"In a sense this had been coming for a long time. When the ANC was first elected in 1994 its posters promised “Jobs, jobs, jobs!” but paid little heed to that once they were elected. In 1995 the average number of unemployed, according to official figures, was 1,698,000 or, if one took the expanded definition of unemployment, including those who had given up looking for a job, the figure was 3,321,000. With only a few exceptional periods to the contrary, that figure has grown steadily and hugely to surpass 11.4 million today. Since the unemployed have little or no income, this has also meant a huge growth in both poverty and inequality. The ANC has routinely deplored poverty and inequality but it has generally tried to pretend that this is part of the “apartheid inheritance.” As the figures show, this is the opposite of the truth."
The country needs a good opposition, so even though I don't want Starmer to win, I hope you're right and this is a good and significant move.
But I won't be holding my breath. How many MPs who currently hold the whip will lose it? Will Burgon? Rebecca Long Bailey? Diane Abbott? Ian Lavery? John McDonnell? Kate Osamor? Zarah Sultana? Claudia Webbe? Etc
If so then it will be a real and significant purge of the far left. Otherwise if its just a lot of people nobody has ever heard of from Twitter while the big names get left behind then its a meaningless gesture.
Taking a leaf out of Johnson's playbook. Johnson of course, also ejected the far left from his party, before a magnificent victory at the next GE.
Absolutely. Johnson expelling the troublemakers from his party ensured the party was fit to win the victory and also ensured he was capable of governing following the victory, since many of them would have been a permanent 'gaukeward squad' had they been left to wallow on the backbenches.
Yup they're governing brilliantly
Yep. 😀
You can't genuinely in good conscience believe they're governing well. You can rightfully - if incorrectly in my view - think Labour would do worse but you have to be insane to think they're governing well.
Johnson's speech with nothing in it sums up this government for me. No vision, no ideology, out of ideas.
Like every government, the Johnson administration has done some things well, and other things poorly. There are a number of things that - at the time - I thought were mistakes, and which I now think were correct. And there are probably things which I liked, but I now think probably weren't the right decision.
So...
In the positive column, the UK invested early in vaccines at scale, and Brexit is now behind us. Liz Truss has done a good job at International Development, and we're in good shape for the next five years.
The "levelling up" strategy is also clearly the right thing (morally) to do, and full credit to the Government for not pandering to its Southern supporters.
Against that, I continue to be disappointed by the excessive willingness of Johnson to back people, even when they're in the wrong. I also think it was a mistake to return Patel to the Cabinet, given her behaviour when she lied not once, but twice, to the Prime Minister.
The Cabinet is also - to my mind - too much made up of Johnson lackeys, rather than being the most talented people in the Commons. (The return of Saj is a welcome sign that this may be coming to an end.)
So, I'd give them 6.5 or 7 out of 10. I'd rate them above Brown or May, but below Blair (1997-2001) and Thatcher.
The country needs a good opposition, so even though I don't want Starmer to win, I hope you're right and this is a good and significant move.
But I won't be holding my breath. How many MPs who currently hold the whip will lose it? Will Burgon? Rebecca Long Bailey? Diane Abbott? Ian Lavery? John McDonnell? Kate Osamor? Zarah Sultana? Claudia Webbe? Etc
If so then it will be a real and significant purge of the far left. Otherwise if its just a lot of people nobody has ever heard of from Twitter while the big names get left behind then its a meaningless gesture.
Taking a leaf out of Johnson's playbook. Johnson of course, also ejected the far left from his party, before a magnificent victory at the next GE.
Absolutely. Johnson expelling the troublemakers from his party ensured the party was fit to win the victory and also ensured he was capable of governing following the victory, since many of them would have been a permanent 'gaukeward squad' had they been left to wallow on the backbenches.
And now he relies on the white working class voters who elected a BNP councillor in Sandwell in 2006 to achieve Tory electoral success in the same ward there.
Bit current for you, surely in 1879 the Tories did something far worse in a council by election.
You need to keep up. It is not so difficult to imagine that voters prepared to vote for and elect a BNP councillor would now be attracted by Johnson's populism - particularly the neo-racist messaging.
Look, I don’t like him either, but it’s going a bit far to call Tom Watson a BNP councillor.
Anyway, will peruse the F1 markets shortly. I maintain the view that the sprint event is a tedious, unnecessary, hollow thing to pad a weekend that didn't need it.
Mail reporting 5 000 broke into Wembley without tickets last week. Which, if it were any other country, they would be utterly outraged. However, it won't affect our World Cup bid they conclude.
The government really should have ordered a full investigation by now. Clearly a failure of planning, a failure of intelligence and it appears corruption.
Quite apart from the security aspect, it does rather make a nonsense of the infection control measures.
F1: backed Hamilton at around 4 on Betfair to lead lap 1. He got very close to reclaiming his place in the sprint, and can do it either off the line or on the straight where the Mercedes looks superfast.
Mail reporting 5 000 broke into Wembley without tickets last week. Which, if it were any other country, they would be utterly outraged. However, it won't affect our World Cup bid they conclude.
The government really should have ordered a full investigation by now. Clearly a failure of planning, a failure of intelligence and it appears corruption.
Quite apart from the security aspect, it does rather make a nonsense of the infection control measures.
We’re lucky one of those thousands didn’t have Semtex strapped to them. What with the match attended by the PM, two direct heirs to the throne. And David Beckham! 🙀
Mail reporting 5 000 broke into Wembley without tickets last week. Which, if it were any other country, they would be utterly outraged. However, it won't affect our World Cup bid they conclude.
The government really should have ordered a full investigation by now. Clearly a failure of planning, a failure of intelligence and it appears corruption.
Quite apart from the security aspect, it does rather make a nonsense of the infection control measures.
We’re lucky one of those thousands didn’t have Semtex strapped to them. What with the match attended by the PM, two direct heirs to the throne. And David Beckham! 🙀
It looks like Wembley is going to be one of those bizarre lapses in British public life which ends up with all involved being promoted and/or honoured.
In twenty years time, historians will note it as another sign of Boris’s failing regime (or, if you like, the beginning of a new dawn!)
"The calls for caution come at a time when research in Australia indicates just how easily the Delta variant can potentially spread. Based on CCTV footage, health officials suspect it has been transmitted in “scarily fleeting” encounters of roughly five to 10 seconds between people walking past each other in an indoor shopping area in Sydney in at least two instances."
And others suggest Delta could be R6 or R7.
As to infection in five seconds 'can' does not equate to 'will' - there will be a vast range of possible infection times depending on the people and locations involved.
But the key fact is that if you think Delta could infect at such high rates nationally why hasn't it been infecting at such high rates locally ?
Because lots of people have either already had covid or have been vaccinated.
With both numbers growing every day.
Yet some people still keep extrapolating to infinity to 'prove' that everyone will be infected within weeks.
Comments
Or the World Bank numbers for employment:
So...
In the positive column, the UK invested early in vaccines at scale, and Brexit is now behind us. Liz Truss has done a good job at International Development, and we're in good shape for the next five years.
The "levelling up" strategy is also clearly the right thing (morally) to do, and full credit to the Government for not pandering to its Southern supporters.
Against that, I continue to be disappointed by the excessive willingness of Johnson to back people, even when they're in the wrong. I also think it was a mistake to return Patel to the Cabinet, given her behaviour when she lied not once, but twice, to the Prime Minister.
The Cabinet is also - to my mind - too much made up of Johnson lackeys, rather than being the most talented people in the Commons. (The return of Saj is a welcome sign that this may be coming to an end.)
So, I'd give them 6.5 or 7 out of 10. I'd rate them above Brown or May, but below Blair (1997-2001) and Thatcher.
Too damn warm already.
Anyway, will peruse the F1 markets shortly. I maintain the view that the sprint event is a tedious, unnecessary, hollow thing to pad a weekend that didn't need it.
Betting PostF1: backed Hamilton at around 4 on Betfair to lead lap 1. He got very close to reclaiming his place in the sprint, and can do it either off the line or on the straight where the Mercedes looks superfast.
Full pre-race ramble here; https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/07/uk-pre-race-2021.html
In twenty years time, historians will note it as another sign of Boris’s failing regime (or, if you like, the beginning of a new dawn!)
Yet some people still keep extrapolating to infinity to 'prove' that everyone will be infected within weeks.