The Delta variant looks to be capable of getting measured infection rates to around 500 per 100k quite widely in both urban and rural bits of the North West, under current vaccination rates and restrictions. It has also shown quick geographic spread, the core high infection area runs inland from north of Lancaster to Leek and is creeping it's way coastward towards Merseyside now . Elsewhere it's more patchy and the same pattern hasn't been seen, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.
I think not only was there a very bad government miss in not restricting India sooner, and thus holding off the Delta wave a few weeks till vaccination rates were somewhat higher. I think the government was horribly complacent to think that the same track and trace that failed last summer could be deployed as the sole tool at the stage things had got to - rapid acceleration of vaccination very locally in Bolton/Blackburn could have suppressed the outward spread from source and provided a model for defeating Delta. Things could have looked rather different.
Bolton STILL lags the national rate for both first and second vaccinations by over 5% after over a month of this. I mean WTAF. There may still be lower uptake for some sections, but I hardly think they have run out of willing recipients. They just barely bothered, that's all there is to it.
And now there are just too many hotspots and not enough supply to run area vaccination in that same way. You would be chasing Delta not stopping it. Perhaps there is still merit in taking vaccination faster in certain areas, but it is less obviously so than when I proposed it in May.
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
Ultimately, as we saw with Patel, doesn't the PM alone decide what is a breach of the Ministerial Code. I think we know which way he might rule on this one, and indeed on everything viewed by others as a breach.
In the government's dealing with the Fachidioten of Sage and their reluctance to sanction relaxation of lockdown measures I am reminded of the Catch-22 that you're confronted with in everyday dealings with medics. You want to get off the pills that have been prescribed for blood pressure, blood sugar, cholererol etc so you present them with evidence that the measurements have improved. But they always counter that the improvements happened under medication and that just proves the value of the pills. The only way to come off them is to stop taking them and *then* demonstrate that the readings are satisfactory. The medics will not of course approve that course of action, so they make clear that on your own head be it. You have to take the bull by the horns. Same for the government vis à vis their advisors.
Why would what the doctor says not actually be the case? I was hungry. I ate food and the hunger went away, so obviously I no longer need food. Pills for all the things you mention usually manage rather than cure conditions.
The point is, the advisors are not inclined to recommend coming off the pills so it's up to the patient to make the decision by going against the advice. Same for govt vis à vis SAGE. As to your question why - the advisors have an interest in their reputations. And remember that it is among their peer group that that matters most. For them the less risky option is to continue the medication ( = lockdown), the known known, rather that agree to come off the pills/lockdown where there is a possibly small chance of exacerbating the disease/epidemic. The incentives for them imply they cannot be neutral.
The Delta variant looks to be capable of getting measured infection rates to around 500 per 100k quite widely in both urban and rural bits of the North West, under current vaccination rates and restrictions. It has also shown quick geographic spread, the core high infection area runs inland from north of Lancaster to Leek and is creeping it's way coastward towards Merseyside now . Elsewhere it's more patchy and the same pattern hasn't been seen, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.
I think not only was there a very bad government miss in not restricting India sooner, and thus holding off the Delta wave a few weeks till vaccination rates were somewhat higher. I think the government was horribly complacent to think that the same track and trace that failed last summer could be deployed as the sole tool at the stage things had got to - rapid acceleration of vaccination very locally in Bolton/Blackburn could have suppressed the outward spread from source and provided a model for defeating Delta. Things could have looked rather different.
Bolton STILL lags the national rate for both first and second vaccinations by over 5% after over a month of this. I mean WTAF. There may still be lower uptake for some sections, but I hardly think they have run out of willing recipients. They just barely bothered, that's all there is to it.
And now there are just too many hotspots and not enough supply to run area vaccination in that same way. You would be chasing Delta not stopping it. Perhaps there is still merit in taking vaccination faster in certain areas, but it is less obviously so than when I proposed it in May.
There have been surge vaccination places all over Bolton and Lancashire in general.
The national rate and local rate doesn't match up almost anywhere because the national rate uses ONS data (probably an underestimate) while the local data uses NIMS data (known to be an overestimate).
I’m afraid I still laugh out loud at the description of restrictions as “lockdown”. With the honourable exception of those working in the travel and hospitality industries, they really are no more than a minor inconvenience at this point.
I almost always normally agree with you but I'm afraid I can't disagree with you more here.
Even if they're only an inconvenience for those sectors, its worth noting that 10% of all British jobs are in hospitality alone, plus millions more related to travel (may be some overlap there). Plus of course the number of people who use hospitality or travel will be even more than that.
However philosophically and more significantly we must never allow these restrictions to be considered "normalised" or "light" and something and something that we can just brush off the state getting involved in. Its not the state's place or state's right to be dictating the things that it is and to be considering it anything other than lockdown hands a power to the dead hand of the state that I'm not prepared to see it have indefinitely.
It may be a very light touch lockdown compared to earlier in the pandemic, or other nations elsewhere earlier in the pandemic, but the depths of pandemic or totalitarian regimes isn't what we should be setting as our baseline. Our normal life is the baseline and we must not allow the state to lose sight of that.
I’m not saying that people aren’t affected, some quite considerably, by the current restrictions.
I’m primarily taking the papers to task for their usual catastrophisation of everything, and also noting that an awful lot of people are not particularly inconvenienced in their daily lives by the current level of restrictions in the UK.
Personally, I’m desparate for a return to normality - I’m stuck abroad, haven’t seen my parents in two years and have a young baby nephew I’ve never met. And I’ve had to return my ticket to the British Grand Prix, that was rolled over from 2020.
I also think they should have opened everything bar nightclubs yesterday. The hospitalisation data simply didn’t justify the continuation of restrictions.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
Rejected by the borough council. Beaten down in legal challenges it then gets picked up by the town council to defend against. 625 houses. With a single access road. On a flood plain. Secretary of State overrules the objections yet again, permission granted over the heads of both councils and all the residents. £150k donation to the Tory Party from the developer follows just days later.
Fighting housing battles against stupid developments like this is not NIMBYism. And in the case of Ledbury Town Council its £100k+ costs are critically damaging to a council with a £500k budget. Either we stand up for democracy and the rights of people to vote for what happens in their community or we have dictatorship. The NPPF rides roughshod over everyone, unless the council are allowing sufficient planning developments then the developers win by default.
The whole purpose in local representatives is to be representative. That means standing up to the billionaire property developers with friends in high places. "We have a large majority, we can do what we want" is Hailsham's Elective Dictatorship brought to life.
BiB: Good! Quite right too.
It doesn't go frankly far enough, I'd have the developers win by default even if the Council are allowing "sufficient" planning developments, but even if you only want "sufficient" planning developments which is a piddly target then what's your alternative? Councils don't allow sufficient developments and developers still lose by default?
PS if developers always won by default then there'd be no reason for the Secretary of State to overrule anyone since it would be automatically approved before it even reached his desk. So it seems that what you're objecting to would prevent what you started your post complaining about, it is merely the fact that permission is valuable and hard to obtain that causes the risk of corruption.
Has anyone ever done a proper root and branch analysis of the modelling on projections for housebuilding needs? It seems like there is a general acceptance of the numbers without a proper analysis of whether the assumptions used are valid.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
What we are seeing in Covid is that it is much more important that the government gets clear messages out to the general pubic direct with suitable expert support from the likes of Whitty and Valance than it is that they have some yah boo nonsense in the HoC that only obsessives like us pay much attention to. Governments have found the way to get unintermediated contact with the electorate and they love it. Nicola does the same as does Drakeford. Hoyle is deluding himself if he thinks that this is going to change for as long as the pandemic continues.
Governments love it because they can avoid scrutiny. The result is higher polling for Johnson, Sturgeon and Drakeford.
The UK government made several announcements yesterday. One was that they expected the UK's world-leading vaccination programme would slow to a crawl. No-one noticed. Even the FT - usually so good at this quantitative stuff - has this headline. (1/2) https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1404671632036278272/photo/1
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
The sad reality is that parliament rarely does its job of holding the government to account anyway, and will just rubber stamp what the government and party want. Open to be persuaded otherwise, but think on lockdown a press conference > parliament.
Although the current practice is media leaking > press conference > parliament.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
Rejected by the borough council. Beaten down in legal challenges it then gets picked up by the town council to defend against. 625 houses. With a single access road. On a flood plain. Secretary of State overrules the objections yet again, permission granted over the heads of both councils and all the residents. £150k donation to the Tory Party from the developer follows just days later.
Fighting housing battles against stupid developments like this is not NIMBYism. And in the case of Ledbury Town Council its £100k+ costs are critically damaging to a council with a £500k budget. Either we stand up for democracy and the rights of people to vote for what happens in their community or we have dictatorship. The NPPF rides roughshod over everyone, unless the council are allowing sufficient planning developments then the developers win by default.
The whole purpose in local representatives is to be representative. That means standing up to the billionaire property developers with friends in high places. "We have a large majority, we can do what we want" is Hailsham's Elective Dictatorship brought to life.
BiB: Good! Quite right too.
It doesn't go frankly far enough, I'd have the developers win by default even if the Council are allowing "sufficient" planning developments, but even if you only want "sufficient" planning developments which is a piddly target then what's your alternative? Councils don't allow sufficient developments and developers still lose by default?
PS if developers always won by default then there'd be no reason for the Secretary of State to overrule anyone since it would be automatically approved before it even reached his desk. So it seems that what you're objecting to would prevent what you started your post complaining about, it is merely the fact that permission is valuable and hard to obtain that causes the risk of corruption.
Has anyone ever done a proper root and branch analysis of the modelling on projections for housebuilding needs? It seems like there is a general acceptance of the numbers without a proper analysis of whether the assumptions used are valid.
This is why you should have a free market.
Take away the dead hand of the state and you don't need a "proper analysis" or "modelling" just let people decide for themselves where they want to live.
If someone wants land undeveloped they always have the option in a free market of buying it and not developing it. Whoever owns it gets to decide.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
Vallence and Whitty is a fair comment. Maybe I’d have had the PM in Parliament, with SoS Health and the two scientists giving public justification later.
I’m still of the opinion that Parliament should hear these things first, but governments have of course been doing what they do for decades. At least the current Speaker genuinely demands respect, in stark contrast to his predecessor.
The appropriate order is thus:
1. Publication of scientific advice 2. Announcement and questioning in Parliament 3. Public announcement (primarily for clarity of advice) 4. Substantive debate in Parliament as required
That’s democracy, folks. I know it doesn’t suit many on here.
The UK government made several announcements yesterday. One was that they expected the UK's world-leading vaccination programme would slow to a crawl. No-one noticed. Even the FT - usually so good at this quantitative stuff - has this headline. (1/2)
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
The Delta variant looks to be capable of getting measured infection rates to around 500 per 100k quite widely in both urban and rural bits of the North West, under current vaccination rates and restrictions. It has also shown quick geographic spread, the core high infection area runs inland from north of Lancaster to Leek and is creeping it's way coastward towards Merseyside now . Elsewhere it's more patchy and the same pattern hasn't been seen, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.
I think not only was there a very bad government miss in not restricting India sooner, and thus holding off the Delta wave a few weeks till vaccination rates were somewhat higher. I think the government was horribly complacent to think that the same track and trace that failed last summer could be deployed as the sole tool at the stage things had got to - rapid acceleration of vaccination very locally in Bolton/Blackburn could have suppressed the outward spread from source and provided a model for defeating Delta. Things could have looked rather different.
Bolton STILL lags the national rate for both first and second vaccinations by over 5% after over a month of this. I mean WTAF. There may still be lower uptake for some sections, but I hardly think they have run out of willing recipients. They just barely bothered, that's all there is to it.
And now there are just too many hotspots and not enough supply to run area vaccination in that same way. You would be chasing Delta not stopping it. Perhaps there is still merit in taking vaccination faster in certain areas, but it is less obviously so than when I proposed it in May.
But despite that Bolton's infection rate peaked at lower than it did in October and has been slowly falling for almost a month.
The problem with surge vaccinations is that it takes weeks for them to become effective and you risk wasting them unless the people newly vaccinated modify their behaviour until the effect kicks in.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
I do not disagree but it did not happen and there were exceptional circumstances
I’m afraid I still laugh out loud at the description of restrictions as “lockdown”. With the honourable exception of those working in the travel and hospitality industries, they really are no more than a minor inconvenience at this point.
I almost always normally agree with you but I'm afraid I can't disagree with you more here.
Even if they're only an inconvenience for those sectors, its worth noting that 10% of all British jobs are in hospitality alone, plus millions more related to travel (may be some overlap there). Plus of course the number of people who use hospitality or travel will be even more than that.
However philosophically and more significantly we must never allow these restrictions to be considered "normalised" or "light" and something and something that we can just brush off the state getting involved in. Its not the state's place or state's right to be dictating the things that it is and to be considering it anything other than lockdown hands a power to the dead hand of the state that I'm not prepared to see it have indefinitely.
It may be a very light touch lockdown compared to earlier in the pandemic, or other nations elsewhere earlier in the pandemic, but the depths of pandemic or totalitarian regimes isn't what we should be setting as our baseline. Our normal life is the baseline and we must not allow the state to lose sight of that.
I’m not saying that people aren’t affected, some quite considerably, by the current restrictions.
I’m primarily taking the papers to task for their usual catastrophisation of everything, and also noting that an awful lot of people are not particularly inconvenienced in their daily lives by the current level of restrictions in the UK.
Personally, I’m desparate for a return to normality - I’m stuck abroad, haven’t seen my parents in two years and have a young baby nephew I’ve never met. And I’ve had to return my ticket to the British Grand Prix, that was rolled over from 2020.
I also think they should have opened everything bar nightclubs yesterday. The hospitalisation data simply didn’t justify the continuation of restrictions.
It's not the data that's the issue - it's the fear that we open up and then have to lock down again.
At the moment, there is justification (within the original timetable) to delay things. If you opened up and hospitalisation figures increased to the extent that another lockdown (of any form) was required things would be rather problematic.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
Wasn’t the PM speaking from Downing St?
If he can get back from his other commitments to Downing St, he can surely get back to Parliament?
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
I do not disagree but it did not happen and there were exceptional circumstances
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
That's a discussion of confused reporting in the FT. The headline in the FT is unclear, and even that is different from the statements in the article. 2/3 of the adult pop is not 28m.
Round and round the cherry tree, on a warm and summer morning...
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
Considering it wasn't unexpected, I wonder why the Speaker only realised the public would be told first yesterday.
The Downing Street Press Conference is always 6pm. The PM was never going to be back in Parliament before 6pm.
Seems weird nobody put 2 & 2 together before yesterday.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
What we are seeing in Covid is that it is much more important that the government gets clear messages out to the general pubic direct with suitable expert support from the likes of Whitty and Valance than it is that they have some yah boo nonsense in the HoC that only obsessives like us pay much attention to. Governments have found the way to get unintermediated contact with the electorate and they love it. Nicola does the same as does Drakeford. Hoyle is deluding himself if he thinks that this is going to change for as long as the pandemic continues.
Governments love it because they can avoid scrutiny. The result is higher polling for Johnson, Sturgeon and Drakeford.
So yeah, it’s great for fans of one-party states.
I don't disagree. It is notable how so many in positions of authority did well in the latest round of elections as a result. It becomes increasingly difficult for oppositions to be heard. I just think that it is irresistible to ministers of whatever government.
I’m afraid I still laugh out loud at the description of restrictions as “lockdown”. With the honourable exception of those working in the travel and hospitality industries, they really are no more than a minor inconvenience at this point.
I almost always normally agree with you but I'm afraid I can't disagree with you more here.
Even if they're only an inconvenience for those sectors, its worth noting that 10% of all British jobs are in hospitality alone, plus millions more related to travel (may be some overlap there). Plus of course the number of people who use hospitality or travel will be even more than that.
However philosophically and more significantly we must never allow these restrictions to be considered "normalised" or "light" and something and something that we can just brush off the state getting involved in. Its not the state's place or state's right to be dictating the things that it is and to be considering it anything other than lockdown hands a power to the dead hand of the state that I'm not prepared to see it have indefinitely.
It may be a very light touch lockdown compared to earlier in the pandemic, or other nations elsewhere earlier in the pandemic, but the depths of pandemic or totalitarian regimes isn't what we should be setting as our baseline. Our normal life is the baseline and we must not allow the state to lose sight of that.
I’m not saying that people aren’t affected, some quite considerably, by the current restrictions.
I’m primarily taking the papers to task for their usual catastrophisation of everything, and also noting that an awful lot of people are not particularly inconvenienced in their daily lives by the current level of restrictions in the UK.
Personally, I’m desparate for a return to normality - I’m stuck abroad, haven’t seen my parents in two years and have a young baby nephew I’ve never met. And I’ve had to return my ticket to the British Grand Prix, that was rolled over from 2020.
I also think they should have opened everything bar nightclubs yesterday. The hospitalisation data simply didn’t justify the continuation of restrictions.
It's not the data that's the issue - it's the fear that we open up and then have to lock down again.
At the moment, there is justification (within the original timetable) to delay things. If you opened up and hospitalisation figures increased to the extent that another lockdown (of any form) was required things would be rather problematic.
I really don't understand this fear.
Why is life better if we stay in restricted mode (if lockdown offends) indefinitely, than have 3 months of fewer restrictions over the summer, which may indeed lead us straight back to normality, but if not leads us back to restricted mode?
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
What we are seeing in Covid is that it is much more important that the government gets clear messages out to the general pubic direct with suitable expert support from the likes of Whitty and Valance than it is that they have some yah boo nonsense in the HoC that only obsessives like us pay much attention to. Governments have found the way to get unintermediated contact with the electorate and they love it. Nicola does the same as does Drakeford. Hoyle is deluding himself if he thinks that this is going to change for as long as the pandemic continues.
Governments love it because they can avoid scrutiny. The result is higher polling for Johnson, Sturgeon and Drakeford.
So yeah, it’s great for fans of one-party states.
I don't disagree. It is notable how so many in positions of authority did well in the latest round of elections as a result. It becomes increasingly difficult for oppositions to be heard. I just think that it is irresistible to ministers of whatever government.
It is. It also explains (to some extent) Ardern’s astonishing landslide victory in NZ last year.
But, it is clearly detrimental to democratic process.
We spend a lot of time on here, rightly, worrying about the ongoing restriction in our personal liberties, but we are also witnessing impairment to our democratic systems.
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
There should be a German compound noun for the feeling of: watching your government make a terrible, obvious, lethally stupid and easily avoidable mistake. Dasindianvariantscheiss will have to do for now
Wasn’t Hoyle’s anger more about the excuse given that “no decision had been taken” and then finding that there was an embargoed report of all the decisions that had been taken whilst he was being lied to?
The Delta variant looks to be capable of getting measured infection rates to around 500 per 100k quite widely in both urban and rural bits of the North West, under current vaccination rates and restrictions. It has also shown quick geographic spread, the core high infection area runs inland from north of Lancaster to Leek and is creeping it's way coastward towards Merseyside now . Elsewhere it's more patchy and the same pattern hasn't been seen, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.
I think not only was there a very bad government miss in not restricting India sooner, and thus holding off the Delta wave a few weeks till vaccination rates were somewhat higher. I think the government was horribly complacent to think that the same track and trace that failed last summer could be deployed as the sole tool at the stage things had got to - rapid acceleration of vaccination very locally in Bolton/Blackburn could have suppressed the outward spread from source and provided a model for defeating Delta. Things could have looked rather different.
Bolton STILL lags the national rate for both first and second vaccinations by over 5% after over a month of this. I mean WTAF. There may still be lower uptake for some sections, but I hardly think they have run out of willing recipients. They just barely bothered, that's all there is to it.
And now there are just too many hotspots and not enough supply to run area vaccination in that same way. You would be chasing Delta not stopping it. Perhaps there is still merit in taking vaccination faster in certain areas, but it is less obviously so than when I proposed it in May.
Which would have been another reason for the travel restrictions on India. With fewer centres of infection, a ring vaccination strategy might have worked.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
What we are seeing in Covid is that it is much more important that the government gets clear messages out to the general pubic direct with suitable expert support from the likes of Whitty and Valance than it is that they have some yah boo nonsense in the HoC that only obsessives like us pay much attention to. Governments have found the way to get unintermediated contact with the electorate and they love it. Nicola does the same as does Drakeford. Hoyle is deluding himself if he thinks that this is going to change for as long as the pandemic continues.
Governments love it because they can avoid scrutiny. The result is higher polling for Johnson, Sturgeon and Drakeford.
So yeah, it’s great for fans of one-party states.
I don't disagree. It is notable how so many in positions of authority did well in the latest round of elections as a result. It becomes increasingly difficult for oppositions to be heard. I just think that it is irresistible to ministers of whatever government.
It is. It also explains (to some extent) Ardern’s astonishing landslide victory in NZ last year.
But, it is clearly detrimental to democratic process.
We spend a lot of time on here, rightly, worrying about the ongoing restriction in our personal liberties, but we are also witnessing impairment to our democratic systems.
Not really.
There is often a "cling to nurse" factor during crises but that can often be rapidly overturned or even end up in the opposite if the crisis is mishandled or drags on in a way the public lose patience with.
Don't forget in the financial crisis there was an initial cling to nurse effect in polls, helping Browns bounce "no time for a novice" but in the end effectively every major western democracy apart from Germany saw the government tossed out. Even Germany had only relatively recently seen a change in government too.
Within about a five year span from 2005 I believe every major western democracy on the planet tossed out it's government.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
Considering it wasn't unexpected, I wonder why the Speaker only realised the public would be told first yesterday.
The Downing Street Press Conference is always 6pm. The PM was never going to be back in Parliament before 6pm.
Seems weird nobody put 2 & 2 together before yesterday.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
Considering it wasn't unexpected, I wonder why the Speaker only realised the public would be told first yesterday.
The Downing Street Press Conference is always 6pm. The PM was never going to be back in Parliament before 6pm.
Seems weird nobody put 2 & 2 together before yesterday.
That sounds like an excuse to me. There's nothing immutable about having the press conference at 18:00. Also he wasn't agreeing a trade deal with the Australian PM last night. It would have been drafted by civil servants well in advance of a formal dinner.
Even so if yesterday had been the only time Boris blew off the Commons then I'm sure Hoyle would have let it go. Boris has shown consistent contempt for Parliament so why should yesterday be motivated by anything else?
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
With target easily exceeded, pompoms out, Boris saves the day.
The last sentence is completely wrong. The Gov'ts remaining targets are ludicrously easy, particularly the second dose one and imply a slowdown of the rollout.
An LD victory in C&A would be very welcome in that I can’t see anything else shaking this government out of its complacency, but unfortunately I really can’t see it happening.
Looking at the actual submissions from the modellers, I think there's a fundamental outlook mismatch between the modellers and the newspapers/media.
Modellers: - There are numerous uncertain variables. This is the most plausible range that have been given to us for most of these variables. These are the outcomes if variable A is in this range, or in this range, or in this range. These are the outcomes if variable B is in this range, or in this range, or in this range. Etc. - If we see the outcome in [insert range], it implies the variables are [insert conclusion] which would lead to further travel as per this line, unless something else changes. - If we see the outcome above [insert range], it implies the variables are above the range submitted as plausible, and this should be taken into account - If we see the outcome below [insert range], it implies the variable are below the range submitted as plausible, and this should be take into account - In the current situation with Delta, the plausible ranges for the variables are so wide with the information provided that any outcome from considerably worse than January to considerably lower than January are completely plausible. Your call.
Media: - How can we extract something from all that to gain attention? What can cause outrage and fear?
Public: - Those stupid modellers are coming out with outrageous and frightening predictions that never come true!
On topic I think the conservative press generally are attempting to keep up pressure on Boris to unlock on the 19th July and it is understandable, especially as the nation seem to be overwhelmingly pro lockdown
I was listening to 5 live this morning and Adam Fleming responded to the presenters scepticism by saying that he had read all the information released after Boris's press conference and was quite reassured that in the documents from the scientists and sage there was general agreement to lifting restrictions on the 19th July, and he named Whitty and Valance''s contributions in these papers as very positive
Furthermore, can we just admit we are far away from those dark days of lockdown and we seem to be living more freely and I expect that the adjustments to weddings will see in practice more normal weddings, as I do not think many will comply once the wine stays to flow
And on Boris, yes he is annoying and unpredictable, lacks compliance with rules, and generally is a 'red rag to a bull' to his opponents but he does seem to be the politician nearest to the public and I have no doubt whatsoever he hates these restrictions and will remove them far quicker than the 'zero covid' disciples of Sturgeon and Drakeford, and in the later case is threatening those of us in Wales with restrictions lasting into 2022
Wasn’t Hoyle’s anger more about the excuse given that “no decision had been taken” and then finding that there was an embargoed report of all the decisions that had been taken whilst he was being lied to?
Yep - the issue is that the decision was clearly made on Thursday / Friday last week with all the press prepped yet Parliament was then told no decision had been made.
The question really is when over the weekend could Boris have had a Cabinet discussion given this week's schedule.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
I think what really p*ssed Hoyle off was he was told "no decision has been taken" then he found out that the media had an embargoed copy of the decision. He was lied to by Downing St, pure and simple.
thing is.... where will the DM and Telegraph go? Bit like Mandelson's comments about northern red wall voters, unless I am mistaken Farage has lost his mojo... so it'll be the Tory backbenchers that BJ needs to worry about.
As Labour have disappeared into a ferret sack, its not about a change of party. It IS though about a change of government. The Telegraph and the Heil could push very hard the agenda of the unhappy backbenchers and thus speed along Shagger's removal and replacement by someone with a brain.
Not going to happen.
It *should* happen. Tories really should be bothered by crap government and impropriety. That you aren't is rather a stain on the party and its members.
On topic I think the conservative press generally are attempting to keep up pressure on Boris to unlock on the 19th July and it is understandable, especially as the nation seem to be overwhelmingly pro lockdown
I was listening to 5 live this morning and Adam Fleming responded to the presenters scepticism by saying that he had read all the information released after Boris's press conference and was quite reassured that in the documents from the scientists and sage there was general agreement to lifting restrictions on the 19th July, and he named Whitty and Valance''s contributions in these papers as very positive
Furthermore, can we just admit we are far away from those dark days of lockdown and we seem to be living more freely and I expect that the adjustments to weddings will see in practice more normal weddings, as I do not think many will comply once the wine stays to flow
And on Boris, yes he is annoying and unpredictable, lacks compliance with rules, and generally is a 'red rag to a bull' to his opponents but he does seem to be the politician nearest to the public and I have no doubt whatsoever he hates these restrictions and will remove them far quicker than the 'zero covid' disciples of Sturgeon and Drakeford, and in the later case is threatening those of us in Wales with restrictions lasting into 2022
1. Public in favour of lockdowns 2. Boris aligned with public 3. Boris hates lockdowns
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
With target easily exceeded, pompoms out, Boris saves the day.
The last sentence is completely wrong. The Gov'ts remaining targets are ludicrously easy, particularly the second dose one and imply a slowdown of the rollout.
Or its expectations management - announce a low target and surpass it easily.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
There should be a German compound noun for the feeling of: watching your government make a terrible, obvious, lethally stupid and easily avoidable mistake. Dasindianvariantscheiss will have to do for now
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
If Delta is such a threat why aren't European countries bringing in restrictions before it increases there ?
The France one has always astonished me. The number of Covid patients they have had in the past 15 months has been so much higher than the UK, often by a magnitude of 10 at certain times, but their deaths are lower than ours?
Looking at the actual submissions from the modellers, I think there's a fundamental outlook mismatch between the modellers and the newspapers/media.
Modellers: - There are numerous uncertain variables. This is the most plausible range that have been given to us for most of these variables. These are the outcomes if variable A is in this range, or in this range, or in this range. These are the outcomes if variable B is in this range, or in this range, or in this range. Etc. - If we see the outcome in [insert range], it implies the variables are [insert conclusion] which would lead to further travel as per this line, unless something else changes. - If we see the outcome above [insert range], it implies the variables are above the range submitted as plausible, and this should be taken into account - If we see the outcome below [insert range], it implies the variable are below the range submitted as plausible, and this should be take into account - In the current situation with Delta, the plausible ranges for the variables are so wide with the information provided that any outcome from considerably worse than January to considerably lower than January are completely plausible. Your call.
Media: - How can we extract something from all that to gain attention? What can cause outrage and fear?
Public: - Those stupid modellers are coming out with outrageous and frightening predictions that never come true!
You forgot this vital media question -
"If you use a an alien dimension warping device, as used to deliver custom flint objects at hypersonic speed at sea level, your tent will have 8 sides in 11 dimensions. How many sides need to be open?"
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
Each time you make these allegations I suggest you provide evidence. Or make a report to the police.
The fact that you never do tells me that you prefer to smear from the shadows
I am reporting The Times. The facts are as reported and not being contested. I am very confident that the donations are on the legal side of the line. My point is that it is improper for your party to be seen accepting such donations. You can sit there and sneer if you feel morally comfortable with your party taking a £150k donation from a developer days after overruling local councils plural in favour of the developer. That is your call.
The proper Conservative Party wouldn't have accepted that kind of donation. What sever has it and its members sunk into?
There should be a German compound noun for the feeling of: watching your government make a terrible, obvious, lethally stupid and easily avoidable mistake. Dasindianvariantscheiss will have to do for now
If Delta is such a threat why aren't European countries bringing in restrictions before it increases there ?
The France one has always astonished me. The number of Covid patients they have had in the past 15 months has been so much higher than the UK, often by a magnitude of 10 at certain times, but their deaths are lower than ours?
I think they report on probables as well as confirmed whereas England, Scotland and NI report on confirmed cases. It's stupid because all it needs is a PCR test on all incoming patients which takes no time at all. It's clinically the right thing to do as you don't want to put probable COVID patients in with confirmed ones as they might not have it and then catch it.
If Delta is such a threat why aren't European countries bringing in restrictions before it increases there ?
The France one has always astonished me. The number of Covid patients they have had in the past 15 months has been so much higher than the UK, often by a magnitude of 10 at certain times, but their deaths are lower than ours?
The answer is possibly that the NHS is not as good as the majority of Brits thinks it is. In reality it is the British Rail of healthcare. Have what your given, be immensely grateful, and don't you dare complain.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
I do not disagree but it did not happen and there were exceptional circumstances
An argument that may pass if this was a first offence. It is not. The Prime Minister and his government have repeatedly held the Commons in contempt, the Speaker is fed up with it and I assume will now seek sanctions.
You excuse it all you like. I have to ask - is there anything this government could do that you wouldn't excuse?
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
Each time you make these allegations I suggest you provide evidence. Or make a report to the police.
The fact that you never do tells me that you prefer to smear from the shadows
I am reporting The Times. The facts are as reported and not being contested. I am very confident that the donations are on the legal side of the line. My point is that it is improper for your party to be seen accepting such donations. You can sit there and sneer if you feel morally comfortable with your party taking a £150k donation from a developer days after overruling local councils plural in favour of the developer. That is your call.
The proper Conservative Party wouldn't have accepted that kind of donation. What sever has it and its members sunk into?
It is how Tories work, of course they are happy with bungs.
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
With target easily exceeded, pompoms out, Boris saves the day.
The last sentence is completely wrong. The Gov'ts remaining targets are ludicrously easy, particularly the second dose one and imply a slowdown of the rollout.
But rollout could well slow down from here.
Our current vaccination rate is roughly made up of AZ for second doses on forty and fiftysomethings and Pfizer + Moderna for first doses on younger people.
Until something else is approved and delivered, or the second Pfizer order starts, that's it, because that's what we've got. And the AZ programme hasn't got that many more arms to jab.
If Delta is such a threat why aren't European countries bringing in restrictions before it increases there ?
The France one has always astonished me. The number of Covid patients they have had in the past 15 months has been so much higher than the UK, often by a magnitude of 10 at certain times, but their deaths are lower than ours?
I think they report on probables as well as confirmed whereas England, Scotland and NI report on confirmed cases. It's stupid because all it needs is a PCR test on all incoming patients which takes no time at all. It's clinically the right thing to do as you don't want to put probable COVID patients in with confirmed ones as they might not have it and then catch it.
That's an interesting strategy, perhaps Handgel could have suggested that in March last year when he was packing the care homes with death?
If the PM had not announced any easing of restrictions yesterday then he would be in more trouble, as it is having announced no limit on wedding guests provided social distancing is in place, albeit with indoor dancing still banned, he should be able to avoid too much damage provided the delay to Freedom Day is not prolonged beyond July 19th.
The size of the ReformUK voteshare on Thursday will be an indicator of any impact
I'm reading Michael Klarman's magisterial account of the process which led to the US Constitution. The framers originally favoured three year terms for the legislature. I think that might not be such a bad idea for the UK. It is, after all, what Britain had after the Restoration.
Sinn Féin has told the UK government it should legislate for the Irish language through Westminster to resolve a Stormont split on the issue...
She said Sinn Féin had declined an earlier offer from the UK government to legislate at Westminster because its preference was for the matter to be dealt with at Stormont.
I see though that once again the political parties in Northern Ireland are showing their complete arrogance, DUP and SF as bad as one another. They repeatedly act like petty little children whenever they feel it is time for a spat, and demand they and the public there be treated as if they are made of glass whilst walking on eggshells, but simultaneously moan about not being taken seriously or other butting in (or not butting in, depending on the issue).
I'd say the public are ill served but they keep choosing them, and too many fall back on reactionary 'you just don't get Northern Ireland' stuff to justify poor behaviour.
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
With target easily exceeded, pompoms out, Boris saves the day.
The last sentence is completely wrong. The Gov'ts remaining targets are ludicrously easy, particularly the second dose one and imply a slowdown of the rollout.
But rollout could well slow down from here.
Our current vaccination rate is roughly made up of AZ for second doses on forty and fiftysomethings and Pfizer + Moderna for first doses on younger people.
Until something else is approved and delivered, or the second Pfizer order starts, that's it, because that's what we've got. And the AZ programme hasn't got that many more arms to jab.
It's still got the vast majority of 40+ second doses to get through so that's about 5-7m more at least but after that, yes it's Pfizer and Moderna. The government made a very big error in not ordering much more of both in March when the second orders were open for existing clients. We only got 60m of Pfizer when we should have bought 100m of Pfizer and 50m of Moderna split between 50% existing formulation and 50% reformulated.
It's going to cost us the summer because the scientists are now trying to shift the nation to an elimination strategy and the politicians are meekly agreeing becuase they're clueless wankers.
The other option is to give Novavax an emergency use authorisation based on the submitted data which is already more than what we had for Pfizer when they received it. That would give us access to 10m+ doses of vaccine substance immediately for fill and finish (and possibly 2m for immediate delivery as they have already been done).
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
I do not disagree but it did not happen and there were exceptional circumstances
An argument that may pass if this was a first offence. It is not. The Prime Minister and his government have repeatedly held the Commons in contempt, the Speaker is fed up with it and I assume will now seek sanctions.
You excuse it all you like. I have to ask - is there anything this government could do that you wouldn't excuse?
I am content with HMG at present, and the question opponents need to ask is why are they not cutting through and persuading the populace to their cause
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
What we are seeing in Covid is that it is much more important that the government gets clear messages out to the general pubic direct with suitable expert support from the likes of Whitty and Valance than it is that they have some yah boo nonsense in the HoC that only obsessives like us pay much attention to. Governments have found the way to get unintermediated contact with the electorate and they love it. Nicola does the same as does Drakeford. Hoyle is deluding himself if he thinks that this is going to change for as long as the pandemic continues.
Governments love it because they can avoid scrutiny. The result is higher polling for Johnson, Sturgeon and Drakeford.
So yeah, it’s great for fans of one-party states.
I don't disagree. It is notable how so many in positions of authority did well in the latest round of elections as a result. It becomes increasingly difficult for oppositions to be heard. I just think that it is irresistible to ministers of whatever government.
It is. It also explains (to some extent) Ardern’s astonishing landslide victory in NZ last year.
But, it is clearly detrimental to democratic process.
We spend a lot of time on here, rightly, worrying about the ongoing restriction in our personal liberties, but we are also witnessing impairment to our democratic systems.
Not really.
There is often a "cling to nurse" factor during crises but that can often be rapidly overturned or even end up in the opposite if the crisis is mishandled or drags on in a way the public lose patience with.
Don't forget in the financial crisis there was an initial cling to nurse effect in polls, helping Browns bounce "no time for a novice" but in the end effectively every major western democracy apart from Germany saw the government tossed out. Even Germany had only relatively recently seen a change in government too.
Within about a five year span from 2005 I believe every major western democracy on the planet tossed out it's government.
Nope.
What is new is that our democratic conventions are interacting with pandemic restrictions in new and unhealthy ways.
Leaders are monopolising the “bully pulpit” afforded by the crisis and thereby dominating media communications in a way we have not seen before.
This was ok, perhaps, when the crisis was thought to be “over by Christmas”, but we are now nearly 18 months into this thing.
Keir is useless, but this issue is probably worth 5%+ to the governing party.
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
With target easily exceeded, pompoms out, Boris saves the day.
The last sentence is completely wrong. The Gov'ts remaining targets are ludicrously easy, particularly the second dose one and imply a slowdown of the rollout.
But rollout could well slow down from here.
Our current vaccination rate is roughly made up of AZ for second doses on forty and fiftysomethings and Pfizer + Moderna for first doses on younger people.
Until something else is approved and delivered, or the second Pfizer order starts, that's it, because that's what we've got. And the AZ programme hasn't got that many more arms to jab.
If we look at England, use NIMS data and aim for 90% first/second, as of the 10th June release we have
to go, until all adults are done. Which addd up to 8.6 million dosses required for over 40s - for England only. So well over 9 million for the whole country.
I'm reading Michael Klarman's magisterial account of the process which led to the US Constitution. The framers originally favoured three year terms for the legislature. I think that might not be such a bad idea for the UK. It is, after all, what Britain had after the Restoration.
We have this in NZ, but we also don’t have an Upper House.
If Delta is such a threat why aren't European countries bringing in restrictions before it increases there ?
The France one has always astonished me. The number of Covid patients they have had in the past 15 months has been so much higher than the UK, often by a magnitude of 10 at certain times, but their deaths are lower than ours?
If it's down to admissions criteria, it would make sense. One would hope that treating a higher proportion of cases in hospital would lead to better outcomes.
Looking at France's all causes deaths data, there's no sign of a huge number of bodies being hidden off the books, so to speak.
If Delta is such a threat why aren't European countries bringing in restrictions before it increases there ?
The France one has always astonished me. The number of Covid patients they have had in the past 15 months has been so much higher than the UK, often by a magnitude of 10 at certain times, but their deaths are lower than ours?
The answer is possibly that the NHS is not as good as the majority of Brits thinks it is. In reality it is the British Rail of healthcare. Have what your given, be immensely grateful, and don't you dare complain.
It may well be very good, and individually people are happy to moan about some of its failings. But consider if a politician were to suggest there were major problems and didn't suggest that the cause of which was a lack of money, and imagine how a lot of people would react, emotionally and viscerally.
Our attitude to the NHS is not helpful or healthy.
I’m afraid I still laugh out loud at the description of restrictions as “lockdown”. With the honourable exception of those working in the travel and hospitality industries, they really are no more than a minor inconvenience at this point.
Very good point. My life is currently impacted on be being made to wear a mask in shops, and in corridors and in the lab at work. I also strongly suspect most people are not abiding by no more than 6 people inside.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
I do not disagree but it did not happen and there were exceptional circumstances
An argument that may pass if this was a first offence. It is not. The Prime Minister and his government have repeatedly held the Commons in contempt, the Speaker is fed up with it and I assume will now seek sanctions.
You excuse it all you like. I have to ask - is there anything this government could do that you wouldn't excuse?
If Delta is such a threat why aren't European countries bringing in restrictions before it increases there ?
The France one has always astonished me. The number of Covid patients they have had in the past 15 months has been so much higher than the UK, often by a magnitude of 10 at certain times, but their deaths are lower than ours?
If it's down to admissions criteria, it would make sense. One would hope that treating a higher proportion of cases in hospital would lead to better outcomes.
Looking at France's all causes deaths data, there's no sign of a huge number of bodies being hidden off the books, so to speak.
The answer is probably in the profile of elderly people in France vs the UK.
And in a few years complaining when they can’t get the service that their permanent home existence requires.
No it will be cases of discrimination against permanent WFHers who are finding that decisons are made by people who are in the room.
When I worked in a big office before the pandemic I would say that 95% of my interactions were by email and phone. I sat with my immediate team and I might have wandered over to the other team clusters on the same floor if I needed something really urgent. Beyond that if a decision was being made on another floor my input would have been by email.
Everyone in my organisation is saying how much they're looking forward to going back to the office and working together in person again. In the back of my mind I think we might be surprised by how little we actually interacted with each other before the pandemic.
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
With target easily exceeded, pompoms out, Boris saves the day.
The last sentence is completely wrong. The Gov'ts remaining targets are ludicrously easy, particularly the second dose one and imply a slowdown of the rollout.
But rollout could well slow down from here.
Our current vaccination rate is roughly made up of AZ for second doses on forty and fiftysomethings and Pfizer + Moderna for first doses on younger people.
Until something else is approved and delivered, or the second Pfizer order starts, that's it, because that's what we've got. And the AZ programme hasn't got that many more arms to jab.
If we look at England, use NIMS data and aim for 90% first/second, as of the 10th June release we have
to go, until all adults are done. Which addd up to 8.6 million dosses required for over 40s - for England only. So well over 9 million for the whole country.
Not all of them will have had AZ first doses, but then some 35+ that I know got AZ before it was removed for under 40s.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
There you go again! That is obviously the approved line from your Tory Party bosses.
The Lib Dems are not opposed to building. But Lib Dems are very much opposed to having decisions taken by a small clique around Johnson, who think they can dictate policy and impose it on the rest of us. Especially, of course, when bribery and corruption are also involved.
From what I have read about the C & A campaign, local people do not take kindly to being bossed about and told what they must do. I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London, who are set on arranging for their powerful donors to make immense fortunes. And it appears that a lot of people in the constituency agree with the Liberal Democrat approach.
"I for my part most certainly want planning and development near me to be decided locally, not by a gang of incompetents in London".
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
So you have no substantive response to @RochdalePioneers’s point, which is that local decisions should be made locally.
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
I'm reading Michael Klarman's magisterial account of the process which led to the US Constitution. The framers originally favoured three year terms for the legislature. I think that might not be such a bad idea for the UK. It is, after all, what Britain had after the Restoration.
We have this in NZ, but we also don’t have an Upper House.
It tends to exacerbate short-termism, in my view.
If you look at the demented 2 year cycle in the US, 3 years is just asking for trouble. In the US, you have Congress people who are either mega rich, wholly owned by one or two big sponsors or spend their entire time campaigns and fund raising.
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
I think the contradictions you talk about are at least partly because the national party is in favour of HS2 but the local candidate is against it.
This has proved very effective for the Tories, of course...
Ideally, Tories will lose C&A and that will prompt some rethinking in Downing Street.
This feel unlikely.
The thinking or the losing?
Lol, the losing. I don't see how the Tories lose a middle aged, middle class seat when it's that group who want to hold onto this half life the most.
The Tories aren't going to lose C&A - I suspect most people won't bother to vote as the result is certain. I know my parents (who would be voting LD) didn't bother to sort out postal / proxy votes prior to heading North to visit family. So that's -2 on the LD votes.
Well that equals up to Crafty Cockney and one of his mates down the pub who won't vote Tory ever again... until they wise up to the alternative....
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Have a free market and this issue goes away. If developers don't build houses people want then the public can build their own homes as they want (something incredibly common in most of the world and almost unheard of here with our draconian planning regime). Or competition can arise so other developers develop the homes people want.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
I do not disagree but it did not happen and there were exceptional circumstances
An argument that may pass if this was a first offence. It is not. The Prime Minister and his government have repeatedly held the Commons in contempt, the Speaker is fed up with it and I assume will now seek sanctions.
You excuse it all you like. I have to ask - is there anything this government could do that you wouldn't excuse?
After the May shambles we're just getting used to majority governments again. This happened with Blair etc too.
The Speaker serves the Commons. If the Commons wishes to censure the PM they have that power. The Speaker can facilitate such a vote if he wants but good luck with that!
I'm reading Michael Klarman's magisterial account of the process which led to the US Constitution. The framers originally favoured three year terms for the legislature. I think that might not be such a bad idea for the UK. It is, after all, what Britain had after the Restoration.
We have this in NZ, but we also don’t have an Upper House.
It tends to exacerbate short-termism, in my view.
We could go trimcameral like the Le Consultat which followed 18 Brumaire: Sénat (tests constitutional compliance), Corps législatif (can vote on legislation but does not debate), Tribunat (debates legislation but does not vote).
I'm reading Michael Klarman's magisterial account of the process which led to the US Constitution. The framers originally favoured three year terms for the legislature. I think that might not be such a bad idea for the UK. It is, after all, what Britain had after the Restoration.
We have this in NZ, but we also don’t have an Upper House.
It tends to exacerbate short-termism, in my view.
If you look at the demented 2 year cycle in the US, 3 years is just asking for trouble. In the US, you have Congress people who are either mega rich, wholly owned by one or two big sponsors or spend their entire time campaigns and fund raising.
Two years is way too short - they’re in re-election mode from the day they first turn up in Washington.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
I do not disagree but it did not happen and there were exceptional circumstances
An argument that may pass if this was a first offence. It is not. The Prime Minister and his government have repeatedly held the Commons in contempt, the Speaker is fed up with it and I assume will now seek sanctions.
You excuse it all you like. I have to ask - is there anything this government could do that you wouldn't excuse?
I am content with HMG at present, and the question opponents need to ask is why are they not cutting through and persuading the populace to their cause
Yep. It doesn't matter how godawful they are and whether they are doing things that would have you raging at any other government, they have an 80 seat majority and thus can do what they like.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
Yes, instead of faffing about with broadband nationalisation, I'd have liked to see Corbyn (or indeed Starmer) pledging to mandate priority for lower-cost housing for rent and sale.
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
That is not a nice way to speak about your fellow-Conservatives, Mr Mark, who as you should know control most of the councils that make planning decisions.
Most of them do their best, I am sure. The real problem of incompetence and corruption rests with the Conservative politicians at a higher level.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
What we are seeing in Covid is that it is much more important that the government gets clear messages out to the general pubic direct with suitable expert support from the likes of Whitty and Valance than it is that they have some yah boo nonsense in the HoC that only obsessives like us pay much attention to. Governments have found the way to get unintermediated contact with the electorate and they love it. Nicola does the same as does Drakeford. Hoyle is deluding himself if he thinks that this is going to change for as long as the pandemic continues.
Governments love it because they can avoid scrutiny. The result is higher polling for Johnson, Sturgeon and Drakeford.
So yeah, it’s great for fans of one-party states.
I don't disagree. It is notable how so many in positions of authority did well in the latest round of elections as a result. It becomes increasingly difficult for oppositions to be heard. I just think that it is irresistible to ministers of whatever government.
It is. It also explains (to some extent) Ardern’s astonishing landslide victory in NZ last year.
But, it is clearly detrimental to democratic process.
We spend a lot of time on here, rightly, worrying about the ongoing restriction in our personal liberties, but we are also witnessing impairment to our democratic systems.
I see from this morning’s news that even the blessed Jacinda herself feels that the hagiographers have gone too far.
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
With target easily exceeded, pompoms out, Boris saves the day.
The last sentence is completely wrong. The Gov'ts remaining targets are ludicrously easy, particularly the second dose one and imply a slowdown of the rollout.
But rollout could well slow down from here.
Our current vaccination rate is roughly made up of AZ for second doses on forty and fiftysomethings and Pfizer + Moderna for first doses on younger people.
Until something else is approved and delivered, or the second Pfizer order starts, that's it, because that's what we've got. And the AZ programme hasn't got that many more arms to jab.
If we look at England, use NIMS data and aim for 90% first/second, as of the 10th June release we have
to go, until all adults are done. Which addd up to 8.6 million dosses required for over 40s - for England only. So well over 9 million for the whole country.
True, though it is estimated/alleged that there are 6 million or so doses of AZ in various reservoirs in the vaccination system, so we don't need that much more AZ than we already have.
And there are about 22 million jabs to be done for which current policy is to use not-AZ. And I think current supply for those is about 220k per day, 1.5 million or so a week.
If so, it's a fairly nasty supply-demand mismatch.
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
What we are seeing in Covid is that it is much more important that the government gets clear messages out to the general pubic direct with suitable expert support from the likes of Whitty and Valance than it is that they have some yah boo nonsense in the HoC that only obsessives like us pay much attention to. Governments have found the way to get unintermediated contact with the electorate and they love it. Nicola does the same as does Drakeford. Hoyle is deluding himself if he thinks that this is going to change for as long as the pandemic continues.
Governments love it because they can avoid scrutiny. The result is higher polling for Johnson, Sturgeon and Drakeford.
So yeah, it’s great for fans of one-party states.
I don't disagree. It is notable how so many in positions of authority did well in the latest round of elections as a result. It becomes increasingly difficult for oppositions to be heard. I just think that it is irresistible to ministers of whatever government.
It is. It also explains (to some extent) Ardern’s astonishing landslide victory in NZ last year.
But, it is clearly detrimental to democratic process.
We spend a lot of time on here, rightly, worrying about the ongoing restriction in our personal liberties, but we are also witnessing impairment to our democratic systems.
Not really.
There is often a "cling to nurse" factor during crises but that can often be rapidly overturned or even end up in the opposite if the crisis is mishandled or drags on in a way the public lose patience with.
Don't forget in the financial crisis there was an initial cling to nurse effect in polls, helping Browns bounce "no time for a novice" but in the end effectively every major western democracy apart from Germany saw the government tossed out. Even Germany had only relatively recently seen a change in government too.
Within about a five year span from 2005 I believe every major western democracy on the planet tossed out it's government.
Nope.
What is new is that our democratic conventions are interacting with pandemic restrictions in new and unhealthy ways.
Leaders are monopolising the “bully pulpit” afforded by the crisis and thereby dominating media communications in a way we have not seen before.
This was ok, perhaps, when the crisis was thought to be “over by Christmas”, but we are now nearly 18 months into this thing.
Keir is useless, but this issue is probably worth 5%+ to the governing party.
Covid minutae in the news helps the government. Brexit aggro in the news helps the government. And what 2 topics seem to be always in the news? Mmm. That's right.
But still - Starmer has to get going fairly soon (in either sense of the word).
Newspapers contradicting themselves, even within the same issue, is as old an issue as MPs complaining about government announcements not being made first in Parliament.
(FWIW, yesterday’s announcement really should have been in Parliament, Hoyle was right).
Except that Vallence and Whitty can’t speak in parliament
I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong about the PM speaking directly to the electorate on major issues provided that it is rapidly followed up with a discussion in parliament
I agree. I thought in the circumstances with Boris in Brussels for NATO Hoyle was being a bit silly yesterday but in fairness he has been provoked on this issue before.
It's a breach of the Ministerial Code. Given that he was in London in the evening (dining with the Australian PM) the Brussels excuse is a red herring, and there would have been nothing to stop him making the announcement today instead of yesterday. What we're seeing is the grid (extension one day, trade deal the next) overriding the rules.
He was agreeing a trade deal last night with the Australian PM and the announcement for yesterday has been a set date and he had no choice but to deliver it yesterday
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
But they should have. Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
I do not disagree but it did not happen and there were exceptional circumstances
An argument that may pass if this was a first offence. It is not. The Prime Minister and his government have repeatedly held the Commons in contempt, the Speaker is fed up with it and I assume will now seek sanctions.
You excuse it all you like. I have to ask - is there anything this government could do that you wouldn't excuse?
I am content with HMG at present, and the question opponents need to ask is why are they not cutting through and persuading the populace to their cause
Yep. It doesn't matter how godawful they are and whether they are doing things that would have you raging at any other government, they have an 80 seat majority and thus can do what they like.
But labour and lib dems would be worse , so time for them to up their game and policies
It's certainly a live issue in the constituency. An old friend of mine lives on the edge of Amersham and will never vote for the party again, solely because of HS2.
The timing of the lockdown farce yesterday as well as Brexit starting to unravel over the Northern Ireland protocol are also tarnishing Brand Boris. Even an announcement on a UK-Australia trade deal may not help as it is not going down well with British farmers, who feel the Aussies have an unfair advantage. In a seat that was pro-Remain these things still matter.
I'm on the LibDems with good odds following Mike's tip. It's a bet I expect to lose but stranger things have happened in by-elections.
It would be very droll if, having captured the north, the tories lost their homeland.
The LibDems are throwing everything at the by-election. It might possibly win them the seat, but I don't expect it. This is a Government in its 20th month, so I probably should be expecting it (at least, on the basis of the ramping of their chances on here - LibDems to win it in a "landslide", I recall one poster saying).
But, the LibDems are close on 40% behind the government in national polling. Plus, for decade after decade, the Tory vote has been very predictable in this seat - between 50-odd percent and 60-odd percent. Safe, but never massively so.
The LibDems are also saddling themselves with the Nimby label. Bollocks to Brexit, now Bollocks to Building. They are very keen on pushing a humanitarian agenda - as long as once people get here they don't mind living under trees.
Oh, and not THOSE trees. They are ancient woodland. Can't have people shitting in those...
And they are very keen on people using trains. Just, not THAT train.
They are starting to build up internal contradictions that again show they aren't a party of serious decisions required of government. Just say whatever it takes to win a seat. But their opponents will be watching, storing up posters and leaflets with which to whack them around the head.
It goes beyond NIMBYism to what a national planning policy should be. Objecting to building houses in places they shouldn't be built is a valid battle to fight. The NPPF has allowed planners to overrule everyone including councillors the council and the MP. I myself have fought some NIMBY not those trees battles because the proposal was utterly stupid.
There are a lot of people out there who think the same way. With the Tories now openly corrupt and donations flowing to the party from developers there is a valid line of opposition to take. I don't agree with the battle against HS2 then again they aren't building it near me...
It's not a case of NIMBYism, it's a case of poor planning. Developers building vast estates of houses at £500,000 and above is not going to solve the housing crisis. If I was starting again as a small family I couldn't afford a mortgage for one of those. I think the boarded up shops and office blocks of the town centres should be the first target, constructing 3 and 2 bedroom houses or flats for people to start climbing the ladder on. This would provide much-needed accomodation and possibly the chance to save and plan for the next stage. In my old home town centre of Stafford there are many disused shops and office blocks which could be used first for housing before spoiling the countryside around first.
They are the only kind of houses developers want to build. They get planning permission, don't use it, and then force a shortage of houses being built to be able to build what they want when they want. The NPPF has been dubbed the developers charter and you can see why.
About 40% of new housing under most Local Plans under the NPPF has to be affordable and it enables councils and local communities to determine which land is suitable for development and what infrastructure is required.
Comments
on other peopleare wildly popularThe Delta variant looks to be capable of getting measured infection rates to around 500 per 100k quite widely in both urban and rural bits of the North West, under current vaccination rates and restrictions. It has also shown quick geographic spread, the core high infection area runs inland from north of Lancaster to Leek and is creeping it's way coastward towards Merseyside now . Elsewhere it's more patchy and the same pattern hasn't been seen, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.
I think not only was there a very bad government miss in not restricting India sooner, and thus holding off the Delta wave a few weeks till vaccination rates were somewhat higher. I think the government was horribly complacent to think that the same track and trace that failed last summer could be deployed as the sole tool at the stage things had got to - rapid acceleration of vaccination very locally in Bolton/Blackburn could have suppressed the outward spread from source and provided a model for defeating Delta. Things could have looked rather different.
Bolton STILL lags the national rate for both first and second vaccinations by over 5% after over a month of this. I mean WTAF. There may still be lower uptake for some sections, but I hardly think they have run out of willing recipients. They just barely bothered, that's all there is to it.
And now there are just too many hotspots and not enough supply to run area vaccination in that same way. You would be chasing Delta not stopping it. Perhaps there is still merit in taking vaccination faster in certain areas, but it is less obviously so than when I proposed it in May.
In the space of 10 hours yesterday, we went from Edward Argar on @BBCBreakfast justifying the extension of restrictions by promising >10m second doses in 4 weeks, to Boris Johnson promising ~3.5m UK second doses in 5 weeks.
And no-one said a thing.
https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1404676961566347270
As to your question why - the advisors have an interest in their reputations. And remember that it is among their peer group that that matters most. For them the less risky option is to continue the medication ( = lockdown), the known known, rather that agree to come off the pills/lockdown where there is a possibly small chance of exacerbating the disease/epidemic. The incentives for them imply they cannot be neutral.
The national rate and local rate doesn't match up almost anywhere because the national rate uses ONS data (probably an underestimate) while the local data uses NIMS data (known to be an overestimate).
https://twitter.com/jonworth/status/1404334289177677825?s=21
I’m primarily taking the papers to task for their usual catastrophisation of everything, and also noting that an awful lot of people are not particularly inconvenienced in their daily lives by the current level of restrictions in the UK.
Personally, I’m desparate for a return to normality - I’m stuck abroad, haven’t seen my parents in two years and have a young baby nephew I’ve never met. And I’ve had to return my ticket to the British Grand Prix, that was rolled over from 2020.
I also think they should have opened everything bar nightclubs yesterday. The hospitalisation data simply didn’t justify the continuation of restrictions.
So yeah, it’s great for fans of one-party states.
No-one noticed.
Even the FT - usually so good at this quantitative stuff - has this headline. (1/2) https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1404671632036278272/photo/1
Take away the dead hand of the state and you don't need a "proper analysis" or "modelling" just let people decide for themselves where they want to live.
If someone wants land undeveloped they always have the option in a free market of buying it and not developing it. Whoever owns it gets to decide.
The meeting with the 30 Nato leaders in Brussels did not finish until 2.30 so how he was to address Parliament before his public announcement in view of the time limits was unreasonable
It could be argued he should have arranged it with Hoyle beforehand but they didn't
1. Publication of scientific advice
2. Announcement and questioning in Parliament
3. Public announcement (primarily for clarity of advice)
4. Substantive debate in Parliament as required
That’s democracy, folks.
I know it doesn’t suit many on here.
Most are remarkably innumerate. They become journalists because they like the written word, not maths.
Neither NATO nor this announcement were unexpected, timing-wise.
The problem with surge vaccinations is that it takes weeks for them to become effective and you risk wasting them unless the people newly vaccinated modify their behaviour until the effect kicks in.
At the moment, there is justification (within the original timetable) to delay things. If you opened up and hospitalisation figures increased to the extent that another lockdown (of any form) was required things would be rather problematic.
If he can get back from his other commitments to Downing St, he can surely get back to Parliament?
Edit: Yes, it was from the new press conference room at 9DS. https://youtube.com/watch?v=aByw4RAkITE
Round and round the cherry tree, on a warm and summer morning...
https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1404671632036278272
The Downing Street Press Conference is always 6pm. The PM was never going to be back in Parliament before 6pm.
Seems weird nobody put 2 & 2 together before yesterday.
Why is life better if we stay in restricted mode (if lockdown offends) indefinitely, than have 3 months of fewer restrictions over the summer, which may indeed lead us straight back to normality, but if not leads us back to restricted mode?
But, it is clearly detrimental to democratic process.
We spend a lot of time on here, rightly, worrying about the ongoing restriction in our personal liberties, but we are also witnessing impairment to our democratic systems.
With target easily exceeded, pompoms out, Boris saves the day.
With fewer centres of infection, a ring vaccination strategy might have worked.
There is often a "cling to nurse" factor during crises but that can often be rapidly overturned or even end up in the opposite if the crisis is mishandled or drags on in a way the public lose patience with.
Don't forget in the financial crisis there was an initial cling to nurse effect in polls, helping Browns bounce "no time for a novice" but in the end effectively every major western democracy apart from Germany saw the government tossed out. Even Germany had only relatively recently seen a change in government too.
Within about a five year span from 2005 I believe every major western democracy on the planet tossed out it's government.
Even so if yesterday had been the only time Boris blew off the Commons then I'm sure Hoyle would have let it go. Boris has shown consistent contempt for Parliament so why should yesterday be motivated by anything else?
The Gov'ts remaining targets are ludicrously easy, particularly the second dose one and imply a slowdown of the rollout.
Modellers:
- There are numerous uncertain variables. This is the most plausible range that have been given to us for most of these variables. These are the outcomes if variable A is in this range, or in this range, or in this range. These are the outcomes if variable B is in this range, or in this range, or in this range. Etc.
- If we see the outcome in [insert range], it implies the variables are [insert conclusion] which would lead to further travel as per this line, unless something else changes.
- If we see the outcome above [insert range], it implies the variables are above the range submitted as plausible, and this should be taken into account
- If we see the outcome below [insert range], it implies the variable are below the range submitted as plausible, and this should be take into account
- In the current situation with Delta, the plausible ranges for the variables are so wide with the information provided that any outcome from considerably worse than January to considerably lower than January are completely plausible. Your call.
Media:
- How can we extract something from all that to gain attention? What can cause outrage and fear?
Public:
- Those stupid modellers are coming out with outrageous and frightening predictions that never come true!
I was listening to 5 live this morning and Adam Fleming responded to the presenters scepticism by saying that he had read all the information released after Boris's press conference and was quite reassured that in the documents from the scientists and sage there was general agreement to lifting restrictions on the 19th July, and he named Whitty and Valance''s contributions in these papers as very positive
Furthermore, can we just admit we are far away from those dark days of lockdown and we seem to be living more freely and I expect that the adjustments to weddings will see in practice more normal weddings, as I do not think many will comply once the wine stays to flow
And on Boris, yes he is annoying and unpredictable, lacks compliance with rules, and generally is a 'red rag to a bull' to his opponents but he does seem to be the politician nearest to the public and I have no doubt whatsoever he hates these restrictions and will remove them far quicker than the 'zero covid' disciples of Sturgeon and Drakeford, and in the later case is threatening those of us in Wales with restrictions lasting into 2022
The question really is when over the weekend could Boris have had a Cabinet discussion given this week's schedule.
UK 16
Portugal 26
Denmark 27
Czechia 28
Austria 32
Netherlands 38
Slovakia 51
Hungary 62
Belgium 83
Poland 87
Italy 95
France 215
Bulgaria 377
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/current-covid-hospitalizations-per-million?time=2021-05-23..2021-06-10&country=GBR~FRA~ITA~ESP~NLD~BEL~BGR~POL~PRT~AUT~CZE~HUN~SVK~DNK
If Delta is such a threat why aren't European countries bringing in restrictions before it increases there ?
The PM remains a moron, and I'm still surprised the drivers' and French winning markets aren't up on Ladbrokes.
Suspect the race will be very much Monaco rather than Baku, alas.
2. Boris aligned with public
3. Boris hates lockdowns
Ok!
I'm not quite sure what planet you inhabit if you aren't aware that across the land, local planning is decided by a gang of incompetents in local offices, burdened with planet-sized egos and a disconcerting amount of corruption.
And the notion of me being given my lines to trot out amuses me no end - because I would just tell "them" to piss off. You though? Such a partisan hack, I do have my doubts...
Notably the two most diligent sequencers - Portugal & Denmark are lowest in the list after the UK.
"If you use a an alien dimension warping device, as used to deliver custom flint objects at hypersonic speed at sea level, your tent will have 8 sides in 11 dimensions. How many sides need to be open?"
The proper Conservative Party wouldn't have accepted that kind of donation. What sever has it and its members sunk into?
You excuse it all you like. I have to ask - is there anything this government could do that you wouldn't excuse?
Our current vaccination rate is roughly made up of AZ for second doses on forty and fiftysomethings and Pfizer + Moderna for first doses on younger people.
Until something else is approved and delivered, or the second Pfizer order starts, that's it, because that's what we've got. And the AZ programme hasn't got that many more arms to jab.
The size of the ReformUK voteshare on Thursday will be an indicator of any impact
The framers originally favoured three year terms for the legislature. I think that might not be such a bad idea for the UK. It is, after all, what Britain had after the Restoration.
Sinn Féin has told the UK government it should legislate for the Irish language through Westminster to resolve a Stormont split on the issue...
She said Sinn Féin had declined an earlier offer from the UK government to legislate at Westminster because its preference was for the matter to be dealt with at Stormont.
I see though that once again the political parties in Northern Ireland are showing their complete arrogance, DUP and SF as bad as one another. They repeatedly act like petty little children whenever they feel it is time for a spat, and demand they and the public there be treated as if they are made of glass whilst walking on eggshells, but simultaneously moan about not being taken seriously or other butting in (or not butting in, depending on the issue).
I'd say the public are ill served but they keep choosing them, and too many fall back on reactionary 'you just don't get Northern Ireland' stuff to justify poor behaviour.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57478257
It's going to cost us the summer because the scientists are now trying to shift the nation to an elimination strategy and the politicians are meekly agreeing becuase they're clueless wankers.
The other option is to give Novavax an emergency use authorisation based on the submitted data which is already more than what we had for Pfizer when they received it. That would give us access to 10m+ doses of vaccine substance immediately for fill and finish (and possibly 2m for immediate delivery as they have already been done).
UK loses seat on International Court of Justice for first time since 1946
Poetic justice that a former colony shoved them out as well, how the mighty have fallen.
What is new is that our democratic conventions are interacting with pandemic restrictions in new and unhealthy ways.
Leaders are monopolising the “bully pulpit” afforded by the crisis and thereby dominating media communications in a way we have not seen before.
This was ok, perhaps, when the crisis was thought to be “over by Christmas”, but we are now nearly 18 months into this thing.
Keir is useless, but this issue is probably worth 5%+ to the governing party.
Under 30 6,476,491 7,533,193
30-34 2,022,532 3,442,343
35-39 1,334,734 3,129,928
40-44 759,794 2,603,661
45-49 451,955 2,151,259
50-54 222,458 1,144,331
55-59 97,913 821,688
60-64 6,880 290,640
65-69 0 49,697
70-74 0 0
75-79 0 0
80+ 0 0
to go, until all adults are done. Which addd up to 8.6 million dosses required for over 40s - for England only. So well over 9 million for the whole country.
PS : not authenticated just yet rumoured
It tends to exacerbate short-termism, in my view.
Looking at France's all causes deaths data, there's no sign of a huge number of bodies being hidden off the books, so to speak.
Our attitude to the NHS is not helpful or healthy.
Everyone in my organisation is saying how much they're looking forward to going back to the office and working together in person again. In the back of my mind I think we might be surprised by how little we actually interacted with each other before the pandemic.
Eran Segal
@segal_eran
·
2h
Israel: As of today, masks are no longer required
There are no remaining Covid-19 restrictions
Perhaps because more detailed logic is indeed missing from your crib sheet.
Unless you're concerned that the developers ARE developing the homes people want.
I'd guess, without checking the demography, that the UK differs more from France when it comes to obesity than age.
The Speaker serves the Commons. If the Commons wishes to censure the PM they have that power. The Speaker can facilitate such a vote if he wants but good luck with that!
Story from 2017: Tuesday 21 November 2017 05:49, UK
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-loses-seat-on-international-court-of-justice-for-first-time-since-1946-11136644
Most of them do their best, I am sure. The real problem of incompetence and corruption rests with the Conservative politicians at a higher level.
And there are about 22 million jabs to be done for which current policy is to use not-AZ. And I think current supply for those is about 220k per day, 1.5 million or so a week.
If so, it's a fairly nasty supply-demand mismatch.
But still - Starmer has to get going fairly soon (in either sense of the word).