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The betting moves sharply to the Tories in Batley and Spen – politicalbetting.com

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  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344
    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. The true number of Remainers in the UK is perhaps 30%, and of these, maybe only a third really, really, really care. So the LDs (if they are solely the party of Remain) are fishing in a pool of maybe 10% of the population.

    But the death of Remain is probably good news for the LDs. It means they can revert to their traditional role of "I hate [x], and I'd never vote for [y], and the LDs seem like nice fellows so I'll lend them my vote."
    Didn't all the polling this week confirm that very little has changed, and that the nation remains pretty evenly split? Also that a plurality think the government has done a bad job of negotiating Brexit.

    I am surprised that the vaccine spat etc made so little difference, and don't expect any major English party to run on Rejoin in 2024, but no sign that I see of Remainers fading away.
    I'd go for Rejoin in a heartbeat. Polly Toynbee (I know) has written in the Guardian this morning that 'Few have changed their mind: though polls put remain (or return) ahead by a nose, no one wants to be put through that hell again. Brexit is done for the foreseeable future' And quotes a Savanta poll to back up her claim on numbers.

    My Facebook page is still full of people calling out various aspects of the nonsense that is the 'oven-ready agreement'.

    I can understand people saying 'let it be' but it seems to me that there are more and more negatives with every day that passes.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774

    Mail running Hancock story:

    It was their own Exclusive so of course they're running it.

    Salacious tittle-tattle. Bet Sarah Vine is involved.
    I think it was the Sun’s?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929
    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @isam:

    Here's the latest data from 2019:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    On these numbers, there are 1,565,485 Muslims in England out of a population 56 million - which works out as under 3%.

    That's more than half the ONS from the previous year.
    That'll be because I can't add up.

    I divided the number of Muslim women by the total English population.

    OK.

    Trying again.

    There are 3.36m Muslims in Great Britain in 2019 on the ONS data, out of a population of 63.8m, giving a total percentage of 5.2%. UK numbers will be slightly lower, of course, because there are fewer Muslims in Northern Ireland, but I doubt it'll change the numbers more than a fraction.

    You can do the maths yourself from the spreadsheet.

    So, no, I won't sell at 4.9%.
    Of course, if the UK population is really 69 million, then the proportion of Muslims in the UK comes out at 4.9% exactly :smile:
    From that ONS 1/3 of Muslims are under 16, compared to about 1/6 Christians. So it’s not hard to imagine Islam becoming the biggest religion in the UK in maybe 50 years time
    Which suggests that Muslims are having a lot more babies, right?

    Ah... Not really. If you look at the number of under 16 Muslims compared to the number in the 20 to 40 range, to get a good estimate of the total fertility rate, you get 1.8, which is more than the 1.6 for Christians, but is hardly outbreeding the locals by a meaningful amount.
    Strange, then, that whenever I did secondary school visits in East London there was a noticeable difference in the demographic balance between the local school kids and the adults in the surrounding ward.

    And please quit calling the rest of us Christians! It’s an insult.
    And to your original point... you're falling guilty of "oh, I saw [x], therefore it must be universal".

    If you look at the ratio between the number of Muslim* children and compare to the number of Muslim* people of child bearing age, you can get a pretty good idea of the TFR of Muslims**. If Muslims were breeding at very high rates you might find (say) two children under the age of 16 for every Muslim between 20 and 40 - and you'd certainly find a dramatically higher ratio than for (say) Christians.

    Yet while the ratio of Muslim* children to Muslim of child bearing age is higher than for Christians, Jews, etc., the difference is surprisingly small.

    Almost all the difference is about oldies: 28% of Christians are 66 years or older, against just 4% of Muslims.

    * I say Muslim children, but the reality is that this is the parents assigning religion, not the children choosing. For every religion, including Islam, there is a large jump in agnosticism/atheism as you go from people aged 0-15 (parents declare) and young adulthood (parents no longer declare). On the ONS numbers, around 15% of Muslims move to agnostic/atheist when they reach adulthood.

    ** Of course, there is also intermarriage. So, this isn't a perfect measure.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,703
    IanB2 said:

    Mail running Hancock story:

    It was their own Exclusive so of course they're running it.

    Salacious tittle-tattle. Bet Sarah Vine is involved.
    I think it was the Sun’s?
    So is that Hancock on Toast?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774

    Competence is clearly and demonstrably not a requirement for being in the Cabinet, neither is honesty. So, the only reason for Johnson to get rid of Hancock is if he does not want him around anymore. The problem with that, though, is that Hancock has been sitting around the cabinet table for the 18 months and knows a few things that maybe the PM would not like shared.

    On that basis he can’t sack anyone!

    Which does explain Williamson, I guess.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. The true number of Remainers in the UK is perhaps 30%, and of these, maybe only a third really, really, really care. So the LDs (if they are solely the party of Remain) are fishing in a pool of maybe 10% of the population.

    But the death of Remain is probably good news for the LDs. It means they can revert to their traditional role of "I hate [x], and I'd never vote for [y], and the LDs seem like nice fellows so I'll lend them my vote."
    Didn't all the polling this week confirm that very little has changed, and that the nation remains pretty evenly split? Also that a plurality think the government has done a bad job of negotiating Brexit.

    I am surprised that the vaccine spat etc made so little difference, and don't expect any major English party to run on Rejoin in 2024, but no sign that I see of Remainers fading away.
    I'd go for Rejoin in a heartbeat. Polly Toynbee (I know) has written in the Guardian this morning that 'Few have changed their mind: though polls put remain (or return) ahead by a nose, no one wants to be put through that hell again. Brexit is done for the foreseeable future' And quotes a Savanta poll to back up her claim on numbers.

    My Facebook page is still full of people calling out various aspects of the nonsense that is the 'oven-ready agreement'.

    I can understand people saying 'let it be' but it seems to me that there are more and more negatives with every day that passes.
    That Dorset Tory MP telling the DUP on live TV that his constituents would “bite his hand off” to be inside the EU Single Market was a classic.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,154
    IanB2 said:

    Competence is clearly and demonstrably not a requirement for being in the Cabinet, neither is honesty. So, the only reason for Johnson to get rid of Hancock is if he does not want him around anymore. The problem with that, though, is that Hancock has been sitting around the cabinet table for the 18 months and knows a few things that maybe the PM would not like shared.

    On that basis he can’t sack anyone!

    Which does explain Williamson, I guess.
    Even that doesn’t explain Williamson. Nothing can explain Williamson.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774
    edited June 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @isam:

    Here's the latest data from 2019:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    On these numbers, there are 1,565,485 Muslims in England out of a population 56 million - which works out as under 3%.

    That's more than half the ONS from the previous year.
    That'll be because I can't add up.

    I divided the number of Muslim women by the total English population.

    OK.

    Trying again.

    There are 3.36m Muslims in Great Britain in 2019 on the ONS data, out of a population of 63.8m, giving a total percentage of 5.2%. UK numbers will be slightly lower, of course, because there are fewer Muslims in Northern Ireland, but I doubt it'll change the numbers more than a fraction.

    You can do the maths yourself from the spreadsheet.

    So, no, I won't sell at 4.9%.
    Of course, if the UK population is really 69 million, then the proportion of Muslims in the UK comes out at 4.9% exactly :smile:
    From that ONS 1/3 of Muslims are under 16, compared to about 1/6 Christians. So it’s not hard to imagine Islam becoming the biggest religion in the UK in maybe 50 years time
    Which suggests that Muslims are having a lot more babies, right?

    Ah... Not really. If you look at the number of under 16 Muslims compared to the number in the 20 to 40 range, to get a good estimate of the total fertility rate, you get 1.8, which is more than the 1.6 for Christians, but is hardly outbreeding the locals by a meaningful amount.
    Strange, then, that whenever I did secondary school visits in East London there was a noticeable difference in the demographic balance between the local school kids and the adults in the surrounding ward.

    And please quit calling the rest of us Christians! It’s an insult.
    And to your original point... you're falling guilty of "oh, I saw [x], therefore it must be universal".

    If you look at the ratio between the number of Muslim* children and compare to the number of Muslim* people of child bearing age, you can get a pretty good idea of the TFR of Muslims**. If Muslims were breeding at very high rates you might find (say) two children under the age of 16 for every Muslim between 20 and 40 - and you'd certainly find a dramatically higher ratio than for (say) Christians.

    Yet while the ratio of Muslim* children to Muslim of child bearing age is higher than for Christians, Jews, etc., the difference is surprisingly small.

    Almost all the difference is about oldies: 28% of Christians are 66 years or older, against just 4% of Muslims.

    * I say Muslim children, but the reality is that this is the parents assigning religion, not the children choosing. For every religion, including Islam, there is a large jump in agnosticism/atheism as you go from people aged 0-15 (parents declare) and young adulthood (parents no longer declare). On the ONS numbers, around 15% of Muslims move to agnostic/atheist when they reach adulthood.

    ** Of course, there is also intermarriage. So, this isn't a perfect measure.
    Well, I did visit a lot of schools during my 24 years on the council. And look at a lot of data on demography including household size. And spend a lot of time, and a lot of council money, frantically expanding all of our primary schools, at a time when national school rolls were falling. When I left I don’t think we had any primary schools with fewer than 1000 pupils.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480
    Frost is even thicker than I thought:

    “I don’t think those who campaigned five years ago for Brexit drove the analysis, drove the politics of it. I think they are surprised, quite often, to find relations are in the state they’re in,” said Frost.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/24/brexit-campaigners-surprised-by-sour-relations-with-eu-says-lord-frost?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&__twitter_impression=true

    It's almost as if they expected us to keep our word...
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. The true number of Remainers in the UK is perhaps 30%, and of these, maybe only a third really, really, really care. So the LDs (if they are solely the party of Remain) are fishing in a pool of maybe 10% of the population.

    But the death of Remain is probably good news for the LDs. It means they can revert to their traditional role of "I hate [x], and I'd never vote for [y], and the LDs seem like nice fellows so I'll lend them my vote."
    Didn't all the polling this week confirm that very little has changed, and that the nation remains pretty evenly split? Also that a plurality think the government has done a bad job of negotiating Brexit.

    I am surprised that the vaccine spat etc made so little difference, and don't expect any major English party to run on Rejoin in 2024, but no sign that I see of Remainers fading away.
    I'd go for Rejoin in a heartbeat. Polly Toynbee (I know) has written in the Guardian this morning that 'Few have changed their mind: though polls put remain (or return) ahead by a nose, no one wants to be put through that hell again. Brexit is done for the foreseeable future' And quotes a Savanta poll to back up her claim on numbers.

    My Facebook page is still full of people calling out various aspects of the nonsense that is the 'oven-ready agreement'.

    I can understand people saying 'let it be' but it seems to me that there are more and more negatives with every day that passes.
    There are doubtless a lot of people who are interested in politics, and some people who are in affected export businesses as well, who are very invested in the European situation.

    However - even amongst the PB regulars, who must by definition be counted at least amongst the former - I'd invite everyone to reflect on how much they believe their daily lives have been impacted by the Leave vote in the five years since it happened.

    Now, you can argue about the hypotheticals - what Government (and Opposition) there would've been by now if the vote had gone the other way, whether or not this would've changed how the pandemic was handled, etc. etc. But looking at cause and effect in the reality which we actually inhabit, I'm struggling to come up with anything - and I would suggest that most of the population is in the same boat.

    It's therefore no wonder that there's little appetite to reopen old wounds, save amongst the ultras. Why waste time on years of fruitless argument over a matter that has been settled, and has frankly transpired to be a damp squib for most of us? And no, pointing at economic stats a few years more down the line and arguing the toss over whether we would've done better in or out of the EU isn't going to make any difference either: the pandemic has reset everything, and our problems going forward are likely to be viewed through the lens of the chaos that it has caused - not ancient arguments over non-tariff barriers and freedom of movement. That time is over. It's finished.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,141
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    All the recent polling shows leads against rejoining the EU, not that they would be interested in readmitting us anyway.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,154
    edited June 2021
    Roger said:

    Mail running Hancock story:

    It was their own Exclusive so of course they're running it.

    Salacious tittle-tattle. Bet Sarah Vine is involved.
    The Sun broke the story - as the Mail acknowledges
    They call it "The Fucking Useless and Cheating Scandal" No idea where to put the punctuation.
    OK, I don’t like you much Roger but I have to admit that is brilliant. No wonder you are such a success in advertising if you come up with zingers like that!
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929
    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @isam:

    Here's the latest data from 2019:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    On these numbers, there are 1,565,485 Muslims in England out of a population 56 million - which works out as under 3%.

    That's more than half the ONS from the previous year.
    That'll be because I can't add up.

    I divided the number of Muslim women by the total English population.

    OK.

    Trying again.

    There are 3.36m Muslims in Great Britain in 2019 on the ONS data, out of a population of 63.8m, giving a total percentage of 5.2%. UK numbers will be slightly lower, of course, because there are fewer Muslims in Northern Ireland, but I doubt it'll change the numbers more than a fraction.

    You can do the maths yourself from the spreadsheet.

    So, no, I won't sell at 4.9%.
    Of course, if the UK population is really 69 million, then the proportion of Muslims in the UK comes out at 4.9% exactly :smile:
    From that ONS 1/3 of Muslims are under 16, compared to about 1/6 Christians. So it’s not hard to imagine Islam becoming the biggest religion in the UK in maybe 50 years time
    Which suggests that Muslims are having a lot more babies, right?

    Ah... Not really. If you look at the number of under 16 Muslims compared to the number in the 20 to 40 range, to get a good estimate of the total fertility rate, you get 1.8, which is more than the 1.6 for Christians, but is hardly outbreeding the locals by a meaningful amount.
    Strange, then, that whenever I did secondary school visits in East London there was a noticeable difference in the demographic balance between the local school kids and the adults in the surrounding ward.

    And please quit calling the rest of us Christians! It’s an insult.
    And to your original point... you're falling guilty of "oh, I saw [x], therefore it must be universal".

    If you look at the ratio between the number of Muslim* children and compare to the number of Muslim* people of child bearing age, you can get a pretty good idea of the TFR of Muslims**. If Muslims were breeding at very high rates you might find (say) two children under the age of 16 for every Muslim between 20 and 40 - and you'd certainly find a dramatically higher ratio than for (say) Christians.

    Yet while the ratio of Muslim* children to Muslim of child bearing age is higher than for Christians, Jews, etc., the difference is surprisingly small.

    Almost all the difference is about oldies: 28% of Christians are 66 years or older, against just 4% of Muslims.

    * I say Muslim children, but the reality is that this is the parents assigning religion, not the children choosing. For every religion, including Islam, there is a large jump in agnosticism/atheism as you go from people aged 0-15 (parents declare) and young adulthood (parents no longer declare). On the ONS numbers, around 15% of Muslims move to agnostic/atheist when they reach adulthood.

    ** Of course, there is also intermarriage. So, this isn't a perfect measure.
    Well, I did visit a lot of schools during my 24 years on the council. And look at a lot of data on demography including household size. And spend a lot of time, and a lot of council money, frantically expanding all of our primary schools, at a time when national school rolls were falling. When I left I don’t think we had any primary schools with fewer than 1000 pupils.
    With all due respect, that might tell you some useful information, but it certainly doesn't allow you to divine the TFR of Muslims.

    If a 60 year old childless couple left a flat, and sold it to a 30 year old couple who are about to have children, that would have exactly the same impact as people having more children.

    The ONS data is all available here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    Let me know where I've made a mistake with my maths.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. The true number of Remainers in the UK is perhaps 30%, and of these, maybe only a third really, really, really care. So the LDs (if they are solely the party of Remain) are fishing in a pool of maybe 10% of the population.

    But the death of Remain is probably good news for the LDs. It means they can revert to their traditional role of "I hate [x], and I'd never vote for [y], and the LDs seem like nice fellows so I'll lend them my vote."
    Didn't all the polling this week confirm that very little has changed, and that the nation remains pretty evenly split? Also that a plurality think the government has done a bad job of negotiating Brexit.

    I am surprised that the vaccine spat etc made so little difference, and don't expect any major English party to run on Rejoin in 2024, but no sign that I see of Remainers fading away.
    I'd go for Rejoin in a heartbeat. Polly Toynbee (I know) has written in the Guardian this morning that 'Few have changed their mind: though polls put remain (or return) ahead by a nose, no one wants to be put through that hell again. Brexit is done for the foreseeable future' And quotes a Savanta poll to back up her claim on numbers.

    My Facebook page is still full of people calling out various aspects of the nonsense that is the 'oven-ready agreement'.

    I can understand people saying 'let it be' but it seems to me that there are more and more negatives with every day that passes.
    There are doubtless a lot of people who are interested in politics, and some people who are in affected export businesses as well, who are very invested in the European situation.

    However - even amongst the PB regulars, who must by definition be counted at least amongst the former - I'd invite everyone to reflect on how much they believe their daily lives have been impacted by the Leave vote in the five years since it happened.

    Now, you can argue about the hypotheticals - what Government (and Opposition) there would've been by now if the vote had gone the other way, whether or not this would've changed how the pandemic was handled, etc. etc. But looking at cause and effect in the reality which we actually inhabit, I'm struggling to come up with anything - and I would suggest that most of the population is in the same boat.

    It's therefore no wonder that there's little appetite to reopen old wounds, save amongst the ultras. Why waste time on years of fruitless argument over a matter that has been settled, and has frankly transpired to be a damp squib for most of us? And no, pointing at economic stats a few years more down the line and arguing the toss over whether we would've done better in or out of the EU isn't going to make any difference either: the pandemic has reset everything, and our problems going forward are likely to be viewed through the lens of the chaos that it has caused - not ancient arguments over non-tariff barriers and freedom of movement. That time is over. It's finished.
    For me, a Leave voter, it's a mild negative in my day-to-day business, in that it makes it slightly harder to find decent software developers in the UK. However, Covid has undoubtedly also played a significant role, so you shouldn't read too much into it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,154
    Foxy said:

    MattW said:

    IanB2 said:

    Mail running Hancock story:

    It was their own Exclusive so of course they're running it.

    Salacious tittle-tattle. Bet Sarah Vine is involved.
    I think it was the Sun’s?
    So is that Hancock on Toast?
    I suspect the image is perfectly innocent. Hancock collapsed with exhaustion from the strain of handing contracts to mates, and his aide was heroically rescuing him with mouth to mouth resuscitation.
    And there was no need for cardio stimulation as, after all, he doesn’t have a heart. So PR was all that was needed...
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929
    One of the interesting things about the ONS data is that you can back out the proportion of people who stop being their (previously parent selected) denomination when they get to adulthood.

    So, 19% of Christians move to the "No Religion" column between 15 and 20. For Muslims, it's 14%. The best performing religion, perhaps unsurprisingly, is Judaism.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,069
    edited June 2021
    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    All the recent polling shows leads against rejoining the EU, not that they would be interested in readmitting us anyway.
    But pretty marginal ones, for example:

    5 years on from the referendum

    @SavantaComRes poll on the EU

    On Leave/Remain (odd question as now moot) it's 49/51

    More interesting question is whether to join/stay out

    Become a member: 49%
    Stay out: 51%

    Much tighter than you might think given out is now status quo.


    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1407761899748536321?s=19

    Which leads I think to two questions.

    First, what would the polls need to get to for this to become a live issue again?
    55:45 won't do, but 65:35 feels like it would.

    Second, is this a "get more right-wing as you age" issue, or a "stick with your youthful social values" issue? If it's the second, the demographics are only going one way.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Any word from DavidL? Hope he's ok.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    I was just thinking how the Overton window has shifted, a Conservative government has just implemented a very costly advertising ban (for tv companies and ad agencies) and mostly met with a shrug.

    "the Government’s own impact assessment suggests that over 25 years the restrictions will cost broadcasters £1.5 billion, online platforms £3.5 billion, advertising agencies £550 million, and retailers and manufacturers of HFSS products will see their profits reduced by £659 million."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/24/junk-food-ban-wont-stop-big-brands-advertising-due-loophole/

    Censorious moralistic bans? That's classic 1980s/90s Tory move.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774
    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @isam:

    Here's the latest data from 2019:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    On these numbers, there are 1,565,485 Muslims in England out of a population 56 million - which works out as under 3%.

    That's more than half the ONS from the previous year.
    That'll be because I can't add up.

    I divided the number of Muslim women by the total English population.

    OK.

    Trying again.

    There are 3.36m Muslims in Great Britain in 2019 on the ONS data, out of a population of 63.8m, giving a total percentage of 5.2%. UK numbers will be slightly lower, of course, because there are fewer Muslims in Northern Ireland, but I doubt it'll change the numbers more than a fraction.

    You can do the maths yourself from the spreadsheet.

    So, no, I won't sell at 4.9%.
    Of course, if the UK population is really 69 million, then the proportion of Muslims in the UK comes out at 4.9% exactly :smile:
    From that ONS 1/3 of Muslims are under 16, compared to about 1/6 Christians. So it’s not hard to imagine Islam becoming the biggest religion in the UK in maybe 50 years time
    Which suggests that Muslims are having a lot more babies, right?

    Ah... Not really. If you look at the number of under 16 Muslims compared to the number in the 20 to 40 range, to get a good estimate of the total fertility rate, you get 1.8, which is more than the 1.6 for Christians, but is hardly outbreeding the locals by a meaningful amount.
    Strange, then, that whenever I did secondary school visits in East London there was a noticeable difference in the demographic balance between the local school kids and the adults in the surrounding ward.

    And please quit calling the rest of us Christians! It’s an insult.
    And to your original point... you're falling guilty of "oh, I saw [x], therefore it must be universal".

    If you look at the ratio between the number of Muslim* children and compare to the number of Muslim* people of child bearing age, you can get a pretty good idea of the TFR of Muslims**. If Muslims were breeding at very high rates you might find (say) two children under the age of 16 for every Muslim between 20 and 40 - and you'd certainly find a dramatically higher ratio than for (say) Christians.

    Yet while the ratio of Muslim* children to Muslim of child bearing age is higher than for Christians, Jews, etc., the difference is surprisingly small.

    Almost all the difference is about oldies: 28% of Christians are 66 years or older, against just 4% of Muslims.

    * I say Muslim children, but the reality is that this is the parents assigning religion, not the children choosing. For every religion, including Islam, there is a large jump in agnosticism/atheism as you go from people aged 0-15 (parents declare) and young adulthood (parents no longer declare). On the ONS numbers, around 15% of Muslims move to agnostic/atheist when they reach adulthood.

    ** Of course, there is also intermarriage. So, this isn't a perfect measure.
    Well, I did visit a lot of schools during my 24 years on the council. And look at a lot of data on demography including household size. And spend a lot of time, and a lot of council money, frantically expanding all of our primary schools, at a time when national school rolls were falling. When I left I don’t think we had any primary schools with fewer than 1000 pupils.
    With all due respect, that might tell you some useful information, but it certainly doesn't allow you to divine the TFR of Muslims.

    If a 60 year old childless couple left a flat, and sold it to a 30 year old couple who are about to have children, that would have exactly the same impact as people having more children.

    The ONS data is all available here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    Let me know where I've made a mistake with my maths.
    First hand experience of tackling the consequences over very many years is certainly useful information, as is knowing where in London the problem fell, both in terms of Boroughs and wards.

    The information you provide is a snapshot at one point in time and doesn't account for a lot of factors such as immigration and emigration, changes in religion, etc. But at a quick glance I can see that for Muslims there are more (104%) children aged under 16 than there are adults aged 20-39, whereas for Christians the ratio is only 82%. Which indicates a religion-differentiated difference in child numbers. If, as you say, the number of apostates among Christians reaching adulthood is higher than for Muslims, this would underestimate the difference in the child:adult ratio by decreasing the Christian denominator.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344
    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,113

    Hancock is done for now....

    Health Secretary Matt Hancock 'is having affair' with his closest aide, 43, after pair were caught on camera having a passionate clinch outside his Whitehall office

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9723683/Health-Secretary-Matt-Hancock-having-affair-closest-aide-according-reports.html

    Bonking around with a women he hired in the middle of a pandemic...

    I can think of plenty of reasons for sacking Hancock but having an affair isn't one of them.

    He should be judged on the job not the blowjob.
    Perhaps he is fucking useless but not useless fucking?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480
    edited June 2021

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    All the recent polling shows leads against rejoining the EU, not that they would be interested in readmitting us anyway.
    But pretty marginal ones, for example:

    5 years on from the referendum

    @SavantaComRes poll on the EU

    On Leave/Remain (odd question as now moot) it's 49/51

    More interesting question is whether to join/stay out

    Become a member: 49%
    Stay out: 51%

    Much tighter than you might think given out is now status quo.


    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1407761899748536321?s=19

    Which leads I think to two questions.

    First, what would the polls need to get to for this to become a live issue again?
    55:45 won't do, but 65:35 feels like it would.

    Second, is this a "get more right-wing as you age" issue, or a "stick with your youthful social values" issue? If it's the second, the demographics are only going one way.
    Yes, the striking thing is how little has changed. This question was explicitly about rejoining:

    "More interesting question is whether to join/stay out

    Become a member: 49%
    Stay out: 51%"
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    The early discussion in this thread has reminded me of what Ted Roosevelt called the most important issue of the age in the early 1900s

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_suicide

    America, as we know, is now an entirely Catholic country.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,154
    Stocky said:

    Hancock is done for now....

    Health Secretary Matt Hancock 'is having affair' with his closest aide, 43, after pair were caught on camera having a passionate clinch outside his Whitehall office

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9723683/Health-Secretary-Matt-Hancock-having-affair-closest-aide-according-reports.html

    Bonking around with a women he hired in the middle of a pandemic...

    I can think of plenty of reasons for sacking Hancock but having an affair isn't one of them.

    He should be judged on the job not the blowjob.
    Perhaps he is fucking useless but not useless fucking?
    Matt is not just a Hancock, but handy with his cock.

    Copyright Paul Staines.

    Have a good morning.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
    I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344

    Any word from DavidL? Hope he's ok.

    I asked that about an hour ago Mr T; no word so far. Which suggests to me that he's in hospital.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,593

    Any word from DavidL? Hope he's ok.

    What happened to him?

  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,593
    Foxy said:

    Frost is even thicker than I thought:

    “I don’t think those who campaigned five years ago for Brexit drove the analysis, drove the politics of it. I think they are surprised, quite often, to find relations are in the state they’re in,” said Frost.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/24/brexit-campaigners-surprised-by-sour-relations-with-eu-says-lord-frost?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&__twitter_impression=true

    It's almost as if they expected us to keep our word...

    Frost is the perfect embodiment of the incurious mediocrity of the British managerial class that has done so much to make us so uncompetitive as a country.

  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,113
    edited June 2021
    ydoethur said:

    Stocky said:

    Hancock is done for now....

    Health Secretary Matt Hancock 'is having affair' with his closest aide, 43, after pair were caught on camera having a passionate clinch outside his Whitehall office

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9723683/Health-Secretary-Matt-Hancock-having-affair-closest-aide-according-reports.html

    Bonking around with a women he hired in the middle of a pandemic...

    I can think of plenty of reasons for sacking Hancock but having an affair isn't one of them.

    He should be judged on the job not the blowjob.
    Perhaps he is fucking useless but not useless fucking?
    Matt is not just a Hancock, but handy with his cock.

    Copyright Paul Staines.

    Have a good morning.
    Yeah - Matty Handy-cock.

    He's gone up in my estimation to be honest. Good to see he has some lead in his pencil.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480
    edited June 2021
    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @isam:

    Here's the latest data from 2019:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    On these numbers, there are 1,565,485 Muslims in England out of a population 56 million - which works out as under 3%.

    That's more than half the ONS from the previous year.
    That'll be because I can't add up.

    I divided the number of Muslim women by the total English population.

    OK.

    Trying again.

    There are 3.36m Muslims in Great Britain in 2019 on the ONS data, out of a population of 63.8m, giving a total percentage of 5.2%. UK numbers will be slightly lower, of course, because there are fewer Muslims in Northern Ireland, but I doubt it'll change the numbers more than a fraction.

    You can do the maths yourself from the spreadsheet.

    So, no, I won't sell at 4.9%.
    Of course, if the UK population is really 69 million, then the proportion of Muslims in the UK comes out at 4.9% exactly :smile:
    From that ONS 1/3 of Muslims are under 16, compared to about 1/6 Christians. So it’s not hard to imagine Islam becoming the biggest religion in the UK in maybe 50 years time
    Which suggests that Muslims are having a lot more babies, right?

    Ah... Not really. If you look at the number of under 16 Muslims compared to the number in the 20 to 40 range, to get a good estimate of the total fertility rate, you get 1.8, which is more than the 1.6 for Christians, but is hardly outbreeding the locals by a meaningful amount.
    Strange, then, that whenever I did secondary school visits in East London there was a noticeable difference in the demographic balance between the local school kids and the adults in the surrounding ward.

    And please quit calling the rest of us Christians! It’s an insult.
    And to your original point... you're falling guilty of "oh, I saw [x], therefore it must be universal".

    If you look at the ratio between the number of Muslim* children and compare to the number of Muslim* people of child bearing age, you can get a pretty good idea of the TFR of Muslims**. If Muslims were breeding at very high rates you might find (say) two children under the age of 16 for every Muslim between 20 and 40 - and you'd certainly find a dramatically higher ratio than for (say) Christians.

    Yet while the ratio of Muslim* children to Muslim of child bearing age is higher than for Christians, Jews, etc., the difference is surprisingly small.

    Almost all the difference is about oldies: 28% of Christians are 66 years or older, against just 4% of Muslims.

    * I say Muslim children, but the reality is that this is the parents assigning religion, not the children choosing. For every religion, including Islam, there is a large jump in agnosticism/atheism as you go from people aged 0-15 (parents declare) and young adulthood (parents no longer declare). On the ONS numbers, around 15% of Muslims move to agnostic/atheist when they reach adulthood.

    ** Of course, there is also intermarriage. So, this isn't a perfect measure.
    Well, I did visit a lot of schools during my 24 years on the council. And look at a lot of data on demography including household size. And spend a lot of time, and a lot of council money, frantically expanding all of our primary schools, at a time when national school rolls were falling. When I left I don’t think we had any primary schools with fewer than 1000 pupils.
    With all due respect, that might tell you some useful information, but it certainly doesn't allow you to divine the TFR of Muslims.

    If a 60 year old childless couple left a flat, and sold it to a 30 year old couple who are about to have children, that would have exactly the same impact as people having more children.

    The ONS data is all available here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    Let me know where I've made a mistake with my maths.
    First hand experience of tackling the consequences over very many years is certainly useful information, as is knowing where in London the problem fell, both in terms of Boroughs and wards.

    The information you provide is a snapshot at one point in time and doesn't account for a lot of factors such as immigration and emigration, changes in religion, etc. But at a quick glance I can see that for Muslims there are more (104%) children aged under 16 than there are adults aged 20-39, whereas for Christians the ratio is only 82%. Which indicates a religion-differentiated difference in child numbers. If, as you say, the number of apostates among Christians reaching adulthood is higher than for Muslims, this would underestimate the difference in the child:adult ratio by decreasing the Christian denominator.
    There is quite a big difference by ethnicity and SE class too. Religion is just one factor in fertility rates.

    So In Leicester, Somalis have the highest TFR, Sikhs and Hindus much the same as the white population. Indian Muslims have fewer too.

    There is also geographic dispersion too, with families moving away from the inner city to middle class suburbs and villages.

    So contrary to the opinion after the lagershed, I don't think a sectarian Muslim Party will be significant at all in the UK. The same fate as Respect.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,555
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Stronger than the leave movement prior to the referendum.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
    I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
    I agree; my post was in response to one about effect on daily lives. When (not if) we start being told that it's lack of staff which is responsible for delaying medical treatment, it will come home to the general public what we've done.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    All the recent polling shows leads against rejoining the EU, not that they would be interested in readmitting us anyway.
    But pretty marginal ones, for example:

    5 years on from the referendum

    @SavantaComRes poll on the EU

    On Leave/Remain (odd question as now moot) it's 49/51

    More interesting question is whether to join/stay out

    Become a member: 49%
    Stay out: 51%

    Much tighter than you might think given out is now status quo.


    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1407761899748536321?s=19

    Which leads I think to two questions.

    First, what would the polls need to get to for this to become a live issue again?
    55:45 won't do, but 65:35 feels like it would.

    Second, is this a "get more right-wing as you age" issue, or a "stick with your youthful social values" issue? If it's the second, the demographics are only going one way.
    Yes, the striking thing is how little has changed. This question was explicitly about rejoining:

    "More interesting question is whether to join/stay out

    Become a member: 49%
    Stay out: 51%"
    Which is why Brexit will never be over.

    Nothing Johnson says is actually designed to appeal to Remainers. He talks always to his own supporters.

    He can only speak to his own audience because he's constantly seeking approval. He knows he won't get that among Remainers so he just doesn't talk to us.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,593
    That photo on the front of the Sun not only humiliates Hancock and his aide but, much more important, their entirely blameless families. Whoever leaked it is a worm of the very lowest kind.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929
    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @isam:

    Here's the latest data from 2019:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    On these numbers, there are 1,565,485 Muslims in England out of a population 56 million - which works out as under 3%.

    That's more than half the ONS from the previous year.
    That'll be because I can't add up.

    I divided the number of Muslim women by the total English population.

    OK.

    Trying again.

    There are 3.36m Muslims in Great Britain in 2019 on the ONS data, out of a population of 63.8m, giving a total percentage of 5.2%. UK numbers will be slightly lower, of course, because there are fewer Muslims in Northern Ireland, but I doubt it'll change the numbers more than a fraction.

    You can do the maths yourself from the spreadsheet.

    So, no, I won't sell at 4.9%.
    Of course, if the UK population is really 69 million, then the proportion of Muslims in the UK comes out at 4.9% exactly :smile:
    From that ONS 1/3 of Muslims are under 16, compared to about 1/6 Christians. So it’s not hard to imagine Islam becoming the biggest religion in the UK in maybe 50 years time
    Which suggests that Muslims are having a lot more babies, right?

    Ah... Not really. If you look at the number of under 16 Muslims compared to the number in the 20 to 40 range, to get a good estimate of the total fertility rate, you get 1.8, which is more than the 1.6 for Christians, but is hardly outbreeding the locals by a meaningful amount.
    Strange, then, that whenever I did secondary school visits in East London there was a noticeable difference in the demographic balance between the local school kids and the adults in the surrounding ward.

    And please quit calling the rest of us Christians! It’s an insult.
    And to your original point... you're falling guilty of "oh, I saw [x], therefore it must be universal".

    If you look at the ratio between the number of Muslim* children and compare to the number of Muslim* people of child bearing age, you can get a pretty good idea of the TFR of Muslims**. If Muslims were breeding at very high rates you might find (say) two children under the age of 16 for every Muslim between 20 and 40 - and you'd certainly find a dramatically higher ratio than for (say) Christians.

    Yet while the ratio of Muslim* children to Muslim of child bearing age is higher than for Christians, Jews, etc., the difference is surprisingly small.

    Almost all the difference is about oldies: 28% of Christians are 66 years or older, against just 4% of Muslims.

    * I say Muslim children, but the reality is that this is the parents assigning religion, not the children choosing. For every religion, including Islam, there is a large jump in agnosticism/atheism as you go from people aged 0-15 (parents declare) and young adulthood (parents no longer declare). On the ONS numbers, around 15% of Muslims move to agnostic/atheist when they reach adulthood.

    ** Of course, there is also intermarriage. So, this isn't a perfect measure.
    Well, I did visit a lot of schools during my 24 years on the council. And look at a lot of data on demography including household size. And spend a lot of time, and a lot of council money, frantically expanding all of our primary schools, at a time when national school rolls were falling. When I left I don’t think we had any primary schools with fewer than 1000 pupils.
    With all due respect, that might tell you some useful information, but it certainly doesn't allow you to divine the TFR of Muslims.

    If a 60 year old childless couple left a flat, and sold it to a 30 year old couple who are about to have children, that would have exactly the same impact as people having more children.

    The ONS data is all available here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    Let me know where I've made a mistake with my maths.
    First hand experience of tackling the consequences over very many years is certainly useful information, as is knowing where in London the problem fell, both in terms of Boroughs and wards.

    The information you provide is a snapshot at one point in time and doesn't account for a lot of factors such as immigration and emigration, changes in religion, etc. But at a quick glance I can see that for Muslims there are more (104%) children aged under 16 than there are adults aged 20-39, whereas for Christians the ratio is only 82%. Which indicates a religion-differentiated difference in child numbers. If, as you say, the number of apostates among Christians reaching adulthood is higher than for Muslims, this would underestimate the difference in the child:adult ratio by decreasing the Christian denominator.
    Interestingly, I was using 25-44 for my calculations rather than 20-39, which narrows the gap slightly. I suspect my number is slightly more accurate, but it probably doesn't make a huge difference to the numbers.

    Of course, even if the number is 104%, it isn't above replacement. Which is kind of surprising (albeit it's worth remembering that even countries like Iran have birth rates below replacement).
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
    Missing fresh food has little to do with the EU and a lot more due to driver shortages brought on by the IR35 changes implemented in April.

    As we have discussed here before drivers were encouraged to use limited companies as that maximised their income (and allowed agencies to keep their costs as low as possible) which kept everyone except HMRC happy. When that changed a lot of drivers have found easier ways to earn similar money where they aren't treated as dirt by the people they are collecting from / delivering to.

    When you see adverts that include promises that end clients provide toilet facilities you know the industry has problems
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344

    Any word from DavidL? Hope he's ok.

    What happened to him?

    He was posting late last night from an Edinburgh hotel, first about feeling generally unwell, and later about chest pains.

    The consensus here was that he should get himself to hospital PDQ!
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,123

    That photo on the front of the Sun not only humiliates Hancock and his aide but, much more important, their entirely blameless families. Whoever leaked it is a worm of the very lowest kind.

    Yeah, I think most people are fine with CCTV these days, but this sort of thing undermines confidence.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929
    Alistair said:

    The early discussion in this thread has reminded me of what Ted Roosevelt called the most important issue of the age in the early 1900s

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_suicide

    America, as we know, is now an entirely Catholic country.

    Ah, but that was entirely different because...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480

    That photo on the front of the Sun not only humiliates Hancock and his aide but, much more important, their entirely blameless families. Whoever leaked it is a worm of the very lowest kind.

    Departmental CCTV. 🤔

    It is a nest of vipers there in the Cabinet, and clearly Hancock is the scapegoat for many failures.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,700
    I hope Mr. L is alright.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216

    Any word from DavidL? Hope he's ok.

    What happened to him?

    He was posting late last night from an Edinburgh hotel, first about feeling generally unwell, and later about chest pains.

    The consensus here was that he should get himself to hospital PDQ!
    I had a relative with chest pain who thought she'd "just have a lie down" - fortunately her daughter ignored the injunction to "not make a fuss" and dialed 999. Within the hour she was having a stent fitted....
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @isam:

    Here's the latest data from 2019:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    On these numbers, there are 1,565,485 Muslims in England out of a population 56 million - which works out as under 3%.

    That's more than half the ONS from the previous year.
    That'll be because I can't add up.

    I divided the number of Muslim women by the total English population.

    OK.

    Trying again.

    There are 3.36m Muslims in Great Britain in 2019 on the ONS data, out of a population of 63.8m, giving a total percentage of 5.2%. UK numbers will be slightly lower, of course, because there are fewer Muslims in Northern Ireland, but I doubt it'll change the numbers more than a fraction.

    You can do the maths yourself from the spreadsheet.

    So, no, I won't sell at 4.9%.
    Of course, if the UK population is really 69 million, then the proportion of Muslims in the UK comes out at 4.9% exactly :smile:
    From that ONS 1/3 of Muslims are under 16, compared to about 1/6 Christians. So it’s not hard to imagine Islam becoming the biggest religion in the UK in maybe 50 years time
    Which suggests that Muslims are having a lot more babies, right?

    Ah... Not really. If you look at the number of under 16 Muslims compared to the number in the 20 to 40 range, to get a good estimate of the total fertility rate, you get 1.8, which is more than the 1.6 for Christians, but is hardly outbreeding the locals by a meaningful amount.
    Strange, then, that whenever I did secondary school visits in East London there was a noticeable difference in the demographic balance between the local school kids and the adults in the surrounding ward.

    And please quit calling the rest of us Christians! It’s an insult.
    And to your original point... you're falling guilty of "oh, I saw [x], therefore it must be universal".

    If you look at the ratio between the number of Muslim* children and compare to the number of Muslim* people of child bearing age, you can get a pretty good idea of the TFR of Muslims**. If Muslims were breeding at very high rates you might find (say) two children under the age of 16 for every Muslim between 20 and 40 - and you'd certainly find a dramatically higher ratio than for (say) Christians.

    Yet while the ratio of Muslim* children to Muslim of child bearing age is higher than for Christians, Jews, etc., the difference is surprisingly small.

    Almost all the difference is about oldies: 28% of Christians are 66 years or older, against just 4% of Muslims.

    * I say Muslim children, but the reality is that this is the parents assigning religion, not the children choosing. For every religion, including Islam, there is a large jump in agnosticism/atheism as you go from people aged 0-15 (parents declare) and young adulthood (parents no longer declare). On the ONS numbers, around 15% of Muslims move to agnostic/atheist when they reach adulthood.

    ** Of course, there is also intermarriage. So, this isn't a perfect measure.
    Well, I did visit a lot of schools during my 24 years on the council. And look at a lot of data on demography including household size. And spend a lot of time, and a lot of council money, frantically expanding all of our primary schools, at a time when national school rolls were falling. When I left I don’t think we had any primary schools with fewer than 1000 pupils.
    With all due respect, that might tell you some useful information, but it certainly doesn't allow you to divine the TFR of Muslims.

    If a 60 year old childless couple left a flat, and sold it to a 30 year old couple who are about to have children, that would have exactly the same impact as people having more children.

    The ONS data is all available here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    Let me know where I've made a mistake with my maths.
    First hand experience of tackling the consequences over very many years is certainly useful information, as is knowing where in London the problem fell, both in terms of Boroughs and wards.

    The information you provide is a snapshot at one point in time and doesn't account for a lot of factors such as immigration and emigration, changes in religion, etc. But at a quick glance I can see that for Muslims there are more (104%) children aged under 16 than there are adults aged 20-39, whereas for Christians the ratio is only 82%. Which indicates a religion-differentiated difference in child numbers. If, as you say, the number of apostates among Christians reaching adulthood is higher than for Muslims, this would underestimate the difference in the child:adult ratio by decreasing the Christian denominator.
    Interestingly, I was using 25-44 for my calculations rather than 20-39, which narrows the gap slightly. I suspect my number is slightly more accurate, but it probably doesn't make a huge difference to the numbers.

    Of course, even if the number is 104%, it isn't above replacement. Which is kind of surprising (albeit it's worth remembering that even countries like Iran have birth rates below replacement).
    Surely 104% is above replacement nowadays?

    The 2.1 kids per woman ratio was set as replacement when we had a higher rate of childhood mortality.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,599
    The real issue is that the PM looks weak having called him hopeless and not sacked him. That is surely why every few days something is getting leaked against him, to lay the grounds for his sacking soon.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,703
    Andy_JS said:

    Serial adulterer Johnson is unlikely to sack first time offender Hancock for adultery. Come the reshuffle he’ll be elsewhere. His aide however should be gone today, if she has any self respect and wants to save her marriage. Fair? No. But life’s like that…

    Separately hope DavidL got the help he needed last night.

    Why should he be sacked for this? I can't see what it has to do with his job in government.
    AFAICS deliberately breaking the Covid Regs could cause an ouster. And I think Mr Starmer will push on the hiring practise, unless we in exempt personal staff territory.

    And perhaps the leaker might have a bit of an issue - hardly whistleblower stuff unless the above is true.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Foxy said:

    Frost is even thicker than I thought:

    “I don’t think those who campaigned five years ago for Brexit drove the analysis, drove the politics of it. I think they are surprised, quite often, to find relations are in the state they’re in,” said Frost.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/24/brexit-campaigners-surprised-by-sour-relations-with-eu-says-lord-frost?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&__twitter_impression=true

    It's almost as if they expected us to keep our word...

    Frost is the perfect embodiment of the incurious mediocrity of the British managerial class that has done so much to make us so uncompetitive as a country.

    When trying to explain the success of the Nordic countries to disbelieving American, Australian and English visitors (“how come you’re so rich when you pay such high taxes?”), I usually start with explaining the difference in productivity. And to do that I explain how Nordic managers are generally competent, curious, pleasant, cooperative and… most importantly… display every sign of actually liking their fellow human beings.

    The contrast with English managerial culture could not be starker, where it seems to be obligatory to shut down curious emploees; and a criterion for getting the job is that you are a greedy bastard who despises human beings lower down the hierarchy than yourself.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344
    Foxy said:

    That photo on the front of the Sun not only humiliates Hancock and his aide but, much more important, their entirely blameless families. Whoever leaked it is a worm of the very lowest kind.

    Departmental CCTV. 🤔

    It is a nest of vipers there in the Cabinet, and clearly Hancock is the scapegoat for many failures.
    The BBC 'rather surprisingly' doesn't quote the Sun in it's review of the papers, and doesn't show it's front page.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,593

    Any word from DavidL? Hope he's ok.

    What happened to him?

    He was posting late last night from an Edinburgh hotel, first about feeling generally unwell, and later about chest pains.

    The consensus here was that he should get himself to hospital PDQ!

    Oh no. Yes, that's exactly what he should have done. Here's hoping he did and he's OK.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    isam said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @isam:

    Here's the latest data from 2019:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    On these numbers, there are 1,565,485 Muslims in England out of a population 56 million - which works out as under 3%.

    That's more than half the ONS from the previous year.
    That'll be because I can't add up.

    I divided the number of Muslim women by the total English population.

    OK.

    Trying again.

    There are 3.36m Muslims in Great Britain in 2019 on the ONS data, out of a population of 63.8m, giving a total percentage of 5.2%. UK numbers will be slightly lower, of course, because there are fewer Muslims in Northern Ireland, but I doubt it'll change the numbers more than a fraction.

    You can do the maths yourself from the spreadsheet.

    So, no, I won't sell at 4.9%.
    Of course, if the UK population is really 69 million, then the proportion of Muslims in the UK comes out at 4.9% exactly :smile:
    From that ONS 1/3 of Muslims are under 16, compared to about 1/6 Christians. So it’s not hard to imagine Islam becoming the biggest religion in the UK in maybe 50 years time
    Which suggests that Muslims are having a lot more babies, right?

    Ah... Not really. If you look at the number of under 16 Muslims compared to the number in the 20 to 40 range, to get a good estimate of the total fertility rate, you get 1.8, which is more than the 1.6 for Christians, but is hardly outbreeding the locals by a meaningful amount.
    Strange, then, that whenever I did secondary school visits in East London there was a noticeable difference in the demographic balance between the local school kids and the adults in the surrounding ward.

    And please quit calling the rest of us Christians! It’s an insult.
    And to your original point... you're falling guilty of "oh, I saw [x], therefore it must be universal".

    If you look at the ratio between the number of Muslim* children and compare to the number of Muslim* people of child bearing age, you can get a pretty good idea of the TFR of Muslims**. If Muslims were breeding at very high rates you might find (say) two children under the age of 16 for every Muslim between 20 and 40 - and you'd certainly find a dramatically higher ratio than for (say) Christians.

    Yet while the ratio of Muslim* children to Muslim of child bearing age is higher than for Christians, Jews, etc., the difference is surprisingly small.

    Almost all the difference is about oldies: 28% of Christians are 66 years or older, against just 4% of Muslims.

    * I say Muslim children, but the reality is that this is the parents assigning religion, not the children choosing. For every religion, including Islam, there is a large jump in agnosticism/atheism as you go from people aged 0-15 (parents declare) and young adulthood (parents no longer declare). On the ONS numbers, around 15% of Muslims move to agnostic/atheist when they reach adulthood.

    ** Of course, there is also intermarriage. So, this isn't a perfect measure.
    Well, I did visit a lot of schools during my 24 years on the council. And look at a lot of data on demography including household size. And spend a lot of time, and a lot of council money, frantically expanding all of our primary schools, at a time when national school rolls were falling. When I left I don’t think we had any primary schools with fewer than 1000 pupils.
    With all due respect, that might tell you some useful information, but it certainly doesn't allow you to divine the TFR of Muslims.

    If a 60 year old childless couple left a flat, and sold it to a 30 year old couple who are about to have children, that would have exactly the same impact as people having more children.

    The ONS data is all available here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/adhocs/10999religionbysexandagegroupingreatbritain2018to2019

    Let me know where I've made a mistake with my maths.
    First hand experience of tackling the consequences over very many years is certainly useful information, as is knowing where in London the problem fell, both in terms of Boroughs and wards.

    The information you provide is a snapshot at one point in time and doesn't account for a lot of factors such as immigration and emigration, changes in religion, etc. But at a quick glance I can see that for Muslims there are more (104%) children aged under 16 than there are adults aged 20-39, whereas for Christians the ratio is only 82%. Which indicates a religion-differentiated difference in child numbers. If, as you say, the number of apostates among Christians reaching adulthood is higher than for Muslims, this would underestimate the difference in the child:adult ratio by decreasing the Christian denominator.
    Interestingly, I was using 25-44 for my calculations rather than 20-39, which narrows the gap slightly. I suspect my number is slightly more accurate, but it probably doesn't make a huge difference to the numbers.

    Of course, even if the number is 104%, it isn't above replacement. Which is kind of surprising (albeit it's worth remembering that even countries like Iran have birth rates below replacement).
    Surely 104% is above replacement nowadays?

    The 2.1 kids per woman ratio was set as replacement when we had a higher rate of childhood mortality.
    Fair enough: shall we go with is around replacement levels. But given that 14% of Muslims "give it up" when they become adults, it's at best marginal.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,555
    Boris cannot sack someone for infidelity surely?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,796

    felix said:

    It is interesting labour lost vote share in all last nights locals and it seems labour are losing across the UK

    And as for Hancock he has to resign

    Wrong on the last point. If having an affair were grounds for resignation the political class across the board would be very limited indeed. Job competence has to be the key issue in these matters.
    The affair was with his closest aid hired in the pandemic and clearly was a distraction to dealing with covid

    The optics are dreadful
    What do you care about optics? You have openly supported far worse from him and the government?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929

    Foxy said:

    Frost is even thicker than I thought:

    “I don’t think those who campaigned five years ago for Brexit drove the analysis, drove the politics of it. I think they are surprised, quite often, to find relations are in the state they’re in,” said Frost.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/24/brexit-campaigners-surprised-by-sour-relations-with-eu-says-lord-frost?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&__twitter_impression=true

    It's almost as if they expected us to keep our word...

    Frost is the perfect embodiment of the incurious mediocrity of the British managerial class that has done so much to make us so uncompetitive as a country.

    When trying to explain the success of the Nordic countries to disbelieving American, Australian and English visitors (“how come you’re so rich when you pay such high taxes?”), I usually start with explaining the difference in productivity. And to do that I explain how Nordic managers are generally competent, curious, pleasant, cooperative and… most importantly… display every sign of actually liking their fellow human beings.

    The contrast with English managerial culture could not be starker, where it seems to be obligatory to shut down curious emploees; and a criterion for getting the job is that you are a greedy bastard who despises human beings lower down the hierarchy than yourself.
    You are so fortunate to have such great Scottish managers as Fred Goodwin.

    Whatever happened to him by the way?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    The real issue is that the PM looks weak having called him hopeless and not sacked him. That is surely why every few days something is getting leaked against him, to lay the grounds for his sacking soon.
    Consensual adults having sex is not grounds for sacking in this day and age.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929

    The real issue is that the PM looks weak having called him hopeless and not sacked him. That is surely why every few days something is getting leaked against him, to lay the grounds for his sacking soon.
    Consensual adults having sex is not grounds for sacking in this day and age.
    Unless one of the consensual adults is the Pope, of course.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    I see Brillo is 'taking a break' from Gammon Boomer News. I wonder if it's health related. The revolting fucker looks like he's being force fed so his liver can be made into pâté.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    On the explosive revelation Matt Hancock has been having an affair with an aide in his work office during the Covid crisis, Grant Shapps says it’s an “entirely private matter - I don’t plan to comment” #timesradio

    https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1408310695293300736?s=20

    Some context for “entirely privately” line:
    -affair conducted in Health HQ
    -with an aide given taxpayer funded contract in secret last year
    -in the middle of the afternoon


    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1408313454394580994?s=20
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,599

    The real issue is that the PM looks weak having called him hopeless and not sacked him. That is surely why every few days something is getting leaked against him, to lay the grounds for his sacking soon.
    Consensual adults having sex is not grounds for sacking in this day and age.
    Depends on the workplace, but it does not matter whether you or I think it is (I don't). It weakens his position, a few more % want him sacked, and makes it easier for the PM to do so. There is no way "Boris" will want to keep being reminded of calling him hopeless yet keeping him in post for the next few years.

    I doubt he is much use at his job, but also doubt he is significantly below average in this particular cabinet and feel his role should have been split up last year so have no strong view either way on whether he should go now or not.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,796
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
    I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
    Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.

    The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,703
    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. The true number of Remainers in the UK is perhaps 30%, and of these, maybe only a third really, really, really care. So the LDs (if they are solely the party of Remain) are fishing in a pool of maybe 10% of the population.

    But the death of Remain is probably good news for the LDs. It means they can revert to their traditional role of "I hate [x], and I'd never vote for [y], and the LDs seem like nice fellows so I'll lend them my vote."
    Didn't all the polling this week confirm that very little has changed, and that the nation remains pretty evenly split? Also that a plurality think the government has done a bad job of negotiating Brexit.

    I am surprised that the vaccine spat etc made so little difference, and don't expect any major English party to run on Rejoin in 2024, but no sign that I see of Remainers fading away.
    That's quite an interesting subject.

    There's a minority (in public anyway) who have conflated a hatred of Brexit with a hatred of the current Government, and some public figures trying to use that to attack / undermine the Govt.

    There are also people for whom there is a continuing stone-in-the-shoe - that will include some of those for whom the loss of FOM is continually remembered, perhaps with houses or families in the EU. That group might reduce depending on how more difficult travel comtinues to be eg whether the EU get their electronic border system up and running soon.

    Then there are people for whom a livelihood is now more difficult. One example is musicians who were freelanced in several ochestras in different countries.

    And so on.
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,555
    edited June 2021
    Why do certain Tories hate Hat Mancock so much?
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Telegraph's take:

    The Health Secretary has been accused of cheating on his wife of 15 years with Ms Coladangelo, who is a close friend, lobbyist and taxpayer-funded adviser to his department

    https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1408315849845346304?s=20
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 62,749
    ping said:

    Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.

    Sky skirting it (yes I know)
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077
    edited June 2021

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
    I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
    Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.

    The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
    Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.

    It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,796
    Leon said:

    isam said:


    I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)

    But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.

    But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.

    SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.

    The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because

    Labour’s position on Palestine
    Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian
    Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish

    Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?

    The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’

    So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party

    And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
    We aren't hurtling towards tragedy in Scotland. So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants where from what I have seen people are treated like people. England can go to hell if it wants to, those of you not wanting to be dragged there can find refuge north of the wall
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344

    ping said:

    Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.

    Sky skirting it (yes I know)
    Is GB News (un)covering it?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
    I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
    Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.

    The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
    I think also the ageing HGV workforce and closure of HGV schools and testing for a year has contributed.

    I was reading of the container crisis yesterday, and think we could be seeing some seriously snarled logistic logjams for the next year or too. The price of moving a 40ft container to the UK from Asia has gone from $2 000 to $10 000 in a couple of years. It must be wrecking a lot of companies business and pricing models.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2021/05/25/how-the-shipping-container-crisis-demonstrates-the-risk-of-imbalance-in-global-trade/
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 62,749

    ping said:

    Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.

    Sky skirting it (yes I know)
    Is GB News (un)covering it?
    To be honest I have not been watching GBnews today
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,690

    The real issue is that the PM looks weak having called him hopeless and not sacked him. That is surely why every few days something is getting leaked against him, to lay the grounds for his sacking soon.
    Consensual adults having sex is not grounds for sacking in this day and age.
    This is the Matt Hancock who gave a multi million pound covid testing contract to his local pub landlord.

    Is it beyond the realm of possibility he parachuted his mistress into a top job in his Ministry so he could carry on fucking her without breaking lockdown rules? This is someone he’s known since University.

    He lays a claim to being the sleaziest minister ever.

    PS
    Best wishes to David.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,147
    rcs1000 said:

    The real issue is that the PM looks weak having called him hopeless and not sacked him. That is surely why every few days something is getting leaked against him, to lay the grounds for his sacking soon.
    Consensual adults having sex is not grounds for sacking in this day and age.
    Unless one of the consensual adults is the Pope, of course.
    Historically not at all. We've all seen the Borgias
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077
    ping said:

    Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.

    Hardly surprising as it's not actually news it's a private matter
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,690
    Jonathan said:

    Why do certain Tories hate Hat Mancock so much?

    Not that I’m a Tory but I have my reasons that I cannot disclose here.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,069
    rcs1000 said:

    On the explosive revelation Matt Hancock has been having an affair with an aide in his work office during the Covid crisis, Grant Shapps says it’s an “entirely private matter - I don’t plan to comment” #timesradio

    https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1408310695293300736?s=20

    Some context for “entirely privately” line:
    -affair conducted in Health HQ
    -with an aide given taxpayer funded contract in secret last year
    -in the middle of the afternoon


    https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1408313454394580994?s=20

    In the middle of the afternoon, you say???

    Well that changes things completely.
    Isn't Bozza's other problem that if he does come down hard on Hancock's hanky-panky, it blows the Acuri story open again.

    The ethics are really easy here- if you're the boss, you don't snog your aides. It's not about the sex, it's about the power.

    But the public will have their chance to have their say... in (snigger) 2024...
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,599
    moonshine said:

    The real issue is that the PM looks weak having called him hopeless and not sacked him. That is surely why every few days something is getting leaked against him, to lay the grounds for his sacking soon.
    Consensual adults having sex is not grounds for sacking in this day and age.
    This is the Matt Hancock who gave a multi million pound covid testing contract to his local pub landlord.

    Is it beyond the realm of possibility he parachuted his mistress into a top job in his Ministry so he could carry on fucking her without breaking lockdown rules? This is someone he’s known since University.

    He lays a claim to being the sleaziest minister ever.

    PS
    Best wishes to David.
    His sleaziest minister claim is trumped by mini Trump.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216

    Foxy said:

    That photo on the front of the Sun not only humiliates Hancock and his aide but, much more important, their entirely blameless families. Whoever leaked it is a worm of the very lowest kind.

    Departmental CCTV. 🤔

    It is a nest of vipers there in the Cabinet, and clearly Hancock is the scapegoat for many failures.
    The BBC 'rather surprisingly' doesn't quote the Sun in it's review of the papers, and doesn't show it's front page.
    R4 Today paper review rather coyly described it as a photograph of Matt Hancock in an embrace with a woman who is not his wife.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    edited June 2021

    Leon said:

    isam said:


    I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)

    But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.

    But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.

    SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.

    The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because

    Labour’s position on Palestine
    Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian
    Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish

    Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?

    The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’

    So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party

    And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
    So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
    If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480
    edited June 2021

    Telegraph's take:

    The Health Secretary has been accused of cheating on his wife of 15 years with Ms Coladangelo, who is a close friend, lobbyist and taxpayer-funded adviser to his department

    https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1408315849845346304?s=20

    It is pretty extraordinary that being a lobbyist and a paid ministerial advisor simultaneously is not considered a conflict of interest.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 62,749
    Jonathan said:

    Why do certain Tories hate Hat Mancock so much?

    I do not hate anyone, dislike yes, but not Hancock as a I believe he is doing the most difficult role in government and has been OK recently

    However, this affair with a member of his staff questions his judgment and at a time of acute crisis

    He will not resign over this but it adds to his problems considerably

  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,690
    eek said:

    ping said:

    Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.

    Hardly surprising as it's not actually news it's a private matter
    But it’s not necessarily a private matter is it. Do you not think it important to find out on what basis she was hired and whether the sexual relationship predates that point?
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,210
    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
    I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
    Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.

    The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
    Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.

    It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
    Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929
    Foxy said:

    Telegraph's take:

    The Health Secretary has been accused of cheating on his wife of 15 years with Ms Coladangelo, who is a close friend, lobbyist and taxpayer-funded adviser to his department

    https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1408315849845346304?s=20

    It is pretty extraordinary that being a lobbyist and a paid ministerial advisor simultaneously is not considered a conflict of interest.
    Are you saying she can't multitask?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344

    Jonathan said:

    Why do certain Tories hate Hat Mancock so much?

    I do not hate anyone, dislike yes, but not Hancock as a I believe he is doing the most difficult role in government and has been OK recently

    However, this affair with a member of his staff questions his judgment and at a time of acute crisis

    He will not resign over this but it adds to his problems considerably

    R&R at a time of stress?
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 62,749
    moonshine said:

    eek said:

    ping said:

    Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.

    Hardly surprising as it's not actually news it's a private matter
    But it’s not necessarily a private matter is it. Do you not think it important to find out on what basis she was hired and whether the sexual relationship predates that point?
    Apparently they knew each other from their university days
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929
    Question for PBers.

    I have a very good friend with four daughters, the eldest (18) of which recently said she wanted to get a "23 and Me" test done.

    He reacted with horror, and spewed all kinds of rubbish about how hackers could get hold of the data, etc.

    Only now, a few days later, have I thought "hmmm... I wonder if there's a half brother or sister out there that's he's desperate to hide..."

    Am I being unnecessarily cynical?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
    I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
    Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.

    The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
    Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.

    It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
    Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
    Indeed. There's no shortage of people able to drive and able to be trained to drive HGVs.

    Having a shortage of people willing to work for crap wages isn't a problem.
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    edited June 2021

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
    I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
    Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.

    The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
    Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.

    It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
    Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
    There’s a great oddlots podcast on this - US focussed, but many of the issues are similar here.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-21/the-trucking-episode-why-the-industry-is-such-a-mess?srnd=oddlots-podcast

    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/odd-lots/id1056200096?

    Basically, being a driver ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Razor thin margins. Constant boom/bust cycles.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,703
    Andy_JS said:

    I was just thinking how the Overton window has shifted, a Conservative government has just implemented a very costly advertising ban (for tv companies and ad agencies) and mostly met with a shrug.

    "the Government’s own impact assessment suggests that over 25 years the restrictions will cost broadcasters £1.5 billion, online platforms £3.5 billion, advertising agencies £550 million, and retailers and manufacturers of HFSS products will see their profits reduced by £659 million."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/24/junk-food-ban-wont-stop-big-brands-advertising-due-loophole/

    Government taking responsibility for something that families and individuals could take responsibility for is not a great development IMO.
    This is part of the mad advertising ban that was consulted as going to save young children from obesity by preventing them eating (was it?) 0.3 calories a day, slightly mitigated?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,344

    moonshine said:

    eek said:

    ping said:

    Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.

    Hardly surprising as it's not actually news it's a private matter
    But it’s not necessarily a private matter is it. Do you not think it important to find out on what basis she was hired and whether the sexual relationship predates that point?
    Apparently they knew each other from their university days
    Gives job to old 'friend' from Uni. Someone he's 'known' for years.

    That makes it worse, if anything.
    Shouldn't think Mrs H is that happy this morning, either.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,123
    Foxy said:

    Telegraph's take:

    The Health Secretary has been accused of cheating on his wife of 15 years with Ms Coladangelo, who is a close friend, lobbyist and taxpayer-funded adviser to his department

    https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1408315849845346304?s=20

    It is pretty extraordinary that being a lobbyist and a paid ministerial advisor simultaneously is not considered a conflict of interest.
    The Mail also say she still works for her husband's company. Where do these people find the time?

    I'm reminded of Sir Humphrey observing that people who are very active in one area of life tend to be very active in others...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,480
    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    Telegraph's take:

    The Health Secretary has been accused of cheating on his wife of 15 years with Ms Coladangelo, who is a close friend, lobbyist and taxpayer-funded adviser to his department

    https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1408315849845346304?s=20

    It is pretty extraordinary that being a lobbyist and a paid ministerial advisor simultaneously is not considered a conflict of interest.
    Are you saying she can't multitask?
    All the evidence that we see is that she can multitask very easily...
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,929
    ping said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Roger said:

    Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.

    Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.

    It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.

    Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
    And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
    I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.

    It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.

    The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
    Citation required.

    There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.

    Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
    This is an absolutely crucial point.

    Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.

    But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.

    And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
    Quite a few Don't Knows too.

    But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
    Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.

    My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.

    I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
    I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
    Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.

    The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
    Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.

    It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
    Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
    There’s a great oddlots podcast on this - US focussed, but many of the issues are similar here.

    Basically, being a driver ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Razor thin margins. Constant boom/bust cycles.
    In the US, it's mostly owner-operators. I.e., you want to be an HGV driver, you take the risk of owning the vehicle - even if you use someone else's brand.

    Is it the same in the UK?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,703
    edited June 2021
    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    On this alleged affair, surely the question is whether it began before or after she was appointed?

    If it was after, he can probably survive the scandal. He shouldn’t, but Johnson got away with Petronella Wyatt, Jennifer Arcuri, Carrie Symonds, and John Prescott got away with Tracey Temple...Yes, in a normal workplace it would be a disciplinary, as they were conducting their affair on office time and premises, but cabinet ministers are not normal workers.

    If before, and undeclared, that would be a much more serious matter and should lead to his instant dismissal. Again, it won’t though.

    I think that being sacked for having an affair is vanishingly impossible under a Johnson administration. Perhaps for NOT having an affair.

    What might do Hancock in would be if her dual role as aide and lobbyist linked to sweetheart contracts for mates. Though even that sort of corruption doesn't seem to matter much, so low have standards fallen in government. We expect Ministers to be shaggers with their hands in the till.
    It is also reported as continuing for the last 15 years.

    Is this how polyamory manifests in Suffolk?

    Perhaps Suffolk-based PB polyamorists could enlighten the rest of us.
This discussion has been closed.