Latest EMA shows Tories with a 7.2% lead and an overall majority of 42.
Just a current snap shot. Long way to go yet.
You wonder how many candidates Refuk will actually stand? I doubt it will be a tiny proportion of the 276 seats where Brexit Party stood in 2019. If it is even a thing by the net election.
LibDems threatening single taxi levels again.
I remember the golden days of EICEIPM, all he had to do from a couple of years in to the government was turn up and he would win...
The 35% strategy.
The problem being that’s all Labour has pursued ever since, but with the exception of 2017 under very unusual conditions they can’t even get 35%.
What they need is not a ‘radical agenda’ but some dim idea of what their potential supporters will vote for. At the moment, not only do they not know but under Corbyn they made a point of not caring.
So far, Starmer doesn’t seem to have asked that question, which is a mistake but would be quite tough under the circumstances so he can be forgiven.
He needs, however, to be asking those questions and then answering with policies morning, noon and night from next month.
If he doesn’t, he won’t be making major progress at the next election even if the lid comes off exposing the Johnson government’s extraordinary corruption and incompetence.
We all know what 50%* of the country could easily vote for - left flavoured, liberal, social democratic, mixed market economics. Much like the left wing governments in industrialised countries around the world.
The issue is whether the Labour party wants to try and sell that.
One asset Keir has - and I haven’t seen any discussion of this yet on PB - is that the Biden administration is promising (and in some ways already delivering) that rare thing: a popular, left-wing platform.
Seems possible that Keir could be sailing with the tide; once corona dissipates.
The problem he's got is that Johnson is already delivering a popular left wing program albeit with added corruption and a bonus culture war.
He’s not though. Popular, yes. Left wing, no I don’t think so.
Perhaps you are arguing that furlough etc are left wing policies, but I think within the context of the pandemic they are technocratically centrist.
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
She also went to the best university in the land: Newcastle.
OT comment and question about trade. Now weve left the single market, ive found buying things from china to be much more expensive, but it seems like some fishy was going on. Aliexpress is an example. Postage costs are often phenominal to ship to uk but free for delivery to countries within the EU. The costs are so great there are closer to that of what might be VAT.
The UK I understand now requires countries selling goods to the UK over a certain amount to collect VAT on their behalf.
My suspicion is that huge volumes of goods get drop shipped into the EU, dont get customs checked and VAT is not actually levied within the EU from the Chinese website, and that control of our borders means that enforcement is now actually happening... Unfortunately to uk consumers this means we end up actually paying more.
All professional sporting fixtures scheduled for 3pm next Saturday, are to be moved to avoid a clash with the funeral. Football league games are mostly going to be lunchtime or evening kickoffs.
Why is the funeral being held at 3 o'clock? Wouldn't a morning service have been at least as good and avoided this disruption? It is not as if foreign heads of state are being flown in.
These kind of articles make me despair for the future. Endless goalpost shifting. I realise it's not government policy (at present), but it's clearly a sufficiently widely held strand of thought that this sort of thing keeps popping up in the papers.
At least this one has some numbers in it - suggesting that just under 100 cases per week per 100k people is worryingly high.
Which it is.
Monitoring is obvs necessary, and trigger levels need to be such that action can be taken before it gets out of control, and the dynamics are understood wrt to a vaccinated population.
I have no problem with that, as long as we keep the number of hotspots low and the methodology appropriate.
There's also quite a bit of wibble in it of course, but it's the Observer on a Sunday.
The Guardian/Observer have been in the zero CVOID camp all along.
I would say that, so far, in the vaccination/unlocking, we have been on the "good" side of the middle case. When schools opened, the effect was to stop the drop in cases, not cause a rise.
When we unlock, I think, inevitable that COVID cases will increase. This in turn will lead to some deaths and hospitalisations. Especially among those groups rejecting the vaccine.
I agree. And those rejecting the vaccine will have chosen the consequences of their own decision.
I am sanguine about that - I have always been fine with people making their own choice on their own health as long as it is a free choice, without constraint.
I have an issue with people making the same choice for everyone else around them, especially if their own risk is far less than that of those they will infect, and up until the vaccine rollout is complete, it was impossible to make one's own choice without automatically making choices for others and effectively forcing that upon them.
I accept that the vaccines are not perfect, but given the excellent performance against serious illness 14+days after receiving a second dose, my instinct is that the risk-to-others is so low as to be acceptable and dwarfed by the risk-to-self of one's decision.
In short, as long as it is only oneself who lies in the bed, let people make their own beds.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I can’t remember the specifics, but the wider point he was making - which is that most British political discussion exists within a broadly right-wing, self-congratulatory bubble - was spot on.
Well, that’s true. But there are times when it’s correct regardless of its bubble or not.
On vaccines, the EU have messed up procurement, lied to cover it up, and indulged in quite grotesque vaccine nationalism including outright theft to retrieve the situation. Saying that is neither right wing nor self congratulatory. It is a fact.
The EU may not like those facts, but that doesn’t alter them.
Of course, that doesn’t make the Mail or Express or Telegraph nice or trustworthy, but there’s no good saying that they might be wrong when they’re right merely because you don’t like the messenger. That leads to Dave Keating.
Surely the first woman ever to hold either of those roles? Or is there some Tory that I’ve missed?
No, but I was looking at it through the lens of Labour's inability to have a female leader - 46 years and counting behind the supposed misogynistic Tories. Dodd will give Labour's knuckle-draggers extra ammunition, when it comes to replacing Starmer.
It’s not about ammunition, because nobody overtly campaigns against a woman being leader of the Labour Party. It’s just that they always find an excuse, however flimsy, as to why that particular woman isn’t the right person at that moment.
In 2010 and 2020 it was easy because the lone/leading female candidate clearly was not up to being leader. But in 2016 they decided Cooper was ‘uninspiring’ and elected Corbyn instead. Now, if you want a clearer and more absurd example of sexism I’m struggling to find it, but nobody stood up and actually said ‘we don’t want her as leader because she has a vagina.’
In a way, such covert sexism is more insidious than that would have been. But it does mean there’s no reason to think Dodds’ performance will make a difference to it.
Cooper's problem was not her gender, but her politics, as was Kendall's. Much as I liked them personally and their politics, that was not what their party wanted. The party wanted a clear break from New Labour, of which Ed Miliband was the repeat as farce.
Corbyn was a relic of the old left, of a mythical time of purity before Blair contaminated everything. This is why he motivated the young, and swept up older activists who finally felt free of the taint of Blairism.
This is absolutely right. That sexism was a material factor in why Cooper or Kendall didn't get the Labour leader job after Miliband is nonsense. The 2015 defeat after such strenuous efforts were made not to frighten the horses - aka Middle England - with any radicalism traumatized the party. The mood was, "Oh fuck this for a game of soldiers. We triangulated our heart & soul away and it didn't even win us any votes. So no more of that crap. Let's throw the dice. Let's rock."
And so the political chaos of the second half of the 2010s was kicked off for the simple reason that Labour members had a mid-life crisis. They just couldn't believe that after they had deigned to compromise their sacred principles by offering the nation a dull-as-dishwater, allegedly 'soft' lefty with a nasal voice (remind you of anyone?), they had nevertheless been shockingly and unjustly rejected. So no matter how much it cost, how much mileage it had, and how little sense it made, they wanted the red sports car, dammit! That would make them feel young again...
All professional sporting fixtures scheduled for 3pm next Saturday, are to be moved to avoid a clash with the funeral. Football league games are mostly going to be lunchtime or evening kickoffs.
So are only 30 people allowed or do we have a full media scrum showing endless blacked out cars coming and going from Windsor?
Only 30 people allowed at a funeral under the Covid regulations, plus those involved in conducting the ceremony. The entire event will take place within the castle grounds and will be televised, with no public access.
With such a small attendance of very close family, I'd have thought that most would arrive well in advance towards the end of the week, rather than in a parade of black cars on the day itself.
One asset Keir has - and I haven’t seen any discussion of this yet on PB - is that the Biden administration is promising (and in some ways already delivering) that rare thing: a popular, left-wing platform.
Seems possible that Keir could be sailing with the tide; once corona dissipates.
The problem he's got is that Johnson is already delivering a popular left wing program albeit with added corruption and a bonus culture war.
He’s not though. Popular, yes. Left wing, no I don’t think so.
He nationalised a failed satellite company with borrowed money. It's not exactly the February Bourgeois Revolution but it's start.
I'm sceptical of the standard 'Senior Tories, including cabinet ministers' bs but the point is certainly correct, Unionists will have to decide if there's a point beyond which a referendum can't be won.
I see the Scottish Greens are omitted, HYUFD style, if the original Times piece reports the poll questioning correctly. That's an important point, and potentially a deliberate omission.
Interesting also that the Unionists are perceptibly beginning to revert to Mrs T's admission that a simple pro-indy majority of MPs etc is sufficient to get the negotiations for indy going (admittedly her statement had it implicit, but it is uninterpretable in any other credible way).
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I can’t remember the specifics, but the wider point he was making - which is that most British political discussion exists within a broadly right-wing, self-congratulatory bubble - was spot on.
Well, that’s true. But there are times when it’s correct regardless of its bubble or not.
On vaccines, the EU have messed up procurement, lied to cover it up, and indulged in quite grotesque vaccine nationalism including outright theft to retrieve the situation. Saying that is neither right wing nor self congratulatory. It is a fact.
The EU may not like those facts, but that doesn’t alter them.
Of course, that doesn’t make the Mail or Express or Telegraph nice or trustworthy, but there’s no good saying that they might be wrong when they’re right merely because you don’t like the messenger. That leads to Dave Keating.
I never read anything that @Kamski wrote as Keating style apologia.
He was simply saying I think that other narratives are available, especially from a country which has not suffered deaths anywhere near the scale of the U.K., nor the level of lockdown, nor the level of economic decline.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I don't think there's much question about Frau Dr von der Leyen's honesty is there? About from a couple of queries over her PhD thesis, which were sorted, IIRC.
Whereas our PM has actually lost jobs as a result of lying.
UVDL incompetence and unsuitability for the office she holds is the issue but at the same time she has damaged the EU enormously
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
Me too. I was not only for her, I voted for her. But I'm not jumping on the "Starmer is a loser" train quite yet. These are very strange political times in a number of ways. Let's see how things look in a year from now.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I don't think there's much question about Frau Dr von der Leyen's honesty is there? About from a couple of queries over her PhD thesis, which were sorted, IIRC.
Whereas our PM has actually lost jobs as a result of lying.
She was accused of corruption over contracts awarded while in charge of the Bundeswehr, and lying about it.
Plus she lied about her status in Turkey.
So there isn’t much question about her honesty in the sense that we all know she’s untrustworthy.
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
She also went to the best university in the land: Newcastle.
Newcastle University isnt even the best university in Newcastle...
All professional sporting fixtures scheduled for 3pm next Saturday, are to be moved to avoid a clash with the funeral. Football league games are mostly going to be lunchtime or evening kickoffs.
So are only 30 people allowed or do we have a full media scrum showing endless blacked out cars coming and going from Windsor?
Only 30 people allowed at a funeral under the Covid regulations, plus those involved in conducting the ceremony. The entire event will take place within the castle grounds and will be televised, with no public access.
With such a small attendance of very close family, I'd have thought that most would arrive well in advance towards the end of the week, rather than in a parade of black cars on the day itself.
Surely the (vast) majority live within a morning's drive of Windsor. Won't need overnight accommodation, so that will mean black cars.
I'm sceptical of the standard 'Senior Tories, including cabinet ministers' bs but the point is certainly correct, Unionists will have to decide if there's a point beyond which a referendum can't be won.
I see the Scottish Greens are omitted, HYUFD style, if the original Times piece reports the poll questioning correctly. That's an important point, and potentially a deliberate omission.
Interesting also that the Unionists are perceptibly beginning to revert to Mrs T's admission that a simple pro-indy majority of MPs etc is sufficient to get the negotiations for indy going (admittedly her statement had it implicit, but it is uninterpretable in any other credible way).
One of the lessons from Brexit is that people were able to conjure up their own form of Brexit, untethered from inconvenient facts.
If SINDY parties gain a majority, which seems v likely, the appropriate next step is some form of commission which seeks to define the likely form - warts and all - of an independent Scotland.
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
She also went to the best university in the land: Newcastle.
Newcastle University isnt even the best university in Newcastle...
Apropos of nothing, it amused me that for years people alighting at Cambridge station were advised they had arrived at the home town of Anglia Ruskin University.
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
Me too. I was not only for her, I voted for her. But I'm not jumping on the "Starmer is a loser" train quite yet. These are very strange political times in a number of ways. Let's see how things look in a year from now.
Me neither.
I’m frustrated with him, but it’s too early to really give up. The pandemic obscures all.
It's not, I think that most people especially like Johnson, but they don't dislike him either, and find him quite amusing. If things are going OKish, as per the vaccines, they see no urgent reason to change.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
And you wonder why the left keeps losing. Have you seen which party is on 45% in the polls? Because it's not yours.
Latest EMA shows Tories with a 7.2% lead and an overall majority of 42.
Just a current snap shot. Long way to go yet.
You wonder how many candidates Refuk will actually stand? I doubt it will be a tiny proportion of the 276 seats where Brexit Party stood in 2019. If it is even a thing by the net election.
LibDems threatening single taxi levels again.
I remember the golden days of EICEIPM, all he had to do from a couple of years in to the government was turn up and he would win...
The 35% strategy.
The problem being that’s all Labour has pursued ever since, but with the exception of 2017 under very unusual conditions they can’t even get 35%.
What they need is not a ‘radical agenda’ but some dim idea of what their potential supporters will vote for. At the moment, not only do they not know but under Corbyn they made a point of not caring.
So far, Starmer doesn’t seem to have asked that question, which is a mistake but would be quite tough under the circumstances so he can be forgiven.
He needs, however, to be asking those questions and then answering with policies morning, noon and night from next month.
If he doesn’t, he won’t be making major progress at the next election even if the lid comes off exposing the Johnson government’s extraordinary corruption and incompetence.
The 35% strategy seemed superficially plausible. If the Conservatives got 31%, and UKIP 17%, give or take, Labour would win, quite easily.
The problem was UKIP were not just pulling votes away from the Conservatives. They were pulling votes away from Labour and Lib Dems, and re-engaging former non-voters. And, UKIP acted as a gateway for non-Conservative voters to ultimately finish up voting Conservative.
OT comment and question about trade. Now weve left the single market, ive found buying things from china to be much more expensive, but it seems like some fishy was going on. Aliexpress is an example. Postage costs are often phenominal to ship to uk but free for delivery to countries within the EU. The costs are so great there are closer to that of what might be VAT.
The UK I understand now requires countries selling goods to the UK over a certain amount to collect VAT on their behalf.
My suspicion is that huge volumes of goods get drop shipped into the EU, dont get customs checked and VAT is not actually levied within the EU from the Chinese website, and that control of our borders means that enforcement is now actually happening... Unfortunately to uk consumers this means we end up actually paying more.
It's so confusing I don't know what else to say - but it does appear that a general international tightening up has coincided, roughly, with Brexit - so a double dose of confusion.
Internet websites such as ebay should be deducting VAT at payment, too, but other suppliers may not have geared up to paying it to the UK HMRC. So if you order from overseas you ,may have to pay VAT, and maybe customs duty, as well as a charge from the PO or courier for handling this payment, beforte they will deliver.
PS: And NI is, needless to say, different again (both to and from, I should think).
All professional sporting fixtures scheduled for 3pm next Saturday, are to be moved to avoid a clash with the funeral. Football league games are mostly going to be lunchtime or evening kickoffs.
So are only 30 people allowed or do we have a full media scrum showing endless blacked out cars coming and going from Windsor?
Only 30 people allowed at a funeral under the Covid regulations, plus those involved in conducting the ceremony. The entire event will take place within the castle grounds and will be televised, with no public access.
With such a small attendance of very close family, I'd have thought that most would arrive well in advance towards the end of the week, rather than in a parade of black cars on the day itself.
Surely the (vast) majority live within a morning's drive of Windsor. Won't need overnight accommodation, so that will mean black cars.
On the other hand, I'm sure there's a dozen rooms available at the Castle, if only to avoid tabloid media and public turning up in Windsor on the day...
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
And you wonder why the left keeps losing? Have you seen which party is on 45% in the polls? Because it's not yours.
My post was slightly tongue in cheek and designed in a way to flush out brain-dead commentary like “and you wonder why the left keeps losing?”.
Btw, Labour is not my party, save that I recognise it as the only vehicle able to oust the slovenly clown from office.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I don't think there's much question about Frau Dr von der Leyen's honesty is there? About from a couple of queries over her PhD thesis, which were sorted, IIRC.
Whereas our PM has actually lost jobs as a result of lying.
UVDL incompetence and unsuitability for the office she holds is the issue but at the same time she has damaged the EU enormously
So far as I can see the only leader of a major Western state or supra-national grouping who isn't damaging their country (etc) is Joe Biden. You could replace UVDL with ABDPJ in your sentence and it would still make sense. Apart from gender-related words.
The suggestion that reconnecting with the working class narrative to rebuild Labours support seems to ignore the fact that things have changed and the Tories current playbook of more right wing nationalism culturally and socially allied with less austerity driven policies is going to be quite popular with communities in the more “ working class “ seats .
Labour need either the Tories to go back to austerity or some major economic meltdown to feel they have a decent chance in 2024.
The one benefit re Starmer is he’s not going to terrify voters or be loathed as Corbyn was . Indifference is easier to overcome.
The suggestion that reconnecting with the working class narrative to rebuild Labours support seems to ignore the fact that things have changed and the Tories current playbook of more right wing nationalism culturally and socially allied with less austerity driven policies is going to be quite popular with communities in the more “ working class “ seats .
Labour need either the Tories to go back to austerity or some major economic meltdown to feel they have a decent chance in 2024.
The one benefit re Starmer is he’s not going to terrify voters or be loathed as Corbyn was . Indifference is easier to overcome.
I've got a feeling in my bones that we are, at least for a couple of years going to see some pretty stonking levels of economic growth.
All professional sporting fixtures scheduled for 3pm next Saturday, are to be moved to avoid a clash with the funeral. Football league games are mostly going to be lunchtime or evening kickoffs.
So are only 30 people allowed or do we have a full media scrum showing endless blacked out cars coming and going from Windsor?
Only 30 people allowed at a funeral under the Covid regulations, plus those involved in conducting the ceremony. The entire event will take place within the castle grounds and will be televised, with no public access.
With such a small attendance of very close family, I'd have thought that most would arrive well in advance towards the end of the week, rather than in a parade of black cars on the day itself.
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
She also went to the best university in the land: Newcastle.
Newcastle University isnt even the best university in Newcastle...
Apropos of nothing, it amused me that for years people alighting at Cambridge station were advised they had arrived at the home town of Anglia Ruskin University.
Well, yes, but...
Don't knock ARU (Almost (a) Real University). They awarded me an MA.
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
She also went to the best university in the land: Newcastle.
Newcastle University isnt even the best university in Newcastle...
As a proud alumni of both universities in Newcastle, I can tell you that they are both good.
The suggestion that reconnecting with the working class narrative to rebuild Labours support seems to ignore the fact that things have changed and the Tories current playbook of more right wing nationalism culturally and socially allied with less austerity driven policies is going to be quite popular with communities in the more “ working class “ seats .
Labour need either the Tories to go back to austerity or some major economic meltdown to feel they have a decent chance in 2024.
The one benefit re Starmer is he’s not going to terrify voters or be loathed as Corbyn was . Indifference is easier to overcome.
I've got a feeling in my bones that we are, at least for a couple of years going to see some pretty stonking levels of economic growth.
The suggestion that reconnecting with the working class narrative to rebuild Labours support seems to ignore the fact that things have changed and the Tories current playbook of more right wing nationalism culturally and socially allied with less austerity driven policies is going to be quite popular with communities in the more “ working class “ seats .
Labour need either the Tories to go back to austerity or some major economic meltdown to feel they have a decent chance in 2024.
The one benefit re Starmer is he’s not going to terrify voters or be loathed as Corbyn was . Indifference is easier to overcome.
I've got a feeling in my bones that we are, at least for a couple of years going to see some pretty stonking levels of economic growth.
I agree and it might be that Johnson goes for an earlier election to take advantage of that .
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
And you wonder why the left keeps losing. Have you seen which party is on 45% in the polls? Because it's not yours.
Such traditional Tory hubris, in the run up to the coming financial crisis, and what could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile at least we can enjoy watching big spending, interventionist, investment-oriented government in action, whilst you take consolation from the fact that all the cheques are being written out in front of the flag.
OT comment and question about trade. Now weve left the single market, ive found buying things from china to be much more expensive, but it seems like some fishy was going on. Aliexpress is an example. Postage costs are often phenominal to ship to uk but free for delivery to countries within the EU. The costs are so great there are closer to that of what might be VAT.
The UK I understand now requires countries selling goods to the UK over a certain amount to collect VAT on their behalf.
My suspicion is that huge volumes of goods get drop shipped into the EU, dont get customs checked and VAT is not actually levied within the EU from the Chinese website, and that control of our borders means that enforcement is now actually happening... Unfortunately to uk consumers this means we end up actually paying more.
Any thoughts or insight into this?
The buyer-pays-VAT reforms that came in here at the start of the year to deal with eg VAT-avoidance on Ebay/Amazon Marketplace are I think due to come in in the EU sometime this year.
That will make a difference, but not to transport costs.
Surely the first woman ever to hold either of those roles? Or is there some Tory that I’ve missed?
No, but I was looking at it through the lens of Labour's inability to have a female leader - 46 years and counting behind the supposed misogynistic Tories. Dodd will give Labour's knuckle-draggers extra ammunition, when it comes to replacing Starmer.
It’s not about ammunition, because nobody overtly campaigns against a woman being leader of the Labour Party. It’s just that they always find an excuse, however flimsy, as to why that particular woman isn’t the right person at that moment.
In 2010 and 2020 it was easy because the lone/leading female candidate clearly was not up to being leader. But in 2016 they decided Cooper was ‘uninspiring’ and elected Corbyn instead. Now, if you want a clearer and more absurd example of sexism I’m struggling to find it, but nobody stood up and actually said ‘we don’t want her as leader because she has a vagina.’
In a way, such covert sexism is more insidious than that would have been. But it does mean there’s no reason to think Dodds’ performance will make a difference to it.
Cooper's problem was not her gender, but her politics, as was Kendall's. Much as I liked them personally and their politics, that was not what their party wanted. The party wanted a clear break from New Labour, of which Ed Miliband was the repeat as farce.
Corbyn was a relic of the old left, of a mythical time of purity before Blair contaminated everything. This is why he motivated the young, and swept up older activists who finally felt free of the taint of Blairism.
This is absolutely right. That sexism was a material factor in why Cooper or Kendall didn't get the Labour leader job after Miliband is nonsense. The 2015 defeat after such strenuous efforts were made not to frighten the horses - aka Middle England - with any radicalism traumatized the party. The mood was, "Oh fuck this for a game of soldiers. We triangulated our heart & soul away and it didn't even win us any votes. So no more of that crap. Let's throw the dice. Let's rock."
And so the political chaos of the second half of the 2010s was kicked off for the simple reason that Labour members had a mid-life crisis. They just couldn't believe that after they had deigned to compromise their sacred principles by offering the nation a dull-as-dishwater, allegedly 'soft' lefty with a nasal voice (remind you of anyone?), they had nevertheless been shockingly and unjustly rejected. So no matter how much it cost, how much mileage it had, and how little sense it made, they wanted the red sports car, dammit! That would make them feel young again...
- Allowing for your strange and warped hinterland, that is not a totally inaccurate way of putting it.
And, yep, that car - like a Ferrari - had to be in deepest richest RED.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I don't think there's much question about Frau Dr von der Leyen's honesty is there? About from a couple of queries over her PhD thesis, which were sorted, IIRC.
Whereas our PM has actually lost jobs as a result of lying.
UVDL incompetence and unsuitability for the office she holds is the issue but at the same time she has damaged the EU enormously
So far as I can see the only leader of a major Western state or supra-national grouping who isn't damaging their country (etc) is Joe Biden. You could replace UVDL with ABDPJ in your sentence and it would still make sense. Apart from gender-related words.
ABDPJ whoever they are are not the head of the EU and UVDL has had a shocker
Joe Biden is a welcome change from Trump but he is in a honeymoon period at present
The Mexican border issues, his limited gun control announcements, and his deployment of 2 US warships to Ukraine are going to be a test for him
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
Me too. I was not only for her, I voted for her. But I'm not jumping on the "Starmer is a loser" train quite yet. These are very strange political times in a number of ways. Let's see how things look in a year from now.
Me neither.
I’m frustrated with him, but it’s too early to really give up. The pandemic obscures all.
Yes, I am not calling for him to step down this year if no progress is made in the polls, summer of '22 though would be about right. We will know by then what the post covid future looks like. I am expecting a bit of economic bounce back this year, but a lot of the covid economic damage will then come home to roost.
All professional sporting fixtures scheduled for 3pm next Saturday, are to be moved to avoid a clash with the funeral. Football league games are mostly going to be lunchtime or evening kickoffs.
So are only 30 people allowed or do we have a full media scrum showing endless blacked out cars coming and going from Windsor?
Only 30 people allowed at a funeral under the Covid regulations, plus those involved in conducting the ceremony. The entire event will take place within the castle grounds and will be televised, with no public access.
With such a small attendance of very close family, I'd have thought that most would arrive well in advance towards the end of the week, rather than in a parade of black cars on the day itself.
What will the rules be on overnight stays by then?
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
She also went to the best university in the land: Newcastle.
Newcastle University isnt even the best university in Newcastle...
As a proud alumni of both universities in Newcastle, I can tell you that they are both good.
Alumnus, alumna, as appropriate, please. PB pedantry and all that.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I don't think there's much question about Frau Dr von der Leyen's honesty is there? About from a couple of queries over her PhD thesis, which were sorted, IIRC.
Whereas our PM has actually lost jobs as a result of lying.
UVDL incompetence and unsuitability for the office she holds is the issue but at the same time she has damaged the EU enormously
The odd thing is she really looks the part. Sharply dressed, stylish, attractive, knows the right things to say. contrast to what appeared to be a PM who gets out of bed and makes him self look even more dishevelled than when he woke up. But I guess with both of them it is an act. Her shocking incompetence makes Junker look like a statesman.
It does lend weight to the opinion that some on this forum may just be a ‘wee bit’ out of step with the public
I remember when we got told the same thing about people on here being out of step on Theresa May's house snatching policy. Loads of you kept telling us that everything would be fine and yet we ended up being 1.5% swing away from Jez as PM.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
That's nonsense, why would you eliminate the vast areas?
The vast areas where people don't live serve as a firebreak that helps prevent the virus spreading from one community to the next.
The distance between Glasgow and Edinburgh is only a few miles more than the distance between Liverpool and Manchester. But between Edinburgh and Glasgow there's a whole lot of not very much - between Liverpool and Manchester its one urban conurbation after another. There's no firebreak.
Livingston and Cumbernauld wave hullo.
There are vast empty spaces in Scotland, especially north of the Highland line but the central belt is not that different from most of England.
Interesting language from EU’s Thierry Breton on EU vaccine export ban and implications for UK
“Our friends in the UK have two vaccine factories, only one produces.... In other words, the UK is largely dependent on the EU for its vaccination campaign.
OT comment and question about trade. Now weve left the single market, ive found buying things from china to be much more expensive, but it seems like some fishy was going on. Aliexpress is an example. Postage costs are often phenominal to ship to uk but free for delivery to countries within the EU. The costs are so great there are closer to that of what might be VAT.
The UK I understand now requires countries selling goods to the UK over a certain amount to collect VAT on their behalf.
My suspicion is that huge volumes of goods get drop shipped into the EU, dont get customs checked and VAT is not actually levied within the EU from the Chinese website, and that control of our borders means that enforcement is now actually happening... Unfortunately to uk consumers this means we end up actually paying more.
Any thoughts or insight into this?
The buyer-pays-VAT reforms that came in here at the start of the year to deal with eg VAT-avoidance on Ebay/Amazon Marketplace are I think due to come in in the EU sometime this year.
That will make a difference, but not to transport costs.
I think the 'transport costs' are a cover to hide the differential pricing. From what you say about the avoidance, it looks like buyers within the EU are been sold goods without VAT been charged, but vat is getting levied for purchases to the UK, and the difference is getting pushed as delivery/transport costs.
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
She also went to the best university in the land: Newcastle.
Newcastle University isnt even the best university in Newcastle...
As a proud alumni of both universities in Newcastle, I can tell you that they are both good.
Alumnus, alumna, as appropriate, please. PB pedantry and all that.
I think that some of this site’s regulars offer an insight that’s relevant to Starmer and co. They really don’t understand why Boris is popular and liked by quite a broad coalition. They think he’s somehow “fooled” people and eventually they will “see through him”. That’s not the right analysis. His voters like that he is brazen and embrace some of what his critics think of as inexcusable lies.
You can’t win against an enemy, and through the votes of a public, you don’t understand.
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
Me too. I was not only for her, I voted for her. But I'm not jumping on the "Starmer is a loser" train quite yet. These are very strange political times in a number of ways. Let's see how things look in a year from now.
Me neither.
I’m frustrated with him, but it’s too early to really give up. The pandemic obscures all.
Yes, I am not calling for him to step down this year if no progress is made in the polls, summer of '22 though would be about right. We will know by then what the post covid future looks like. I am expecting a bit of economic bounce back this year, but a lot of the covid economic damage will then come home to roost.
That's my position too. If it still looks bad a year from now, start caressing the panic button.
Is your vote up for grabs for Labour btw? Or are you committed to the LDs?
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
And you wonder why the left keeps losing. Have you seen which party is on 45% in the polls? Because it's not yours.
Such traditional Tory hubris, in the run up to the coming financial crisis, and what could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile at least we can enjoy watching big spending, interventionist, investment-oriented government in action, whilst you take consolation from the fact that all the cheques are being written out in front of the flag.
Yes. From the domestic economic point of view the spending spree is quite left wing. Almost pre-Thatcherite in its redistributive, "pick winners" spending on white elephants, protected behind tarrif walls. Maybe it will work, but I do forsee disquiet from traditional fiscally conservative supporters of free markets. Sooner or later they will ask how it is all paid for.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I don't think there's much question about Frau Dr von der Leyen's honesty is there? About from a couple of queries over her PhD thesis, which were sorted, IIRC.
Whereas our PM has actually lost jobs as a result of lying.
UVDL incompetence and unsuitability for the office she holds is the issue but at the same time she has damaged the EU enormously
So far as I can see the only leader of a major Western state or supra-national grouping who isn't damaging their country (etc) is Joe Biden. You could replace UVDL with ABDPJ in your sentence and it would still make sense. Apart from gender-related words.
ABDPJ whoever they are are not the head of the EU and UVDL has had a shocker
Joe Biden is a welcome change from Trump but he is in a honeymoon period at present
The Mexican border issues, his limited gun control announcements, and his deployment of 2 US warships to Ukraine are going to be a test for him
ABDPJ = Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. Liar and chance. But I agree the Frau Dr has, so far, had a shocker.
Interesting language from EU’s Thierry Breton on EU vaccine export ban and implications for UK
“Our friends in the UK have two vaccine factories, only one produces.... In other words, the UK is largely dependent on the EU for its vaccination campaign.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I don't think there's much question about Frau Dr von der Leyen's honesty is there? About from a couple of queries over her PhD thesis, which were sorted, IIRC.
Whereas our PM has actually lost jobs as a result of lying.
She was accused of corruption over contracts awarded while in charge of the Bundeswehr, and lying about it.
Plus she lied about her status in Turkey.
So there isn’t much question about her honesty in the sense that we all know she’s untrustworthy.
Her pattern, from all the major government jobs she has held, goes like this
- announce she is going to make it the bestest thing ever - tear up a bunch of procedural stuff, but ignore the actual issues. - when things go wrong, lie, and put the blame on specific people/organisations. - lose legal challenges to her stupidity. - when the whole thing falls apart, get promoted.
As to her PhD - large sections were copy and pasta. A number of references didn't actual say what she said they did. The decision not to revoke her degree was taken at a high level in the university - and was widely criticised for being a political decision.
Her pattern, from all the major government jobs she has held, goes like this
- announce she is going to make it the bestest thing ever - tear up a bunch of procedural stuff, but ignore the actual issues. - when things go wrong, lie, and put the blame on specific people/organisations. - lose legal challenges to her stupidity. - when the whole thing falls apart, get promoted.
And, yep, that car - like a Ferrari - had to be in deepest richest RED.
90% of Ferraris sold were Rosso Corsa at one point. Now it's closer to 50%. The F1 cars have switched to a different colour called Rosso Scuderia because Rosso Corsa looks like shit on TV.
If I had the money and inclination I'd get an 812GTS in Tour de France Blu and bang it off the limiter in every gear on the reg.
The suggestion that reconnecting with the working class narrative to rebuild Labours support seems to ignore the fact that things have changed and the Tories current playbook of more right wing nationalism culturally and socially allied with less austerity driven policies is going to be quite popular with communities in the more “ working class “ seats .
Labour need either the Tories to go back to austerity or some major economic meltdown to feel they have a decent chance in 2024.
The one benefit re Starmer is he’s not going to terrify voters or be loathed as Corbyn was . Indifference is easier to overcome.
I've got a feeling in my bones that we are, at least for a couple of years going to see some pretty stonking levels of economic growth.
I agree and it might be that Johnson goes for an earlier election to take advantage of that .
I know of no case where anyone has had so much demand suppression. I think the lockdowns were more severe than many of the war time rationing measures in their effect.
When they are removed, the result will be filling PhDs in economics for decades.
All professional sporting fixtures scheduled for 3pm next Saturday, are to be moved to avoid a clash with the funeral. Football league games are mostly going to be lunchtime or evening kickoffs.
So are only 30 people allowed or do we have a full media scrum showing endless blacked out cars coming and going from Windsor?
Only 30 people allowed at a funeral under the Covid regulations, plus those involved in conducting the ceremony. The entire event will take place within the castle grounds and will be televised, with no public access.
With such a small attendance of very close family, I'd have thought that most would arrive well in advance towards the end of the week, rather than in a parade of black cars on the day itself.
What will the rules be on overnight stays by then?
At a private residence, I honestly don't know! There must be dozens of people who already live there, I know that for several months during the pandemic people were banned from going in or out of HM's residence at Windsor, all the staff were there for the duration.
Maybe the mourners will all have to turn up on the day, after all.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
And you wonder why the left keeps losing. Have you seen which party is on 45% in the polls? Because it's not yours.
Such traditional Tory hubris, in the run up to the coming financial crisis, and what could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile at least we can enjoy watching big spending, interventionist, investment-oriented government in action, whilst you take consolation from the fact that all the cheques are being written out in front of the flag.
Yes. From the domestic economic point of view the spending spree is quite left wing. Almost pre-Thatcherite in its redistributive, "pick winners" spending on white elephants, protected behind tarrif walls. Maybe it will work, but I do forsee disquiet from traditional fiscally conservative supporters of free markets. Sooner or later they will ask how it is all paid for.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the undeniable death of Thatcherism within what is now the mainstream Tory party is behind the revival of its fortunes. It’s always changed to remain relevant, and this is the latest transition. I don’t think you’ll see it led again by a Thatcherite (effectively a modern Gladstonian Liberal) for some years.
Interesting language from EU’s Thierry Breton on EU vaccine export ban and implications for UK
“Our friends in the UK have two vaccine factories, only one produces.... In other words, the UK is largely dependent on the EU for its vaccination campaign.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I don't think there's much question about Frau Dr von der Leyen's honesty is there? About from a couple of queries over her PhD thesis, which were sorted, IIRC.
Whereas our PM has actually lost jobs as a result of lying.
She was accused of corruption over contracts awarded while in charge of the Bundeswehr, and lying about it.
Plus she lied about her status in Turkey.
So there isn’t much question about her honesty in the sense that we all know she’s untrustworthy.
Her pattern, from all the major government jobs she has held, goes like this
- announce she is going to make it the bestest thing ever - tear up a bunch of procedural stuff, but ignore the actual issues. - when things go wrong, lie, and put the blame on specific people/organisations. - lose legal challenges to her stupidity. - when the whole thing falls apart, get promoted.
As to her PhD - large sections were copy and pasta. A number of references didn't actual say what she said they did. The decision not to revoke her degree was taken at a high level in the university - and was widely criticised for being a political decision.
Similar to Johnson then, without the PhD. And inspire of efforts he couldn't get his degree upgraded.
We're not well served, are we? At all!
And with that I'm off to a cheese and wine lunch with Mrs C. British and European cheeses andI Italian wine. Don't tear too many verbal lumps out of each other!
She’s telegenic, always has something interesting to say, is not the “woke” caricature that people might think she is, is sound on foreign policy, and comes from impeccable left-wing academic heritage but is not a wonk.
Me too. I was not only for her, I voted for her. But I'm not jumping on the "Starmer is a loser" train quite yet. These are very strange political times in a number of ways. Let's see how things look in a year from now.
Me neither.
I’m frustrated with him, but it’s too early to really give up. The pandemic obscures all.
Yes, I am not calling for him to step down this year if no progress is made in the polls, summer of '22 though would be about right. We will know by then what the post covid future looks like. I am expecting a bit of economic bounce back this year, but a lot of the covid economic damage will then come home to roost.
That's my position too. If it still looks bad a year from now, start caressing the panic button.
Is your vote up for grabs for Labour btw? Or are you committed to the LDs?
I am a Lib Dem, though would vote Labour if in a red/blue marginal. Apart from Loughborough there are none in Leics, so I am free to vote as I please. Of the 10 seats in Leicestershire 3-4 will always be red and 6-7 always blue. LDs are strong at Leics County level though, and that is the current focus.
Surely the first woman ever to hold either of those roles? Or is there some Tory that I’ve missed?
No, but I was looking at it through the lens of Labour's inability to have a female leader - 46 years and counting behind the supposed misogynistic Tories. Dodd will give Labour's knuckle-draggers extra ammunition, when it comes to replacing Starmer.
It’s not about ammunition, because nobody overtly campaigns against a woman being leader of the Labour Party. It’s just that they always find an excuse, however flimsy, as to why that particular woman isn’t the right person at that moment.
In 2010 and 2020 it was easy because the lone/leading female candidate clearly was not up to being leader. But in 2016 they decided Cooper was ‘uninspiring’ and elected Corbyn instead. Now, if you want a clearer and more absurd example of sexism I’m struggling to find it, but nobody stood up and actually said ‘we don’t want her as leader because she has a vagina.’
In a way, such covert sexism is more insidious than that would have been. But it does mean there’s no reason to think Dodds’ performance will make a difference to it.
Cooper's problem was not her gender, but her politics, as was Kendall's. Much as I liked them personally and their politics, that was not what their party wanted. The party wanted a clear break from New Labour, of which Ed Miliband was the repeat as farce.
Corbyn was a relic of the old left, of a mythical time of purity before Blair contaminated everything. This is why he motivated the young, and swept up older activists who finally felt free of the taint of Blairism.
This is absolutely right. That sexism was a material factor in why Cooper or Kendall didn't get the Labour leader job after Miliband is nonsense. The 2015 defeat after such strenuous efforts were made not to frighten the horses - aka Middle England - with any radicalism traumatized the party. The mood was, "Oh fuck this for a game of soldiers. We triangulated our heart & soul away and it didn't even win us any votes. So no more of that crap. Let's throw the dice. Let's rock."
And so the political chaos of the second half of the 2010s was kicked off for the simple reason that Labour members had a mid-life crisis. They just couldn't believe that after they had deigned to compromise their sacred principles by offering the nation a dull-as-dishwater, allegedly 'soft' lefty with a nasal voice (remind you of anyone?), they had nevertheless been shockingly and unjustly rejected. So no matter how much it cost, how much mileage it had, and how little sense it made, they wanted the red sports car, dammit! That would make them feel young again...
- Allowing for your strange and warped hinterland, that is not a totally inaccurate way of putting it.
And, yep, that car - like a Ferrari - had to be in deepest richest RED.
IIRC Nick Palmer, of this parish, expressed a feeling of "coming home" in the return to red, red politics.
The suggestion that reconnecting with the working class narrative to rebuild Labours support seems to ignore the fact that things have changed and the Tories current playbook of more right wing nationalism culturally and socially allied with less austerity driven policies is going to be quite popular with communities in the more “ working class “ seats .
Labour need either the Tories to go back to austerity or some major economic meltdown to feel they have a decent chance in 2024.
The one benefit re Starmer is he’s not going to terrify voters or be loathed as Corbyn was . Indifference is easier to overcome.
I've got a feeling in my bones that we are, at least for a couple of years going to see some pretty stonking levels of economic growth.
Agreed. At least 5% this year, probably 3-4% next year. Trickier after that.
There are vast empty spaces in Scotland, especially north of the Highland line but the central belt is not that different from most of England.
Not to mention Coatbridge, Airdrie, E Kilbride, Bathgate, Hamilton etc. Rutherglen is supposed to be counted as an entity distinct from Glasgow but I cannae really be doing with that.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
In fairness, anyone defending Ursula von der Leyen and Thierry Breton, who make Johnson look honest and competent, was probably not worth listening to.
I was surprised when kamski attempted it, tbh, because s/he was defending the truly indefensible.
I don't think there's much question about Frau Dr von der Leyen's honesty is there? About from a couple of queries over her PhD thesis, which were sorted, IIRC.
Whereas our PM has actually lost jobs as a result of lying.
She was accused of corruption over contracts awarded while in charge of the Bundeswehr, and lying about it.
Plus she lied about her status in Turkey.
So there isn’t much question about her honesty in the sense that we all know she’s untrustworthy.
Her pattern, from all the major government jobs she has held, goes like this
- announce she is going to make it the bestest thing ever - tear up a bunch of procedural stuff, but ignore the actual issues. - when things go wrong, lie, and put the blame on specific people/organisations. - lose legal challenges to her stupidity. - when the whole thing falls apart, get promoted.
As to her PhD - large sections were copy and pasta. A number of references didn't actual say what she said they did. The decision not to revoke her degree was taken at a high level in the university - and was widely criticised for being a political decision.
Similar to Johnson then, without the PhD.
We're not well served, are we.
No.
Johnson - lying clown VdL - incompetent Merkel - past it Macron - narcissist Trudeau - woke, empty suit Ardern - empty dress
Only Biden is looking good right now. (I don’t have an opinion on Morrison).
Latest EMA shows Tories with a 7.2% lead and an overall majority of 42.
Just a current snap shot. Long way to go yet.
You wonder how many candidates Refuk will actually stand? I doubt it will be a tiny proportion of the 276 seats where Brexit Party stood in 2019. If it is even a thing by the net election.
LibDems threatening single taxi levels again.
I remember the golden days of EICEIPM, all he had to do from a couple of years in to the government was turn up and he would win...
The 35% strategy.
The problem being that’s all Labour has pursued ever since, but with the exception of 2017 under very unusual conditions they can’t even get 35%.
What they need is not a ‘radical agenda’ but some dim idea of what their potential supporters will vote for. At the moment, not only do they not know but under Corbyn they made a point of not caring.
So far, Starmer doesn’t seem to have asked that question, which is a mistake but would be quite tough under the circumstances so he can be forgiven.
He needs, however, to be asking those questions and then answering with policies morning, noon and night from next month.
If he doesn’t, he won’t be making major progress at the next election even if the lid comes off exposing the Johnson government’s extraordinary corruption and incompetence.
The 35% strategy seemed superficially plausible. If the Conservatives got 31%, and UKIP 17%, give or take, Labour would win, quite easily.
The problem was UKIP were not just pulling votes away from the Conservatives. They were pulling votes away from Labour and Lib Dems, and re-engaging former non-voters. And, UKIP acted as a gateway for non-Conservative voters to ultimately finish up voting Conservative.
One of the misjudgements the London establishment (whether Conservative, Labour, LibDem or media) made during the last decade was the belief that UKIP (and later BXP) were only a threat to the Conservatives.
To an extent understandable as UKIP emerged in south-eastern England and the people associated with it - Farage, Helmer, Bloom, Reckless etc look like reactionary Tories.
So it was thought that UKIP were a risk to the Conservatives by taking away old style reactionary Tories but they never understood the risk UKIP posed to Labour (or to the LibDems in the south-west).
But those with some knowledge of the wwc in the Midlands, North and Wales could see that Labour were highly vulnerable to UKIP.
Especially where Labour MPs had ignored the constituencies they had been given.
Surely the first woman ever to hold either of those roles? Or is there some Tory that I’ve missed?
No, but I was looking at it through the lens of Labour's inability to have a female leader - 46 years and counting behind the supposed misogynistic Tories. Dodd will give Labour's knuckle-draggers extra ammunition, when it comes to replacing Starmer.
It’s not about ammunition, because nobody overtly campaigns against a woman being leader of the Labour Party. It’s just that they always find an excuse, however flimsy, as to why that particular woman isn’t the right person at that moment.
In 2010 and 2020 it was easy because the lone/leading female candidate clearly was not up to being leader. But in 2016 they decided Cooper was ‘uninspiring’ and elected Corbyn instead. Now, if you want a clearer and more absurd example of sexism I’m struggling to find it, but nobody stood up and actually said ‘we don’t want her as leader because she has a vagina.’
In a way, such covert sexism is more insidious than that would have been. But it does mean there’s no reason to think Dodds’ performance will make a difference to it.
Cooper's problem was not her gender, but her politics, as was Kendall's. Much as I liked them personally and their politics, that was not what their party wanted. The party wanted a clear break from New Labour, of which Ed Miliband was the repeat as farce.
Corbyn was a relic of the old left, of a mythical time of purity before Blair contaminated everything. This is why he motivated the young, and swept up older activists who finally felt free of the taint of Blairism.
Cooper’s *ostensible* problem was her politics.
I don’t think we would have heard quite so much about that had she been a man, given Corbyn’s admirers have spent years telling us that his policies weren’t that socialist really.
Cooper went on HOLIDAY with her family, while Corbyn campaigned.
I don't share your very high opinion of Cooper ... but more importantly, nor does Yvette.
None of the other contenders would have got anywhere near Jezzas 40% of the Electorate in GE 2017
SKS will not equal it in 2024
Sad but true.
You're always good at pointing out Starmer's shortcomings. But what, or who, is your solution, assuming you accept that there's no conceivable route back for Corbyn? Who would you have as leader?
Perhaps they just have the best there is on offer at this time....
The suggestion that reconnecting with the working class narrative to rebuild Labours support seems to ignore the fact that things have changed and the Tories current playbook of more right wing nationalism culturally and socially allied with less austerity driven policies is going to be quite popular with communities in the more “ working class “ seats .
Labour need either the Tories to go back to austerity or some major economic meltdown to feel they have a decent chance in 2024.
The one benefit re Starmer is he’s not going to terrify voters or be loathed as Corbyn was . Indifference is easier to overcome.
I've got a feeling in my bones that we are, at least for a couple of years going to see some pretty stonking levels of economic growth.
Agreed. At least 5% this year, probably 3-4% next year. Trickier after that.
For what it's worth, the IMF is now saying 5.3% this year, and 5.1% in 2022.
It does lend weight to the opinion that some on this forum may just be a ‘wee bit’ out of step with the public
I remember when we got told the same thing about people on here being out of step on Theresa May's house snatching policy. Loads of you kept telling us that everything would be fine and yet we ended up being 1.5% swing away from Jez as PM.
I think people are just simply thinking that if they have to prove their vaccination status so that life to get back to some semblance of normality, they will do it. And not thinking about whether it's actually necessary if infection rates are low and we are all vaccinated, and if it is introducing ID cards by the back door.
Latest EMA shows Tories with a 7.2% lead and an overall majority of 42.
Just a current snap shot. Long way to go yet.
You wonder how many candidates Refuk will actually stand? I doubt it will be a tiny proportion of the 276 seats where Brexit Party stood in 2019. If it is even a thing by the net election.
LibDems threatening single taxi levels again.
I remember the golden days of EICEIPM, all he had to do from a couple of years in to the government was turn up and he would win...
The 35% strategy.
The problem being that’s all Labour has pursued ever since, but with the exception of 2017 under very unusual conditions they can’t even get 35%.
What they need is not a ‘radical agenda’ but some dim idea of what their potential supporters will vote for. At the moment, not only do they not know but under Corbyn they made a point of not caring.
So far, Starmer doesn’t seem to have asked that question, which is a mistake but would be quite tough under the circumstances so he can be forgiven.
He needs, however, to be asking those questions and then answering with policies morning, noon and night from next month.
If he doesn’t, he won’t be making major progress at the next election even if the lid comes off exposing the Johnson government’s extraordinary corruption and incompetence.
The 35% strategy seemed superficially plausible. If the Conservatives got 31%, and UKIP 17%, give or take, Labour would win, quite easily.
The problem was UKIP were not just pulling votes away from the Conservatives. They were pulling votes away from Labour and Lib Dems, and re-engaging former non-voters. And, UKIP acted as a gateway for non-Conservative voters to ultimately finish up voting Conservative.
One of the misjudgements the London establishment (whether Conservative, Labour, LibDem or media) made during the last decade was the belief that UKIP (and later BXP) were only a threat to the Conservatives.
To an extent understandable as UKIP emerged in south-eastern England and the people associated with it - Farage, Helmer, Bloom, Reckless etc look like reactionary Tories.
So it was thought that UKIP were a risk to the Conservatives by taking away old style reactionary Tories but they never understood the risk UKIP posed to Labour (or to the LibDems in the south-west).
But those with some knowledge of the wwc in the Midlands, North and Wales could see that Labour were highly vulnerable to UKIP.
Especially where Labour MPs had ignored the constituencies they had been given.
UKIP members and activists were overwhelmingly Tory, but they hoovered up votes from all over, as you say, including a lot of NOTA votes that used to go to the LibDems.
The LDs made the same mistake that Labour did; I remember going to a presentation by their head electoral strategy guru (self claimed) whose main point was that UKIP would be, electorally, the party's best friend.
And here’s the thing, you can’t tell that story without Brexit. Those saying that NI has always been unstable as if it’s exculpatory miss the point. It was exactly the point that NI was always fragile and that’s why so many urged caution when choosing a Brexit settlement.
But it’s not as if the alternative was any better. Once the decision was made that single market/customs union membership was unacceptable to the Tory Party and (to a lesser extent) May’s deal was unacceptable to Parliament, a border somewhere...
...and with it a destabilisation of the NI settlement was inevitable. And up to this point half the problem up to this point has just been to get politicians to accept that inescapable fact.
Surely the first woman ever to hold either of those roles? Or is there some Tory that I’ve missed?
No, but I was looking at it through the lens of Labour's inability to have a female leader - 46 years and counting behind the supposed misogynistic Tories. Dodd will give Labour's knuckle-draggers extra ammunition, when it comes to replacing Starmer.
It’s not about ammunition, because nobody overtly campaigns against a woman being leader of the Labour Party. It’s just that they always find an excuse, however flimsy, as to why that particular woman isn’t the right person at that moment.
In 2010 and 2020 it was easy because the lone/leading female candidate clearly was not up to being leader. But in 2016 they decided Cooper was ‘uninspiring’ and elected Corbyn instead. Now, if you want a clearer and more absurd example of sexism I’m struggling to find it, but nobody stood up and actually said ‘we don’t want her as leader because she has a vagina.’
In a way, such covert sexism is more insidious than that would have been. But it does mean there’s no reason to think Dodds’ performance will make a difference to it.
Cooper's problem was not her gender, but her politics, as was Kendall's. Much as I liked them personally and their politics, that was not what their party wanted. The party wanted a clear break from New Labour, of which Ed Miliband was the repeat as farce.
Corbyn was a relic of the old left, of a mythical time of purity before Blair contaminated everything. This is why he motivated the young, and swept up older activists who finally felt free of the taint of Blairism.
Corbyn owed his election as Labour leader in 2015 to the stupidity of Harriet Harman as Acting leader. Her decision to whip Labour MPs to abstain on Osborne's Welfare reforms generated fury in the wider membership. Of the four contenders Corbyn as a non-Shadow Cabinet was able to vote against the proposals whilst the others were hamstrung . Much of Corbyn's momentum came from that act. Had Harman not done that, Cooper or Burnham would have won the Leadership. Both should have stepped down from the Shadow Cabinet to act independently.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
And you wonder why the left keeps losing. Have you seen which party is on 45% in the polls? Because it's not yours.
Such traditional Tory hubris, in the run up to the coming financial crisis, and what could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile at least we can enjoy watching big spending, interventionist, investment-oriented government in action, whilst you take consolation from the fact that all the cheques are being written out in front of the flag.
Yes. From the domestic economic point of view the spending spree is quite left wing. Almost pre-Thatcherite in its redistributive, "pick winners" spending on white elephants, protected behind tarrif walls. Maybe it will work, but I do forsee disquiet from traditional fiscally conservative supporters of free markets. Sooner or later they will ask how it is all paid for.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the undeniable death of Thatcherism within what is now the mainstream Tory party is behind the revival of its fortunes. It’s always changed to remain relevant, and this is the latest transition. I don’t think you’ll see it led again by a Thatcherite (effectively a modern Gladstonian Liberal) for some years.
I think this quite perceptive. In many ways Brexitism is revenge on the Thatcherites, served cold. While the majority of Brexiteers were old school Shire Tories, the key constituency to get on board were working class on the old coalfields. The common factor was feeling left behind by a service economy based on London, and other metropolises. F**k business! We have no need of experts!
I doubt whether that can be a longlasting alliance, but difficult for Labour to become that party of Gladstonian Liberalism.
It does lend weight to the opinion that some on this forum may just be a ‘wee bit’ out of step with the public
I remember when we got told the same thing about people on here being out of step on Theresa May's house snatching policy. Loads of you kept telling us that everything would be fine and yet we ended up being 1.5% swing away from Jez as PM.
I think people are just simply thinking that if they have to prove their vaccination status so that life to get back to some semblance of normality, they will do it. And not thinking about whether it's actually necessary if infection rates are low and we are all vaccinated, and if it is introducing ID cards by the back door.
That’s true. I might be in favour if it got us out of these bloody fool masks those drunken mask fetishists insist we wear every hour of the day for no discernible reason (or at least, they’re not publishing any evidence to support their decisions).
But since they want these and to keep gold plated restrictions every which way, this is just somebody being a tosser.
The suggestion that reconnecting with the working class narrative to rebuild Labours support seems to ignore the fact that things have changed and the Tories current playbook of more right wing nationalism culturally and socially allied with less austerity driven policies is going to be quite popular with communities in the more “ working class “ seats .
Labour need either the Tories to go back to austerity or some major economic meltdown to feel they have a decent chance in 2024.
The one benefit re Starmer is he’s not going to terrify voters or be loathed as Corbyn was . Indifference is easier to overcome.
I've got a feeling in my bones that we are, at least for a couple of years going to see some pretty stonking levels of economic growth.
Agreed. At least 5% this year, probably 3-4% next year. Trickier after that.
For what it's worth, the IMF is now saying 5.3% this year, and 5.1% in 2022.
I think that's a tad optimistic, especially for 2022. There is clearly suppressed demand, there will be a lot of bounce back and the fiscal policy really could not be much more stimulative but by 2022 the pressure to reduce deficit spending will be sucking demand out of the economy (relatively, we will still have a very large deficit) and I think things will slow down quite a lot in the second half of the year. We shall see.
In economic cycle terms 2024 is not looking particularly optimal for the Tories, they may be better advised to go earlier.
Interesting language from EU’s Thierry Breton on EU vaccine export ban and implications for UK
“Our friends in the UK have two vaccine factories, only one produces.... In other words, the UK is largely dependent on the EU for its vaccination campaign.
It's also laughably wrong. We have 2 active sites manufacturing vaccine substance for AZ and one bottling site for it. For Novavax we have one site producing substance and another bottling it. For Valneva we have one making the substance and another planned bottling site. For CureVac a new manufacturing partner is being sought by GSK for domestic production of the gen 2 vaccine. So that's 5 sites for vaccines approved or nearing approval and maximum monthly capacity of 40m doses per month post ramp up plus 1 more commencing manufacturing of substance in the next few weeks now that the Valneva PII trial has been a huge success and another site planned for late this year for CureVac.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
And you wonder why the left keeps losing. Have you seen which party is on 45% in the polls? Because it's not yours.
Such traditional Tory hubris, in the run up to the coming financial crisis, and what could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile at least we can enjoy watching big spending, interventionist, investment-oriented government in action, whilst you take consolation from the fact that all the cheques are being written out in front of the flag.
Yes. From the domestic economic point of view the spending spree is quite left wing. Almost pre-Thatcherite in its redistributive, "pick winners" spending on white elephants, protected behind tarrif walls. Maybe it will work, but I do forsee disquiet from traditional fiscally conservative supporters of free markets. Sooner or later they will ask how it is all paid for.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the undeniable death of Thatcherism within what is now the mainstream Tory party is behind the revival of its fortunes. It’s always changed to remain relevant, and this is the latest transition. I don’t think you’ll see it led again by a Thatcherite (effectively a modern Gladstonian Liberal) for some years.
I think this quite perceptive. In many ways Brexitism is revenge on the Thatcherites, served cold. While the majority of Brexiteers were old school Shire Tories, the key constituency to get on board were working class on the old coalfields. The common factor was feeling left behind by a service economy based on London, and other metropolises. F**k business! We have no need of experts!
I doubt whether that can be a longlasting alliance, but difficult for Labour to become that party of Gladstonian Liberalism.
On a related subject, yesterday's "Briefing Room" on R4, about the growth of the global economy, is worth a listen. It pins the move away from 'buy British' and a nationally-focused economy onto the early Thatcherite period, and considers that the combined effect of Brexit, the pandemic, incidents like the Suez canal blockage and potential hostility from China all point toward starting to unwind many of those changes.
Interesting language from EU’s Thierry Breton on EU vaccine export ban and implications for UK
“Our friends in the UK have two vaccine factories, only one produces.... In other words, the UK is largely dependent on the EU for its vaccination campaign.
It's also laughably wrong. We have 2 active sites manufacturing vaccine substance for AZ and one bottling site for it. For Novavax we have one site producing substance and another bottling it. For Valneva we have one making the substance and another planed bottling site. For CureVac a new manufacturing partner is being sought by GSK for domestic production of the gen 2 vaccine. So that's 5 sites for vaccines approved or nearing approval and maximum monthly capacity of 40m doses per month post ramp up plus 1 more commencing manufacturing of substance in the next few weeks now that the Valneva PII trial has been a huge success and another site planned for late this year for CureVac.
A French politician who spent most of his career under criminal investigation and works for Ursula von der Leyen has not been entirely straight?
And in next week’s news, a bear shits in the woods.
Surely the first woman ever to hold either of those roles? Or is there some Tory that I’ve missed?
No, but I was looking at it through the lens of Labour's inability to have a female leader - 46 years and counting behind the supposed misogynistic Tories. Dodd will give Labour's knuckle-draggers extra ammunition, when it comes to replacing Starmer.
It’s not about ammunition, because nobody overtly campaigns against a woman being leader of the Labour Party. It’s just that they always find an excuse, however flimsy, as to why that particular woman isn’t the right person at that moment.
In 2010 and 2020 it was easy because the lone/leading female candidate clearly was not up to being leader. But in 2016 they decided Cooper was ‘uninspiring’ and elected Corbyn instead. Now, if you want a clearer and more absurd example of sexism I’m struggling to find it, but nobody stood up and actually said ‘we don’t want her as leader because she has a vagina.’
In a way, such covert sexism is more insidious than that would have been. But it does mean there’s no reason to think Dodds’ performance will make a difference to it.
Cooper's problem was not her gender, but her politics, as was Kendall's. Much as I liked them personally and their politics, that was not what their party wanted. The party wanted a clear break from New Labour, of which Ed Miliband was the repeat as farce.
Corbyn was a relic of the old left, of a mythical time of purity before Blair contaminated everything. This is why he motivated the young, and swept up older activists who finally felt free of the taint of Blairism.
Corbyn owed his election as Labour leader in 2015 to the stupidity of Harriet Harman as Acting leader. Her decision to whip Labour MPs to abstain on Osborne's Welfare reforms generated fury in the wider membership. Of the four contenders Corbyn as a non-Shadow Cabinet was able to vote against the proposals whilst the others were hamstrung . Much of Corbyn's momentum came from that act. Had Harman not done that, Cooper or Burnham would have won the Leadership. Both should have stepped down from the Shadow Cabinet to act independently.
Wasn't it something to do with Labour MPs nominating Corbyn to engender a 'wider debate' so the far left could be definitively thrashed and forgotten?
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
And you wonder why the left keeps losing. Have you seen which party is on 45% in the polls? Because it's not yours.
Such traditional Tory hubris, in the run up to the coming financial crisis, and what could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile at least we can enjoy watching big spending, interventionist, investment-oriented government in action, whilst you take consolation from the fact that all the cheques are being written out in front of the flag.
Yes. From the domestic economic point of view the spending spree is quite left wing. Almost pre-Thatcherite in its redistributive, "pick winners" spending on white elephants, protected behind tarrif walls. Maybe it will work, but I do forsee disquiet from traditional fiscally conservative supporters of free markets. Sooner or later they will ask how it is all paid for.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the undeniable death of Thatcherism within what is now the mainstream Tory party is behind the revival of its fortunes. It’s always changed to remain relevant, and this is the latest transition. I don’t think you’ll see it led again by a Thatcherite (effectively a modern Gladstonian Liberal) for some years.
I think this quite perceptive. In many ways Brexitism is revenge on the Thatcherites, served cold. While the majority of Brexiteers were old school Shire Tories, the key constituency to get on board were working class on the old coalfields. The common factor was feeling left behind by a service economy based on London, and other metropolises. F**k business! We have no need of experts!
I doubt whether that can be a longlasting alliance, but difficult for Labour to become that party of Gladstonian Liberalism.
Yes. I think the Tories odds on for the next election because any Brexit disruption they might have been held to account for will be concealed by Covid, and I do think the recovery likely to surprise on the upside (e.g. election giveaways).
At some point though, political gravity will reassert itself and as you say, their current coalition is fragile. The next time the Tories are in opposition they will be, once again, lost and confused.
Good to see a minor outbreak of sanity in France. There'll be an uncomfortable calculation to be done since the Health Authorities told them to do it from January. Could have had another 3m with one dose.
PARIS (Reuters) - France will lengthen the period between the first and second shots of mRNA anti-COVID vaccines to six weeks from four weeks as of April 14 to accelerate the inoculation campaign, Health Minister Olivier Veran told the JDD newspaper on Sunday.
Although France’s top health authority advised a six-week period between the two shots in January in order to stretch supplies, the government at the time said there was insufficient data on how well the vaccines performed with a longer interval.
Macron claimed the AZ vaccine was quasi-ineffective for people over 65. Very, very loudly. France’s top health authority was always going to get drowned out. And on delaying second doses, reluctant to get fired by pointing out that as with vaccines, on refusing to adopt "l'attitde rosbif" he was again being a twat.
I had dinner last night with some French contacts of mine
They thought that Xavier Bertrand was in with a good shot. Admittedly I was teasing them about the prospect of a Melenchon - Le Pen run off in round 2 (“Alien vs Predator”)
Interesting. "his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly" - how many extra deaths laid at Macron's door does it take to constitute a bad stumble?
Dunno, what's the current score on BJ's 'I think we got away with it'?
Or Nicola's
Still running at c.2/3 of England's per capita I believe. I know how you guys love a stat..
Scotland population density: 65 per sq. km
England population density: 275 per sq. km
Want to calculate deaths per sq km and compare? For those who love a stat....
But that doesn't work either does it? If you eliminate the vast areas where practically no one lives in Scotland the population density of Scotland changes significantly. To take it to its extreme it is like calculating the population density for a desert state and claiming that is meaningful density figure.
Only way you can make it meaningful is to compare large cities to large cities and towns to towns and areas containing villages to areas contain villages of comparable densities.
There's always some external excuse for the BJ fanbois.
We need a cull of BJ fanbois.
They dominate discussion (once again we have a “Keir is crap” thread) and it was appalling to see @kamski bullied off here the other day for dating to express a dissenting opinion.
Perhaps one or two could refrain from posting in aid of encouraging a diversity of the opinion.
And you wonder why the left keeps losing. Have you seen which party is on 45% in the polls? Because it's not yours.
Such traditional Tory hubris, in the run up to the coming financial crisis, and what could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile at least we can enjoy watching big spending, interventionist, investment-oriented government in action, whilst you take consolation from the fact that all the cheques are being written out in front of the flag.
Yes. From the domestic economic point of view the spending spree is quite left wing. Almost pre-Thatcherite in its redistributive, "pick winners" spending on white elephants, protected behind tarrif walls. Maybe it will work, but I do forsee disquiet from traditional fiscally conservative supporters of free markets. Sooner or later they will ask how it is all paid for.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the undeniable death of Thatcherism within what is now the mainstream Tory party is behind the revival of its fortunes. It’s always changed to remain relevant, and this is the latest transition. I don’t think you’ll see it led again by a Thatcherite (effectively a modern Gladstonian Liberal) for some years.
I think this quite perceptive. In many ways Brexitism is revenge on the Thatcherites, served cold. While the majority of Brexiteers were old school Shire Tories, the key constituency to get on board were working class on the old coalfields. The common factor was feeling left behind by a service economy based on London, and other metropolises. F**k business! We have no need of experts!
I doubt whether that can be a longlasting alliance, but difficult for Labour to become that party of Gladstonian Liberalism.
Yes. I think the Tories odds on for the next election because any Brexit disruption they might have been held to account for will be concealed by Covid, and I do think the recovery likely to surprise on the upside (e.g. election giveaways).
At some point though, political gravity will reassert itself and as you say, their current coalition is fragile. The next time the Tories are in opposition they will be, once again, lost and confused.
OT comment and question about trade. Now weve left the single market, ive found buying things from china to be much more expensive, but it seems like some fishy was going on. Aliexpress is an example. Postage costs are often phenominal to ship to uk but free for delivery to countries within the EU. The costs are so great there are closer to that of what might be VAT.
The UK I understand now requires countries selling goods to the UK over a certain amount to collect VAT on their behalf.
My suspicion is that huge volumes of goods get drop shipped into the EU, dont get customs checked and VAT is not actually levied within the EU from the Chinese website, and that control of our borders means that enforcement is now actually happening... Unfortunately to uk consumers this means we end up actually paying more.
Any thoughts or insight into this?
The buyer-pays-VAT reforms that came in here at the start of the year to deal with eg VAT-avoidance on Ebay/Amazon Marketplace are I think due to come in in the EU sometime this year.
That will make a difference, but not to transport costs.
I think the 'transport costs' are a cover to hide the differential pricing. From what you say about the avoidance, it looks like buyers within the EU are been sold goods without VAT been charged, but vat is getting levied for purchases to the UK, and the difference is getting pushed as delivery/transport costs.
I can't see how that works (at least for the consumer). Transport costs (courier/postage) on imports have been included as VATable by HMRC in my experience. To hide it as transport risks paying VAT twice over ...
The 45% vote share the Conservatives have now is the same they had in 1979, but it is, in many ways, a very different share of the electorate.
The Conservatives have retreated a long way in London, core cities, university constituencies, Merseyside, and much (but by no means all) of Scotland. They've advanced across the North, Wales, and the Midlands in smaller urban areas. They're retained their English and Welsh rural and semi-rural dominance.
Interesting language from EU’s Thierry Breton on EU vaccine export ban and implications for UK
“Our friends in the UK have two vaccine factories, only one produces.... In other words, the UK is largely dependent on the EU for its vaccination campaign.
It's also laughably wrong. We have 2 active sites manufacturing vaccine substance for AZ and one bottling site for it. For Novavax we have one site producing substance and another bottling it. For Valneva we have one making the substance and another planed bottling site. For CureVac a new manufacturing partner is being sought by GSK for domestic production of the gen 2 vaccine. So that's 5 sites for vaccines approved or nearing approval and maximum monthly capacity of 40m doses per month post ramp up plus 1 more commencing manufacturing of substance in the next few weeks now that the Valneva PII trial has been a huge success and another site planned for late this year for CureVac.
Interesting piece in the Observer on manufacturing constraints on vaccine production. It seems pretty globalised as an industry, so very few can be self-sufficient.
There are vast empty spaces in Scotland, especially north of the Highland line but the central belt is not that different from most of England.
Not to mention Coatbridge, Airdrie, E Kilbride, Bathgate, Hamilton etc. Rutherglen is supposed to be counted as an entity distinct from Glasgow but I cannae really be doing with that.
Indeed. I was mentioning the towns on the M8 as being directly between but Sturgeon has not focused all of her efforts, attention and bribes on the central belt for no reason. its where the vast bulk of Scots live.
Interesting language from EU’s Thierry Breton on EU vaccine export ban and implications for UK
“Our friends in the UK have two vaccine factories, only one produces.... In other words, the UK is largely dependent on the EU for its vaccination campaign.
It's also laughably wrong. We have 2 active sites manufacturing vaccine substance for AZ and one bottling site for it. For Novavax we have one site producing substance and another bottling it. For Valneva we have one making the substance and another planed bottling site. For CureVac a new manufacturing partner is being sought by GSK for domestic production of the gen 2 vaccine. So that's 5 sites for vaccines approved or nearing approval and maximum monthly capacity of 40m doses per month post ramp up plus 1 more commencing manufacturing of substance in the next few weeks now that the Valneva PII trial has been a huge success and another site planned for late this year for CureVac.
The French political class is having a problem. It has reached £350 million per week levels of self delusion.
You are also seeing, I think, the fabled "technocratic" abilities in French politics. Not very technical really.... it involves "properly educated" people in suits being serious and signing things. Which they don't really understand.
The suggestion that reconnecting with the working class narrative to rebuild Labours support seems to ignore the fact that things have changed and the Tories current playbook of more right wing nationalism culturally and socially allied with less austerity driven policies is going to be quite popular with communities in the more “ working class “ seats .
Labour need either the Tories to go back to austerity or some major economic meltdown to feel they have a decent chance in 2024.
The one benefit re Starmer is he’s not going to terrify voters or be loathed as Corbyn was . Indifference is easier to overcome.
I've got a feeling in my bones that we are, at least for a couple of years going to see some pretty stonking levels of economic growth.
Agreed. At least 5% this year, probably 3-4% next year. Trickier after that.
For what it's worth, the IMF is now saying 5.3% this year, and 5.1% in 2022.
I think that's a tad optimistic, especially for 2022. There is clearly suppressed demand, there will be a lot of bounce back and the fiscal policy really could not be much more stimulative but by 2022 the pressure to reduce deficit spending will be sucking demand out of the economy (relatively, we will still have a very large deficit) and I think things will slow down quite a lot in the second half of the year. We shall see.
In economic cycle terms 2024 is not looking particularly optimal for the Tories, they may be better advised to go earlier.
But is the deficit 'structural'? Post 2007 we were left with unwinding a structural deficit of recurring expenditure. Much of this has been business grants, lost economic growth, capital spends etc. Theyll fall off the balance sheet quickly enough.
Comments
The issue is whether the Labour party wants to try and sell that.
*Think coalition governments in most countries.
Popular, yes. Left wing, no I don’t think so.
Perhaps you are arguing that furlough etc are left wing policies, but I think within the context of the pandemic they are technocratically centrist.
The UK I understand now requires countries selling goods to the UK over a certain amount to collect VAT on their behalf.
My suspicion is that huge volumes of goods get drop shipped into the EU, dont get customs checked and VAT is not actually levied within the EU from the Chinese website, and that control of our borders means that enforcement is now actually happening... Unfortunately to uk consumers this means we end up actually paying more.
Any thoughts or insight into this?
And those rejecting the vaccine will have chosen the consequences of their own decision.
I am sanguine about that - I have always been fine with people making their own choice on their own health as long as it is a free choice, without constraint.
I have an issue with people making the same choice for everyone else around them, especially if their own risk is far less than that of those they will infect, and up until the vaccine rollout is complete, it was impossible to make one's own choice without automatically making choices for others and effectively forcing that upon them.
I accept that the vaccines are not perfect, but given the excellent performance against serious illness 14+days after receiving a second dose, my instinct is that the risk-to-others is so low as to be acceptable and dwarfed by the risk-to-self of one's decision.
In short, as long as it is only oneself who lies in the bed, let people make their own beds.
On vaccines, the EU have messed up procurement, lied to cover it up, and indulged in quite grotesque vaccine nationalism including outright theft to retrieve the situation. Saying that is neither right wing nor self congratulatory. It is a fact.
The EU may not like those facts, but that doesn’t alter them.
Of course, that doesn’t make the Mail or Express or Telegraph nice or trustworthy, but there’s no good saying that they might be wrong when they’re right merely because you don’t like the messenger. That leads to Dave Keating.
With such a small attendance of very close family, I'd have thought that most would arrive well in advance towards the end of the week, rather than in a parade of black cars on the day itself.
Interesting also that the Unionists are perceptibly beginning to revert to Mrs T's admission that a simple pro-indy majority of MPs etc is sufficient to get the negotiations for indy going (admittedly her statement had it implicit, but it is uninterpretable in any other credible way).
He was simply saying I think that other narratives are available, especially from a country which has not suffered deaths anywhere near the scale of the U.K., nor the level of lockdown, nor the level of economic decline.
Plus she lied about her status in Turkey.
So there isn’t much question about her honesty in the sense that we all know she’s untrustworthy.
If SINDY parties gain a majority, which seems v likely, the appropriate next step is some form of commission which seeks to define the likely form - warts and all - of an independent Scotland.
Well, yes, but...
https://twitter.com/paulhutcheon/status/1381197856854401031?s=20
I’m frustrated with him, but it’s too early to really give up. The pandemic obscures all.
(Get's coat)
The problem was UKIP were not just pulling votes away from the Conservatives. They were pulling votes away from Labour and Lib Dems, and re-engaging former non-voters. And, UKIP acted as a gateway for non-Conservative voters to ultimately finish up voting Conservative.
It's so confusing I don't know what else to say - but it does appear that a general international tightening up has coincided, roughly, with Brexit - so a double dose of confusion.
Internet websites such as ebay should be deducting VAT at payment, too, but other suppliers may not have geared up to paying it to the UK HMRC. So if you order from overseas you ,may have to pay VAT, and maybe customs duty, as well as a charge from the PO or courier for handling this payment, beforte they will deliver.
PS: And NI is, needless to say, different again (both to and from, I should think).
Could go either way...
Btw, Labour is not my party, save that I recognise it as the only vehicle able to oust the slovenly clown from office.
https://twitter.com/TheSun/status/1381147690566889478?s=20
You could replace UVDL with ABDPJ in your sentence and it would still make sense. Apart from gender-related words.
Labour need either the Tories to go back to austerity or some major economic meltdown to feel they have a decent chance in 2024.
The one benefit re Starmer is he’s not going to terrify voters or be loathed as Corbyn was . Indifference is easier to overcome.
Meanwhile at least we can enjoy watching big spending, interventionist, investment-oriented government in action, whilst you take consolation from the fact that all the cheques are being written out in front of the flag.
That will make a difference, but not to transport costs.
And, yep, that car - like a Ferrari - had to be in deepest richest RED.
Joe Biden is a welcome change from Trump but he is in a honeymoon period at present
The Mexican border issues, his limited gun control announcements, and his deployment of 2 US warships to Ukraine are going to be a test for him
There are vast empty spaces in Scotland, especially north of the Highland line but the central belt is not that different from most of England.
“Our friends in the UK have two vaccine factories, only one produces.... In other words, the UK is largely dependent on the EU for its vaccination campaign.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/eu-commissioner-takes-another-jab-jibe-at-britain
You can’t win against an enemy, and through the votes of a public, you don’t understand.
Is your vote up for grabs for Labour btw? Or are you committed to the LDs?
- announce she is going to make it the bestest thing ever
- tear up a bunch of procedural stuff, but ignore the actual issues.
- when things go wrong, lie, and put the blame on specific people/organisations.
- lose legal challenges to her stupidity.
- when the whole thing falls apart, get promoted.
As to her PhD - large sections were copy and pasta. A number of references didn't actual say what she said they did. The decision not to revoke her degree was taken at a high level in the university - and was widely criticised for being a political decision.
If I had the money and inclination I'd get an 812GTS in Tour de France Blu and bang it off the limiter in every gear on the reg.
When they are removed, the result will be filling PhDs in economics for decades.
Maybe the mourners will all have to turn up on the day, after all.
This is childish nonsense which seems to have become de facto behaviour by the increasingly pathetic leaders of the EU
We're not well served, are we? At all!
And with that I'm off to a cheese and wine lunch with Mrs C. British and European cheeses andI Italian wine. Don't tear too many verbal lumps out of each other!
Rutherglen is supposed to be counted as an entity distinct from Glasgow but I cannae really be doing with that.
Johnson - lying clown
VdL - incompetent
Merkel - past it
Macron - narcissist
Trudeau - woke, empty suit
Ardern - empty dress
Only Biden is looking good right now.
(I don’t have an opinion on Morrison).
To an extent understandable as UKIP emerged in south-eastern England and the people associated with it - Farage, Helmer, Bloom, Reckless etc look like reactionary Tories.
So it was thought that UKIP were a risk to the Conservatives by taking away old style reactionary Tories but they never understood the risk UKIP posed to Labour (or to the LibDems in the south-west).
But those with some knowledge of the wwc in the Midlands, North and Wales could see that Labour were highly vulnerable to UKIP.
Especially where Labour MPs had ignored the constituencies they had been given.
A good sign though.
The LDs made the same mistake that Labour did; I remember going to a presentation by their head electoral strategy guru (self claimed) whose main point was that UKIP would be, electorally, the party's best friend.
And here’s the thing, you can’t tell that story without Brexit. Those saying that NI has always been unstable as if it’s exculpatory miss the point. It was exactly the point that NI was always fragile and that’s why so many urged caution when choosing a Brexit settlement.
But it’s not as if the alternative was any better. Once the decision was made that single market/customs union membership was unacceptable to the Tory Party and (to a lesser extent) May’s deal was unacceptable to Parliament, a border somewhere...
...and with it a destabilisation of the NI settlement was inevitable. And up to this point half the problem up to this point has just been to get politicians to accept that inescapable fact.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1381203134115106819
I doubt whether that can be a longlasting alliance, but difficult for Labour to become that party of Gladstonian Liberalism.
But since they want these and to keep gold plated restrictions every which way, this is just somebody being a tosser.
We need a bit of a clearout.
In economic cycle terms 2024 is not looking particularly optimal for the Tories, they may be better advised to go earlier.
We haven't seen him in over a year
Wife was so excited she could not sleep last night
It may not be normality - but we are getting some of our old life back
And in next week’s news, a bear shits in the woods.
At some point though, political gravity will reassert itself and as you say, their current coalition is fragile. The next time the Tories are in opposition they will be, once again, lost and confused.
At some point though, political gravity will reassert itself and as you say, their current coalition is fragile. The next time the Tories are in opposition they will be, once again, lost and confused.
18+ 2,522,940
50+ 1,293,189
are the numbers I've got for Wales
The Conservatives have retreated a long way in London, core cities, university constituencies, Merseyside, and much (but by no means all) of Scotland. They've advanced across the North, Wales, and the Midlands in smaller urban areas. They're retained their English and Welsh rural and semi-rural dominance.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/10/global-covid-vaccine-rollout-threatened-by-shortage-of-vital-components
You are also seeing, I think, the fabled "technocratic" abilities in French politics. Not very technical really.... it involves "properly educated" people in suits being serious and signing things. Which they don't really understand.