Regarding the Manchester trams: Metrolink warning of 'severe' delays as around a fifth of staff are isolating.
Apparently this is going to get a lot worse, and possibly keep commuters/the workers at home as it will spread to the trains and peasant wagons buses.
This is why we've told staff to keep working from home until mid September, the nightmare scenario we had mapped out is you finish work at 7pm and there's no way for you to get back home that night.
Slightly fewer folk around the Toon today. Proportion of mask wearers on public transport down too. The very cautious at home due to our booming figures? One person's anecdote and sketchy thought.
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
I think an acceptance in the western world that this is going to bring average life expectancy down for at least a decade until we learn much more about treatments and come up with a "perfect" vaccine that stops infection at a rate of over 99%.
With the advent of the ascendency of Germ Theory, the development of vaccinations, and the discovery of antibiotics, the West believed it could 'win the war' with infectious diseases. We should have recognized that this was a mirage at least 20-30 years ago, but the penny is, at last, beginning to drop, I think.
Regarding the Manchester trams: Metrolink warning of 'severe' delays as around a fifth of staff are isolating.
Apparently this is going to get a lot worse, and possibly keep commuters/the workers at home as it will spread to the trains and peasant wagons buses.
This is why we've told staff to keep working from home until mid September, the nightmare scenario we had mapped out is you finish work at 7pm and there's no way for you to get back home that night.
Ultimately people will uninstall the app, I get the feeling that once we're "fully" vaccinated the government may look to withdraw it as at that point we do have to learn to live with COVID over the long term and being pinged to isolate by an app just seems like a ridiculous way to live.
I must agree with those of you who favour Fixed Term Parliaments and I regret that PM will regain power to select election date.
I can see next GE being October 2023 (which avoids Lab and Con Conferences) or May 2024. Problem with either is that it cannot be too close to Scottish Independence Referendum. Also Boundary Changes legally happen July 2023 and 3 months may be too tight for MPs who must find another seat as their present seat disappears or significantly changes against their party. Toss up between October 2023 and May 2024.
In theory I agree, but the situation in 2019 was excruciating when there was total stalemate in the Commons because of the FTPA.
2019 tested the FTPA to destruction; exactly the time the country needed an exception to its provisions it couldn't be done. It needs to go. The PM discretion is not great but better than the alternatives. I wouldn't entirely rule out Boris going for 2022 and not 2023, if he can find a plausible reason and thinks he can win. Time may not be on his side.
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
I think an acceptance in the western world that this is going to bring average life expectancy down for at least a decade until we learn much more about treatments and come up with a "perfect" vaccine that stops infection at a rate of over 99%.
With the advent of the ascendency of Germ Theory, the development of vaccinations, and the discovery of antibiotics, the West believed it could 'win the war' with infectious diseases. We should have recognized that this was a mirage at least 20-30 years ago, but the penny is, at last, beginning to drop, I think.
Is it possible there is something about human race today, how we have used vaccines and antibiotics for a while now, how we live today and travel the globe so easily, how our population grows, how the planet is polluted, that rather than one off, the emergence of this could be the first of many pandemics in the coming period, some even more virulent and deadly?
That it’s not a one off, ourselves and the world today has become susceptible to it. Possibly?
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
I think an acceptance in the western world that this is going to bring average life expectancy down for at least a decade until we learn much more about treatments and come up with a "perfect" vaccine that stops infection at a rate of over 99%.
With the advent of the ascendency of Germ Theory, the development of vaccinations, and the discovery of antibiotics, the West believed it could 'win the war' with infectious diseases. We should have recognized that this was a mirage at least 20-30 years ago, but the penny is, at last, beginning to drop, I think.
I don't think the situation is that stark, although it could yet become so if the situation with respect to antibiotic resistance continues to deteriorate.
The other pressing problem in the UK is the lack of capacity in the healthcare system, but as with all other problems that we can agree need fixing and will cost lots of money to put right, everyone thinks that it is everyone else's job but theirs to pay to do it. Plus ça change.
Under 50 and double vaxxed chances of you catching COVID and ending up with covid is vanishingly small.
Not so good if you are an oldie. Although hard to tell as obviously figures distorted by unvaccinated (and 25th June case numbers were still very low).
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
Yes, agreed. Unless we get lucky and the virus mutates into a cold, it will be with us and bothering us for a long long time.
When I say it will be affecting us into 2022 or 2023 I mean seriously bruising our lives - travel will be difficult or pricey, if not impossible in places. Poorer unvaxed countries will have further waves for months The fucking virus will haunt our TV news for the foreseeable.
And yes, that means a massive reset of expectations. In all ways. Life is going to be crimped and diminished - and shortened for some - though there will probably be upsides. Eventually
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
Yes, agreed. Unless we get lucky and the virus mutates into a cold, it will be with us and bothering us for a long long time.
When I say it will be affecting us into 2022 or 2023 I mean seriously bruising our lives - travel will be difficult or pricey, if not impossible in places. Poorer unvaxed countries will have further waves for months The fucking virus will haunt our TV news for the foreseeable.
And yes, that means a massive reset of expectations. In all ways. Life is going to be crimped and diminished - and shortened for some - though there will probably be upsides. Eventually
One positive at the moment, reinfection is incredibly rare (even with variants) and of the confirmed cases, all but a tiny number have been very mild.
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
Okay thanks for the answers. 🙂.
So what other moderate positions to campaign on to shape policy are discussed at your “moderate group” meetings?
Generally don't do single threads on voting intention polling this far out from an election. The best test of political mood is in the leader ratings.
Any intentions of a thread header discussing why Starmer is so far behind Boris in gross leader ratings? And whether that can be turned around?
Could be interesting and as you and Ben at IPSOS MORI have said before, gross figures are the most reliable.
I suspect we'll have Starmer threads aplenty soon. Labour left can do nothing about the government, and every time they try they look more foolish still. Admittedly they are safely embedded and just need to sit and wait, but I don't think that's their mentality. My guess is that they'll attack their own tails.
"London is a shadow of its former self – our cities are being left to die When flash floods left the much of capital under water this week, it felt like an omen Tanya Gold" (£)
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
Okay thanks for the answers. 🙂.
So what other moderate positions to campaign on to shape policy are discussed at your “moderate group” meetings?
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
Yes, agreed. Unless we get lucky and the virus mutates into a cold, it will be with us and bothering us for a long long time.
When I say it will be affecting us into 2022 or 2023 I mean seriously bruising our lives - travel will be difficult or pricey, if not impossible in places. Poorer unvaxed countries will have further waves for months The fucking virus will haunt our TV news for the foreseeable.
And yes, that means a massive reset of expectations. In all ways. Life is going to be crimped and diminished - and shortened for some - though there will probably be upsides. Eventually
I don't agree. Sooner or later, the virus will have nowhere to go. My money's on sooner.
One of the year 4 classes at my daughter's school has 12 positives out of 30. There are at least another five who have had positives in the past. That's one cohort it's going to have trouble sweeping through a second time.
Quite a day out, 20 cans, umpteen lines of coke, flare up his arse, then breaking into Wembley. Bet his mum his proud.
The Sun shows us "Benidorm Bunters" tattooed on one of his buttocks, but it's revealing that so few newspapers mention the "Brexit Forevver, 2016" he's got inked on the other one.
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
I think an acceptance in the western world that this is going to bring average life expectancy down for at least a decade until we learn much more about treatments and come up with a "perfect" vaccine that stops infection at a rate of over 99%.
With the advent of the ascendency of Germ Theory, the development of vaccinations, and the discovery of antibiotics, the West believed it could 'win the war' with infectious diseases. We should have recognized that this was a mirage at least 20-30 years ago, but the penny is, at last, beginning to drop, I think.
Is it possible there is something about human race today, how we have used vaccines and antibiotics for a while now, how we live today and travel the globe so easily, how our population grows, how the planet is polluted, that rather than one off, the emergence of this could be the first of many pandemics in the coming period, some even more virulent and deadly?
That it’s not a one off, ourselves and the world today has become susceptible to it. Possibly?
There are tons of factors. Jared Diamonds book Guns, Germs, and Steel has the concept that as human population density increases, so the type of disease we are afflicted by evolves.
So in sparse populations, disease is essentially parasites, which are capable of surviving outside of any one given host species (in another species, or in the soil or water) while between hosts of that species.
As populations get denser with the advent of cities (and those with poor sanitation) then disease become bacteriological.
And more denser, viral disease take off.
But other factors play a role, too. Our more connected world, our encroachment into wildlife habitats, our diminishment of wildlife species diversity in those remaining wildlife ecologies - all play into more rapid evolution of zoonotic diseases
Would be interesting also to know behaviour and behaviour change. Are a lot of the two jabbed still self imposing restrictions on themselves?
A lot of 40+ never showed virus any respect in first place and carried on sociably as usual, jabbing made no difference to them, does this behaviour group show up more greatly in hospitalised stats you reeled off?
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
Yes, agreed. Unless we get lucky and the virus mutates into a cold, it will be with us and bothering us for a long long time.
When I say it will be affecting us into 2022 or 2023 I mean seriously bruising our lives - travel will be difficult or pricey, if not impossible in places. Poorer unvaxed countries will have further waves for months The fucking virus will haunt our TV news for the foreseeable.
And yes, that means a massive reset of expectations. In all ways. Life is going to be crimped and diminished - and shortened for some - though there will probably be upsides. Eventually
I don't agree. Sooner or later, the virus will have nowhere to go. My money's on sooner.
One of the year 4 classes at my daughter's school has 12 positives out of 30. There are at least another five who have had positives in the past. That's one cohort it's going to have trouble sweeping through a second time.
I pray you are right
The history of Spanish flu is instructive. It didn't just disappear (as some think) it evolved to become a "normal" flu, tho it had the capacity to mutate further, decades later, and cause further pandemics, albeit smaller than the hideous initial outbreak, which killed 50-100 million in 2 years
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
On a different topic, there are literally hundreds of comments chez the Daily Mail today describing the flooding and suffering in Germany as "punishment" for the EU's conduct during Brexit, or joking about it on similar lines. What a truly putrid and decaying culture the entire Brexit process has unleashed for a certain strand of society.
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
I think an acceptance in the western world that this is going to bring average life expectancy down for at least a decade until we learn much more about treatments and come up with a "perfect" vaccine that stops infection at a rate of over 99%.
My guess is that it won’t bring life expectancy down. Other factors, better diet, less smoking, the advance of science in healthcare, will probably override the effect of covid.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
I think an acceptance in the western world that this is going to bring average life expectancy down for at least a decade until we learn much more about treatments and come up with a "perfect" vaccine that stops infection at a rate of over 99%.
My guess is that it won’t bring life expectancy down. Other factors, better diet, less smoking, the advance of science in healthcare, will probably override the effect of covid.
I think if we were to junk lockdowns and "let rip" into a fully vaccinated population around 10-20k over 80s would die every year from it which will lower the average life expectancy a bit in the UK.
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
Yes, agreed. Unless we get lucky and the virus mutates into a cold, it will be with us and bothering us for a long long time.
When I say it will be affecting us into 2022 or 2023 I mean seriously bruising our lives - travel will be difficult or pricey, if not impossible in places. Poorer unvaxed countries will have further waves for months The fucking virus will haunt our TV news for the foreseeable.
And yes, that means a massive reset of expectations. In all ways. Life is going to be crimped and diminished - and shortened for some - though there will probably be upsides. Eventually
I don't agree. Sooner or later, the virus will have nowhere to go. My money's on sooner.
One of the year 4 classes at my daughter's school has 12 positives out of 30. There are at least another five who have had positives in the past. That's one cohort it's going to have trouble sweeping through a second time.
I pray you are right
The history of Spanish flu is instructive. It didn't just disappear (as some think) it evolved to become a "normal" flu, tho it had the capacity to mutate further, decades later, and cause further pandemics, albeit smaller than the hideous initial outbreak, which killed 50-100 million in 2 years
People forget that the reason that this virus has been so destructive is that it is a “novel” virus. At some point it stops being novel and most people in the world will be able to fight it off second time around due to exposure through infections or vaccinations. But we will all get it at some point, probably more than once.
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
“The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.”
Unpopular sure, especially if attacked mercilessly by rival party’s and media who aren’t actually proposing a policy.
But surely it is the moderate way forward. A burgeoning social care bill to be paid for by NI which is tax, by workers struggling to afford homes, whilst those with the treasure refuse to spend it on their care and health needs, you are actually saying is the fairer and more moderate position going forward.
What can we agree on? The country had a problem? None of the parts currently have much stated policy for dealing with it, let alone what the moderate and fair policy is?
If international travel continues to be discouraged and states' virus policies diverge and settle down, one possibility over the next few years is an expansion of "country-shopping": those with the means jump ship to where they think they'll be safer and better positioned and stay put.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
Meanwhile there's a Subway and McDonald's opening in Hexham. Levelling up on track.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
On the other hand, Sola Soho is new(ish), and superb. So it's not all doom and gloom.
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
Yes, agreed. Unless we get lucky and the virus mutates into a cold, it will be with us and bothering us for a long long time.
When I say it will be affecting us into 2022 or 2023 I mean seriously bruising our lives - travel will be difficult or pricey, if not impossible in places. Poorer unvaxed countries will have further waves for months The fucking virus will haunt our TV news for the foreseeable.
And yes, that means a massive reset of expectations. In all ways. Life is going to be crimped and diminished - and shortened for some - though there will probably be upsides. Eventually
I don't agree. Sooner or later, the virus will have nowhere to go. My money's on sooner.
One of the year 4 classes at my daughter's school has 12 positives out of 30. There are at least another five who have had positives in the past. That's one cohort it's going to have trouble sweeping through a second time.
I pray you are right
The history of Spanish flu is instructive. It didn't just disappear (as some think) it evolved to become a "normal" flu, tho it had the capacity to mutate further, decades later, and cause further pandemics, albeit smaller than the hideous initial outbreak, which killed 50-100 million in 2 years
People forget that the reason that this virus has been so destructive is that it is a “novel” virus. At some point it stops being novel and most people in the world will be able to fight it off second time around due to exposure through infections or vaccinations. But we will all get it at some point, probably more than once.
And the second time it will be less bad, by the third time it's just a cold. The key is that you want as many people vaccinated as possible before they get it for the first time, especially over 50s. That doesn't mean we will eliminate all COVID deaths, it means we will reduce the severity of it to a degree that it doesn't topple healthcare provision.
If international travel continues to be discouraged and states' virus policies diverge and settle down, one possibility over the next few years is an expansion of "country-shopping": those with the means jump ship to where they think they'll be safer and better positioned and stay put.
Yes. We've been thinking about this for months. Trouble is your roots: family and friends. If it wasn't for that I'd be out for sure.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
Meanwhile there's a Subway and McDonald's opening in Hexham. Levelling up on track.
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
I think an acceptance in the western world that this is going to bring average life expectancy down for at least a decade until we learn much more about treatments and come up with a "perfect" vaccine that stops infection at a rate of over 99%.
My guess is that it won’t bring life expectancy down. Other factors, better diet, less smoking, the advance of science in healthcare, will probably override the effect of covid.
I think if we were to junk lockdowns and "let rip" into a fully vaccinated population around 10-20k over 80s would die every year from it which will lower the average life expectancy a bit in the UK.
How many of those would fall into the category of 'people who would have died that year anyway'?
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
I think an acceptance in the western world that this is going to bring average life expectancy down for at least a decade until we learn much more about treatments and come up with a "perfect" vaccine that stops infection at a rate of over 99%.
With the advent of the ascendency of Germ Theory, the development of vaccinations, and the discovery of antibiotics, the West believed it could 'win the war' with infectious diseases. We should have recognized that this was a mirage at least 20-30 years ago, but the penny is, at last, beginning to drop, I think.
I don't think the situation is that stark, although it could yet become so if the situation with respect to antibiotic resistance continues to deteriorate.
The other pressing problem in the UK is the lack of capacity in the healthcare system, but as with all other problems that we can agree need fixing and will cost lots of money to put right, everyone thinks that it is everyone else's job but theirs to pay to do it. Plus ça change.
ONS statistics show no decline in mean life expectancy. I'm not sure how to include an image in a post but the moving 3- or 4-year average death rate (age-adjusted per 100,000) has been flat since ~2010. Before then it was falling slowly, i.e. Brits. were living a bit longer with every passing year.
The death rate jumps around from winter to winter, depending on how bad respiratory viruses are that season. 2018-19 was noticeably low; 2019-20 and 2020-21 were higher than the average for the decade.
We have cheap purposed drugs, as Drs. Kory or Lawrie, Prof McCullough or other medical experts would gladly tell you. Their clinical experience in using them to prevent hospitalisation and death began in spring 2020 and continues. It's not my fault that the pharma industry values profits over lives and that YT/FB/Twitter have started censoring free debate, also the UK government has been doing the same in orders to OFCOM.
Weinstein suggested in an interview that ivermectin could eradicate the virus. Given that it's safe, unlike the vaccines, I wouldn't object to taking a short course of it. Saves the NHS £ billions. But the lost $$ & ££ displease pharma boards and shareholders, who now determine a country's medical policy, so it won't happen.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
On the other hand, Sola Soho is new(ish), and superb. So it's not all doom and gloom.
I'll try and stay positive, but I fear the worst for London, and for all big western cities
Quite a day out, 20 cans, umpteen lines of coke, flare up his arse, then breaking into Wembley. Bet his mum his proud.
The Sun shows us "Benidorm Bunters" tattooed on one of his buttocks, but it's revealing that so few newspapers mention the "Brexit Forevver, 2016" he's got inked on the other one.
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
“The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.”
Unpopular sure, especially if attacked mercilessly by rival party’s and media who aren’t actually proposing a policy.
But surely it is the moderate way forward. A burgeoning social care bill to be paid for by NI which is tax, by workers struggling to afford homes, whilst those with the treasure refuse to spend it on their care and health needs, you are actually saying is the fairer and more moderate position going forward.
What can we agree on? The country had a problem? None of the parts currently have much stated policy for dealing with it, let alone what the moderate and fair policy is?
In the long run, there are only two ways you are going to cover the spiralling cost of replacing old people's knackered joints and wiping their arses when they become demented:
1. Get the elderly (directly, and/or via taxation of their estates after they die) to cover it 2. Get the young to foot the bill
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
There are still plenty of good fish restaurants! Bentley's is excellent, as is Scott's. OK they are costly but if you want to splurge
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
I'm a great fan of Sheekey's - it's just so good for after the theatre; there's really nowhere else like it in London that opens late enough. True, it is pricey, but to leave the theatre, walk a couple of minutes, and then be welcomed into that lovely space is very agreeable. It's true that some of the dishes are nothing special, but if you choose well, it's great.
Every time I have been into town these last few weeks I’ve enjoyed it and been pleasantly surprised by how lively it is. Obviously though we need more people in in September. The school holidays are always very quiet anyway.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
How can he say he foresaw the outcome if he doesn’t predict every possible outcome?
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
Yes, agreed. Unless we get lucky and the virus mutates into a cold, it will be with us and bothering us for a long long time.
When I say it will be affecting us into 2022 or 2023 I mean seriously bruising our lives - travel will be difficult or pricey, if not impossible in places. Poorer unvaxed countries will have further waves for months The fucking virus will haunt our TV news for the foreseeable.
And yes, that means a massive reset of expectations. In all ways. Life is going to be crimped and diminished - and shortened for some - though there will probably be upsides. Eventually
I don't agree. Sooner or later, the virus will have nowhere to go. My money's on sooner.
One of the year 4 classes at my daughter's school has 12 positives out of 30. There are at least another five who have had positives in the past. That's one cohort it's going to have trouble sweeping through a second time.
I pray you are right
The history of Spanish flu is instructive. It didn't just disappear (as some think) it evolved to become a "normal" flu, tho it had the capacity to mutate further, decades later, and cause further pandemics, albeit smaller than the hideous initial outbreak, which killed 50-100 million in 2 years
People forget that the reason that this virus has been so destructive is that it is a “novel” virus. At some point it stops being novel and most people in the world will be able to fight it off second time around due to exposure through infections or vaccinations. But we will all get it at some point, probably more than once.
And the second time it will be less bad, by the third time it's just a cold. The key is that you want as many people vaccinated as possible before they get it for the first time, especially over 50s. That doesn't mean we will eliminate all COVID deaths, it means we will reduce the severity of it to a degree that it doesn't topple healthcare provision.
It's not novel. That's the point that Martin made in his interview with Fuellmich.
It's called SARS-CoV-2. The one that caused a lot of deaths in 2002-04, with a fatality rate of I think *10%*, was SARS-CoV-*1*. The related MERS I think had a fatality rate of *50%*... aargh.
Smallpox in the 19th.C had a fatality rate of 70% in children. I think 1853 is the only time in UK history that for a while a vaccine was made mandatory. Never again, especially not for a fatality rate lower than Hong Kong (1968) or Asian (1957) flu. We decided after WW2 that forced medication was a breach of a person's human rights.
In future Wembley Way will have to be tickets and residents only all day on matchdays, it cant be an all day drinking fan park bordering the stadium for an 8pm kick off which the all day drinkers are desperate to attend.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
There are still plenty of good fish restaurants! Bentley's is excellent, as is Scott's. OK they are costly but if you want to splurge
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
Now gone. *sad face*
I remember when Bentleys was owned by Oscar Owide. It was…different…to how I understand it is now.
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
“The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.”
Unpopular sure, especially if attacked mercilessly by rival party’s and media who aren’t actually proposing a policy.
But surely it is the moderate way forward. A burgeoning social care bill to be paid for by NI which is tax, by workers struggling to afford homes, whilst those with the treasure refuse to spend it on their care and health needs, you are actually saying is the fairer and more moderate position going forward.
What can we agree on? The country had a problem? None of the parts currently have much stated policy for dealing with it, let alone what the moderate and fair policy is?
I think I was about the only person in the country (well, I’m sure there were a few council finance bods) who was cheering on May’s proposals.
Hyufd’s position on this is, sadly, bang in line with public opinion and, well, completely morally indefensible.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
How can he say he foresaw the outcome if he doesn’t predict every possible outcome?
The virus is with us for ever. The question is not eradication, but how we live with it. Vaccination is clearly key, but there are many other factors - and perhaps a need to reset expectations
I think an acceptance in the western world that this is going to bring average life expectancy down for at least a decade until we learn much more about treatments and come up with a "perfect" vaccine that stops infection at a rate of over 99%.
My guess is that it won’t bring life expectancy down. Other factors, better diet, less smoking, the advance of science in healthcare, will probably override the effect of covid.
I think if we were to junk lockdowns and "let rip" into a fully vaccinated population around 10-20k over 80s would die every year from it which will lower the average life expectancy a bit in the UK.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
I like Smiths in Wapping, never had a bad meal there.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
It has clearly escaped your attention that I am prone to mood swings. I am also prone to wishful thinking. I want London to roar back to life (likewise Paris, NYC, and so on), and yet if I am honest with myself I am not sure how it happens, logically. Certainly not soon
The world has changed for good. Working From Home is not going away. If you can or must Work From Home you will work somewhere spacious and green, maybe sunny and warm. That ain't London
Meanwhile so many of the other things that made London life seductive - restaurants, shops, galleries, opera houses, everything, the whole glittering cavalcade, are either damaged, diminished or dead
So why live in London, or NYC? As crime spirals?
For several decades the great western cities enjoyed power and wealth and ever increasing prestige (and populations). That epoch is over. The process is flung into reverse
London will likely rebound in time. But it will take a long time
In future Wembley Way will have to be tickets and residents only all day on matchdays, it cant be an all day drinking fan park bordering the stadium for an 8pm kick off which the all day drinkers are desperate to attend.
When I went to the Olympics there was a ring of a steel around the stadium, you couldn't get within a mile of it without a ticket.
Did the Met really think Sunday's match required less effort than the Olympics?
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
“The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.”
Unpopular sure, especially if attacked mercilessly by rival party’s and media who aren’t actually proposing a policy.
But surely it is the moderate way forward. A burgeoning social care bill to be paid for by NI which is tax, by workers struggling to afford homes, whilst those with the treasure refuse to spend it on their care and health needs, you are actually saying is the fairer and more moderate position going forward.
What can we agree on? The country had a problem? None of the parts currently have much stated policy for dealing with it, let alone what the moderate and fair policy is?
Actually most middle aged workers will inherit far more from their elderly parents houses if they do not have to sell them to fund at home care than they ever will pay in NI. Hence May's policy was so unpopular, in fact more unpopular with the 45 to 65s who would be most affected than the over 65s who it would not impact until they died.
If you go into residential care you already have to sell your house to pay for it anyway
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
On the other hand, Sola Soho is new(ish), and superb. So it's not all doom and gloom.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
There are still plenty of good fish restaurants! Bentley's is excellent, as is Scott's. OK they are costly but if you want to splurge
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
Now gone. *sad face*
Thanks for the suggestion of Ran&A - I'll try them. I never liked Atlantic Bar - too much of a braying shed.
There was some place on Haymarket (I think) that was a really simple cooker of fish (and very good at is), but the prices were about 10x what they should have been.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
I dont think something ending up pretty much the same as it was before exists in Leon world, it either has to be the best thing ever, or the worst, generally the latter.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
It has clearly escaped your attention that I am prone to mood swings. I am also prone to wishful thinking. I want London to roar back to life (likewise Paris, NYC, and so on), and yet if I am honest with myself I am not sure how it happens, logically. Certainly not soon
The world has changed for good. Working From Home is not going away. If you can or must Work From Home you will work somewhere spacious and green, maybe sunny and warm. That ain't London
Meanwhile so many of the other things that made London life seductive - restaurants, shops, galleries, opera houses, everything, the whole glittering cavalcade, are either damaged, diminished or dead
So why live in London, or NYC? As crime spirals?
For several decades the great western cities enjoyed power and wealth and ever increasing prestige (and populations). That epoch is over. The process is flung into reverse
London will likely rebound in time. But it will take a long time
London's had a good run. 1930-80 decline. 1980-2020 boom. These things go in cycles. Somebody else's turn.
Every time I have been into town these last few weeks I’ve enjoyed it and been pleasantly surprised by how lively it is. Obviously though we need more people in in September. The school holidays are always very quiet anyway.
It's fairly busy in the central areas like Covent Garden and Soho, but step away from there and it soon gets pretty dire.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
On the other hand, Sola Soho is new(ish), and superb. So it's not all doom and gloom.
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
“The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.”
Unpopular sure, especially if attacked mercilessly by rival party’s and media who aren’t actually proposing a policy.
But surely it is the moderate way forward. A burgeoning social care bill to be paid for by NI which is tax, by workers struggling to afford homes, whilst those with the treasure refuse to spend it on their care and health needs, you are actually saying is the fairer and more moderate position going forward.
What can we agree on? The country had a problem? None of the parts currently have much stated policy for dealing with it, let alone what the moderate and fair policy is?
Actually most middle aged workers will inherit far more from their elderly parents houses if they do not have to sell them to fund at home care than they ever will pay in NI. Hence May's policy was so unpopular, in fact more unpopular with the 45 to 65s who would be most affected than the over 65s who it would not impact until they died.
If you go into residential care you already have to sell your house to pay for it anyway
I think you underestimate how many assetless people there are
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
On the other hand, Sola Soho is new(ish), and superb. So it's not all doom and gloom.
Any thoughts/reviews on the London Steakhouse?
No, I've never been there.
JohnO and I are going there next month for our regular working man's lunch.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
It has clearly escaped your attention that I am prone to mood swings. I am also prone to wishful thinking. I want London to roar back to life (likewise Paris, NYC, and so on), and yet if I am honest with myself I am not sure how it happens, logically. Certainly not soon
The world has changed for good. Working From Home is not going away. If you can or must Work From Home you will work somewhere spacious and green, maybe sunny and warm. That ain't London
Meanwhile so many of the other things that made London life seductive - restaurants, shops, galleries, opera houses, everything, the whole glittering cavalcade, are either damaged, diminished or dead
So why live in London, or NYC? As crime spirals?
For several decades the great western cities enjoyed power and wealth and ever increasing prestige (and populations). That epoch is over. The process is flung into reverse
London will likely rebound in time. But it will take a long time
London's had a good run. 1930-80 decline. 1980-2020 boom. These things go in cycles. Somebody else's turn.
The boom was 1985-2019 (1985 was the nadir of population size, too).
But yes, all true
The cycles of life. At least I lived here when it was the best city on earth. Truly swaggering. Someone else will enjoy its revival in about 15-20 years
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
It has clearly escaped your attention that I am prone to mood swings. I am also prone to wishful thinking. I want London to roar back to life (likewise Paris, NYC, and so on), and yet if I am honest with myself I am not sure how it happens, logically. Certainly not soon
The world has changed for good. Working From Home is not going away. If you can or must Work From Home you will work somewhere spacious and green, maybe sunny and warm. That ain't London
Meanwhile so many of the other things that made London life seductive - restaurants, shops, galleries, opera houses, everything, the whole glittering cavalcade, are either damaged, diminished or dead
So why live in London, or NYC? As crime spirals?
For several decades the great western cities enjoyed power and wealth and ever increasing prestige (and populations). That epoch is over. The process is flung into reverse
London will likely rebound in time. But it will take a long time
London's had a good run. 1930-80 decline. 1980-2020 boom. These things go in cycles. Somebody else's turn.
We need another Blessed Margaret to restore London to it's glory days?
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
There are still plenty of good fish restaurants! Bentley's is excellent, as is Scott's. OK they are costly but if you want to splurge
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
Now gone. *sad face*
We had a fantastic meal in the Oystermen pre-Covid but it's definitely a food first ambience 2nd experience - which suited us.
Out of London we had one of the best ever fish meals last week at the Crab House Cafe, Weymouth. They grow and harvest their own oysters from the Chesil Beach lagoon which is just in front of the cafe. Superb oysters of course but the whole meal was truly outstanding.
Again, be prepared: it's beach shack cafe ambience.
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
“The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.”
Unpopular sure, especially if attacked mercilessly by rival party’s and media who aren’t actually proposing a policy.
But surely it is the moderate way forward. A burgeoning social care bill to be paid for by NI which is tax, by workers struggling to afford homes, whilst those with the treasure refuse to spend it on their care and health needs, you are actually saying is the fairer and more moderate position going forward.
What can we agree on? The country had a problem? None of the parts currently have much stated policy for dealing with it, let alone what the moderate and fair policy is?
Actually most middle aged workers will inherit far more from their elderly parents houses if they do not have to sell them to fund at home care than they ever will pay in NI. Hence May's policy was so unpopular, in fact more unpopular with the 45 to 65s who would be most affected than the over 65s who it would not impact until they died.
If you go into residential care you already have to sell your house to pay for it anyway
The problem with May's proposal was that it was misreported and then misrepresented by people opposed to the government. I struggle to see any solution which isn't cross-party.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
It has clearly escaped your attention that I am prone to mood swings. I am also prone to wishful thinking. I want London to roar back to life (likewise Paris, NYC, and so on), and yet if I am honest with myself I am not sure how it happens, logically. Certainly not soon
The world has changed for good. Working From Home is not going away. If you can or must Work From Home you will work somewhere spacious and green, maybe sunny and warm. That ain't London
Meanwhile so many of the other things that made London life seductive - restaurants, shops, galleries, opera houses, everything, the whole glittering cavalcade, are either damaged, diminished or dead
So why live in London, or NYC? As crime spirals?
For several decades the great western cities enjoyed power and wealth and ever increasing prestige (and populations). That epoch is over. The process is flung into reverse
London will likely rebound in time. But it will take a long time
From September I expect most people will be working back in the office at least 3 days a week, with maybe the other 2 still WFH.
So I expect the big global cities like NYC and London to gradually rebound, though more workers will continue to move out to the outer suburbs and rural areas and bigger houses there and take advantage of the bigger space and mix of city life when they want it but a home life with more green space and fresh air
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
There are still plenty of good fish restaurants! Bentley's is excellent, as is Scott's. OK they are costly but if you want to splurge
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
Now gone. *sad face*
We had a fantastic meal in the Oystermen pre-Covid but it's definitely a food first ambience 2nd experience - which suited us.
Out of London we had one of the best ever fish meals last week at the Crab House Cafe, Weymouth. They grow and harvest their own oysters from the Chesil Beach lagoon which is just in front of the cafe. Superb oysters of course but the whole meal was truly outstanding.
Again, be prepared: it's beach shack cafe ambience.
I LOVE the beach shack cafe stuff. The Company Shed in Mersea is great for that, likewise the Mersea Oyster Caff next door
In future Wembley Way will have to be tickets and residents only all day on matchdays, it cant be an all day drinking fan park bordering the stadium for an 8pm kick off which the all day drinkers are desperate to attend.
When I went to the Olympics there was a ring of a steel around the stadium, you couldn't get within a mile of it without a ticket.
Did the Met really think Sunday's match required less effort than the Olympics?
Dick needs to go.
Olympic stadium or Wembley during the Olympics? Olympic stadium is much easier to police. I did go to Wembley for the Olympics but can't recall how it was set up.
Another side note, if we had the flash floods that hit London on Tuesday night on Sunday evening, we could have been talking about hundreds of deaths at Wembley, there was no way to escape the crowds. Obviously such floods are very rare, not really seen anything like it here before, but stadiums should have some ability to allow crowds to cope with extreme weather events.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
It has clearly escaped your attention that I am prone to mood swings. I am also prone to wishful thinking. I want London to roar back to life (likewise Paris, NYC, and so on), and yet if I am honest with myself I am not sure how it happens, logically. Certainly not soon
The world has changed for good. Working From Home is not going away. If you can or must Work From Home you will work somewhere spacious and green, maybe sunny and warm. That ain't London
Meanwhile so many of the other things that made London life seductive - restaurants, shops, galleries, opera houses, everything, the whole glittering cavalcade, are either damaged, diminished or dead
So why live in London, or NYC? As crime spirals?
For several decades the great western cities enjoyed power and wealth and ever increasing prestige (and populations). That epoch is over. The process is flung into reverse
London will likely rebound in time. But it will take a long time
London's had a good run. 1930-80 decline. 1980-2020 boom. These things go in cycles. Somebody else's turn.
Shanghai looks to be the coming global city, China's NYC or London
Under 50 and double vaxxed chances of you catching COVID and ending up with covid is vanishingly small.
Not so good if you are an oldie. Although hard to tell as obviously figures distorted by unvaccinated (and 25th June case numbers were still very low).
My double jabbed 33 year old son (second jab in May) managed to catch it last week, and has had a couple of days of fever, sweats and severe lethargy. On day three he said that he felt as if he'd 'got his brain back' and had been in another place. Thankfully he does not appear to have passed it on to his double jabbed parents, or single jabbed sister, all of whom shared a smallish room with him for an hour the evening before he tested positive. Similarly, his double jabbed wife continues to test negative.
On the subject of restaurants, we're at the Sadler's Wells in early September, any recommendations nearby? We like Moro but it might be nice to try somewhere else.
In future Wembley Way will have to be tickets and residents only all day on matchdays, it cant be an all day drinking fan park bordering the stadium for an 8pm kick off which the all day drinkers are desperate to attend.
When I went to the Olympics there was a ring of a steel around the stadium, you couldn't get within a mile of it without a ticket.
Did the Met really think Sunday's match required less effort than the Olympics?
Dick needs to go.
Wasn't there a piece on the front of either the Times or the Telegraph recently, suggesting that she wanted to continue and was after a new contract?
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
It has clearly escaped your attention that I am prone to mood swings. I am also prone to wishful thinking. I want London to roar back to life (likewise Paris, NYC, and so on), and yet if I am honest with myself I am not sure how it happens, logically. Certainly not soon
The world has changed for good. Working From Home is not going away. If you can or must Work From Home you will work somewhere spacious and green, maybe sunny and warm. That ain't London
Meanwhile so many of the other things that made London life seductive - restaurants, shops, galleries, opera houses, everything, the whole glittering cavalcade, are either damaged, diminished or dead
So why live in London, or NYC? As crime spirals?
For several decades the great western cities enjoyed power and wealth and ever increasing prestige (and populations). That epoch is over. The process is flung into reverse
London will likely rebound in time. But it will take a long time
London's had a good run. 1930-80 decline. 1980-2020 boom. These things go in cycles. Somebody else's turn.
Shanghai looks to be coming global city, China's NYC or London
Shanghai is a fantastic and fascinating city, but Shanghai can no more be a global city than Berlin could in 1937. The government is too malignant
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
“The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.”
Unpopular sure, especially if attacked mercilessly by rival party’s and media who aren’t actually proposing a policy.
But surely it is the moderate way forward. A burgeoning social care bill to be paid for by NI which is tax, by workers struggling to afford homes, whilst those with the treasure refuse to spend it on their care and health needs, you are actually saying is the fairer and more moderate position going forward.
What can we agree on? The country had a problem? None of the parts currently have much stated policy for dealing with it, let alone what the moderate and fair policy is?
Actually most middle aged workers will inherit far more from their elderly parents houses if they do not have to sell them to fund at home care than they ever will pay in NI. Hence May's policy was so unpopular, in fact more unpopular with the 45 to 65s who would be most affected than the over 65s who it would not impact until they died.
If you go into residential care you already have to sell your house to pay for it anyway
I think you underestimate how many assetless people there are
75% of over 65s now own their own homes, so that is a lot of middle aged children who will inherit in a decade or two
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
There are still plenty of good fish restaurants! Bentley's is excellent, as is Scott's. OK they are costly but if you want to splurge
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
Now gone. *sad face*
Thanks for the suggestion of Ran&A - I'll try them. I never liked Atlantic Bar - too much of a braying shed.
There was some place on Haymarket (I think) that was a really simple cooker of fish (and very good at is), but the prices were about 10x what they should have been.
Given your username it seems remiss not to point out your near namesake, Omnino and its sister Omnino Brazilian BBQ are very much worth visits if they return if you also enjoy steak.
What's the betting that in 20 years time we will have ended up with a care solution similar to May's and trading arrangements with EU that are similar to May's. The world's worst saleswoman.
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
“The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.”
Unpopular sure, especially if attacked mercilessly by rival party’s and media who aren’t actually proposing a policy.
But surely it is the moderate way forward. A burgeoning social care bill to be paid for by NI which is tax, by workers struggling to afford homes, whilst those with the treasure refuse to spend it on their care and health needs, you are actually saying is the fairer and more moderate position going forward.
What can we agree on? The country had a problem? None of the parts currently have much stated policy for dealing with it, let alone what the moderate and fair policy is?
I think I was about the only person in the country (well, I’m sure there were a few council finance bods) who was cheering on May’s proposals.
Hyufd’s position on this is, sadly, bang in line with public opinion and, well, completely morally indefensible.
I was cheering May's social care proposals on pb.com.
I remember being furiously attacked by posters on the left & the right.
(It was the only good thing May came up with, although she presented it with her characteristic clumsiness).
Was that written on his private Jet on its way to the green coded Turks and Caicos Islands....?
Because that's what his fellow heroes of oppressed immigrant masses of Great Britain are up to (The Mail.....naughty).
While the rest of us celebrate our white privilege in Britain's lovely coastal areas.
Bit snarky of you to demean capitalist enterprise. Anyone can go anywhere they want surely. Just have to follow the rules for the moment.
Six years ago Saka lead Greenford High School Yr 8 team to be Ealing Borough champions.
The fact that these guys are fabulously wealthy does not make racial abuse any less difficult to bear or more excusable to mete out than in any other case.
But it does make the allegation 'Britain is institutionally racist' very hard to take, when evidence of the opposite is winging its way to paradise.
I think racism is endemic in the UK but that is not the same as the UK being institutionally racist. And Saka mentioned nothing of that in his statement.
This is why language is so important.
Only 7-12% of the population admit to overt racism. A further 10-15% have some prejudiced attitudes. So that gets you to about a quarter of the population.
That's far better than even 20 years ago, but abuse on social media is worse than it was 20 years - because of anonymity, the ease of targeting, and the fact the worst examples are so enthusiastically shared - so it's amplified. Further, the fact it's relatively rare in the real world, now, makes the frosty looks or "faces" you get now feel so much more hurtful.
So, basically, it should have gone entirely by now, but hasn't, and the worst examples now either stand-out starkly or have a great platform for distribution. That makes it feel endemic.
That's different to the UK being institutionally racist, which to me would suggest something like the Jim Crow laws, apartheid or the situation before the Race Equality Act, or structurally racist, which would suggest that some of the structures of the UK - the Union, the flag, its symbols, monarchy, and parliamentary system - need to come down first.
That's the trap people fall into; they inadvertently row in behind some causes of the radical Left.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
There are still plenty of good fish restaurants! Bentley's is excellent, as is Scott's. OK they are costly but if you want to splurge
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
Now gone. *sad face*
We had a fantastic meal in the Oystermen pre-Covid but it's definitely a food first ambience 2nd experience - which suited us.
Out of London we had one of the best ever fish meals last week at the Crab House Cafe, Weymouth. They grow and harvest their own oysters from the Chesil Beach lagoon which is just in front of the cafe. Superb oysters of course but the whole meal was truly outstanding.
Again, be prepared: it's beach shack cafe ambience.
I LOVE the beach shack cafe stuff. The Company Shed in Mersea is great for that, likewise the Mersea Oyster Caff next door
Ok thanks - we're venturing into Essex in September for a visit to the Beth Chatto gardens so Mersea's not far from there.
Edit: need to fine a nice hotel in that area actually as we'll probably do the RHS garden at Hyde Hall too and make a weekend of it.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
It has clearly escaped your attention that I am prone to mood swings. I am also prone to wishful thinking. I want London to roar back to life (likewise Paris, NYC, and so on), and yet if I am honest with myself I am not sure how it happens, logically. Certainly not soon
The world has changed for good. Working From Home is not going away. If you can or must Work From Home you will work somewhere spacious and green, maybe sunny and warm. That ain't London
Meanwhile so many of the other things that made London life seductive - restaurants, shops, galleries, opera houses, everything, the whole glittering cavalcade, are either damaged, diminished or dead
So why live in London, or NYC? As crime spirals?
For several decades the great western cities enjoyed power and wealth and ever increasing prestige (and populations). That epoch is over. The process is flung into reverse
London will likely rebound in time. But it will take a long time
From September I expect most people will be working back in the office at least 3 days a week, with maybe the other 2 still WFH.
So I expect the big global cities like NYC and London to gradually rebound, though more workers will continue to move out to the outer suburbs and rural areas and bigger houses there and take advantage of the bigger space and mix of city life when they want it but a home life with more green space and fresh air
It is possible that the flagpole cities like London and NYC will do OK, as they are SO big and prestigious, people will still want to live and work there. If that happens, it is the 2nd order cities that will suffer much more. Chicago, say, or Manchester
They don't have the seductions of a New York or a London, but will have many of the nasty issues - crime, depopulation, and so on
I am particularly pessimistic about American cities. They are fucked
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
It was only a couple of days ago you were telling us you sensed it roaring back.
It has clearly escaped your attention that I am prone to mood swings. I am also prone to wishful thinking. I want London to roar back to life (likewise Paris, NYC, and so on), and yet if I am honest with myself I am not sure how it happens, logically. Certainly not soon
The world has changed for good. Working From Home is not going away. If you can or must Work From Home you will work somewhere spacious and green, maybe sunny and warm. That ain't London
Meanwhile so many of the other things that made London life seductive - restaurants, shops, galleries, opera houses, everything, the whole glittering cavalcade, are either damaged, diminished or dead
So why live in London, or NYC? As crime spirals?
For several decades the great western cities enjoyed power and wealth and ever increasing prestige (and populations). That epoch is over. The process is flung into reverse
London will likely rebound in time. But it will take a long time
London's had a good run. 1930-80 decline. 1980-2020 boom. These things go in cycles. Somebody else's turn.
We need another Blessed Margaret to restore London to it's glory days?
Would probably require the UK to return to the single market or at least London to retain the financial services passport for it to return to the late Thatcher, Blair days when it was at its postwar height.
We are now in a less fiscally conservative, post single market age in the UK with Boris and indeed Starmer at present.
That helps the Red Wall with more spending and less free movement but it does not help London
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
On the other hand, Sola Soho is new(ish), and superb. So it's not all doom and gloom.
Any thoughts/reviews on the London Steakhouse?
Overpriced and average imo. Just about fine if you get a meal deal instead of a la carte, but far better alternatives available.
48k cases now. So much for confident predictions we'd peaked at 35k cases per day.
It's the cup final, cramming people into pubs instead of outdoor fan parks was a bad idea, it turns out.
The Spectator is claiming that Freedom Day is now empty of meaning, and the government wants all restrictions to stay, they just can't say it openly, because politics
This fucking plague won't go away. Jeez!
Nobody is really having the honest conversation.
I think people will make the calls for themselves. They will see the soaring cases and unpleasant acceleration in hospitalisations and deaths. Nervousness is increasing. The school holidays MAY help but they are still a week away. Or they may not.
School breaking up will unequivocally help. The link between schools being open and cases is pretty clear unless there has been a freakish repeated coincidence between timing of school holidays and case numbers changing.
48k cases now. So much for confident predictions we'd peaked at 35k cases per day.
It's the cup final, cramming people into pubs instead of outdoor fan parks was a bad idea, it turns out.
The Spectator is claiming that Freedom Day is now empty of meaning, and the government wants all restrictions to stay, they just can't say it openly, because politics
This fucking plague won't go away. Jeez!
Nobody is really having the honest conversation.
That The Spectator is a shadow of its old self?
I love The Spectator. I'd say 75% of its issues are superb, with articles well-worth reading.
I disagree with some articles, and occasionally Toby Young, Rod Liddle, Nick Cohen and Charles Moore go a bit off the wall, but at other times they nail the zeitgeist - and they have lots of moderate journalists too.
It's refreshing and provides well-articulated (and necessary) views you don't get elsewhere.
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
There are still plenty of good fish restaurants! Bentley's is excellent, as is Scott's. OK they are costly but if you want to splurge
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
Now gone. *sad face*
We had a fantastic meal in the Oystermen pre-Covid but it's definitely a food first ambience 2nd experience - which suited us.
Out of London we had one of the best ever fish meals last week at the Crab House Cafe, Weymouth. They grow and harvest their own oysters from the Chesil Beach lagoon which is just in front of the cafe. Superb oysters of course but the whole meal was truly outstanding.
Again, be prepared: it's beach shack cafe ambience.
I LOVE the beach shack cafe stuff. The Company Shed in Mersea is great for that, likewise the Mersea Oyster Caff next door
Ok thanks - we're venturing into Essex in September for a visit to the Beth Chatto gardens so Mersea's not far from there.
Edit: need to fine a nice hotel in that area actually as we'll probably do the RHS garden at Hyde Hall too and make a weekend of it.
It's not a beauty spot. Mersea is a working port with grimy warehouses and some tacky new builds. And yet I love it. The flat crappiness and the glittering estuary, and a lobster soup with creme fraiche. Yum
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
There are still plenty of good fish restaurants! Bentley's is excellent, as is Scott's. OK they are costly but if you want to splurge
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
Now gone. *sad face*
We had a fantastic meal in the Oystermen pre-Covid but it's definitely a food first ambience 2nd experience - which suited us.
Out of London we had one of the best ever fish meals last week at the Crab House Cafe, Weymouth. They grow and harvest their own oysters from the Chesil Beach lagoon which is just in front of the cafe. Superb oysters of course but the whole meal was truly outstanding.
Again, be prepared: it's beach shack cafe ambience.
I LOVE the beach shack cafe stuff. The Company Shed in Mersea is great for that, likewise the Mersea Oyster Caff next door
Ok thanks - we're venturing into Essex in September for a visit to the Beth Chatto gardens so Mersea's not far from there.
Edit: need to fine a nice hotel in that area actually as we'll probably do the RHS garden at Hyde Hall too and make a weekend of it.
It's not a beauty spot. Mersea is a working port with grimy warehouses and some tacky new builds. And yet I love it. The flat crappiness and the glittering estuary, and a lobster soup with creme fraiche. Yum
That's a pity, it was good. We had a very select PB Tory (as I was then!) dinner there some years ago. That was the evening at the end of which @JohnO famously fell asleep on the train and woke up in Bournemouth or somewhere.
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
The Ledbury might be gone?! Wow
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Sheekeys just traded on its history. You'd always enjoy it but it was very expensive and there are only so many pounds you can add for opening an oyster and opening Champagne.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
There are still plenty of good fish restaurants! Bentley's is excellent, as is Scott's. OK they are costly but if you want to splurge
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
Now gone. *sad face*
We had a fantastic meal in the Oystermen pre-Covid but it's definitely a food first ambience 2nd experience - which suited us.
Out of London we had one of the best ever fish meals last week at the Crab House Cafe, Weymouth. They grow and harvest their own oysters from the Chesil Beach lagoon which is just in front of the cafe. Superb oysters of course but the whole meal was truly outstanding.
Again, be prepared: it's beach shack cafe ambience.
I LOVE the beach shack cafe stuff. The Company Shed in Mersea is great for that, likewise the Mersea Oyster Caff next door
Ok thanks - we're venturing into Essex in September for a visit to the Beth Chatto gardens so Mersea's not far from there.
Edit: need to fine a nice hotel in that area actually as we'll probably do the RHS garden at Hyde Hall too and make a weekend of it.
Good hotels are rare as hen's fangs around there
The best and nearest is maybe a place we have discussed on here. The Mistley Thorn
Boris is trash. His speech was bullshit and the pretence that he isn't robbing the south to bribe voters in the north is no longer credible. Honestly, it's time for the toy party to pull the trigger and get rid.
Rubbish, the main reason the Tories have a majority of 80 and seats in white working class former Labour heartlands in the North and Midlands is down to Boris.
Anyway, even if the Tories saw a 10% swing to the LDs in the South in 2023/24 the LDs would still only pick up about 25 seats, which would still give a narrow Tory majority of 30 if Boris held the Red Wall.
Boris is the most successful Tory election winner since Thatcher and when they got rid of her it did not end well. The Tories then proceeded to lose 3 out of the next 4 general elections and even when they returned to power in 2010 it was without a majority
Careful now, tiger - dismissing me yesterday and @MaxPB today (both of whom, I'm guessing, voted Cons in 2019) is making your "who cares" work even harder.
What would Oscar say in such a situation...
I live in a three way marginal seat. If the Lib Dems prove themselves to be a serious party (stop laughing) by 2023/24 I know where my vote is going. If not I'll sit on my hands, I can't vote for the Tories led by Boris. The guy is a complete numpty.
I like and respect you hugely Max. Some principles, perhaps you can be one of the people who can put the Tories back into the mainstream, as a party I might vote one day vote for (again)
Unlikely given that I'm not in the party and tbh, I don't think I'll be tempted to join until the likes of HYFUD are made to feel unwelcome and move to some other party or go independent.
Given we are on 40%+ in every poll you will be waiting a long time for that, I am actually on the moderate end of the current Tory Party
Can you give examples that convince you are?
crushing SNP heads using tank tracks and nuking Spain doesn’t come across as moderate.
For example, where do you stand on using some form of dementia tax to fairly fund social care. The current government doesn’t seem to have a care policy at all?
And on house building. Build on green belt and build more council houses?
The party supports refusing indyref2.
Even May scrapped a dementia tax.
Unlike Philip I want to build on brownbelt land first and minimise green belt construction
“ Even May scrapped a dementia tax.”.
Isn’t this a bit vacuous it could be a Libdem position? We say no to Iraq War. We say no to Tuition Fees. We say no to Dementia tax. That’s not a policy though? What is the moderate policy position in the Tory Party regarding funding Social care? Surely some sort of baseline on funding from existing wealth as proposed in 2017 is the moderate way forward for meeting bills in the years ahead?
And council housing HY? Surely the moderate position in the Tory party is for building more council housing to meet the challenge of the years ahead?
Nope, it was hugely unpopular in 2017 and was one of the main factors May lost her majority.
The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.
Yes you can build more social homes but using the sale of existing council homes to help fund it so more still have the opportunity to buy their own homes
“The moderate position on social care is certainly not taking peoples house to fund even at home care, at most it is using NI to fund it.”
Unpopular sure, especially if attacked mercilessly by rival party’s and media who aren’t actually proposing a policy.
But surely it is the moderate way forward. A burgeoning social care bill to be paid for by NI which is tax, by workers struggling to afford homes, whilst those with the treasure refuse to spend it on their care and health needs, you are actually saying is the fairer and more moderate position going forward.
What can we agree on? The country had a problem? None of the parts currently have much stated policy for dealing with it, let alone what the moderate and fair policy is?
I think I was about the only person in the country (well, I’m sure there were a few council finance bods) who was cheering on May’s proposals.
Hyufd’s position on this is, sadly, bang in line with public opinion and, well, completely morally indefensible.
I was cheering May's social care proposals on pb.com.
I remember being furiously attacked by posters on the left & the right.
(It was the only good thing May came up with, although she presented it with her characteristic clumsiness).
The best solution proposed by a politician or anyone close to political power. The attacks were shameful even if it was a GE.
Comments
Apparently this is going to get a lot worse, and possibly keep commuters/the workers at home as it will spread to the trains and peasant wagons buses.
This is why we've told staff to keep working from home until mid September, the nightmare scenario we had mapped out is you finish work at 7pm and there's no way for you to get back home that night.
The very cautious at home due to our booming figures?
One person's anecdote and sketchy thought.
Could be interesting and as you and Ben at IPSOS MORI have said before, gross figures are the most reliable.
That it’s not a one off, ourselves and the world today has become susceptible to it. Possibly?
The other pressing problem in the UK is the lack of capacity in the healthcare system, but as with all other problems that we can agree need fixing and will cost lots of money to put right, everyone thinks that it is everyone else's job but theirs to pay to do it. Plus ça change.
Not so good if you are an oldie. Although hard to tell as obviously figures distorted by unvaccinated (and 25th June case numbers were still very low).
When I say it will be affecting us into 2022 or 2023 I mean seriously bruising our lives - travel will be difficult or pricey, if not impossible in places. Poorer unvaxed countries will have further waves for months The fucking virus will haunt our TV news for the foreseeable.
And yes, that means a massive reset of expectations. In all ways. Life is going to be crimped and diminished - and shortened for some - though there will probably be upsides. Eventually
Don't believe this. It looks like one of my favourite restaurants in London, The Baltic in Southwark, has closed permanently.
https://www.balticrestaurant.co.uk
So what other moderate positions to campaign on to shape policy are discussed at your “moderate group” meetings?
When flash floods left the much of capital under water this week, it felt like an omen
Tanya Gold" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2021/07/15/london-shadow-former-self-cities-left-die/
One of the year 4 classes at my daughter's school has 12 positives out of 30. There are at least another five who have had positives in the past. That's one cohort it's going to have trouble sweeping through a second time.
So in sparse populations, disease is essentially parasites, which are capable of surviving outside of any one given host species (in another species, or in the soil or water) while between hosts of that species.
As populations get denser with the advent of cities (and those with poor sanitation) then disease become bacteriological.
And more denser, viral disease take off.
But other factors play a role, too. Our more connected world, our encroachment into wildlife habitats, our diminishment of wildlife species diversity in those remaining wildlife ecologies - all play into more rapid evolution of zoonotic diseases
A lot of 40+ never showed virus any respect in first place and carried on sociably as usual, jabbing made no difference to them, does this behaviour group show up more greatly in hospitalised stats you reeled off?
The history of Spanish flu is instructive. It didn't just disappear (as some think) it evolved to become a "normal" flu, tho it had the capacity to mutate further, decades later, and cause further pandemics, albeit smaller than the hideous initial outbreak, which killed 50-100 million in 2 years
https://www.history.com/news/1918-flu-pandemic-never-ended
It's certainly not the only casualty. It's not clear if The Ledbury will ever re-open - it was one of the top two or three restaurants in London.
‘A guy hijacked my wheelchair to try to get into Wembley’ – a disabled fan’s nightmare at the Euro 2020 final
https://theathletic.com/2708518/2021/07/15/a-guy-hijacked-my-wheelchair-to-try-to-get-into-wembley-a-disabled-fans-nightmare-at-the-euro-2020-final/?article_source=related
I was never a massive fan but it had such a stellar reputation....
Another victim is the Atlantic Bar at Sheekeys, which was a blissful place to guzzle oysters in fine style and yet at reasonable prices. They've now folded it into the main restaurant which is twice as pricey, and the food is somehow worse
Is London collapsing? Is it worth staying?
Unpopular sure, especially if attacked mercilessly by rival party’s and media who aren’t actually proposing a policy.
But surely it is the moderate way forward. A burgeoning social care bill to be paid for by NI which is tax, by workers struggling to afford homes, whilst those with the treasure refuse to spend it on their care and health needs, you are actually saying is the fairer and more moderate position going forward.
What can we agree on? The country had a problem? None of the parts currently have much stated policy for dealing with it, let alone what the moderate and fair policy is?
Levelling up on track.
The death rate jumps around from winter to winter, depending on how bad respiratory viruses are that season. 2018-19 was noticeably low; 2019-20 and 2020-21 were higher than the average for the decade.
We have cheap purposed drugs, as Drs. Kory or Lawrie, Prof McCullough or other medical experts would gladly tell you. Their clinical experience in using them to prevent hospitalisation and death began in spring 2020 and continues. It's not my fault that the pharma industry values profits over lives and that YT/FB/Twitter have started censoring free debate, also the UK government has been doing the same in orders to OFCOM.
Weinstein suggested in an interview that ivermectin could eradicate the virus. Given that it's safe, unlike the vaccines, I wouldn't object to taking a short course of it. Saves the NHS £ billions. But the lost $$ & ££ displease pharma boards and shareholders, who now determine a country's medical policy, so it won't happen.
I genuinely don't know a good fish restaurant in London now though. (Apart from Japanese where there are many). Wheelers is just ok. (Just had a quick check about Sweetings - not that you'd have said they were good, but a fun place. Seems offline)
1. Get the elderly (directly, and/or via taxation of their estates after they die) to cover it
2. Get the young to foot the bill
No prizes for guessing who's paying.
Randall & Aubin is very nice in Soho. Wright Bros can be pretty fine (if they have reopened?)
I've heard great things of the Oystermen in WC2
As for Sheekeys, that's kinda my point. The main restaurant was way too expensive, and the food was average. The Atlantic Bar was more fun, much cheaper, with great oysters, and lovely fish stews etc
Now gone. *sad face*
It's called SARS-CoV-2. The one that caused a lot of deaths in 2002-04, with a fatality rate of I think *10%*, was SARS-CoV-*1*. The related MERS I think had a fatality rate of *50%*... aargh.
Smallpox in the 19th.C had a fatality rate of 70% in children. I think 1853 is the only time in UK history that for a while a vaccine was made mandatory. Never again, especially not for a fatality rate lower than Hong Kong (1968) or Asian (1957) flu. We decided after WW2 that forced medication was a breach of a person's human rights.
Hyufd’s position on this is, sadly, bang in line with public opinion and, well, completely morally indefensible.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-many-numbers-exist-infinity-proof-moves-math-closer-to-an-answer-20210715/
If they come across @Leon, they are likely to despair.
The world has changed for good. Working From Home is not going away. If you can or must Work From Home you will work somewhere spacious and green, maybe sunny and warm. That ain't London
Meanwhile so many of the other things that made London life seductive - restaurants, shops, galleries, opera houses, everything, the whole glittering cavalcade, are either damaged, diminished or dead
So why live in London, or NYC? As crime spirals?
For several decades the great western cities enjoyed power and wealth and ever increasing prestige (and populations). That epoch is over. The process is flung into reverse
London will likely rebound in time. But it will take a long time
Did the Met really think Sunday's match required less effort than the Olympics?
Dick needs to go.
If you go into residential care you already have to sell your house to pay for it anyway
There was some place on Haymarket (I think) that was a really simple cooker of fish (and very good at is), but the prices were about 10x what they should have been.
1980-2020 boom.
These things go in cycles. Somebody else's turn.
But yes, all true
The cycles of life. At least I lived here when it was the best city on earth. Truly swaggering. Someone else will enjoy its revival in about 15-20 years
Out of London we had one of the best ever fish meals last week at the Crab House Cafe, Weymouth. They grow and harvest their own oysters from the Chesil Beach lagoon which is just in front of the cafe. Superb oysters of course but the whole meal was truly outstanding.
Again, be prepared: it's beach shack cafe ambience.
JP Morgan and Goldmans for example have already ordered their workers back into the office
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jpmorgan-goldman-call-time-on-work-from-home-their-rivals-are-ready-to-pounce-11625563800.
So I expect the big global cities like NYC and London to gradually rebound, though more workers will continue to move out to the outer suburbs and rural areas and bigger houses there and take advantage of the bigger space and mix of city life when they want it but a home life with more green space and fresh air
Another side note, if we had the flash floods that hit London on Tuesday night on Sunday evening, we could have been talking about hundreds of deaths at Wembley, there was no way to escape the crowds. Obviously such floods are very rare, not really seen anything like it here before, but stadiums should have some ability to allow crowds to cope with extreme weather events.
I bet she gets it.
I remember being furiously attacked by posters on the left & the right.
(It was the only good thing May came up with, although she presented it with her characteristic clumsiness).
Only 7-12% of the population admit to overt racism. A further 10-15% have some prejudiced attitudes. So that gets you to about a quarter of the population.
That's far better than even 20 years ago, but abuse on social media is worse than it was 20 years - because of anonymity, the ease of targeting, and the fact the worst examples are so enthusiastically shared - so it's amplified. Further, the fact it's relatively rare in the real world, now, makes the frosty looks or "faces" you get now feel so much more hurtful.
So, basically, it should have gone entirely by now, but hasn't, and the worst examples now either stand-out starkly or have a great platform for distribution. That makes it feel endemic.
That's different to the UK being institutionally racist, which to me would suggest something like the Jim Crow laws, apartheid or the situation before the Race Equality Act, or structurally racist, which would suggest that some of the structures of the UK - the Union, the flag, its symbols, monarchy, and parliamentary system - need to come down first.
That's the trap people fall into; they inadvertently row in behind some causes of the radical Left.
Edit: need to fine a nice hotel in that area actually as we'll probably do the RHS garden at Hyde Hall too and make a weekend of it.
They don't have the seductions of a New York or a London, but will have many of the nasty issues - crime, depopulation, and so on
I am particularly pessimistic about American cities. They are fucked
We are now in a less fiscally conservative, post single market age in the UK with Boris and indeed Starmer at present.
That helps the Red Wall with more spending and less free movement but it does not help London
I disagree with some articles, and occasionally Toby Young, Rod Liddle, Nick Cohen and Charles Moore go a bit off the wall, but at other times they nail the zeitgeist - and they have lots of moderate journalists too.
It's refreshing and provides well-articulated (and necessary) views you don't get elsewhere.
VM'ed but not heard back.
The best and nearest is maybe a place we have discussed on here. The Mistley Thorn
Really excellent food.
http://www.mistleythorn.co.uk/
Edit: don't go by their online menu, which looks dull. They have half a dozen daily specials which are generally delicious
https://twitter.com/pine_tree_riots/status/1415682348985716736