7.6%. Preseli Pembrokeshire nearly fell to Labour in 2017. Plaid is very weak in the S Pembs part of the Carmarthen West seat , but much stronger beyond the Pembrokeshire border.
Much will depend on the new Pembrokeshire boundaries. It may be that a bit of Cardigan will be included which could help the labour vote. The county was red from 1992 to 1997 when it split. Then Preseli till 2005 and Carms West 2010 , so there is a recent Labour history. No other parties have come close. It will be an interesting contest as neither current MP are particularly popular.
Doesn't make any sense, by the time those red list venues open the incidence rate is going to be basically zero and vaccination rates will be over 90%.
So, it's a multi billion pound "solution" for a problem that will exist for about six weeks, that will be delivered long after the six weeks is over.
I'm sure the contract will go to serco or another company that has donors.
I would wonder if the government had lost their minds, were it not for the minor detail I never thought they found them in the first place.
That really is going to cause a fabulous number of law suits if they push ahead with it.
No legal requirement to have the app but you are not allowed back into the office without it. Companies try to force people to have the app - which is a change in their terms and conditions. People refuse. Company left with choice. Sack people and face unfair dismissal legal action or back down and people allowed to work from home indefinitely.
The Government are genuinely mad if they try to force this through.
What about people without smartphones? If it's 25% of the population as a whole, it must be over a third of the 40+ population.
So the possibilities. 1 The Johnson government has already reached the "in the bunker detached from reality" phase that Thatcher reached in about 1989 and none of her successors really attained.
2 They know it's a scam, it's never going to happen, but the calculation is that it's in their partisan interest to propose it. Either because it polls well now, or it will allow a " we're so great, we don't need to do this after all" moment in three months' time.
The UK has already done enough jabs to stop pretty much all the foreseeable Covid deaths; say 90%. The EU isn't there yet, but will be there in a few weeks' time.
The UK will hit herd immunity in June and everyone who can be done will be done in July.
The time window where vaxports are needed internally is really short. So the benefits don't outweigh the costs in cash and national cohesion.
Option 3 is there is a small group of anti vaxxers who can be turned by convincing them that life with jabs will be brutish, nasty and short.
You might want to reread that last sentence.
Was too late to edit when I saw but meant “without” obviously
Doesn't make any sense, by the time those red list venues open the incidence rate is going to be basically zero and vaccination rates will be over 90%.
So, it's a multi billion pound "solution" for a problem that will exist for about six weeks, that will be delivered long after the six weeks is over.
I'm sure the contract will go to serco or another company that has donors.
Yadda yadda, if there’s corruption report it to the police.
Harry Cole reminds us that it was only on the 24th of March that Johnson was telling us covid passport app was coming for the pub.
Yes, but apparently this isn't a u-turn and people were being hysterical. It was the reaction of the country that has forced Boris into this u-turn the government, it convinced the Tory MPs to rebel and go public. We need to keep going and get the idea dumped entirely.
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
Well if that goes ahead then it will be costing the globe 900£ straight off the bat as I will be cancelling my patron membership and my son and his girlfriends best friend membership. I will be sure to let them know why as well.
Harry Cole reminds us that it was only on the 24th of March that Johnson was telling us covid passport app was coming for the pub.
Yes, but apparently this isn't a u-turn and people were being hysterical. It was the reaction of the country that has forced Boris into this u-turn the government, it convinced the Tory MPs to rebel and go public. We need to keep going and get the idea dumped entirely.
Under the FTPA the latest an election can be held is the 2nd of July 2024.
Repealing the FTPA isn't as easy as assumed, it's going to be tricky trying to restore a royal prerogative power especially as the government is going to argue the prerogative powers are not judicially reviewable, that's why the government has got the Lords involved at this early stage.
Perhaps you'd care to clarify? - seems out of line with the 'five year term'.
Following the early election, in December 2019, the next election is scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Parliament will be dissolved on 26 March 2024.
and
There is provision for the Prime Minister to make an order to extend this date for a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments. He/she must set out the reasons for the delay, and such an order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can be made. One precedent is the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which delayed local elections by one month. (In 2001, the general election was held on the same day as the delayed local elections.)
Thanks. I hadn't appreciated that May was explicitly favoued.
Ok, so May 2024 is an even more likely date than I'd thought.
I think May 2024 will be the date for GE simply for no other reason that boundary changes recommendations will not be received until July 2023.
The primary legislation has been passed but I suspect there may be issues from the Welsh and the Tories (if the Tories look like they will win Wales) about reducing the Welsh number of MPs by 20%.
The Tories are more likely to favour the reduction in seats because it makes it plausible for them to win Wales. It’s the Valleys where the heaviest cuts will fall and although the Tories have made progress there they’re still not in serious contention to win any seats on current boundaries except possibly Gower and a very long shot at Blaenau Gwent.
Plus the changes if along the lines proposed would exterminate Labour outside the south, cut Plaid Cymru in half by costing them the current Carmarthen East and Ceredigion seats and leave Newport and Llanelli both looking vulnerable to a fairly modest Tory swing.
So I do not see that as a problem. There might be a couple of cases of two Tory MPs fighting for the same seat in the north east but actually there are enough tempting targets to go round to buy off any losers.
I was talking more about the optics, it isn't inconceivable that the Tories win* the Senedd elections next month that creates momentum for them for them in the GE, it'll be easy attack line for Labour to use about the Tories reducing Welsh influence in Parliament when they need it the most.
I do not think that will resonate outside the Cardiff/Swansea/Merthyr triangle, if I’m honest. The immediate riposte is ‘you’ve had influence for years and things keep getting worse. Let’s try influencing the other lot.’
Bear in mind, there is only one seat Labour have never held at any level in Wales. They’ve held all the others at one time or another and done fuck all with it. A trade Union exec once told me with a straight face that Nicholas Edwards had done far more for Wales than ever Peter Hain did (On the one occasion I met him, Edwards himself agreed, incidentally, and wasn’t amused when I tripped him up over one or two of his claims).
So I think there isn’t a problem for the Tories in cutting seats outside the Valleys, and there aren’t many likely to go there anyway, while inside the valleys it will make no difference anyway.
Aren't a number of seats in North Wales to go too? Labour only holds one of them.
The way the boundaries were being drawn, with Anglesey protected, that Labour seat is in effect the only one that goes.
There might be a bit of a scuffle between the MP for Montgomeryshire and one of the Clwyd seats, but elsewhere it’s as you were.
In the south west, helpfully, the redrawn seats pitch incumbent Tories against incumbent PC.
It doesn't appear to me as if there are sufficient seats in the North to go round for the available Tory MPs, even if we assume that the successor to the current Alyn & Deeside flips Lab to Con and that one extra seat is added, relative to the 2019 proposals, since Wales is now to receive 32 rather than 29 MPs. I guess that whoever is left without a chair when the music stops will be sent to try to lift Ceredigion plus whatever gets tacked onto it from Plaid, although then again I'm not sure I'd much fancy their chances. They might actually have more luck trying to prise Llanelli away from Labour, if it ends up having some more rural hinterland tacked onto it.
Stephen Crabbe will be the candidate in Ceredigion and North Pembs unless he retires.
Edit - and I would very much fancy their chances there, on current boundaries it would be a fairly comfortable Tory hold.
Llanelli is another one the Tories might begin to challenge in.
Cardigan has never elected a Tory as far as I know - it was Labour-held by Elystan Morgan 1966 - Feb 1974. Rural North Pembrokeshire tends to be less favourable for the Tories than South Pembrokeshire - with significant pockets of support for Plaid and - periodically - the LDs. Tactical anti - Tory voting there might be more effective than many assume. Crabb is not a natural fit there and most of his current seat would be likely to fall into the residual Pembroke seat. He is a Scot by birth - and not obviously culturally Welsh really.
Quite. If the net effect of the boundary changes is not dissimilar to those previously proposed in 2018, then one would've thought that the two sitting Tories in the South West would go for the Carmarthen and Pembroke seats and leave the Ceredigion one well alone.
The Carmarthen seat would be a likely Plaid hold - and Pembroke would be vulnerable to Labour in a reasonable year as evidenced by the 1992 result there.
You think? Carmarthen East is a marginal and Plaid are nowhere in Carmarthen West & S Pembs.
The Pembroke seat's not going to Labour unless there's a fairly hefty swing (7% at a rough guess.)
Under the FTPA the latest an election can be held is the 2nd of July 2024.
Repealing the FTPA isn't as easy as assumed, it's going to be tricky trying to restore a royal prerogative power especially as the government is going to argue the prerogative powers are not judicially reviewable, that's why the government has got the Lords involved at this early stage.
Perhaps you'd care to clarify? - seems out of line with the 'five year term'.
Following the early election, in December 2019, the next election is scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Parliament will be dissolved on 26 March 2024.
and
There is provision for the Prime Minister to make an order to extend this date for a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments. He/she must set out the reasons for the delay, and such an order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can be made. One precedent is the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which delayed local elections by one month. (In 2001, the general election was held on the same day as the delayed local elections.)
Thanks. I hadn't appreciated that May was explicitly favoued.
Ok, so May 2024 is an even more likely date than I'd thought.
I think May 2024 will be the date for GE simply for no other reason that boundary changes recommendations will not be received until July 2023.
The primary legislation has been passed but I suspect there may be issues from the Welsh and the Tories (if the Tories look like they will win Wales) about reducing the Welsh number of MPs by 20%.
The Tories are more likely to favour the reduction in seats because it makes it plausible for them to win Wales. It’s the Valleys where the heaviest cuts will fall and although the Tories have made progress there they’re still not in serious contention to win any seats on current boundaries except possibly Gower and a very long shot at Blaenau Gwent.
Plus the changes if along the lines proposed would exterminate Labour outside the south, cut Plaid Cymru in half by costing them the current Carmarthen East and Ceredigion seats and leave Newport and Llanelli both looking vulnerable to a fairly modest Tory swing.
So I do not see that as a problem. There might be a couple of cases of two Tory MPs fighting for the same seat in the north east but actually there are enough tempting targets to go round to buy off any losers.
I was talking more about the optics, it isn't inconceivable that the Tories win* the Senedd elections next month that creates momentum for them for them in the GE, it'll be easy attack line for Labour to use about the Tories reducing Welsh influence in Parliament when they need it the most.
I do not think that will resonate outside the Cardiff/Swansea/Merthyr triangle, if I’m honest. The immediate riposte is ‘you’ve had influence for years and things keep getting worse. Let’s try influencing the other lot.’
Bear in mind, there is only one seat Labour have never held at any level in Wales. They’ve held all the others at one time or another and done fuck all with it. A trade Union exec once told me with a straight face that Nicholas Edwards had done far more for Wales than ever Peter Hain did (On the one occasion I met him, Edwards himself agreed, incidentally, and wasn’t amused when I tripped him up over one or two of his claims).
So I think there isn’t a problem for the Tories in cutting seats outside the Valleys, and there aren’t many likely to go there anyway, while inside the valleys it will make no difference anyway.
Aren't a number of seats in North Wales to go too? Labour only holds one of them.
The way the boundaries were being drawn, with Anglesey protected, that Labour seat is in effect the only one that goes.
There might be a bit of a scuffle between the MP for Montgomeryshire and one of the Clwyd seats, but elsewhere it’s as you were.
In the south west, helpfully, the redrawn seats pitch incumbent Tories against incumbent PC.
It doesn't appear to me as if there are sufficient seats in the North to go round for the available Tory MPs, even if we assume that the successor to the current Alyn & Deeside flips Lab to Con and that one extra seat is added, relative to the 2019 proposals, since Wales is now to receive 32 rather than 29 MPs. I guess that whoever is left without a chair when the music stops will be sent to try to lift Ceredigion plus whatever gets tacked onto it from Plaid, although then again I'm not sure I'd much fancy their chances. They might actually have more luck trying to prise Llanelli away from Labour, if it ends up having some more rural hinterland tacked onto it.
Stephen Crabbe will be the candidate in Ceredigion and North Pembs unless he retires.
Edit - and I would very much fancy their chances there, on current boundaries it would be a fairly comfortable Tory hold.
Llanelli is another one the Tories might begin to challenge in.
Cardigan has never elected a Tory as far as I know - it was Labour-held by Elystan Morgan 1966 - Feb 1974. Rural North Pembrokeshire tends to be less favourable for the Tories than South Pembrokeshire - with significant pockets of support for Plaid and - periodically - the LDs. Tactical anti - Tory voting there might be more effective than many assume. Crabb is not a natural fit there and most of his current seat would be likely to fall into the residual Pembroke seat. He is a Scot by birth - and not obviously culturally Welsh really.
Quite. If the net effect of the boundary changes is not dissimilar to those previously proposed in 2018, then one would've thought that the two sitting Tories in the South West would go for the Carmarthen and Pembroke seats and leave the Ceredigion one well alone.
The Carmarthen seat would be a likely Plaid hold - and Pembroke would be vulnerable to Labour in a reasonable year as evidenced by the 1992 result there.
You think? Carmarthen East is a marginal and Plaid are nowhere in Carmarthen West & S Pembs.
The Pembroke seat's not going to Labour unless there's a fairly hefty swing (7% at a rough guess.)
Not necessarily - Pembroke went Labour by 755 in 1992 when the Tories led across GB by 7.6%. Preseli Pembrokeshire nearly fell to Labour in 2017. Plaid is very weak in the S Pembs part of the Carmarthen West seat , but much stronger beyond the Pembrokeshire border.
Much will depend on the new Pembrokeshire boundaries. It may be that a bit of Cardigan will be included which could help the labour vote. The county was red from 1992 to 1997 when it split. Then Preseli till 2005 and Carms West 2010 , so there is a recent Labour history. No other parties have come close. It will be an interesting contest as neither current MP are particularly popular.
The Pembrokeshire seat actually disappeared in 1983 when North Pembrokeshire was combined with Cardigan. In 1992 Nick Ainger gained the residual Pembroke seat from the Tory - Nicholas Bennett. Similar boundaries may well operate next time.
These tweets are really useless. They say it's breaking but they are just repeating another news outlet, and they don't even give the link to the story.
Harry Cole reminds us that it was only on the 24th of March that Johnson was telling us covid passport app was coming for the pub.
Yes, but apparently this isn't a u-turn and people were being hysterical. It was the reaction of the country that has forced Boris into this u-turn the government, it convinced the Tory MPs to rebel and go public. We need to keep going and get the idea dumped entirely.
You mean the polling which had 70% in favour or the screechings on twitter? Get over yourself.
These tweets are really useless. They say it's breaking but they are just repeating another news outlet, and they don't even give the link to the story.
He worked closely with BoZo when twit was at the FCO, so he is a pretty close witness.
That doesn't make him an unbiased observer.
Duncan is a zealous and idiotic Remoaner, who loathes Johnson and Brexit, and has striven to hide this, and has failed completely, time and again. Ignore
"Sir Alan Duncan's long campaign to destroy the career of Boris Johnson "
Cummings turned him down (rudely, as you'd expect) to be the mouthpiece of Vote Leave.
I think with Alan Duncan there's nothing more political than a personal grudge.
I have met Duncan a few times. He is a nasty arrogant person, but he is fairly intelligent and can be witty and charming. Other people just exist as his stepping stones, only to be considered for what he can get out of them. So you may be right, but I think he was genuine about being for Remain.
Great to have Premier League football back after it was disbanded on Christmas Day. Can we just write off Christmas -> Good Friday from this year's league table? 😂
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
All of these are places that already check for tickets/ID anyway and don't allow people to just walk in like pubs do.
There was never a chance on earth it was going to work for pubs.
Still hope its voluntary and not compulsory scheme.
Harry Cole reminds us that it was only on the 24th of March that Johnson was telling us covid passport app was coming for the pub.
Yes, but apparently this isn't a u-turn and people were being hysterical. It was the reaction of the country that has forced Boris into this u-turn the government, it convinced the Tory MPs to rebel and go public. We need to keep going and get the idea dumped entirely.
You mean the polling which had 70% in favour or the screechings on twitter? Get over yourself.
The polls have had people in favour of lockdown for ages and yet it's extremely unpopular outside of a few ultras. It's the same polling effect, people think they're a good idea for everyone else.
What's the point then. Unless they're seriously saying that the night economy will need to stay closed until then?!
The whole thing makes literally no sense.
By the Autumn, everyone (probably including children) will have been vaccinated. And many of us will even have had booster shots. Virus incidence in the UK will be negligible, and hospitalisations rarer than for influenza.
What's the point then. Unless they're seriously saying that the night economy will need to stay closed until then?!
The whole thing makes literally no sense.
By the Autumn, everyone (probably including children) will have been vaccinated. And many of us will even have had booster shots. Virus incidence in the UK will be negligible, and hospitalisations rarer than for influenza.
So, why will we need Vaxports then?
So they can introduce a national id app by the backdoor.
Organisations like Nation of Islam are very attractive to the mentally ill. In contrast to normal social groups, they are welcomed in, they are given purpose, and their lives gain a certain structure.
Harry Cole reminds us that it was only on the 24th of March that Johnson was telling us covid passport app was coming for the pub.
Yes, but apparently this isn't a u-turn and people were being hysterical. It was the reaction of the country that has forced Boris into this u-turn the government, it convinced the Tory MPs to rebel and go public. We need to keep going and get the idea dumped entirely.
You mean the polling which had 70% in favour or the screechings on twitter? Get over yourself.
The polls have had people in favour of lockdown for ages and yet it's extremely unpopular outside of a few ultras. It's the same polling effect, people think they're a good idea for everyone else.
Great to have Premier League football back after it was disbanded on Christmas Day. Can we just write off Christmas -> Good Friday from this year's league table? 😂
You've started to play just hours after mathematically losing the title...
What's the point then. Unless they're seriously saying that the night economy will need to stay closed until then?!
The whole thing makes literally no sense.
By the Autumn, everyone (probably including children) will have been vaccinated. And many of us will even have had booster shots. Virus incidence in the UK will be negligible, and hospitalisations rarer than for influenza.
So, why will we need Vaxports then?
I've got no idea. The whole government just seems to be wedded to this idea even though they won't be necessary with our ultra low levels of vaccine hesitancy and vaccine delivery schedule.
Great to have Premier League football back after it was disbanded on Christmas Day. Can we just write off Christmas -> Good Friday from this year's league table? 😂
You've started to play just hours after mathematically losing the title...
Just hope to win the Champions League now.
Partially because it would be great to win that again, but partially because I don't want City to get the quadruple. 😉
I'm surprised that nobody in Downing Street has suggested that you will need a vaccine passport in order to access a Covid vaccination centre.
I'm surprised that nobody in Downing Street has suggested that you will need a vaccine passport in order to access everything except if you are a Tory donor
Ahem. As I predicted. Theatres yes, pubs no. Very sensible. They should also make the schemes voluntary - but this is how they would divide anyway. Theatres yes, pubs no
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
Well if that goes ahead then it will be costing the globe 900£ straight off the bat as I will be cancelling my patron membership and my son and his girlfriends best friend membership. I will be sure to let them know why as well.
Will you tell them, to paraphrase Ovid, spectatum venimus, sed non spectemur ut ipsi? *
* We come to be spectators, but not to be inspected ourselves.
Just been to my first social engagement since.... God knows. A barbecue in bouji NW London. Freezing but great fun. Quite emotional
In truth probably my first relaxed social thing for a year: the first time with a sense of real freedom, at least on the horizon
It could be a one-off, or it could be indicative, but it was notably hedonistic. Think middle aged housewives doing lines of coke off the kitchen table (from John Lewis). If it is indicative, then we are in for a rip roaring 2020s
Our host had basically built a small pub in a back garden. It was built to be the exact size needed for a pool table, plus a bar. It is a thing of joy and will become our venue of choice if you end up having to wear facemasks to go to real pubs.
Our neighbour has done that (minus the pool table). They noise will be a pain when it's too warm to keep the windows closed, but clearly people are taking action to avoid the continuing nuisance of restrictions at licensed premises.
I'm surprised that nobody in Downing Street has suggested that you will need a vaccine passport in order to access a Covid vaccination centre.
I'm surprised that nobody in Downing Street has suggested that you will need a vaccine passport in order to access everything except if you are a Tory donor
What's the point then. Unless they're seriously saying that the night economy will need to stay closed until then?!
Not read the small print beyond the headline, but surely 21 June is "months" away?
If any of these venues are closed after 21 June that is a massive failure as far as I'm concerned.
Bear in mind the app, that will no doubt come with a multi billion pound price tag, isn't expected until the Autumn. Bear in mind, also, that government technology projects rarely deliver on time.
So, are we planning on reopening venues without Vaxports, and then requiring them in 2022? Or are we planning to not reopen the venues, even though much of the population will be fully vaccinated, and CV19 incidence is going to be very low?
He worked closely with BoZo when twit was at the FCO, so he is a pretty close witness.
That doesn't make him an unbiased observer.
Duncan is a zealous and idiotic Remoaner, who loathes Johnson and Brexit, and has striven to hide this, and has failed completely, time and again. Ignore
"Sir Alan Duncan's long campaign to destroy the career of Boris Johnson "
Cummings turned him down (rudely, as you'd expect) to be the mouthpiece of Vote Leave.
I think with Alan Duncan there's nothing more political than a personal grudge.
I have met Duncan a few times. He is a nasty arrogant person, but he is fairly intelligent and can be witty and charming. Other people just exist as his stepping stones, only to be considered for what he can get out of them. So you may be right, but I think he was genuine about being for Remain.
Under the FTPA the latest an election can be held is the 2nd of July 2024.
Repealing the FTPA isn't as easy as assumed, it's going to be tricky trying to restore a royal prerogative power especially as the government is going to argue the prerogative powers are not judicially reviewable, that's why the government has got the Lords involved at this early stage.
Perhaps you'd care to clarify? - seems out of line with the 'five year term'.
Following the early election, in December 2019, the next election is scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Parliament will be dissolved on 26 March 2024.
and
There is provision for the Prime Minister to make an order to extend this date for a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments. He/she must set out the reasons for the delay, and such an order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can be made. One precedent is the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which delayed local elections by one month. (In 2001, the general election was held on the same day as the delayed local elections.)
Thanks. I hadn't appreciated that May was explicitly favoued.
Ok, so May 2024 is an even more likely date than I'd thought.
I think May 2024 will be the date for GE simply for no other reason that boundary changes recommendations will not be received until July 2023.
The primary legislation has been passed but I suspect there may be issues from the Welsh and the Tories (if the Tories look like they will win Wales) about reducing the Welsh number of MPs by 20%.
The Tories are more likely to favour the reduction in seats because it makes it plausible for them to win Wales. It’s the Valleys where the heaviest cuts will fall and although the Tories have made progress there they’re still not in serious contention to win any seats on current boundaries except possibly Gower and a very long shot at Blaenau Gwent.
Plus the changes if along the lines proposed would exterminate Labour outside the south, cut Plaid Cymru in half by costing them the current Carmarthen East and Ceredigion seats and leave Newport and Llanelli both looking vulnerable to a fairly modest Tory swing.
So I do not see that as a problem. There might be a couple of cases of two Tory MPs fighting for the same seat in the north east but actually there are enough tempting targets to go round to buy off any losers.
I was talking more about the optics, it isn't inconceivable that the Tories win* the Senedd elections next month that creates momentum for them for them in the GE, it'll be easy attack line for Labour to use about the Tories reducing Welsh influence in Parliament when they need it the most.
I do not think that will resonate outside the Cardiff/Swansea/Merthyr triangle, if I’m honest. The immediate riposte is ‘you’ve had influence for years and things keep getting worse. Let’s try influencing the other lot.’
Bear in mind, there is only one seat Labour have never held at any level in Wales. They’ve held all the others at one time or another and done fuck all with it. A trade Union exec once told me with a straight face that Nicholas Edwards had done far more for Wales than ever Peter Hain did (On the one occasion I met him, Edwards himself agreed, incidentally, and wasn’t amused when I tripped him up over one or two of his claims).
So I think there isn’t a problem for the Tories in cutting seats outside the Valleys, and there aren’t many likely to go there anyway, while inside the valleys it will make no difference anyway.
Aren't a number of seats in North Wales to go too? Labour only holds one of them.
The way the boundaries were being drawn, with Anglesey protected, that Labour seat is in effect the only one that goes.
There might be a bit of a scuffle between the MP for Montgomeryshire and one of the Clwyd seats, but elsewhere it’s as you were.
In the south west, helpfully, the redrawn seats pitch incumbent Tories against incumbent PC.
It doesn't appear to me as if there are sufficient seats in the North to go round for the available Tory MPs, even if we assume that the successor to the current Alyn & Deeside flips Lab to Con and that one extra seat is added, relative to the 2019 proposals, since Wales is now to receive 32 rather than 29 MPs. I guess that whoever is left without a chair when the music stops will be sent to try to lift Ceredigion plus whatever gets tacked onto it from Plaid, although then again I'm not sure I'd much fancy their chances. They might actually have more luck trying to prise Llanelli away from Labour, if it ends up having some more rural hinterland tacked onto it.
Stephen Crabbe will be the candidate in Ceredigion and North Pembs unless he retires.
Edit - and I would very much fancy their chances there, on current boundaries it would be a fairly comfortable Tory hold.
Llanelli is another one the Tories might begin to challenge in.
Cardigan has never elected a Tory as far as I know - it was Labour-held by Elystan Morgan 1966 - Feb 1974. Rural North Pembrokeshire tends to be less favourable for the Tories than South Pembrokeshire - with significant pockets of support for Plaid and - periodically - the LDs. Tactical anti - Tory voting there might be more effective than many assume. Crabb is not a natural fit there and most of his current seat would be likely to fall into the residual Pembroke seat. He is a Scot by birth - and not obviously culturally Welsh really.
Quite. If the net effect of the boundary changes is not dissimilar to those previously proposed in 2018, then one would've thought that the two sitting Tories in the South West would go for the Carmarthen and Pembroke seats and leave the Ceredigion one well alone.
The Carmarthen seat would be a likely Plaid hold - and Pembroke would be vulnerable to Labour in a reasonable year as evidenced by the 1992 result there.
You think? Carmarthen East is a marginal and Plaid are nowhere in Carmarthen West & S Pembs.
The Pembroke seat's not going to Labour unless there's a fairly hefty swing (7% at a rough guess.)
Under the FTPA the latest an election can be held is the 2nd of July 2024.
Repealing the FTPA isn't as easy as assumed, it's going to be tricky trying to restore a royal prerogative power especially as the government is going to argue the prerogative powers are not judicially reviewable, that's why the government has got the Lords involved at this early stage.
Perhaps you'd care to clarify? - seems out of line with the 'five year term'.
Following the early election, in December 2019, the next election is scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Parliament will be dissolved on 26 March 2024.
and
There is provision for the Prime Minister to make an order to extend this date for a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments. He/she must set out the reasons for the delay, and such an order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can be made. One precedent is the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 which delayed local elections by one month. (In 2001, the general election was held on the same day as the delayed local elections.)
Thanks. I hadn't appreciated that May was explicitly favoued.
Ok, so May 2024 is an even more likely date than I'd thought.
I think May 2024 will be the date for GE simply for no other reason that boundary changes recommendations will not be received until July 2023.
The primary legislation has been passed but I suspect there may be issues from the Welsh and the Tories (if the Tories look like they will win Wales) about reducing the Welsh number of MPs by 20%.
The Tories are more likely to favour the reduction in seats because it makes it plausible for them to win Wales. It’s the Valleys where the heaviest cuts will fall and although the Tories have made progress there they’re still not in serious contention to win any seats on current boundaries except possibly Gower and a very long shot at Blaenau Gwent.
Plus the changes if along the lines proposed would exterminate Labour outside the south, cut Plaid Cymru in half by costing them the current Carmarthen East and Ceredigion seats and leave Newport and Llanelli both looking vulnerable to a fairly modest Tory swing.
So I do not see that as a problem. There might be a couple of cases of two Tory MPs fighting for the same seat in the north east but actually there are enough tempting targets to go round to buy off any losers.
I was talking more about the optics, it isn't inconceivable that the Tories win* the Senedd elections next month that creates momentum for them for them in the GE, it'll be easy attack line for Labour to use about the Tories reducing Welsh influence in Parliament when they need it the most.
I do not think that will resonate outside the Cardiff/Swansea/Merthyr triangle, if I’m honest. The immediate riposte is ‘you’ve had influence for years and things keep getting worse. Let’s try influencing the other lot.’
Bear in mind, there is only one seat Labour have never held at any level in Wales. They’ve held all the others at one time or another and done fuck all with it. A trade Union exec once told me with a straight face that Nicholas Edwards had done far more for Wales than ever Peter Hain did (On the one occasion I met him, Edwards himself agreed, incidentally, and wasn’t amused when I tripped him up over one or two of his claims).
So I think there isn’t a problem for the Tories in cutting seats outside the Valleys, and there aren’t many likely to go there anyway, while inside the valleys it will make no difference anyway.
Aren't a number of seats in North Wales to go too? Labour only holds one of them.
The way the boundaries were being drawn, with Anglesey protected, that Labour seat is in effect the only one that goes.
There might be a bit of a scuffle between the MP for Montgomeryshire and one of the Clwyd seats, but elsewhere it’s as you were.
In the south west, helpfully, the redrawn seats pitch incumbent Tories against incumbent PC.
It doesn't appear to me as if there are sufficient seats in the North to go round for the available Tory MPs, even if we assume that the successor to the current Alyn & Deeside flips Lab to Con and that one extra seat is added, relative to the 2019 proposals, since Wales is now to receive 32 rather than 29 MPs. I guess that whoever is left without a chair when the music stops will be sent to try to lift Ceredigion plus whatever gets tacked onto it from Plaid, although then again I'm not sure I'd much fancy their chances. They might actually have more luck trying to prise Llanelli away from Labour, if it ends up having some more rural hinterland tacked onto it.
Stephen Crabbe will be the candidate in Ceredigion and North Pembs unless he retires.
Edit - and I would very much fancy their chances there, on current boundaries it would be a fairly comfortable Tory hold.
Llanelli is another one the Tories might begin to challenge in.
Cardigan has never elected a Tory as far as I know - it was Labour-held by Elystan Morgan 1966 - Feb 1974. Rural North Pembrokeshire tends to be less favourable for the Tories than South Pembrokeshire - with significant pockets of support for Plaid and - periodically - the LDs. Tactical anti - Tory voting there might be more effective than many assume. Crabb is not a natural fit there and most of his current seat would be likely to fall into the residual Pembroke seat. He is a Scot by birth - and not obviously culturally Welsh really.
Quite. If the net effect of the boundary changes is not dissimilar to those previously proposed in 2018, then one would've thought that the two sitting Tories in the South West would go for the Carmarthen and Pembroke seats and leave the Ceredigion one well alone.
The Carmarthen seat would be a likely Plaid hold - and Pembroke would be vulnerable to Labour in a reasonable year as evidenced by the 1992 result there.
You think? Carmarthen East is a marginal and Plaid are nowhere in Carmarthen West & S Pembs.
The Pembroke seat's not going to Labour unless there's a fairly hefty swing (7% at a rough guess.)
Not necessarily - Pembroke went Labour by 755 in 1992 when the Tories led across GB by 7.6%. Preseli Pembrokeshire nearly fell to Labour in 2017. Plaid is very weak in the S Pembs part of the Carmarthen West seat , but much stronger beyond the Pembrokeshire border.
Much will depend on the new Pembrokeshire boundaries. It may be that a bit of Cardigan will be included which could help the labour vote. The county was red from 1992 to 1997 when it split. Then Preseli till 2005 and Carms West 2010 , so there is a recent Labour history. No other parties have come close. It will be an interesting contest as neither current MP are particularly popular.
The Pembrokeshire seat actually disappeared in 1983 when North Pembrokeshire was combined with Cardigan. In 1992 Nick Ainger gained the residual Pembroke seat from the Tory - Nicholas Bennett. Similar boundaries may well operate next time.
Bennett was very unpopular. I've met him! Will be interesting when boundaries changed.
No potential downsides to teaching toddlers to be hyperaware of race, I'm sure. There's no way that could possibly be counterproductive.
Children that age don't know shit, they can barely even mimic let alone develop understanding complex ideas of ingrained social inequality and racial tensions which you apparently need a degree in race theory to comprehend and workplace seminars to be trained in. They wouldn't be able to understand it, so all you'd get is rote learning of slogans, and that's not helpful.
By the time they get to the age of JoJo from JoJo Rabbit, sure, kids need to know stuff, but I think Barney the Dinosaur telling everyone to kind to one another suffices during the toddler years.
True story: my younger daughter, now 14, was witnessed doing a Hitler salute *in utero*. She would have got away with it, being a fetus, but she was caught via ultrasound, thank God. She’s been in re-education ever since birth and she can now only say ‘whiteness are evil innit’, when she’s not drooling. A lucky escape, frankly
He worked closely with BoZo when twit was at the FCO, so he is a pretty close witness.
That doesn't make him an unbiased observer.
Duncan is a zealous and idiotic Remoaner, who loathes Johnson and Brexit, and has striven to hide this, and has failed completely, time and again. Ignore
"Sir Alan Duncan's long campaign to destroy the career of Boris Johnson "
Cummings turned him down (rudely, as you'd expect) to be the mouthpiece of Vote Leave.
I think with Alan Duncan there's nothing more political than a personal grudge.
I have met Duncan a few times. He is a nasty arrogant person, but he is fairly intelligent and can be witty and charming. Other people just exist as his stepping stones, only to be considered for what he can get out of them. So you may be right, but I think he was genuine about being for Remain.
They were told to rewrite a “fairy tale” to “include social justice” in it
She tried to use The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe & it was thrown out as “not being a fairy story”... but they let her use something with aliens in it instead
What's the point then. Unless they're seriously saying that the night economy will need to stay closed until then?!
Not read the small print beyond the headline, but surely 21 June is "months" away?
If any of these venues are closed after 21 June that is a massive failure as far as I'm concerned.
Bear in mind the app, that will no doubt come with a multi billion pound price tag, isn't expected until the Autumn. Bear in mind, also, that government technology projects rarely deliver on time.
So, are we planning on reopening venues without Vaxports, and then requiring them in 2022? Or are we planning to not reopen the venues, even though much of the population will be fully vaccinated, and CV19 incidence is going to be very low?
Perhaps they will reopen with social distancing and space between seats and all that. When the app comes they can get rid of that restriction. This might be the thinking down in the bunker. Makes sense if you have lost all sense of proportionality.
What's the point then. Unless they're seriously saying that the night economy will need to stay closed until then?!
Not read the small print beyond the headline, but surely 21 June is "months" away?
If any of these venues are closed after 21 June that is a massive failure as far as I'm concerned.
Bear in mind the app, that will no doubt come with a multi billion pound price tag, isn't expected until the Autumn. Bear in mind, also, that government technology projects rarely deliver on time.
So, are we planning on reopening venues without Vaxports, and then requiring them in 2022? Or are we planning to not reopen the venues, even though much of the population will be fully vaccinated, and CV19 incidence is going to be very low?
Virus incidence is not going to be very low, it's going to virtually non-existent. As in less than 100 cases per day and almost no one going to hospital for it.
These tweets are really useless. They say it's breaking but they are just repeating another news outlet, and they don't even give the link to the story.
I love the classic 'The [media outlet] understands', that is, they read the story on someone else's site, which for obvious reasons they usually don't link to.
But one annoying thing is when referencing, say, a government report, some outlets hardly ever seem to link to those reports (they have gotten a little better at linking externally though, so perhaps this is improving at last). As slanted and biased as Guido is, and thus only useful to a degree, he does at least usually put up full copies of that sort of thing.
Comments
In reality,however, much of Crabbe's existing Preseli seat would form part of the proposed Pembroke seat. Places such as Haverfordwest and Milford Haven and the west coastal areas including Broad Haven , Solva etc would NOT be in the new seat combined with Ceredigion.Fishguard & Goodwick would certainly be included but is not clear that St Davids would be. A significant part of Crabbe's voting strength in his current seat would be excluded. For that reason the figures quoted mean little - even before considering the possibility of anti-Tory tactical voting.
The hysteria on here was and is absurd
The only thing we do know with Wales is that the seats won't be the same as now, nor like the previous junked proposals.
Apart from Ynys Mon of course.
So all the places young people - who won't have been vaccinated - want to go
We can't quite do nothing at all
A general ID/vax requirement is both oppressive and (more important) impossible, unenforceable and (most important) would annoy a good number of older Tory voters
Sound important and wait
Watch the coalition of both sane and bonkers people (quite a mix) raise hell and do all the heavy lifting for you
Announce that the right answer for now is to do as little as possible through compulsion and allow narrow areas of private enforcement (cruises etc)
Allow the issue to die quietly at the same speed as the virus normalises.
Plaid is very weak in the S Pembs part of the Carmarthen West seat , but much stronger beyond the Pembrokeshire border.
Moreover, it's arguable that the neat division they've arrived at through targeting mass events is illogical. A crowded, raucous boozer or a stinking, airless, cattle truck tube train are both bound to be more hazardous in terms of transmission of a respiratory illness than a football stadium or cinema.
It does all rather suggest that, the Government having first decided that they want to bring in ID cards by the back door, they're now working their way backwards from the objective and trying to find a way to coax the population into it without provoking a revolt.
"Starmer said. “But it has been frustrating to spend the first year as leader unable to make a speech to a live audience or shake a single voter’s hand.”"
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/03/keir-starmer-ill-take-my-mask-off-and-show-why-i-should-be-prime-minister
‘The green pass, launched last month and eyed as a potential strategy by countries such as Britain, has been credited with helping motivate unvaccinated Israelis to get the jab. At the Jerusalem arena, Avishag Buskila, 26, said the app was why she finally decided to do so.
“My parents were divided. My dad got vaccinated three months ago but my mum wanted to wait and see,” she said. Buskila, a law student, said she wanted to wait, but her university campus will open next week to students with green passes and she did not want to miss out.’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/02/really-good-place-israel-nearing-covid-endgame?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
You can't open up then, because of hospital capacity pressure. But the dynamics are massively different.
The most obvious example is France, where cases have risen a lot recently and ought to have fed through to deaths by now. Deaths haven't risen much, because the poor programme of vaccination seems to have got just enough of the very old just in time.
https://twitter.com/LukeBrandonUK/status/1378431998327414789
https://twitter.com/biannagolodryga/status/1377999658094628864
Rose to lay for London Mayor back in to 22 at Smarkets.
"Any other party" to win at Betfair 32 right now but 46 was getting taken earlier
Though personally I'm not hedging!
The county was red from 1992 to 1997 when it split. Then Preseli till 2005 and Carms West 2010 , so there is a recent Labour history. No other parties have come close.
It will be an interesting contest as neither current MP are particularly popular.
Different take on things????
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1378452145238900739?s=19
???
Mental illness it seems
Great to have Premier League football back after it was disbanded on Christmas Day. Can we just write off Christmas -> Good Friday from this year's league table? 😂
There was never a chance on earth it was going to work for pubs.
Still hope its voluntary and not compulsory scheme.
By the Autumn, everyone (probably including children) will have been vaccinated. And many of us will even have had booster shots. Virus incidence in the UK will be negligible, and hospitalisations rarer than for influenza.
So, why will we need Vaxports then?
https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1378380234710515714
If any of these venues are closed after 21 June that is a massive failure as far as I'm concerned.
Partially because it would be great to win that again, but partially because I don't want City to get the quadruple. 😉
* We come to be spectators, but not to be inspected ourselves.
So, are we planning on reopening venues without Vaxports, and then requiring them in 2022? Or are we planning to not reopen the venues, even though much of the population will be fully vaccinated, and CV19 incidence is going to be very low?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12203997/Sir-Alan-Duncan-tried-to-join-board-of-Leave-organisation-weeks-before-saying-he-will-campaign-to-stay-In.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Will be interesting when boundaries changed.
Children that age don't know shit, they can barely even mimic let alone develop understanding complex ideas of ingrained social inequality and racial tensions which you apparently need a degree in race theory to comprehend and workplace seminars to be trained in. They wouldn't be able to understand it, so all you'd get is rote learning of slogans, and that's not helpful.
By the time they get to the age of JoJo from JoJo Rabbit, sure, kids need to know stuff, but I think Barney the Dinosaur telling everyone to kind to one another suffices during the toddler years.
They were told to rewrite a “fairy tale” to “include social justice” in it
She tried to use The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe & it was thrown out as “not being a fairy story”... but they let her use something with aliens in it instead
Or are they going to be open to all then require vaccinations months after being open to all? 🤦♂️
But one annoying thing is when referencing, say, a government report, some outlets hardly ever seem to link to those reports (they have gotten a little better at linking externally though, so perhaps this is improving at last). As slanted and biased as Guido is, and thus only useful to a degree, he does at least usually put up full copies of that sort of thing.