A smart opposition - Keir / Rishi etc - will continue to drip feed Boris sleaze stories over the next month. Keep the smoke blowing from the unseen fire so that even the strongest Boris fanbois have to admit there is a fire.
And then, Cummings at the Committee. He is going to turn up and do one of him uber-arrogant but calm and measured demolition jobs. And when someone asks how we can trust his word after Barnard Castle, he simply produces the evidence.
The hacks are already talking about how he walked up and down Whitehall in his final weeks with the medical evidence that the PM was ignoring - he will still have all of that and a whole lot more.
Its easy to deflect allegations - Boris gives tax breaks to party donors, Boris gets patrons to pay his £250k decorating bill, Boris hands out £107m contracts for PPE to friends with no experience of PPE - your average man in the pub garden does all of that, he's just one of the lads isn't he?
But when its deaths. Tens of thousands of deaths. That wouldn't have died had Liar listened to the scientists. That will provoke a blizzard of Daily Heil stories where grieving people vent their anger. And then the whole house on the sand implodes. All the stuff that happened and was dismissed as unpatriotic - the government saying they follow the science, then the government saying the science is only part of the process and ministers make the decisions, then the government following the science again - it will all be hurled against him to bury him.
And at the end? A new Tory PM who will ride a popularity wave as the UK moves into recovery. Poor Keir - he won't get a look in.
Is that the same scientists who said restricting entry to the UK would not have any effect ?
All caveats, such as Leave Remain, age, etc still don't adequately explain the PM and the Tories resounding success in the Midlands.
When? In 2019 the key was probably under-the-radar social media campaigning about how Corbyn wanted to disband the armed forces and had applauded the IRA's bombing campaigns.
I mean longer term than one campaign. It is a region that has dramatically swung blue over several elections. Much faster than the rest of the nation. And the PM polls well there too. I don't see why this should necessarily be so.
Housing.
New builds in the North and Midlands have been able to be bought by people, allowing them to own their own homes, meaning they're far more likely to be Tory.
Idiotic councils down South in comparison think pampering NIMBYs is the solution, meaning house prices rise, meaning people can't afford homes, meaning the region is relatively swinging Labour.
NIMBY's vote though. Often Tory!
But NIMBYs getting overruled here means more houses, more home owners, more Tory votes.
NIMBYs getting their way there means fewer houses, more tenants in cramped shared accommodation, more Labour votes.
The key determination is whether people own their own home, not whether someone else's is built.
I used to have access to the inboxes of a number of local cllrs. Do not underestimate the fury and persistence of NIMBYs. Particularly those in suburban and green areas full of the educated,well-heeled and sharp-elbowed, who know how to use the system to their advantage. The rapidity with which people suddenly discover a love of newts and ancient trees is impressive.
The Tory central govt wants to build, build, build. Their provincial brothers and sisters want the opposite. Or they are happy for building to happen on brownfield sites, quite often in Labour wards. Whereas if the free market were to be allowed to let rip, developers would be chucking up larger homes on greenfield sites in generally Tory-voting areas.
Oh absolutely.
And the fury and persistence of NIMBYs wanting to pull the ladder up should be treated with the same contempt as the same from the ESL Club owners wanting to do the same.
Nicola Sturgeon repeatedly pushed on #Marr about how an open border can be maintained between independent Scotland (in EU) and rUK, given EU rules. Ms Sturgeon does not deny EU rules. Also tells Marr SNP has not done modelling of independence on people's incomes
“We will keep trade flowing freely” @NicolaSturgeon tells Marr, while obvs struggling to explain how Scottish & UK firms would avoid customs & health checks & costs
Sturgeon quite comfortable lying about the trade-offs here; more like @BorisJohnson than she'd care to admit
All caveats, such as Leave Remain, age, etc still don't adequately explain the PM and the Tories resounding success in the Midlands.
When? In 2019 the key was probably under-the-radar social media campaigning about how Corbyn wanted to disband the armed forces and had applauded the IRA's bombing campaigns.
I mean longer term than one campaign. It is a region that has dramatically swung blue over several elections. Much faster than the rest of the nation. And the PM polls well there too. I don't see why this should necessarily be so.
Housing.
New builds in the North and Midlands have been able to be bought by people, allowing them to own their own homes, meaning they're far more likely to be Tory.
Idiotic councils down South in comparison think pampering NIMBYs is the solution, meaning house prices rise, meaning people can't afford homes, meaning the region is relatively swinging Labour.
NIMBY's vote though. Often Tory!
But NIMBYs getting overruled here means more houses, more home owners, more Tory votes.
NIMBYs getting their way there means fewer houses, more tenants in cramped shared accommodation, more Labour votes.
The key determination is whether people own their own home, not whether someone else's is built.
I used to have access to the inboxes of a number of local cllrs. Do not underestimate the fury and persistence of NIMBYs. Particularly those in suburban and green areas full of the educated,well-heeled and sharp-elbowed, who know how to use the system to their advantage. The rapidity with which people suddenly discover a love of newts and ancient trees is impressive.
The Tory central govt wants to build, build, build. Their provincial brothers and sisters want the opposite. Or they are happy for building to happen on brownfield sites, quite often in Labour wards. Whereas if the free market were to be allowed to let rip, developers would be chucking up larger homes on greenfield sites in generally Tory-voting areas.
Oh absolutely.
And the fury and persistence of NIMBYs wanting to pull the ladder up should be treated with the same contempt as the same from the ESL Club owners wanting to do the same.
Let the free market rip.
I wouldn't go that far, but we've already seen how even a government with a massive majority recoils when they propose something re development and the Shires get antsy, so I cannot see major change happening.
Nicola Sturgeon repeatedly pushed on #Marr about how an open border can be maintained between independent Scotland (in EU) and rUK, given EU rules. Ms Sturgeon does not deny EU rules. Also tells Marr SNP has not done modelling of independence on people's incomes
“We will keep trade flowing freely” @NicolaSturgeon tells Marr, while obvs struggling to explain how Scottish & UK firms would avoid customs & health checks & costs
Sturgeon quite comfortable lying about the trade-offs here; more like @BorisJohnson than she'd care to admit
"Mr Cummings is said to be preparing to hand 'kompromat' - damaging private material - on Mr Johnson to MPs when he appears before a Covid inquiry in May, showing that the PM's intransigence contributed to the huge second wave of deaths last winter. Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark - in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' - in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers."
This has the potential to be much more damaging for No.10 than what he's managed to cook up thus far.
I'm not sure. We all felt like that last autumn, including me. I can imagine spitting out expletives in frustration before bowing to the inevitable.
What yanks my chain about Boris is doing contracts and favours for mates - fuelled by people like DC trying to leverage it.
I hate stuff like that.
Speak for yourslef on attitudes last autumn - I was consistently for lockdown, as was the general public, and if he said "regardless of the bodies" I think people will genuinely feel rather shocked.
We're spoiled for choice on things to get upset about which the public is shrugging off at the moment. I come from an Army family and I think all of us would agree with this:
The point is not that loads of soldiers are committing atrocities which are being ignored, but that ignoring the minority who do puts everyone else under suspicion. It's like being a Muslim after a terrorist atrocity or an Irishman after a Sinn Fein bomb - do you go round saying "It wasn't me, I think it's disgusting" or do you just hope nobody thinks it might be have been you?
All caveats, such as Leave Remain, age, etc still don't adequately explain the PM and the Tories resounding success in the Midlands.
When? In 2019 the key was probably under-the-radar social media campaigning about how Corbyn wanted to disband the armed forces and had applauded the IRA's bombing campaigns.
I mean longer term than one campaign. It is a region that has dramatically swung blue over several elections. Much faster than the rest of the nation. And the PM polls well there too. I don't see why this should necessarily be so.
Housing.
New builds in the North and Midlands have been able to be bought by people, allowing them to own their own homes, meaning they're far more likely to be Tory.
Idiotic councils down South in comparison think pampering NIMBYs is the solution, meaning house prices rise, meaning people can't afford homes, meaning the region is relatively swinging Labour.
NIMBY's vote though. Often Tory!
But NIMBYs getting overruled here means more houses, more home owners, more Tory votes.
NIMBYs getting their way there means fewer houses, more tenants in cramped shared accommodation, more Labour votes.
The key determination is whether people own their own home, not whether someone else's is built.
I used to have access to the inboxes of a number of local cllrs. Do not underestimate the fury and persistence of NIMBYs. Particularly those in suburban and green areas full of the educated,well-heeled and sharp-elbowed, who know how to use the system to their advantage. The rapidity with which people suddenly discover a love of newts and ancient trees is impressive.
The Tory central govt wants to build, build, build. Their provincial brothers and sisters want the opposite. Or they are happy for building to happen on brownfield sites, quite often in Labour wards. Whereas if the free market were to be allowed to let rip, developers would be chucking up larger homes on greenfield sites in generally Tory-voting areas.
Oh absolutely.
And the fury and persistence of NIMBYs wanting to pull the ladder up should be treated with the same contempt as the same from the ESL Club owners wanting to do the same.
Let the free market rip.
I wouldn't go that far, but we've already seen how even a government with a massive majority recoils when they propose something re development and the Shires get antsy, so I cannot see major change happening.
Me neither unfortunately.
What should happen and what does are not always the same.
Good Morning everyone. Not quite as bright this morning, but maybe a little warmer, possibly due to cloud cover.
There is a site where one can check whether anyone's forebears were officially compensated for the loss of their slaves, and I'm pleased to say none of mine appear on it. Of course given my (real) surname I can't be sure. And I've no means of knowing whether any of them 'profited; in other ways...... served on slaving ships etc.
Everyone in Britain profited from the slave trade. If they didn’t actually trade in them, they still provided the goods traded for slaves in West Africa, and built the ships used for transport, and above all they ate the sugar, smoked the tobacco and wore the cotton that was the upshot of it.
That does not mean we should suddenly disown everyone involved and pretend it never happened, which - ironically, given their stated aims - is what is actually happening here.
If they smoked the tobacco, it is unlikely to have benefitted them......
Given the age at which they died from many other causes until at least the 1920s, the transient pleasure working people got from smoking probably far outweighed the downsides.
Do people get pleasure from smoking? Or does their body feel bad when they are not getting their next hit?
The two are not the same, at least in my opinion. My lifetime smoking experience is probably in the hundreds of cigarettes but never really got any pleasure from it, not sure if others do, and if so how they distinguish it from their addiction being fed?
I can answer this with the authority of somebody whose ciggie score is quarter of a million and counting.
The logic of a smoking habit is akin to continually wearing shoes that are too tight in order to generate the relief of taking them off for 5 minutes every hour or so. There is no true pleasure in it. None at all.
And "habit" above is the wrong word. It's not a habit. It's a drug addiction. A smoker ends up addicted to nicotine. Each cigarette quells the pangs that have been building since the last one - and as soon as you finish they start building again until you need the next one. Rat on a wheel.
Having quit smoking a good half dozen times, before succeeding in making it permanent, I can concur. The first cigarette after falling off the wagon was inevitably vile.
Does anyone know why Allegra is suddenly out of favour?
Apparently she is in charge of communications for the climate conference in Glasgow
Yes, a significant demotion. As Hodges puts it:
Second, the decision to axe plans for live Downing Street media briefings, and dispense with the services of media chief Allegra Stratton. Who lobbied strongly for Stratton's appointment, so that she could sideline the candidate preferred by Cummings and his team? Carrie. 'Carrie basically used Allegra,' a No 10 insider told me, 'and then when she didn't need her any more, she dumped her.'
PS sorry to hear about your family medical issues.
Carrie trying to keep other women away from Boris, I expect.
We aren't allowed to talk about [ ] and [ ] having [ ] remember...
I think it's a widely know fact that Boris is a philanderer, without needing to go into any specific detail.
In the British system the crown is where we focus palaces, posh wallpaper, gold and glitz, the pm is not a president.
The pms job is to work away from all the tempting baubles that separate them from us. It is one of our systems key strengths.
The bottom line is the pm is paid enough to wallpaper a flat and should get on the it like the rest of us.
FWIW when my grandmother moved into admiralty arch it was absolutely hideous. The allowance was utter ridiculous. Fortunately she was able and rolling to refurbish it out of her own pocket but it is pathetic that we expect senior state executives to live in substandard accommodation
They expect millions to live in very substandard accommodation , who cannot afford to upgrade it from their ill gotten gains. Why should they expect the public to give them even more largesse than they filch already. Parasites.
The asset remains in public ownership. No one is being given anything.
A sensible compromise might be for government buildings to be decorated to a schedule by the estate managers, as opposed to allowing the incumbent occupant free rein over the design and fit out.
Most of the incumbents and their families won’t have much experience in Grade I refurbs, and don’t see where the money actually goes.
Possibly, although design should be left to the incumbent.
The issue will be - I suspect - that Carrie went for Farrer & Ball paint rather than doing what normal people doing and going to Homebase to colour match a sample pot
I bet a chunk of it went on someone to design and project manage and buy the stuff, their being too busy to do so themselves.
Farrow & Ball, to give it the correct name, has an attractive chalky matt appearance, if you dont mind having to paint four coats to get a decent finish. And if you so much as brush against it thereafter, you'll have a mark to repair or a patch of paint might simply drop off the wall.
Agreed - we match to their String colour
Yes, I can see that.
However we are currently trending to fewer deaths per pop than the EU average, so it will not
A smart opposition - Keir / Rishi etc - will continue to drip feed Boris sleaze stories over the next month. Keep the smoke blowing from the unseen fire so that even the strongest Boris fanbois have to admit there is a fire.
I ask this rather politely but have you been on that wonderful Scots whisky produced nearby
Not this morning!
To throw the question back at you, are you suggesting that Cumming *hasn't* got reams of evidence? He was notoriously running an information gathering operation, and is already reported taking the information to every meeting he went to.
He's got it, he'll use it. Hard for people to forgive the PM ignoring the science and killing their grandma.
That story won't be that clear imo.
When people look for context in 3 to 6 months, they will find us in the middle of the stats for big european countries.
Brexit politics will ensure that side also gets airtime, especially if EUCo are still punching random bystanders like an aggressive drunk in a pub brawl.
Considering the systematic under-reporting of deaths across much of Europe - and the over-reporting of deaths here - its almost certain that UK excess deaths will be below average not above it by the end of the day.
Deaths are not over reported here, particularly for the global comparison stats.
"Mr Cummings is said to be preparing to hand 'kompromat' - damaging private material - on Mr Johnson to MPs when he appears before a Covid inquiry in May, showing that the PM's intransigence contributed to the huge second wave of deaths last winter. Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark - in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' - in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers."
This has the potential to be much more damaging for No.10 than what he's managed to cook up thus far.
I'm not sure. We all felt like that last autumn, including me. I can imagine spitting out expletives in frustration before bowing to the inevitable.
What yanks my chain about Boris is doing contracts and favours for mates - fuelled by people like DC trying to leverage it.
I hate stuff like that.
Speak for yourslef on attitudes last autumn - I was consistently for lockdown, as was the general public, and if he said "regardless of the bodies" I think people will genuinely feel rather shocked.
We're spoiled for choice on things to get upset about which the public is shrugging off at the moment. I come from an Army family and I think all of us would agree with this:
The point is not that loads of soldiers are committing atrocities which are being ignored, but that ignoring the minority who do puts everyone else under suspicion. It's like being a Muslim after a terrorist atrocity or an Irishman after a Sinn Fein bomb - do you go round saying "It wasn't me, I think it's disgusting" or do you just hope nobody thinks it might be have been you?
How many of those people 'consistently for lockdown' voluntarily locked themselves down ?
The shops and pubs and airports would have been deserted if they had done so.
All caveats, such as Leave Remain, age, etc still don't adequately explain the PM and the Tories resounding success in the Midlands.
When? In 2019 the key was probably under-the-radar social media campaigning about how Corbyn wanted to disband the armed forces and had applauded the IRA's bombing campaigns.
I mean longer term than one campaign. It is a region that has dramatically swung blue over several elections. Much faster than the rest of the nation. And the PM polls well there too. I don't see why this should necessarily be so.
Housing.
New builds in the North and Midlands have been able to be bought by people, allowing them to own their own homes, meaning they're far more likely to be Tory.
Idiotic councils down South in comparison think pampering NIMBYs is the solution, meaning house prices rise, meaning people can't afford homes, meaning the region is relatively swinging Labour.
NIMBY's vote though. Often Tory!
But NIMBYs getting overruled here means more houses, more home owners, more Tory votes.
NIMBYs getting their way there means fewer houses, more tenants in cramped shared accommodation, more Labour votes.
The key determination is whether people own their own home, not whether someone else's is built.
I used to have access to the inboxes of a number of local cllrs. Do not underestimate the fury and persistence of NIMBYs. Particularly those in suburban and green areas full of the educated,well-heeled and sharp-elbowed, who know how to use the system to their advantage. The rapidity with which people suddenly discover a love of newts and ancient trees is impressive.
The Tory central govt wants to build, build, build. Their provincial brothers and sisters want the opposite. Or they are happy for building to happen on brownfield sites, quite often in Labour wards. Whereas if the free market were to be allowed to let rip, developers would be chucking up larger homes on greenfield sites in generally Tory-voting areas.
Oh absolutely.
And the fury and persistence of NIMBYs wanting to pull the ladder up should be treated with the same contempt as the same from the ESL Club owners wanting to do the same.
Let the free market rip.
While I applaud your stance, with respect it is said with the bravado and insouciance of someone who doesn’t have to attend all the community meetings, read the social media posts and emails and face electors at the ballot box every four years.
In the British system the crown is where we focus palaces, posh wallpaper, gold and glitz, the pm is not a president.
The pms job is to work away from all the tempting baubles that separate them from us. It is one of our systems key strengths.
The bottom line is the pm is paid enough to wallpaper a flat and should get on the it like the rest of us.
FWIW when my grandmother moved into admiralty arch it was absolutely hideous. The allowance was utter ridiculous. Fortunately she was able and rolling to refurbish it out of her own pocket but it is pathetic that we expect senior state executives to live in substandard accommodation
They expect millions to live in very substandard accommodation , who cannot afford to upgrade it from their ill gotten gains. Why should they expect the public to give them even more largesse than they filch already. Parasites.
The asset remains in public ownership. No one is being given anything.
A sensible compromise might be for government buildings to be decorated to a schedule by the estate managers, as opposed to allowing the incumbent occupant free rein over the design and fit out.
Most of the incumbents and their families won’t have much experience in Grade I refurbs, and don’t see where the money actually goes.
Possibly, although design should be left to the incumbent.
The issue will be - I suspect - that Carrie went for Farrer & Ball paint rather than doing what normal people doing and going to Homebase to colour match a sample pot
I bet a chunk of it went on someone to design and project manage and buy the stuff, their being too busy to do so themselves.
Farrow & Ball, to give it the correct name, has an attractive chalky matt appearance, if you dont mind having to paint four coats to get a decent finish. And if you so much as brush against it thereafter, you'll have a mark to repair or a patch of paint might simply drop off the wall.
Agreed - we match to their String colour
Yes, I can see that.
However we are currently trending to fewer deaths per pop than the EU average, so it will not
A smart opposition - Keir / Rishi etc - will continue to drip feed Boris sleaze stories over the next month. Keep the smoke blowing from the unseen fire so that even the strongest Boris fanbois have to admit there is a fire.
I ask this rather politely but have you been on that wonderful Scots whisky produced nearby
Not this morning!
To throw the question back at you, are you suggesting that Cumming *hasn't* got reams of evidence? He was notoriously running an information gathering operation, and is already reported taking the information to every meeting he went to.
He's got it, he'll use it. Hard for people to forgive the PM ignoring the science and killing their grandma.
That story won't be that clear imo.
When people look for context in 3 to 6 months, they will find us in the middle of the stats for big european countries.
Brexit politics will ensure that side also gets airtime, especially if EUCo are still punching random bystanders like an aggressive drunk in a pub brawl.
Considering the systematic under-reporting of deaths across much of Europe - and the over-reporting of deaths here - its almost certain that UK excess deaths will be below average not above it by the end of the day.
Deaths are not over reported here, particularly for the global comparison stats.
UK has 149,570 deaths reported versus 121,850 excess. Italy has 86,490 deaths reported versus 116,410 excess.
Strange. Our World in Data says Italy 118k confirmed deaths.
The Economist data lags because it goes to the latest date that they have excess dates for, so that they can be compared like for like. So the Italian figure is until 31 January.
Our World In Data reported deaths is up to date, but it will be months before we have the excess figure for that. Given Italy has consistently under-reported excess deaths, its quite probable they're already well, well past the 118k sadly.
All caveats, such as Leave Remain, age, etc still don't adequately explain the PM and the Tories resounding success in the Midlands.
When? In 2019 the key was probably under-the-radar social media campaigning about how Corbyn wanted to disband the armed forces and had applauded the IRA's bombing campaigns.
I mean longer term than one campaign. It is a region that has dramatically swung blue over several elections. Much faster than the rest of the nation. And the PM polls well there too. I don't see why this should necessarily be so.
Housing.
New builds in the North and Midlands have been able to be bought by people, allowing them to own their own homes, meaning they're far more likely to be Tory.
Idiotic councils down South in comparison think pampering NIMBYs is the solution, meaning house prices rise, meaning people can't afford homes, meaning the region is relatively swinging Labour.
NIMBY's vote though. Often Tory!
But NIMBYs getting overruled here means more houses, more home owners, more Tory votes.
NIMBYs getting their way there means fewer houses, more tenants in cramped shared accommodation, more Labour votes.
The key determination is whether people own their own home, not whether someone else's is built.
I used to have access to the inboxes of a number of local cllrs. Do not underestimate the fury and persistence of NIMBYs. Particularly those in suburban and green areas full of the educated,well-heeled and sharp-elbowed, who know how to use the system to their advantage. The rapidity with which people suddenly discover a love of newts and ancient trees is impressive.
The Tory central govt wants to build, build, build. Their provincial brothers and sisters want the opposite. Or they are happy for building to happen on brownfield sites, quite often in Labour wards. Whereas if the free market were to be allowed to let rip, developers would be chucking up larger homes on greenfield sites in generally Tory-voting areas.
Oh absolutely.
And the fury and persistence of NIMBYs wanting to pull the ladder up should be treated with the same contempt as the same from the ESL Club owners wanting to do the same.
Let the free market rip.
While I applaud your stance, with respect it is said with the bravado and insouciance of someone who doesn’t have to attend all the community meetings, read the social media posts and emails and face electors at the ballot box every four years.
There's a place for a regulated market to rip, but that position needs nuance.
Let the market rip unregulated in the Peak District and the Lake District?
As @thetimesscot reports IFS research to show Scotland’s deficit is over £40bn (22-25% of GDP) a reminder Nicola Sturgeon pledges current spending plans would be guaranteed in independent Scotland. Also, over time, saving enough reserves to set up a new currency & join EU.
The SNP has no realistic response to any of these.
But Scotland is rich in natural assets - it plans to export wind and water. Or so I’m told
There is no shortage of wind outside of "Scottish" waters. The offshore wind farm at Dogger Bank will go up to 4.8 GW when completed, Hornsea up to 6.0 GW, and it might even go beyond that. We should see more onshore wind power in the UK in the years ahead as well. On top of that solar (not of great use in Scotland) is becoming ever cheaper and more accepted. So I'm fairly sure that the UK will not need electricity from an independent Scotland.
Perhaps, perhaps not. There will be an increasing dependence on interconnects, even across continents, to reduce the problem of intermittency. A key metric will be the marginal cost of local generation, and if it’s low enough, it will find buyers.
In the British system the crown is where we focus palaces, posh wallpaper, gold and glitz, the pm is not a president.
The pms job is to work away from all the tempting baubles that separate them from us. It is one of our systems key strengths.
The bottom line is the pm is paid enough to wallpaper a flat and should get on the it like the rest of us.
FWIW when my grandmother moved into admiralty arch it was absolutely hideous. The allowanceather than was utter ridiculous. Fortunately she was able and rolling to refurbish it out of her own pocket but it is pathetic that we expect senior state executives to live in substandard accommodation
They expect millions to live in very substandard accommodation , who cannot afford to upgrade it from their ill gotten gains. Why should they expect the public to give them even more largesse than they filch already. Parasites.
A drop in the ocean compared to the £414m spent on the Scottish Parliament building.
Or indeed the £12 billion to refurbish the Palace of Westminster.
The addled halfwit does not count such things, talks through his union jack underpants.
Ignoring the usual abuse, they are rather different because the £12 billion I understand is an international obligation because the Palace of Westminster is a World Heritage site, while the Scottish Parliament was a newbuild. Either way it is an eye-watering sum of money - £500 from every family in the country.
And yet the Unionist parties insisted on it rather than refurbishing the old Royal High School (as the SNP preferred) because they were afraid it would inflame nationalist sentiment. That worked out well.
"Mr Cummings is said to be preparing to hand 'kompromat' - damaging private material - on Mr Johnson to MPs when he appears before a Covid inquiry in May, showing that the PM's intransigence contributed to the huge second wave of deaths last winter. Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark - in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' - in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers."
This has the potential to be much more damaging for No.10 than what he's managed to cook up thus far.
I'm not sure. We all felt like that last autumn, including me. I can imagine spitting out expletives in frustration before bowing to the inevitable.
What yanks my chain about Boris is doing contracts and favours for mates - fuelled by people like DC trying to leverage it.
I hate stuff like that.
Speak for yourslef on attitudes last autumn - I was consistently for lockdown, as was the general public, and if he said "regardless of the bodies" I think people will genuinely feel rather shocked.
We're spoiled for choice on things to get upset about which the public is shrugging off at the moment. I come from an Army family and I think all of us would agree with this:
The point is not that loads of soldiers are committing atrocities which are being ignored, but that ignoring the minority who do puts everyone else under suspicion. It's like being a Muslim after a terrorist atrocity or an Irishman after a Sinn Fein bomb - do you go round saying "It wasn't me, I think it's disgusting" or do you just hope nobody thinks it might be have been you?
How many of those people 'consistently for lockdown' voluntarily locked themselves down ?
The shops and pubs and airports would have been deserted if they had done so.
I did, kind of.
I stopped taking public transport 1 March 2020. Started working from home and mandated it for the office a week later.
As @thetimesscot reports IFS research to show Scotland’s deficit is over £40bn (22-25% of GDP) a reminder Nicola Sturgeon pledges current spending plans would be guaranteed in independent Scotland. Also, over time, saving enough reserves to set up a new currency & join EU.
The SNP has no realistic response to any of these.
Abuse seems to be the default response of cybernats.
Watching Sturgeon on Marr was interesting, primarily because If how flustered Sturgeon was in the face of some pretty basic truths. (Though of course she’d deny them etc)
In the British system the crown is where we focus palaces, posh wallpaper, gold and glitz, the pm is not a president.
The pms job is to work away from all the tempting baubles that separate them from us. It is one of our systems key strengths.
The bottom line is the pm is paid enough to wallpaper a flat and should get on the it like the rest of us.
FWIW when my grandmother moved into admiralty arch it was absolutely hideous. The allowance was utter ridiculous. Fortunately she was able and rolling to refurbish it out of her own pocket but it is pathetic that we expect senior state executives to live in substandard accommodation
They expect millions to live in very substandard accommodation , who cannot afford to upgrade it from their ill gotten gains. Why should they expect the public to give them even more largesse than they filch already. Parasites.
The asset remains in public ownership. No one is being given anything.
A sensible compromise might be for government buildings to be decorated to a schedule by the estate managers, as opposed to allowing the incumbent occupant free rein over the design and fit out.
Most of the incumbents and their families won’t have much experience in Grade I refurbs, and don’t see where the money actually goes.
Possibly, although design should be left to the incumbent.
The issue will be - I suspect - that Carrie went for Farrer & Ball paint rather than doing what normal people doing and going to Homebase to colour match a sample pot
I bet a chunk of it went on someone to design and project manage and buy the stuff, their being too busy to do so themselves.
Farrow & Ball, to give it the correct name, has an attractive chalky matt appearance, if you dont mind having to paint four coats to get a decent finish. And if you so much as brush against it thereafter, you'll have a mark to repair or a patch of paint might simply drop off the wall.
Agreed - we match to their String colour
Yes, I can see that.
However we are currently trending to fewer deaths per pop than the EU average, so it will not
A smart opposition - Keir / Rishi etc - will continue to drip feed Boris sleaze stories over the next month. Keep the smoke blowing from the unseen fire so that even the strongest Boris fanbois have to admit there is a fire.
I ask this rather politely but have you been on that wonderful Scots whisky produced nearby
Not this morning!
To throw the question back at you, are you suggesting that Cumming *hasn't* got reams of evidence? He was notoriously running an information gathering operation, and is already reported taking the information to every meeting he went to.
He's got it, he'll use it. Hard for people to forgive the PM ignoring the science and killing their grandma.
That story won't be that clear imo.
When people look for context in 3 to 6 months, they will find us in the middle of the stats for big european countries.
Brexit politics will ensure that side also gets airtime, especially if EUCo are still punching random bystanders like an aggressive drunk in a pub brawl.
Considering the systematic under-reporting of deaths across much of Europe - and the over-reporting of deaths here - its almost certain that UK excess deaths will be below average not above it by the end of the day.
Deaths are not over reported here, particularly for the global comparison stats.
"Mr Cummings is said to be preparing to hand 'kompromat' - damaging private material - on Mr Johnson to MPs when he appears before a Covid inquiry in May, showing that the PM's intransigence contributed to the huge second wave of deaths last winter. Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark - in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' - in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers."
This has the potential to be much more damaging for No.10 than what he's managed to cook up thus far.
I'm not sure. We all felt like that last autumn, including me. I can imagine spitting out expletives in frustration before bowing to the inevitable.
What yanks my chain about Boris is doing contracts and favours for mates - fuelled by people like DC trying to leverage it.
I hate stuff like that.
Speak for yourslef on attitudes last autumn - I was consistently for lockdown, as was the general public, and if he said "regardless of the bodies" I think people will genuinely feel rather shocked.
We're spoiled for choice on things to get upset about which the public is shrugging off at the moment. I come from an Army family and I think all of us would agree with this:
The point is not that loads of soldiers are committing atrocities which are being ignored, but that ignoring the minority who do puts everyone else under suspicion. It's like being a Muslim after a terrorist atrocity or an Irishman after a Sinn Fein bomb - do you go round saying "It wasn't me, I think it's disgusting" or do you just hope nobody thinks it might be have been you?
Yes, but you're a weirdo who likes lockdown and doesn't much care for meeting real people face to face when you can do so on Zoom - so you're not representative of how the public will respond to this.
On the second matter, you're clearly far more comfortable in viscerally criticising legislative actions of the British government than you are of far fouler offenders of human rights around the world.
I'll start listening to Chinese propaganda about us when you start challenging theirs about them.
All caveats, such as Leave Remain, age, etc still don't adequately explain the PM and the Tories resounding success in the Midlands.
When? In 2019 the key was probably under-the-radar social media campaigning about how Corbyn wanted to disband the armed forces and had applauded the IRA's bombing campaigns.
I mean longer term than one campaign. It is a region that has dramatically swung blue over several elections. Much faster than the rest of the nation. And the PM polls well there too. I don't see why this should necessarily be so.
Housing.
New builds in the North and Midlands have been able to be bought by people, allowing them to own their own homes, meaning they're far more likely to be Tory.
Idiotic councils down South in comparison think pampering NIMBYs is the solution, meaning house prices rise, meaning people can't afford homes, meaning the region is relatively swinging Labour.
NIMBY's vote though. Often Tory!
But NIMBYs getting overruled here means more houses, more home owners, more Tory votes.
NIMBYs getting their way there means fewer houses, more tenants in cramped shared accommodation, more Labour votes.
The key determination is whether people own their own home, not whether someone else's is built.
I used to have access to the inboxes of a number of local cllrs. Do not underestimate the fury and persistence of NIMBYs. Particularly those in suburban and green areas full of the educated,well-heeled and sharp-elbowed, who know how to use the system to their advantage. The rapidity with which people suddenly discover a love of newts and ancient trees is impressive.
The Tory central govt wants to build, build, build. Their provincial brothers and sisters want the opposite. Or they are happy for building to happen on brownfield sites, quite often in Labour wards. Whereas if the free market were to be allowed to let rip, developers would be chucking up larger homes on greenfield sites in generally Tory-voting areas.
Oh absolutely.
And the fury and persistence of NIMBYs wanting to pull the ladder up should be treated with the same contempt as the same from the ESL Club owners wanting to do the same.
Let the free market rip.
While I applaud your stance, with respect it is said with the bravado and insouciance of someone who doesn’t have to attend all the community meetings, read the social media posts and emails and face electors at the ballot box every four years.
It’s also utter garbage.
The green belt is one of the great British achievements of the 20th century.
SE England is (largely) “green and pleasant” despite being the most populated corner of the most populated country in Europe.*
*Unless we’ve figured out finally that the Netherlands is more densely populated.
We are victims of mission creep in respect of lockdowns.
Firstly, lockdown is not a cost free option; quite the reverse. It is an extreme interference with peoples' liberty and the economy that should be used as a last resort and then sparingly.
Secondly, and this is the false premise on which the current critique is based, lockdowns do not of themselves save lives. That is not their purpose. Their purpose is to flatten peaks and protect the NHS. Once the lockdown is over the virus is still there, people still get sick and die. That is what the virus does. Pretending that we had more deaths in January than the virus would otherwise have caused over a different period is simply wrong, subject to:
Thirdly, vaccines have been the game changer. They mean that infections deferred will probably equal lives saved. That is why we have been in lockdown since Christmas. If we didn't have the vaccines we would have been out of lockdown months ago and people would once again be dying in significant numbers as we see across Europe where vaccination has been slower.
Arguing that Boris failed to lock down quickly enough and thus caused the January peak is a misconception. Did the NHS fall over in January? No. Mission accomplished. It is only this mission creep and the delusion that these deaths were preventable and would not be happening now but for our current lockdown that is driving this. Boris did not share that delusion. Cummings might have or he might have been genuinely concerned that the peak would be so high that the NHS would be in danger, I don't know.
In the British system the crown is where we focus palaces, posh wallpaper, gold and glitz, the pm is not a president.
The pms job is to work away from all the tempting baubles that separate them from us. It is one of our systems key strengths.
The bottom line is the pm is paid enough to wallpaper a flat and should get on the it like the rest of us.
FWIW when my grandmother moved into admiralty arch it was absolutely hideous. The allowance was utter ridiculous. Fortunately she was able and rolling to refurbish it out of her own pocket but it is pathetic that we expect senior state executives to live in substandard accommodation
They expect millions to live in very substandard accommodation , who cannot afford to upgrade it from their ill gotten gains. Why should they expect the public to give them even more largesse than they filch already. Parasites.
The asset remains in public ownership. No one is being given anything.
A sensible compromise might be for government buildings to be decorated to a schedule by the estate managers, as opposed to allowing the incumbent occupant free rein over the design and fit out.
Most of the incumbents and their families won’t have much experience in Grade I refurbs, and don’t see where the money actually goes.
Possibly, although design should be left to the incumbent.
The issue will be - I suspect - that Carrie went for Farrer & Ball paint rather than doing what normal people doing and going to Homebase to colour match a sample pot
I bet a chunk of it went on someone to design and project manage and buy the stuff, their being too busy to do so themselves.
Farrow & Ball, to give it the correct name, has an attractive chalky matt appearance, if you dont mind having to paint four coats to get a decent finish. And if you so much as brush against it thereafter, you'll have a mark to repair or a patch of paint might simply drop off the wall.
Agreed - we match to their String colour
Yes, I can see that.
However we are currently trending to fewer deaths per pop than the EU average, so it will not
A smart opposition - Keir / Rishi etc - will continue to drip feed Boris sleaze stories over the next month. Keep the smoke blowing from the unseen fire so that even the strongest Boris fanbois have to admit there is a fire.
I ask this rather politely but have you been on that wonderful Scots whisky produced nearby
Not this morning!
To throw the question back at you, are you suggesting that Cumming *hasn't* got reams of evidence? He was notoriously running an information gathering operation, and is already reported taking the information to every meeting he went to.
He's got it, he'll use it. Hard for people to forgive the PM ignoring the science and killing their grandma.
That story won't be that clear imo.
When people look for context in 3 to 6 months, they will find us in the middle of the stats for big european countries.
Brexit politics will ensure that side also gets airtime, especially if EUCo are still punching random bystanders like an aggressive drunk in a pub brawl.
Considering the systematic under-reporting of deaths across much of Europe - and the over-reporting of deaths here - its almost certain that UK excess deaths will be below average not above it by the end of the day.
Deaths are not over reported here, particularly for the global comparison stats.
"Mr Cummings is said to be preparing to hand 'kompromat' - damaging private material - on Mr Johnson to MPs when he appears before a Covid inquiry in May, showing that the PM's intransigence contributed to the huge second wave of deaths last winter. Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark - in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' - in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers."
This has the potential to be much more damaging for No.10 than what he's managed to cook up thus far.
I'm not sure. We all felt like that last autumn, including me. I can imagine spitting out expletives in frustration before bowing to the inevitable.
What yanks my chain about Boris is doing contracts and favours for mates - fuelled by people like DC trying to leverage it.
I hate stuff like that.
Speak for yourslef on attitudes last autumn - I was consistently for lockdown, as was the general public, and if he said "regardless of the bodies" I think people will genuinely feel rather shocked.
We're spoiled for choice on things to get upset about which the public is shrugging off at the moment. I come from an Army family and I think all of us would agree with this:
The point is not that loads of soldiers are committing atrocities which are being ignored, but that ignoring the minority who do puts everyone else under suspicion. It's like being a Muslim after a terrorist atrocity or an Irishman after a Sinn Fein bomb - do you go round saying "It wasn't me, I think it's disgusting" or do you just hope nobody thinks it might be have been you?
How many of those people 'consistently for lockdown' voluntarily locked themselves down ?
The shops and pubs and airports would have been deserted if they had done so.
I did, kind of.
I stopped taking public transport 1 March 2020. Started working from home and mandated it for the office a week later.
We often walk though some woods near a busy main road and there's always a traffic hum. However, during the first lockdown it was eerily quiet. Never been so quiet since. Certainly isn't now.
I remember talking about locking down again here last year.
They all told me I was wrong and it would never happen, only me and a few others were right.
I know what you mean, but this is a mugs game.
Sooner or later you'll make a big prediction (like I have done) which you'll get badly wrong, and then you'll look like a Muppet.
Sometimes you get it right. Sometimes you get it wrong. The best thing you can do is to make a fair prediction that takes account of error margins, and looks for betting value.
That way, you'll usually come out in profit in the long-term - which is the best form of "right" there is.
As @thetimesscot reports IFS research to show Scotland’s deficit is over £40bn (22-25% of GDP) a reminder Nicola Sturgeon pledges current spending plans would be guaranteed in independent Scotland. Also, over time, saving enough reserves to set up a new currency & join EU.
As @thetimesscot reports IFS research to show Scotland’s deficit is over £40bn (22-25% of GDP) a reminder Nicola Sturgeon pledges current spending plans would be guaranteed in independent Scotland. Also, over time, saving enough reserves to set up a new currency & join EU.
The SNP has no realistic response to any of these.
Deficit It doesn't exist, or the Scottish govt.statisticians are lying Pensions rUK will pay Currency Don't need one as everyone uses plastic these days anyway (yes, seriously) Borders Job creation scheme (yes, seriously)
For all those complaining about the lack of autumn lockdowns then explain how do you shut shops, bars and restaurants in this country when people are simultaneously allowed to go to Spain or Italy or France where new infections were running at a much higher rate ?
Pretty much all the problems in the government's strategy ultimately come back to their obsession about not restricting international travel.
All caveats, such as Leave Remain, age, etc still don't adequately explain the PM and the Tories resounding success in the Midlands.
When? In 2019 the key was probably under-the-radar social media campaigning about how Corbyn wanted to disband the armed forces and had applauded the IRA's bombing campaigns.
I mean longer term than one campaign. It is a region that has dramatically swung blue over several elections. Much faster than the rest of the nation. And the PM polls well there too. I don't see why this should necessarily be so.
Housing.
New builds in the North and Midlands have been able to be bought by people, allowing them to own their own homes, meaning they're far more likely to be Tory.
Idiotic councils down South in comparison think pampering NIMBYs is the solution, meaning house prices rise, meaning people can't afford homes, meaning the region is relatively swinging Labour.
NIMBY's vote though. Often Tory!
But NIMBYs getting overruled here means more houses, more home owners, more Tory votes.
NIMBYs getting their way there means fewer houses, more tenants in cramped shared accommodation, more Labour votes.
The key determination is whether people own their own home, not whether someone else's is built.
I used to have access to the inboxes of a number of local cllrs. Do not underestimate the fury and persistence of NIMBYs. Particularly those in suburban and green areas full of the educated,well-heeled and sharp-elbowed, who know how to use the system to their advantage. The rapidity with which people suddenly discover a love of newts and ancient trees is impressive.
The Tory central govt wants to build, build, build. Their provincial brothers and sisters want the opposite. Or they are happy for building to happen on brownfield sites, quite often in Labour wards. Whereas if the free market were to be allowed to let rip, developers would be chucking up larger homes on greenfield sites in generally Tory-voting areas.
Oh absolutely.
And the fury and persistence of NIMBYs wanting to pull the ladder up should be treated with the same contempt as the same from the ESL Club owners wanting to do the same.
Let the free market rip.
And hand large numbers of councils in the Home Counties to the :LDs and Greens on a plate if you build over all the countryside.
The Tories lost dozens of Southern councils in 2019 because of overdevelopment to the LDs or NOC and will lose even more if they ignore local residents.
The issue is not a problem in the North or Midlands as they are far less densely populated than the south overall. Yes we need to build more affordable houses in the South where house prices are higher but in brownbelt land first.
Not all homeowners always vote Tory anyway, eg Blair won those with a mortgage in 1997 and 2001 and 2005 while those who vote LD locally can start voting LD nationally as they did from 1997 to 2010
"Mr Cummings is said to be preparing to hand 'kompromat' - damaging private material - on Mr Johnson to MPs when he appears before a Covid inquiry in May, showing that the PM's intransigence contributed to the huge second wave of deaths last winter. Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark - in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' - in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers."
This has the potential to be much more damaging for No.10 than what he's managed to cook up thus far.
I'm not sure. We all felt like that last autumn, including me. I can imagine spitting out expletives in frustration before bowing to the inevitable.
What yanks my chain about Boris is doing contracts and favours for mates - fuelled by people like DC trying to leverage it.
I hate stuff like that.
I think with regard to lockdowns the mistake was leaving it too late so it had to be harder and longer than needed.
To take only the most obvious example, one thing that seems to bring cases down very fast is shutting schools. Would it have killed them to bring the start of the Christmas holidays forward by ten days to achieve that?
And yet instead we had these civil servants and ministers threatening court action (illegally) to keep schools open even when half of their pupils had been forced to isolate.
Result - all schools off until March.
Stitch in time...
It’s good, in a way, that Johnson seems naturally resistant to such draconian measures, even though I’m worried he may have changed his mind given how slowly he’s reacting to improvements now. But it was a poor decision not to shut down early in December.
Good Morning everyone. Not quite as bright this morning, but maybe a little warmer, possibly due to cloud cover.
There is a site where one can check whether anyone's forebears were officially compensated for the loss of their slaves, and I'm pleased to say none of mine appear on it. Of course given my (real) surname I can't be sure. And I've no means of knowing whether any of them 'profited; in other ways...... served on slaving ships etc.
Everyone in Britain profited from the slave trade. If they didn’t actually trade in them, they still provided the goods traded for slaves in West Africa, and built the ships used for transport, and above all they ate the sugar, smoked the tobacco and wore the cotton that was the upshot of it.
That does not mean we should suddenly disown everyone involved and pretend it never happened, which - ironically, given their stated aims - is what is actually happening here.
If they smoked the tobacco, it is unlikely to have benefitted them......
Given the age at which they died from many other causes until at least the 1920s, the transient pleasure working people got from smoking probably far outweighed the downsides.
Do people get pleasure from smoking? Or does their body feel bad when they are not getting their next hit?
The two are not the same, at least in my opinion. My lifetime smoking experience is probably in the hundreds of cigarettes but never really got any pleasure from it, not sure if others do, and if so how they distinguish it from their addiction being fed?
I can answer this with the authority of somebody whose ciggie score is quarter of a million and counting.
The logic of a smoking habit is akin to continually wearing shoes that are too tight in order to generate the relief of taking them off for 5 minutes every hour or so. There is no true pleasure in it. None at all.
And "habit" above is the wrong word. It's not a habit. It's a drug addiction. A smoker ends up addicted to nicotine. Each cigarette quells the pangs that have been building since the last one - and as soon as you finish they start building again until you need the next one. Rat on a wheel.
OK here is my own patent method for stopping smoking, which worked after several hundred other approaches hadn't.
The most important rule is: if you want a cigarette you can have one.
Rule 2: but not immediately. You can have one in exactly 20 minutes, not more and not less. You are not allowed to set any form of alarm.
What happens is, you overshoot the 20 minutes because you are thinking about something else at the time. So you have to reset, and the same thing happens again. So you never actually get to a cigarette, but your subconscious never rebels because it never feels the panic of omg I am never allowed another cigarette.
That certainly is one I've never come across. Well done for quitting. Especially if you were badly hooked. So how long before the cravings went for you?
Can't remember: six months? After 20-30 a day x 20 years, and lots of failures. The method genuinely worked (and as far as I can tell is my own invention).
Yep it's an original, no question. And sounds like you were a proper addict too. Really strong performance. I'll let you know if there's any good news with me on this front.
"Mr Cummings is said to be preparing to hand 'kompromat' - damaging private material - on Mr Johnson to MPs when he appears before a Covid inquiry in May, showing that the PM's intransigence contributed to the huge second wave of deaths last winter. Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark - in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' - in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers."
This has the potential to be much more damaging for No.10 than what he's managed to cook up thus far.
I'm not sure. We all felt like that last autumn, including me. I can imagine spitting out expletives in frustration before bowing to the inevitable.
What yanks my chain about Boris is doing contracts and favours for mates - fuelled by people like DC trying to leverage it.
I hate stuff like that.
Speak for yourslef on attitudes last autumn - I was consistently for lockdown, as was the general public, and if he said "regardless of the bodies" I think people will genuinely feel rather shocked.
We're spoiled for choice on things to get upset about which the public is shrugging off at the moment. I come from an Army family and I think all of us would agree with this:
The point is not that loads of soldiers are committing atrocities which are being ignored, but that ignoring the minority who do puts everyone else under suspicion. It's like being a Muslim after a terrorist atrocity or an Irishman after a Sinn Fein bomb - do you go round saying "It wasn't me, I think it's disgusting" or do you just hope nobody thinks it might be have been you?
Yes, but you're a weirdo who likes lockdown and doesn't much care for meeting real people face to face when you can do so on Zoom - so you're not representative of how the public will respond to this.
On the second matter, you're clearly far more comfortable in viscerally criticising legislative actions of the British government than you are of far fouler offenders of human rights around the world.
I'll start listening to Chinese propaganda about us when you start challenging theirs about them.
One thing that seriously pisses me off is the idea that if you argue against lockdowns, or question whether the cost-benefit is proportionate you are pretty much accused of murder and so on. Look at the appalling abuse those scientists e.g. Kulldorf who have questioned the idea have received, especially on good old anti-social media. Yet the idea has been ruled out of accepted pandemic planning for decades.
It is a perfectly acceptable point of view to question whether this is a good idea, especially to keep repeating it.
Sorry but a user here is saying they understand hardship because their grandmother was gifted an apartment
No. That’s not what I was saying. Try reading posts that making assumptions based on your prejudices.
1. My grandfather was required to live in Admiralty Arch for security reasons 2. This was in the mid 1950s 3. The flat hadn’t been decorated since before the war 4. The government allowance was risible 5. So she funded the refurbishment herself
I suspect few people on here have experience of living in government allocated accommodation so I thought it was a helpful perspective. There is no claim of understanding hardship as a result, and fortunately we could afford to pay for the update.
"Mr Cummings is said to be preparing to hand 'kompromat' - damaging private material - on Mr Johnson to MPs when he appears before a Covid inquiry in May, showing that the PM's intransigence contributed to the huge second wave of deaths last winter. Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark - in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' - in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers."
This has the potential to be much more damaging for No.10 than what he's managed to cook up thus far.
I'm not sure. We all felt like that last autumn, including me. I can imagine spitting out expletives in frustration before bowing to the inevitable.
What yanks my chain about Boris is doing contracts and favours for mates - fuelled by people like DC trying to leverage it.
I hate stuff like that.
I think with regard to lockdowns the mistake was leaving it too late so it had to be harder and longer than needed.
To take only the most obvious example, one thing that seems to bring cases down very fast is shutting schools. Would it have killed them to bring the start of the Christmas holidays forward by ten days to achieve that?
And yet instead we had these civil servants and ministers threatening court action (illegally) to keep schools open even when half of their pupils had been forced to isolate.
Result - all schools off until March.
Stitch in time...
It’s good, in a way, that Johnson seems naturally resistant to such draconian measures, even though I’m worried he may have changed his mind given how slowly he’s reacting to improvements now. But it was a poor decision not to shut down early in December.
Not helped by having a petulant prat like Williamson in charge.
"Mr Cummings is said to be preparing to hand 'kompromat' - damaging private material - on Mr Johnson to MPs when he appears before a Covid inquiry in May, showing that the PM's intransigence contributed to the huge second wave of deaths last winter. Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark - in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' - in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers."
This has the potential to be much more damaging for No.10 than what he's managed to cook up thus far.
I'm not sure. We all felt like that last autumn, including me. I can imagine spitting out expletives in frustration before bowing to the inevitable.
What yanks my chain about Boris is doing contracts and favours for mates - fuelled by people like DC trying to leverage it.
I hate stuff like that.
I think with regard to lockdowns the mistake was leaving it too late so it had to be harder and longer than needed.
To take only the most obvious example, one thing that seems to bring cases down very fast is shutting schools. Would it have killed them to bring the start of the Christmas holidays forward by ten days to achieve that?
And yet instead we had these civil servants and ministers threatening court action (illegally) to keep schools open even when half of their pupils had been forced to isolate.
Result - all schools off until March.
Stitch in time...
It’s good, in a way, that Johnson seems naturally resistant to such draconian measures, even though I’m worried he may have changed his mind given how slowly he’s reacting to improvements now. But it was a poor decision not to shut down early in December.
Not helped by having a petulant prat like Williamson in charge.
Someone more flexible was needed.
Agreed.
It’s daft, for example, that they’re looking at adjusting school holidays now (while getting their basic maths wrong) and didn’t do so in July as a temporary measure. Contracts aside, a temporary variation for this year only could have been worked on as a safety measure.
It’s also daft that they pretended as late as January that public exams could still go ahead, when it was very obvious from October onwards that they couldn’t.
Result - no proper systems in place to deal with the situation and a repeat of last year nailed on.
Trailing in the polls, Labour will accept the Cummings gift with open arms. Keir Starmer’s team was campaigning in Hartlepool on Friday when the fiasco unfolded. One constituent approached them with the greeting: “Have you seen that fucker Cummings is back?” Last week a party focus group with Brexit party voters also gave them hope the “sleaze” theme was actually cutting through.
As @thetimesscot reports IFS research to show Scotland’s deficit is over £40bn (22-25% of GDP) a reminder Nicola Sturgeon pledges current spending plans would be guaranteed in independent Scotland. Also, over time, saving enough reserves to set up a new currency & join EU.
The SNP has no realistic response to any of these.
Abuse seems to be the default response of cybernats.
Watching Sturgeon on Marr was interesting, primarily because If how flustered Sturgeon was in the face of some pretty basic truths. (Though of course she’d deny them etc)
One wonders if post oil/brexit/covid she still believes in it.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE ministers are claiming that Johnson is *entirely* focused on the pandemic, also no one is denying he personally called newspaper editors to brief against Cummings
Good piece on Govanhill, part of Sturgeon’s constituency, maybe a little too nuanced and fact filled for yer average Scotch expert. Btw, thanks guys for Jayda Fransen, always there for when you just don’t have enough racist loonballs of your own (hilariously Fransen originally auto corrected to Frankenstein).
Sorry but a user here is saying they understand hardship because their grandmother was gifted an apartment
No. That’s not what I was saying. Try reading posts that making assumptions based on your prejudices.
1. My grandfather was required to live in Admiralty Arch for security reasons 2. This was in the mid 1950s 3. The flat hadn’t been decorated since before the war 4. The government allowance was risible 5. So she funded the refurbishment herself
I suspect few people on here have experience of living in government allocated accommodation so I thought it was a helpful perspective. There is no claim of understanding hardship as a result, and fortunately we could afford to pay for the update.
You did just try to say that you understand people living in council houses because your grandmother was given a flat
As @thetimesscot reports IFS research to show Scotland’s deficit is over £40bn (22-25% of GDP) a reminder Nicola Sturgeon pledges current spending plans would be guaranteed in independent Scotland. Also, over time, saving enough reserves to set up a new currency & join EU.
The SNP has no realistic response to any of these.
Abuse seems to be the default response of cybernats.
Watching Sturgeon on Marr was interesting, primarily because If how flustered Sturgeon was in the face of some pretty basic truths. (Though of course she’d deny them etc)
Most revealing about Johnson & his Downing St refurb - he wanted rid of Theresa May’s “John Lewis nightmare”. Most people consider John Lewis reliable, good value & upmarket. One of Britain’s favourite brands. #TorySleaze
As @thetimesscot reports IFS research to show Scotland’s deficit is over £40bn (22-25% of GDP) a reminder Nicola Sturgeon pledges current spending plans would be guaranteed in independent Scotland. Also, over time, saving enough reserves to set up a new currency & join EU.
The SNP has no realistic response to any of these.
Abuse seems to be the default response of cybernats.
Watching Sturgeon on Marr was interesting, primarily because If how flustered Sturgeon was in the face of some pretty basic truths. (Though of course she’d deny them etc)
I know that for politics geeks like us, the Cummings stuff is explosive. But is it for Joe Normal?
No, or not yet. I am trying to remember the course of the Tory sleaze surrounding the Major government. My suspicion is decorating the flat might have more cut-through, if and when we ever get the details, which is probably why we will not get the details.
Except it’s not his flat. It’s a government flat. I know that’s not a justification but it will put enough people off the scent.
Separately why are we so cheap with government property? Spending £250k on doing up a flat is not that much for a PM.
Only a supercilious rich Tory arse could come out with crap like that.
Top of the morning to you as well Malcolm
My point is that the PM does a high stress job. It is not unreasonable to expect the state to provide reasonable accommodation where they can relax. Penny pinching doesn’t really achieve much.
Good morning, He has Chequers for relaxing. The amount spent of other people's money is gross. If he wanted that much he should have requested it , not spent it and then used grift to pay for it. He is parsimonius with cash for poor people but thinks he can just splash the public's cash on himself, no excuse for it. The one room I saw was hideous and whoever ordered and designed it should be tarred and feathered and run out of town. Not only stealing public or Tory donated money but wasting it on hideous decorating and ruination of a perfectly good flat. For that alone he should be railroaded.
What room was that? The picture that TUD posted here was Twitter fake news. It was a flat belonging to someone else.
Sorry but a user here is saying they understand hardship because their grandmother was gifted an apartment
No. That’s not what I was saying. Try reading posts that making assumptions based on your prejudices.
1. My grandfather was required to live in Admiralty Arch for security reasons 2. This was in the mid 1950s 3. The flat hadn’t been decorated since before the war 4. The government allowance was risible 5. So she funded the refurbishment herself
I suspect few people on here have experience of living in government allocated accommodation so I thought it was a helpful perspective. There is no claim of understanding hardship as a result, and fortunately we could afford to pay for the update.
You did just try to say that you understand people living in council houses because your grandmother was given a flat
Nope. The criticism flung at me was that because there are crap council houses the PM should live in crap accommodation. I don’t think those are analogous (although council accommodation should be decent).
I did agree with @Dura_Ace that military accommodation is woeful
Most revealing about Johnson & his Downing St refurb - he wanted rid of Theresa May’s “John Lewis nightmare”. Most people consider John Lewis reliable, good value & upmarket. One of Britain’s favourite brands. #TorySleaze
Listening to Liz Truss on Marr she insists Boris has paid for the flat decorations
It occurs to me that she would not say that if it was untrue and maybe Boris and his advisors are planning a full on rebuttal just before Cummings appears on the 26th May
It would be good politics to take the rug from beneath him just before the meeting
Can we just repeat over and over. There is no evidence of corruption anywhere. Just wink wink nudges "that looks dodgy". If you do believe corruption has occurred report it to the Metropolitan police and they will investigate.
Most revealing about Johnson & his Downing St refurb - he wanted rid of Theresa May’s “John Lewis nightmare”. Most people consider John Lewis reliable, good value & upmarket. One of Britain’s favourite brands. #TorySleaze
Not everyone likes the same thing shocker. When i was younger i loved Ikea stuff, but now look for something more substantive. Some people like to furnish with laura ashley, and some couldnt think of anything worse. When you are a household pulling in £300k to £500k you might have more expensive tastes.
Sorry but a user here is saying they understand hardship because their grandmother was gifted an apartment
No. That’s not what I was saying. Try reading posts that making assumptions based on your prejudices.
1. My grandfather was required to live in Admiralty Arch for security reasons 2. This was in the mid 1950s 3. The flat hadn’t been decorated since before the war 4. The government allowance was risible 5. So she funded the refurbishment herself
I suspect few people on here have experience of living in government allocated accommodation so I thought it was a helpful perspective. There is no claim of understanding hardship as a result, and fortunately we could afford to pay for the update.
The mid fifties and it hadn't been redecorated since before the war. And how is this analogous to Johnson's situation? Was No 10 in a similar state of disrepair in 2019? Honestly Charles sometimes you just make yourself look silly.
Or maybe Theresa May's love for the austere 1950s had returned Downing St to its minimalist past?
Sorry but a user here is saying they understand hardship because their grandmother was gifted an apartment
No. That’s not what I was saying. Try reading posts that making assumptions based on your prejudices.
1. My grandfather was required to live in Admiralty Arch for security reasons 2. This was in the mid 1950s 3. The flat hadn’t been decorated since before the war 4. The government allowance was risible 5. So she funded the refurbishment herself
I suspect few people on here have experience of living in government allocated accommodation so I thought it was a helpful perspective. There is no claim of understanding hardship as a result, and fortunately we could afford to pay for the update.
The mid fifties and it hadn't been redecorated since before the war. And how is this analogous to Johnson's situation? Was No 10 in a similar state of disrepair in 2019? Honestly Charles sometimes you just make yourself look silly.
Or maybe Theresa May's love for the austere 1950s had returned Downing St to its minimalist past?
No it's that he said he understands what it is like to live in government-allocated accommodation (which is council housing to every normal person on the planet), despite: not living in it and; his grandmother being given a massive apartment for security reasons, not because they couldn't afford it. Totally similar to what thousands of people do every day when they to go to the council for help. Despite what many think, there is still a stigma attached to it. It can be incredibly demoralising and depressing having to seek help.
Some council properties are in desperate need of repair - if those people could afford to ask a friend for help like BoJo I am sure they wouldn't.
Then some drivel about decorating it being at their cost - I should bloody well hope so! - and you have one of the most ridiculous and condescending posts I've ever read on here.
Most revealing about Johnson & his Downing St refurb - he wanted rid of Theresa May’s “John Lewis nightmare”. Most people consider John Lewis reliable, good value & upmarket. One of Britain’s favourite brands. #TorySleaze
Trailing in the polls, Labour will accept the Cummings gift with open arms. Keir Starmer’s team was campaigning in Hartlepool on Friday when the fiasco unfolded. One constituent approached them with the greeting: “Have you seen that fucker Cummings is back?” Last week a party focus group with Brexit party voters also gave them hope the “sleaze” theme was actually cutting through.
Despite the absolute lack of sleaze or corruption. But i guess thats politics.
In the British system the crown is where we focus palaces, posh wallpaper, gold and glitz, the pm is not a president.
The pms job is to work away from all the tempting baubles that separate them from us. It is one of our systems key strengths.
The bottom line is the pm is paid enough to wallpaper a flat and should get on the it like the rest of us.
FWIW when my grandmother moved into admiralty arch it was absolutely hideous. The allowance was utter ridiculous. Fortunately she was able and rolling to refurbish it out of her own pocket but it is pathetic that we expect senior state executives to live in substandard accommodation
They expect millions to live in very substandard accommodation , who cannot afford to upgrade it from their ill gotten gains. Why should they expect the public to give them even more largesse than they filch already. Parasites.
The asset remains in public ownership. No one is being given anything.
A sensible compromise might be for government buildings to be decorated to a schedule by the estate managers, as opposed to allowing the incumbent occupant free rein over the design and fit out.
Most of the incumbents and their families won’t have much experience in Grade I refurbs, and don’t see where the money actually goes.
Possibly, although design should be left to the incumbent.
The issue will be - I suspect - that Carrie went for Farrer & Ball paint rather than doing what normal people doing and going to Homebase to colour match a sample pot
I bet a chunk of it went on someone to design and project manage and buy the stuff, their being too busy to do so themselves.
Farrow & Ball, to give it the correct name, has an attractive chalky matt appearance, if you dont mind having to paint four coats to get a decent finish. And if you so much as brush against it thereafter, you'll have a mark to repair or a patch of paint might simply drop off the wall.
Agreed - we match to their String colour
Yes, I can see that.
However we are currently trending to fewer deaths per pop than the EU average, so it will not
A smart opposition - Keir / Rishi etc - will continue to drip feed Boris sleaze stories over the next month. Keep the smoke blowing from the unseen fire so that even the strongest Boris fanbois have to admit there is a fire.
I ask this rather politely but have you been on that wonderful Scots whisky produced nearby
Not this morning!
To throw the question back at you, are you suggesting that Cumming *hasn't* got reams of evidence? He was notoriously running an information gathering operation, and is already reported taking the information to every meeting he went to.
He's got it, he'll use it. Hard for people to forgive the PM ignoring the science and killing their grandma.
That story won't be that clear imo.
When people look for context in 3 to 6 months, they will find us in the middle of the stats for big european countries.
Brexit politics will ensure that side also gets airtime, especially if EUCo are still punching random bystanders like an aggressive drunk in a pub brawl.
Considering the systematic under-reporting of deaths across much of Europe - and the over-reporting of deaths here - its almost certain that UK excess deaths will be below average not above it by the end of the day.
Deaths are not over reported here, particularly for the global comparison stats.
Most revealing about Johnson & his Downing St refurb - he wanted rid of Theresa May’s “John Lewis nightmare”. Most people consider John Lewis reliable, good value & upmarket. One of Britain’s favourite brands. #TorySleaze
Officials are close to finalising a deal to purchase tens of millions more doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in time for a third booster dose to be given to the elderly this autumn.
Government sources say they hope to roughly double the UK’s original order of 40 million jabs. If negotiations are successful, the extra stock may also be used for those in their twenties, who are be offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca jab.
The NHS will start inviting those in their thirties for vaccines by the end of this week.
Listening to Liz Truss on Marr she insists Boris has paid for the flat decorations
It occurs to me that she would not say that if it was untrue and maybe Boris and his advisors are planning a full on rebuttal just before Cummings appears on the 26th May
It would be good politics to take the rug from beneath him just before the meeting
I suspect he paid for it out of money that he was loaned or given. So it would be technically true to say that he paid for it out of his own pocket - but who put it in his pocket?
I do think the flat is a big distraction from much more serious accusations - the VIP list and the delay in lockdown. Johnson is probably happy with the focus on the flat because he knows it won't cut through with the public. Who cares.
With regards to any future lockdowns to protect the anti-vaxxers (and, to be fair, those who can’t be vaccinated), isn’t the issue that it’ll soon become apparent just how good the vaccines are?
There was that story a few days ago about just how few vaccinated people have been hospitalised. That got very little coverage in the press, but eventually the government will have to come clean about who exactly is still dying from COVID. Good luck getting the vaccinated to obey lockdown laws when they know that they’re fine.
Shows how divorced from reality and authoritarian that some people have become that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom not actually wanting to lock us down and strip us of our civil liberties is considered something to criticise him over.
A lockdown, a removal of civil liberties, should only ever be the last resort. Not something entered into lightly.
Should be criticised for ending it too late, not starting it too late.
Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark – in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' – in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers.
I did agree with @Dura_Ace that military accommodation is woeful
When I did my watchkeeping qualification on a T23 in the North Sea my berth was a mattress on top of three filing cabinets in close proximity to that of a junior engineering officer. The smell of his cock never failed to reach me on the many occasions throughout the night when he extracted it in order to pleasure himself.
Downing Street furiously denies that Mr Johnson made a graphic remark – in which he is said to have ruled out any more 'f****** lockdowns', regardless of the 'bodies' – in front of what are said to have been 'shocked' political and civil service advisers.
So presumably he ruled out flipping lockdown regardless of the bodies
With regards to any future lockdowns to protect the anti-vaxxers (and, to be fair, those who can’t be vaccinated), isn’t the issue that it’ll soon become apparent just how good the vaccines are?
There was that story a few days ago about just how few vaccinated people have been hospitalised. That got very little coverage in the press, but eventually the government will have to come clean about who exactly is still dying from COVID. Good luck getting the vaccinated to obey lockdown laws when they know that they’re fine.
Yep, we'll soon know if they're working as true vaccines or massively glorified prophylatics. The evidence suggests they do have a true vaccine effect but it's nowhere near the effectiveness that they have for preventing severe illness and death.
Shows how divorced from reality and authoritarian that some people have become that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom not actually wanting to lock us down and strip us of our civil liberties is considered something to criticise him over.
A lockdown, a removal of civil liberties, should only ever be the last resort. Not something entered into lightly.
Should be criticised for ending it too late, not starting it too late.
Comments
Jesus Christ, it has BEER written on the walls!
These people are embarrassing
And the fury and persistence of NIMBYs wanting to pull the ladder up should be treated with the same contempt as the same from the ESL Club owners wanting to do the same.
Let the free market rip.
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1386245441256296449?s=20
“We will keep trade flowing freely” @NicolaSturgeon tells Marr, while obvs struggling to explain how Scottish & UK firms would avoid customs & health checks & costs
Sturgeon quite comfortable lying about the trade-offs here; more like @BorisJohnson than she'd care to admit
https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1386249097259200517?s=20
https://twitter.com/transponderings/status/1386037185896386569
We're spoiled for choice on things to get upset about which the public is shrugging off at the moment. I come from an Army family and I think all of us would agree with this:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/24/britain-is-in-trouble-when-even-china-can-rightly-sneer-at-our-hypocrisy
The point is not that loads of soldiers are committing atrocities which are being ignored, but that ignoring the minority who do puts everyone else under suspicion. It's like being a Muslim after a terrorist atrocity or an Irishman after a Sinn Fein bomb - do you go round saying "It wasn't me, I think it's disgusting" or do you just hope nobody thinks it might be have been you?
What should happen and what does are not always the same.
The shops and pubs and airports would have been deserted if they had done so.
Our World In Data reported deaths is up to date, but it will be months before we have the excess figure for that. Given Italy has consistently under-reported excess deaths, its quite probable they're already well, well past the 118k sadly.
Let the market rip unregulated in the Peak District and the Lake District?
There will be an increasing dependence on interconnects, even across continents, to reduce the problem of intermittency. A key metric will be the marginal cost of local generation, and if it’s low enough, it will find buyers.
I stopped taking public transport 1 March 2020.
Started working from home and mandated it for the office a week later.
Number of deaths of people whose death certificate mentioned COVID-19 as one of the causes. is 150,841.
The death numbers coming out of India are a complete fairy tale
I'd say the traffic data gives a good idea how supported and consequently how effective each lockdown was - the law of diminishing returns applying.
On the second matter, you're clearly far more comfortable in viscerally criticising legislative actions of the British government than you are of far fouler offenders of human rights around the world.
I'll start listening to Chinese propaganda about us when you start challenging theirs about them.
The green belt is one of the great British achievements of the 20th century.
SE England is (largely) “green and pleasant” despite being the most populated corner of the most populated country in Europe.*
*Unless we’ve figured out finally that the Netherlands is more densely populated.
Firstly, lockdown is not a cost free option; quite the reverse. It is an extreme interference with peoples' liberty and the economy that should be used as a last resort and then sparingly.
Secondly, and this is the false premise on which the current critique is based, lockdowns do not of themselves save lives. That is not their purpose. Their purpose is to flatten peaks and protect the NHS. Once the lockdown is over the virus is still there, people still get sick and die. That is what the virus does. Pretending that we had more deaths in January than the virus would otherwise have caused over a different period is simply wrong, subject to:
Thirdly, vaccines have been the game changer. They mean that infections deferred will probably equal lives saved. That is why we have been in lockdown since Christmas. If we didn't have the vaccines we would have been out of lockdown months ago and people would once again be dying in significant numbers as we see across Europe where vaccination has been slower.
Arguing that Boris failed to lock down quickly enough and thus caused the January peak is a misconception. Did the NHS fall over in January? No. Mission accomplished. It is only this mission creep and the delusion that these deaths were preventable and would not be happening now but for our current lockdown that is driving this. Boris did not share that delusion. Cummings might have or he might have been genuinely concerned that the peak would be so high that the NHS would be in danger, I don't know.
Never been so quiet since. Certainly isn't now.
They all told me I was wrong and it would never happen, only me and a few others were right.
Anas Sarwar
Jackie Baillie
Monica Lennon
Sooner or later you'll make a big prediction (like I have done) which you'll get badly wrong, and then you'll look like a Muppet.
Sometimes you get it right. Sometimes you get it wrong. The best thing you can do is to make a fair prediction that takes account of error margins, and looks for betting value.
That way, you'll usually come out in profit in the long-term - which is the best form of "right" there is.
Deficit It doesn't exist, or the Scottish govt.statisticians are lying
Pensions rUK will pay
Currency Don't need one as everyone uses plastic these days anyway (yes, seriously)
Borders Job creation scheme (yes, seriously)
Pretty much all the problems in the government's strategy ultimately come back to their obsession about not restricting international travel.
The Tories lost dozens of Southern councils in 2019 because of overdevelopment to the LDs or NOC and will lose even more if they ignore local residents.
The issue is not a problem in the North or Midlands as they are far less densely populated than the south overall. Yes we need to build more affordable houses in the South where house prices are higher but in brownbelt land first.
Not all homeowners always vote Tory anyway, eg Blair won those with a mortgage in 1997 and 2001 and 2005 while those who vote LD locally can start voting LD nationally as they did from 1997 to 2010
To take only the most obvious example, one thing that seems to bring cases down very fast is shutting schools. Would it have killed them to bring the start of the Christmas holidays forward by ten days to achieve that?
And yet instead we had these civil servants and ministers threatening court action (illegally) to keep schools open even when half of their pupils had been forced to isolate.
Result - all schools off until March.
Stitch in time...
It’s good, in a way, that Johnson seems naturally resistant to such draconian measures, even though I’m worried he may have changed his mind given how slowly he’s reacting to improvements now. But it was a poor decision not to shut down early in December.
It is a perfectly acceptable point of view to question whether this is a good idea, especially to keep repeating it.
1. My grandfather was required to live in Admiralty Arch for security reasons
2. This was in the mid 1950s
3. The flat hadn’t been decorated since before the war
4. The government allowance was risible
5. So she funded the refurbishment herself
I suspect few people on here have experience of living in government allocated accommodation so I thought it was a helpful perspective. There is no claim of understanding hardship as a result, and fortunately we could afford to pay for the update.
Someone more flexible was needed.
Only 59.
Bloody plague.
It’s daft, for example, that they’re looking at adjusting school holidays now (while getting their basic maths wrong) and didn’t do so in July as a temporary measure. Contracts aside, a temporary variation for this year only could have been worked on as a safety measure.
It’s also daft that they pretended as late as January that public exams could still go ahead, when it was very obvious from October onwards that they couldn’t.
Result - no proper systems in place to deal with the situation and a repeat of last year nailed on.
@PickardJE
ministers are claiming that Johnson is *entirely* focused on the pandemic, also no one is denying he personally called newspaper editors to brief against Cummings
https://twitter.com/peteralanross/status/1386206847737245698?s=21
Get the Tories below 40% with depressed turnout and Labour only needs a few more points, a reverse 2005
Sympathies to you both.
https://twitter.com/BenPBradshaw/status/1386238865510477824?s=20
I know it reads like a tenuous connection but this man played an immense role in my family’s life.
Is on the front page of Vogue.
https://www.vogue.co.uk/news/article/alber-elbaz-has-died
I did agree with @Dura_Ace that military accommodation is woeful
It occurs to me that she would not say that if it was untrue and maybe Boris and his advisors are planning a full on rebuttal just before Cummings appears on the 26th May
It would be good politics to take the rug from beneath him just before the meeting
When you are a household pulling in £300k to £500k you might have more expensive tastes.
Why go to John Lewis when you can buy your stuff here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgysRim_zT4
Or maybe Theresa May's love for the austere 1950s had returned Downing St to its minimalist past?
Some council properties are in desperate need of repair - if those people could afford to ask a friend for help like BoJo I am sure they wouldn't.
Then some drivel about decorating it being at their cost - I should bloody well hope so! - and you have one of the most ridiculous and condescending posts I've ever read on here.
The Bradshaw / May look ?
Some of those will be people who died with COVID instead of from COVID. Hence why excess deaths are 20% lower.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/politics/61665.stm
And yet, nothing. I have heard nothing.
Zac is sounding oddly desperate with this
I'm sorry to hear about that.
Officials are close to finalising a deal to purchase tens of millions more doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in time for a third booster dose to be given to the elderly this autumn.
Government sources say they hope to roughly double the UK’s original order of 40 million jabs. If negotiations are successful, the extra stock may also be used for those in their twenties, who are be offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca jab.
The NHS will start inviting those in their thirties for vaccines by the end of this week.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/86ae6592-a46e-11eb-9808-bf328d2144aa?shareToken=efd957e989f815e0dc2411bbc0509dc4
I do think the flat is a big distraction from much more serious accusations - the VIP list and the delay in lockdown. Johnson is probably happy with the focus on the flat because he knows it won't cut through with the public. Who cares.
There was that story a few days ago about just how few vaccinated people have been hospitalised. That got very little coverage in the press, but eventually the government will have to come clean about who exactly is still dying from COVID. Good luck getting the vaccinated to obey lockdown laws when they know that they’re fine.
A lockdown, a removal of civil liberties, should only ever be the last resort. Not something entered into lightly.
Should be criticised for ending it too late, not starting it too late.
Via
@MoS_Politics
If Starmer is intelligent he will do nothing
https://twitter.com/ianbirrell/status/1386219364421091331?s=19
@MoS
No. Principles.