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If Gareth Southgate was a party leader his ratings would ensure his party won a landslide – politica
If Gareth Southgate was a party leader his ratings would ensure his party won a landslide – politicalbetting.com
Gary Neville said that Gareth Southgate is "everything a leader should be" this week. Our net favourability ratings show the England boss is considerably more popular than both Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer Southgate: +61Johnson: -15Starmer: -29https://t.co/157f5K0oEl pic.twitter.com/GhTcKukgO8
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At least we haven't had to witness the Prime Minister dressed up in cycling gear.
Indeed.
* Always assuming and hoping of course that Cavendish isn't fuelled by naughty sauce.
Have we become so risk-averse that we want to reduce life to cowering reeks?* All of life contains risk. When you step out of the shower or walk down the stairs or when you cross the road or eat a peanut. Unless we want to void the meaning of life in a dystopian vacuum pack then we have to embrace some risks.
If you beat dogs into submission for long enough they don't know any different. Small wonder that swathes of the country are now quivering jellies, fearing even to step beyond their thresholds without a mask.
* 'Reek' rather than 'wreck' in acknowledgement of Theon Greyjoy. His sister launched a mission to rescue him from the dog kennels. But when she arrived and flung wide the doors for him to come home and taste freedom once more, he refused: preferring instead a life of cowering in the corner of his kennel.
But it can be the most boring game of the tournament, so long as England lift the trophy!!
It's a human condition and affects our behavior often.
If the beard was a goaty he wouldn't be so popular.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/11/pm-under-pressure-over-bike-ride-seven-miles-from-no-10-boris-johnson-covid
That's another repeat-in-the-mirror-until-you-believe-it one.
What's all this "cycling gear" that is being chuntered about. If you're not in the TDF or similar, you get on a bike and ride it.
Go for BJ all you like; however he has had a huge role in promoting ordinary non-stick-insect people to use bikes.
The lack of competence that our scientists and government have generally shown in their modelling and decisions in the past eighteen months should give pause to anyone who thinks that education always, or even often, leads to good judgement in inexact sciences like public health policy.
http://www.magicalmaths.org/why-science-teachers-should-never-do-playground-duty-funny/
It's the worst kind of dystopian brave new world. Something straight out of A Handmaiden's Tale.
The last case of smallpox in the world, Janet Parker, wasn't the fault of members of the public. It was the very laboratory scientists that you seem to think should dictate to the rest of us how to live our lives.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-45101091
And of course rather too many in today's Conservative Party aren't much better. But that's the main reason why Starmer has found it so difficult to oppose the bossiest, most bullying government in my lifetime.
13% of the adult population have still not received their 1st jab and over 30% their second. None of our children have received them.
That should be the focus, not trying to prevent people who have taken up the offer of a vaccination to live life again.
I don't give a fuck any more I'm afraid. If I catch covid I shan't tell anyone, I shan't contact any track and trace and I shan't be self-isolating. If I know I'm infectious then I'll pop a mask on and that's that. I'm vaccinated and I expect everyone else to be.
This is no longer a killer virus. Of 150 causes of death in the UK right now only 1 will be even vaguely related to covid (almost certainly pre-existing conditions too).
So screw you. I will live my life.
The whole thing is beyond stupid now.
Live life. You only get one. Use it.
2 - Exercise was mainly under guidance, unless you have a citation of the Regulations at the time you insist Boris broke something.
You were saying?
Anyhoo, I 'm off on my bike to look at a blocked public footpath, and need to be back to pick some redcurrants and gooseberries before it warms up or rains.
If I'm on a packed train I might pop a mask on. That's all.
Assuming he’s not on the sauce, Cavendish will be remembered as a great sportsman.
Assuming the English win tonight, their achievement will not be remembered primarily as a sporting achievement, but as another step on the road to the dissolution of the Union.
- no real controls on travel
but
- mask-wearing even outdoors, apparently largely voluntary
- frequent temperature checking
- pointless hand-sanitiser everywhere.
I'll also be interested to see how things are when I head up to California in a couple of weeks.
Otherwise, all is normal.
Karaoke bars are open.
Logistics firm Fowler Welch is understood to have told customers that prices would rise by 5 per cent, while Eddie Stobart has prioritised larger account holders.
A shortage of HGV drivers has been blamed on EU nationals returning home because of Covid and Brexit, and a pandemic-induced delay to the qualification process. Last week, transport minister Baroness Vere announced a temporary extension of drivers’ hours from tomorrow which would allow HGV drivers to make slightly longer journeys.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/prices-up-deliveries-down-in-driver-crisis-bwxlhldgm
- the Ewen/Sagan crash
- Roglič‘s early crash and exit, plus the decimation of his great team by that idiotic German woman
- Van Aert trying (and failing) for the yellow jersey in the first week
- Van der Poel dropping out in favour of the Olympics
- Philipsen and Colbrelli being off-form and Merlier missing the time cut
- A general lack of class sprinters and a total absence of teams built around sprinters
In addition, Cavendish is not one fifth of the all-round cycling beast that was Merckx. He could climb, he could do cobbles, he could solo, he could do breakaways, he could do sleet, snow, gales and torrential rain, he could do baking hot days, he could act as commander in chief in a rowdy peloton, he could sprint, he could time trial.
Cavendish can sprint. That’s it.
But fortune favours the lucky as well as the brave.
It's the Quantum of Solace of the MCU. I'm still not entirely clear what exactly happened.
A few hours later, Sir Keir blags himself two tickets to the match!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9776481/Sir-Keir-Starmer-slammed-bagging-two-free-tickets-Sundays-Euros.html
And Good Morning everyone. Pleasant summer morning here today. Lively week ahead, too.
https://www.statista.com/chart/24330/uk-tax-burden-as-share-gdp-timeline/
I have seen enough nasty covid to not want it, and it will be safer in September, when the wave has subsided and the youngsters vaccinated. I don't feel my freedom is compromised at all, except by irresponsible fellow citizens behaving recklessly.
Any pub trip will be outside.
Wearing a mask in a crowded indoor environment such as public transport is the right thing to do.
Rather than one of those flimsy blue things which have a minimal effect.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/12/boris-johnsons-bike-ride-a-storm-in-a-teacup-or-eroding-public-confidence
7 miles on a bicycle is about 30-35 minues, especially somewhere as flat as London. That is local.
To me it is individual responsibility and I will act accordingly and no matter how much you try to restrict people many will ignore it and the law enforcement on those doing so is virtually non existent
And why is Starmer and the left marooned in the opinion polls, is nobody listening to them
If you know you are infectious then it is an unreasonable imposition on other people to expose them to that risk (even with mitigating features such as a mask).
If you know you are infectious you should voluntarily self-isolate. Otherwise live your life
Fowlers and all of them don't have enough drivers. Are they better to have those fully employed shifting as much tonnage as possible? Or to cut yet further what can be hauled by prioritising the small drops where the truck is stopped far more?
Hopefully people will stay home more generally when they have an infectious disease, whether that is Covid, or a cold.
The bit that needs to change to go back to normal is self-isolating if a contact - i.e. due to the chance of being infectious
They also played politics by trying to bag all the downside - getting as close as they can to the government position while calling them reckless
I suppose, at a stretch, it’s marginally “do as I say not as I do” but no one apart from the Mail will give a shit
Mr. Root, it was the last but one rugby world cup, I think, when Scotland were subjected to appalling refereeing. They should've beaten Australia but a trio of terrible decisions robbed them of that. Shocking display, and I was quite aggravated by it.
It's c.2000 when the tax burden went into reverse.
"Because I didn't like watching English people on the television celebrating the English football team's victory over Italy."
Impressive!
When the socially illiberal Thatherism lead to the electric day in 1997 when the clouds lifted. The whipping hanging Tory Home Secretaries and their elderly clique of yelping blue rinses felt dated overnight.
It could be that we are on the verge of another one. It's never easy to see the spark but it's often when the pendulum is at it's widest. BLM meet the booing Priti Patels. Hartlepool meets Chesham and Amersham......
It could be just wild optimism but the isolationist place we've been at for the last few years with the Faragists calling the shots does feel a very old fashioned and foreign country.
The polls still show that people aren't as stupid as the PM, so a nice celeb endorsing the policy would really help. Southgate would be up for that wouldn't he...?
As for lorry drivers Could IR35 changes be behind as said by this contractor/disguised employee lobbying group
https://www.contractoruk.com/news/0015112ir35_reform_fuelling_100000_hgv_driver_shortage.html?utm_source=NL&utm_medium=News&utm_campaign=IR35
Well done that man. The knighthood is in the post.
If you must leave the house while harbouring a viral infection, then wearing a mask and not snotting on everyone is polite.
Expecting people to wear a mask when they are not ill is at this point an unreasonable imposition.
Ted Heath
The same rather stiff, dour, manner which voters find hard to warm to.
He comes across as stuffy and awkward.
'Successful politicians are often phony, yet manage to make voters think they’re genuine. Sir Keir is genuine, yet manages to make voters think he’s phony.'
Ouch.
A week ago he likened Sajid Javid to Jack Grealish, hailing the new Health Secretary as a “super sub” who has joined the field of play “with great effect and panache”. Then on Thursday, at the despatch box of the Commons, the right honourable member for North East Somerset performed John Barnes’s rap from World in Motion, the 1990 England World Cup single.
“Can I assure you, Mr Speaker,” he declared, “that we ain’t no hooligans, this ain’t no football song/ Three lions on my chest, I know we can’t go wrong!”
God bless the adviser who had to prep him for all this. “Mr Grealish is a player of association football, sir, as formerly was Mr Barnes.”
“And ‘rap’?”
“A form of spoken-word poetry, sir, popularised by African-American musicians, but also widely enjoyed outside the Thirteen Colonies.”
Of all the politicians proclaiming their passion for football, however, the one who seems least convincing is Sir Keir Starmer. Which is odd. Because unlike the rest of them, the Labour leader genuinely does love it.
In fact, he’s a lifelong football obsessive. He’s a season ticket holder at Arsenal, and plays five-a-side every week. Yet somehow, whenever he talks about it, he comes across like someone who barely knows what shape the ball is, and is having to read off a cue card held up by an aide. Even his tweets about football are wooden. “Very encouraging start! Lots to build on from that performance… We take the point and move on… Huge credit to Gareth Southgate and the team…”
It may seem a trivial point. But actually I think it highlights Sir Keir’s biggest problem. He’s struggling to get voters to warm to him. And in large part, it’s because he’s so stiff, so stilted, that he seems inauthentic – even when he’s being utterly sincere.
It isn’t exactly helping his party’s efforts to persuade the country that they’re no longer “out of touch” with “ordinary people”. Participants in focus groups have taken Sir Keir to be “a bit of a toff” – when in reality he’s working-class. His father worked in a factory, his mother was a nurse. Yet because he seems so stuffy and awkward and buttoned-up, people view him like Ralph, the emotionally constipated aristocrat played by Charlie Higson in The Fast Show.
It’s a nightmare for Labour. Successful politicians are often phony, yet manage to make voters think they’re genuine. Sir Keir is genuine, yet manages to make voters think he’s phony.'
Michael Deacon
You can get 3 months for £1 trial subscription with the Telegraph.
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The right thing to do is get vaccinated.
Lots of people cannot wear masks or do not wish to. That's fine. It's personal freedom and the chances of a vaccinated person spreading this thing to others and them then dying from this (when they are already themselves presumably wearing a mask in their concern) is beyond miniscule.
Vaccinated people should now do what they want and everyone telling them otherwise can fuck off.
The precise words I will use to anyone who tells me otherwise.
The solitary season when we had Brundle and Coulthard for F1 was very good.
But most of the time there's been at least one ropey F1 commentator.
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/live-breaking-news-graph-shows-severity-of-sydney-outbreak-compared-to-vic/live-coverage/0dce16c51d7ad750ef48ec1717269b45
N'interrompez jamais un ennemi qui est en train de faire une erreur.
Also that any booing is confined to when Boris Johnson stands up. Not when the Italian anthem is played.
England is after all, the host for this game.
King Cole, abuse of supporters is bloody wretched.
My workplace has never been empty, coffee comes from a big tin of nescafe and everyone arrives by car.
The suburban industrial estate often seems a world away from the city centre.
But perhaps never more so than this last year.
Although that's slightly different to winning the Euros and the fact that my fellow England rugby fans, like me, are known for their humility and modesty.
They really dont have other significance, we dont need to hunt down and crowbar in our other obsessions, it just looks weird.
As now multiple polls show, the public aren't as stupid as the PM or as gung-ho as some on here. They aren't going into the office crushed in on the tube now because they and their businesses have realised the pointlessness of it. They aren't buying £4 twatty coffees because they're shit value for money. They aren't packing into steam railways seats because they'e now risk aware.
Lifting pretty much all restrictions won't change this. Nor will the government's increasingly shouty pronouncements to get back to work you plebs. Yes, some people will deploy their natural baseline anger and arrogance to not care but half of them never stopped.
So when the bums don't appear onto steam railway seats, the financial support won't be there to keep them going - the reverse in fact as loans start getting called back in. The government will say "we have freed the public, if they aren't coming it must be your fault". The NHS being swamped again by not just Covid but the sheer number of staff absent and the 13m case backlog in non-covid is, we will be told, nothing to worry about.
This is the best case scenario. Lack of business, lack of staff, lack of support, blame the people. The worst case is all that then reimposition of "never again" restrictions because Omega is tearing through the vaccine. And all the time the Tories sneering, arrogant and increasingly angry that the plebs aren't doing what their betters have told them to, applying "common sense" in a way that best maximises revenues for their patrons and donors.
Actually it had two, but I've had to cull one as the Daily Star have nicked mine.
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1413964748287266819
"Its a disaster for the travel industry!" screams the travel industry as the shutters start to come down in reaction to our let-her-rip petri dish experiment with our sub-standard lack of digital vaccine passport. Yes, I know it is. And its entirely self-inflicted.
These people making decisions where they think that your actions are profoundly stupid and selfish. They all should fuck off, but at the same time not fuck off and let you in their country and into their shop and even into their hospital unmasked and resplendent.
Actually, "fuck off" would make a great strapline for the next Tory party Conference set.
Some will say yes, and that's a valid view. Others say no, and that's valid too. If people want to encourage it now, or even forever, well, they can argue that too, but at some point mandated measures are an unreasonable imposition and personal choice prevails. Sooner or later choice has to return.
In today's Weekly Stats Uncovered, @d_spiegel and I look at the statistics behind case contacts going into quarantine.
https://t.co/JIIRw51AD5
Though as a shared household, I thought it reasonable to self isolate when Mrs Foxy had it.
The thing is there's no good way to drown out boo-ing during a national anthem*. Short of doing so by singing the national anthem louder. Which isn't really an option given that you can't expect England fans to sing the Italian anthem, or at least not since they don't know the words.
*Normally it can be drowned out (or at least the disapproval of the majority can be expressed) by applause or something - but drowning out during an anthem with applause isn't really a solution. Because it still drowns out the anthem. Which is the point of the boo-ing.