Following recent events, Downing Street have announced the PM will be taking part in a new testing regime.
‘It’s a bit of a long shot to be honest,’ said the PM’s spokesperson, ‘but the possible benefits are incalculable if it works.’
Every day, the prime minister will undertake a series of basic tasks to prove his intelligence. If he even shows the slightest sign of intelligence, officials will rush in to ensure he makes the important decisions there and then, while he is most likely to get them vaguely right.
The new system follows growing doubts about the Prime Minister’s judgement, after his appalling choice in interior decor, appointing a lunatic as his Chief of Staff and being unable to realise Matt was handling his cock a little too often until 48 hours had passed.
Sir Keir Starmer, consulted, said that he had reservations about the process but ‘anything that improves the governance of our country must be a good thing.’ He also hinted he might take the same tests before having all the Commie bastards in Labour shot.
From Guido - "Boris and Rishi pinged by test and trace, however are both participating in daily testing trial so will continue working in Downing Street"
Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate... I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers
You have to ask just how dumb the clown and his advisers are. The pingdemic is causing absolute havoc. And here we have the PM not having to suffer like the plebs, doing a special "trial" of a "we are your betters know your place" process.
No, he'll get away with it. If he can by-pass Parliament, hamstring the courts, ban protest, disenfranchise large chunks of the electorate, lie relentlessly, champion grift, reduce individual freedoms, oversee huge gaps in supermarket supply chains and make it harder to do business without electoral consequences, he can very easily survive ignoring the government's own advice on self-isolating. As we see on here, there will always be people ready to give him the benefit of the doubt. I saw a very perceptive comment yesterday somewhere - the English are so conditioned to believe that things could be worse that they have forgotten that they could be better. That's what will keep Johnson and the Tories in power.
‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘
The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.
[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.
While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.
"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."
“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:
Rishi Sunak 14/5 Michael Gove 10/1 Jeremy Hunt 12/1 Dominic Raab 20/1
Spot the sneak.
Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...
Governments need to be clear, concise and authoritative. The Conservative Revolutionary Party one isn’t.
Mr. Doethur, aye, Sunak should voluntarily self-isolate.
He should, but he won’t, because that would cut the ground from under Johnson and as we saw with Javid, that’s the only reason why somebody will be fired.
It was always obvious that it was a choice between vaccination and herd immunity to sort out Covid. Track and trace was an attempt to reduce the acute effects on the NHS to a chronic one. It was never going to stop the disease. How many people have been cured by a diagnosis?
The infectivity was bound to increase if Charlie Darwin had it right. You can't lock down sixty million people effectively in a small island in the middle of Europe.
On that basis, I'll give the government 7 out of 10, purely because we don't have the anti-vaccine hysteria of parts of Europe or the USA. Macron deserves the booby prize for that, but then, he shouldn't have relied on the Sanofi vaccine. One vaccine is bound to be a gamble. A hundred candidates doesn't approach certainty but it's a bloody good try, and we had several good candidates to choose from. There was no excuse for being mardy.
The worst is over, but that story doesn't spawn a multitude of other stories, which is what the press survive on. The truth can be too boring for them.
They need to generate outrage. There have been excess deaths from this disease, but the final number will be a lot less than it could have been. Viruses have been with us forever. We can afford to be generous now and give our excess to the developing world.
Most British people who refuse the jab will survive. Let ignorance continue to be bliss for them.
Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate... I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers
I deleted it days ago as did my family and our WhatsApp group
To be honest Boris and HMG deserve all the criticism they are receiving
Their PR is worse than even Ratner
If - as I expect - this turns into a PR disaster it also won’t look good for your favourite Sunak.
Pile on Hunt to be next leader.
You could be right, but right now any one of Rishi, Hunt, Raab, or Truss would be a huge improvement
I would just say the one thing that may save then ironically is the good sense of the vast majority of the public who will not cast off all care tomorrow, but practice their own common sense
Indeed my son and his partner, their parents and our family are going into self imposed lockdown from tomorrow, to do our best to keep covid away from having a serious consequence for their wedding on the 31st July
I expect a slump in their poll ratings for Boris and HMG which would be entirely self inflicted
Following recent events, Downing Street have announced the PM will be taking part in a new testing regime.
‘It’s a bit of a long shot to be honest,’ said the PM’s spokesperson, ‘but the possible benefits are incalculable if it works.’
Every day, the prime minister will undertake a series of basic tasks to prove his intelligence. If he even shows the slightest sign of intelligence, officials will rush in to ensure he makes the important decisions there and then, while he is most likely to get them vaguely right.
The new system follows growing doubts about the Prime Minister’s judgement, after his appalling choice in interior decor, appointing a lunatic as his Chief of Staff and being unable to realise Matt was handling his cock a little too often until 48 hours had passed.
Sir Keir Starmer, consulted, said that he had reservations about the process but ‘anything that improves the governance of our country must be a good thing.’ He also hinted he might take the same tests before having all the Commie bastards in Labour shot.
What will you be doing post 2023 if the nation re-elects the Conservatives and Boris is still PM. Will you be doing as the Divvie suggests and be pumping out the same old anti Boris stuff on a daily basis? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate... I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers
I deleted it days ago as did my family and our WhatsApp group
To be honest Boris and HMG deserve all the criticism they are receiving
Their PR is worse than even Ratner
If - as I expect - this turns into a PR disaster it also won’t look good for your favourite Sunak.
Pile on Hunt to be next leader.
I deleted my app about two weeks ago.
I see with hindsight I was morally right to do so.
Following recent events, Downing Street have announced the PM will be taking part in a new testing regime.
‘It’s a bit of a long shot to be honest,’ said the PM’s spokesperson, ‘but the possible benefits are incalculable if it works.’
Every day, the prime minister will undertake a series of basic tasks to prove his intelligence. If he even shows the slightest sign of intelligence, officials will rush in to ensure he makes the important decisions there and then, while he is most likely to get them vaguely right.
The new system follows growing doubts about the Prime Minister’s judgement, after his appalling choice in interior decor, appointing a lunatic as his Chief of Staff and being unable to realise Matt was handling his cock a little too often until 48 hours had passed.
Sir Keir Starmer, consulted, said that he had reservations about the process but ‘anything that improves the governance of our country must be a good thing.’ He also hinted he might take the same tests before having all the Commie bastards in Labour shot.
I have a quibble; surely it wasn't Matt Hancock who was handling his cock.
Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate... I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers
I deleted it days ago as did my family and our WhatsApp group
To be honest Boris and HMG deserve all the criticism they are receiving
Their PR is worse than even Ratner
If - as I expect - this turns into a PR disaster it also won’t look good for your favourite Sunak.
Pile on Hunt to be next leader.
You could be right, but right now any one of Rishi, Hunt, Raab, or Truss would be a huge improvement
I would just say the one thing that may save then ironically is the good sense of the vast majority of the public who will not cast off all care tomorrow, but practice their own common sense
Indeed my son and his partner, their parents and our family are going into self imposed lockdown from tomorrow, to do our best to keep covid away from having a serious consequence for their wedding on the 31st July
I expect a slump in their poll ratings for Boris and HMG which would be entirely self inflicted
You lot keep going on about "common sense". What common sense? What do you or I know about viruses and pandemics that we haven't been told by the experts and fed by the government and its media?
"Use your common sense" is bullshit. What they want is for people to do what they want, free of government, so that government can blame them when it goes wrong.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘
The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.
[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.
While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.
"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."
“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:
Rishi Sunak 14/5 Michael Gove 10/1 Jeremy Hunt 12/1 Dominic Raab 20/1
Spot the sneak.
Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...
Good morning everybody.
How does one get on the 'pilot scheme'? As far as I can see it only applies to senior ministers.
Try a donation to the Tory party?
Or an interest-free "loan" to finance some "personal" prime-minsterial "expenditure".
From Guido - "Boris and Rishi pinged by test and trace, however are both participating in daily testing trial so will continue working in Downing Street"
One rule for them, another for everyone else.
I actually don't mind, to a degree, particular rules for people in authority (hence why I would have been fine prioritising MPs if we had vaccinated by occupation), but when the aggravation of the isolation rules is big news it will surely take the piss with most people.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Sure, although I think Keir is making plodding headway. My “waters” tell me his perceived negatives are reducing.
Again, not reflected in polls as far as I can see.
One other point I’d make is that the Tory press don’t seem very onside. It could be silly seasons stuff, but the smirking triumphalism that characterises the Tory press in full brown-nose mode seems to have collapsed.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
You hit the nail on the head with the “H-word”.
Too often, opponents of the government come across as being full of hatred, as opposed to disagreeing on policy.
Most people, even if they’re not fans of the government, see them as trying their best in the face of an unprecedented situation, and not doing too badly compared to other comparable countries.
‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘
The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.
[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.
While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.
"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."
“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:
Rishi Sunak 14/5 Michael Gove 10/1 Jeremy Hunt 12/1 Dominic Raab 20/1
Spot the sneak.
Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...
Good morning everybody.
How does one get on the 'pilot scheme'? As far as I can see it only applies to senior ministers.
Participants are selected at random according to the govt. press release.
The Putinification continues with blatant lies that spineless loyalists will defend.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
With polls I've long thought that theres a lagging effect whilst issues cumulatively build up. The Tory rating remained remarkably high for quite some time under May even as she had a viciously divided party, government paralysis and clearly no idea how to resolve the situation.
Then one day the polls seemed to catch up with reality.
re:polling. It is very dangerous for any Government to be relying on the "voters haven't got anywhere else to go argument". Because one day they might just decide that, if they haven't got anywhere else to go, that they just won't go anywhere.
… like a polling station?
For clarification: are you predicting large-scale abstentionism by Con voters?
Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate... I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers
I deleted it days ago as did my family and our WhatsApp group
To be honest Boris and HMG deserve all the criticism they are receiving
Their PR is worse than even Ratner
If - as I expect - this turns into a PR disaster it also won’t look good for your favourite Sunak.
Pile on Hunt to be next leader.
I deleted my app about two weeks ago.
I see with hindsight I was morally right to do so.
I have not deleted mine but I have turned off the contract tracing.
The govt needs to get a handle on the so called pingdemic. I have no faith they will.
Mr. Doethur, aye, Sunak should voluntarily self-isolate.
He should, but he won’t, because that would cut the ground from under Johnson and as we saw with Javid, that’s the only reason why somebody will be fired.
Bit of a win-win for the old Bozzmeister though.
Had Rishi stood up to him and done the right thing, he would have made himself unpopular with the "Covid is nothing at all" crowd and reduced his chances of taking over. By going along with this blatant scam, he undercuts any "Borisism without the ghastly Boris" pitch, which I think some are projecting onto him.
Give him his due, BoJo understands gang dynamics.
(But it is a scam, isn't it? There is nothing essential in either job that can't be done via video link. Unlike actual key workers.)
Following recent events, Downing Street have announced the PM will be taking part in a new testing regime.
‘It’s a bit of a long shot to be honest,’ said the PM’s spokesperson, ‘but the possible benefits are incalculable if it works.’
Every day, the prime minister will undertake a series of basic tasks to prove his intelligence. If he even shows the slightest sign of intelligence, officials will rush in to ensure he makes the important decisions there and then, while he is most likely to get them vaguely right.
The new system follows growing doubts about the Prime Minister’s judgement, after his appalling choice in interior decor, appointing a lunatic as his Chief of Staff and being unable to realise Matt was handling his cock a little too often until 48 hours had passed.
Sir Keir Starmer, consulted, said that he had reservations about the process but ‘anything that improves the governance of our country must be a good thing.’ He also hinted he might take the same tests before having all the Commie bastards in Labour shot.
What will you be doing post 2023 if the nation re-elects the Conservatives and Boris is still PM. Will you be doing as the Divvie suggests and be pumping out the same old anti Boris stuff on a daily basis? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Daily might be pushing it. I might have to cut it down to twice a week.
Following recent events, Downing Street have announced the PM will be taking part in a new testing regime.
‘It’s a bit of a long shot to be honest,’ said the PM’s spokesperson, ‘but the possible benefits are incalculable if it works.’
Every day, the prime minister will undertake a series of basic tasks to prove his intelligence. If he even shows the slightest sign of intelligence, officials will rush in to ensure he makes the important decisions there and then, while he is most likely to get them vaguely right.
The new system follows growing doubts about the Prime Minister’s judgement, after his appalling choice in interior decor, appointing a lunatic as his Chief of Staff and being unable to realise Matt was handling his cock a little too often until 48 hours had passed.
Sir Keir Starmer, consulted, said that he had reservations about the process but ‘anything that improves the governance of our country must be a good thing.’ He also hinted he might take the same tests before having all the Commie bastards in Labour shot.
I have a quibble; surely it wasn't Matt Hancock who was handling his cock.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Sure, although I think Keir is making plodding headway. My “waters” tell me his perceived negatives are reducing.
Again, not reflected in polls as far as I can see.
One other point I’d make is that the Tory press don’t seem very onside. It could be silly seasons stuff, but the smirking triumphalism that characterises the Tory press in full brown-nose mode seems to have collapsed.
Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate... I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers
I deleted it days ago as did my family and our WhatsApp group
To be honest Boris and HMG deserve all the criticism they are receiving
Their PR is worse than even Ratner
If - as I expect - this turns into a PR disaster it also won’t look good for your favourite Sunak.
Pile on Hunt to be next leader.
I deleted my app about two weeks ago.
I see with hindsight I was morally right to do so.
I have not deleted mine but I have turned off the contract tracing.
The govt needs to get a handle on the so called pingdemic. I have no faith they will.
People are having a mini panic - cases and deaths are getting higher without it (yet) meaning overwhelming is imminent, but because of the rise and subsequent mini panic I doubt they want to just tell people to delete the app or change the rules on isolation too much lest they be accused of recklessness.
Why does someone who has had Covid and been double jabbed like Boris have to self isolate? Surely this is where we are going wrong. The risk of anyone who has been double jabbed more than 3 weeks ago either being infected or carrying the virus are infinitesimal. I am, without conclusive evidence, of the view that such a person who has also had a fairly serious dose of Covid doing either is non existent.
We are in danger of losing the benefits of "freedom" by an excess of caution. Wish we had been faster with the vaccinations though.
From Guido - "Boris and Rishi pinged by test and trace, however are both participating in daily testing trial so will continue working in Downing Street"
One rule for them, another for everyone else.
Maybe time to extend it to everyone and to be honest I just do not understand why double vaccinated do not need to be isolating from the 16th August but do until then
Because being double jabbed doesn't stop you from being able to pass on the virus. If you don't self isolate you're putting those who haven't been double jabbed at risk. It just seems so blindingly obvious to me that the government should have waited until every adult has been offered both jabs before loosening restrictions further. Then it would only be personal choice (with a few regrettable medical exceptions) to be unvaccinated.
‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘
The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.
[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.
While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.
"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."
“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:
Rishi Sunak 14/5 Michael Gove 10/1 Jeremy Hunt 12/1 Dominic Raab 20/1
Spot the sneak.
Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...
Good morning everybody.
How does one get on the 'pilot scheme'? As far as I can see it only applies to senior ministers.
Participants are selected at random according to the govt. press release.
The Putinification continues with blatant lies that spineless loyalists will defend.
If I’m contacted by test and trace, I shall demand a place on the pilot scheme, which was after all tested by Gove nearly two months ago so there should be reasonable data on it by now. If they refuse, I shall tell them merely that I don’t take orders from criminals and hang up.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Starmer's battle with his own party might in places be justified or it might be driven by Mandelson's fascination with recreating Blair's Clause 4 moment.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Gross inequalities...are a blight that squanders potential and corrodes national cohesion. The feeling that some parts of the country have thrived while others have been left to wither has fuelled a lot of grievance. The Tory leader used that resentment for his own ends in the Brexit referendum and at the last election. He would be right to worry that the bitterness will reflux on him if those voters conclude that he was never really serious about doing something for their communities. That will involve hard work and tough choices. These imbalances are the result of economic and social trends that reach back decades and have been troubling British governments since Harold Wilson was at Number 10. A genuine endeavour to start tackling it demands leadership that is capable of thinking very long term.
Unless we are extremely unlucky, Mr Johnson will not be prime minister for a generation and he habitually acts as if he struggles to think much further ahead than tomorrow’s headlines. The speech betrayed that weakness.
Tory MPs [report] that they had detected a festering resentment among southern voters that “levelling up” essentially means taking money away from them to give to the north. When he faces a conflict like this, the prime minister’s default is to try to fudge it out of existence.
Yet if it is a meaningful enterprise then it has to entail allocating disadvantaged areas a larger slice of the resources...Rachel Wolf, who co-wrote the Tory 2019 manifesto, has said that the Conservatives will have to choose whether they focus on the “just about managing” or concentrate on “affluent Britain” and “there is no third magic middle path”.
The UK is not only one of the most imbalanced countries in the western world, it is also one of the most centralised, and the prime minister now acknowledges that these two defects are connected. This has long been accepted by Tories who have worked on these issues.
I will believe it when I see it if this government is genuinely prepared to relinquish control, particularly over money, and especially if it involves handing it to representatives of other parties. The form so far has been to make councils dance to the tunes of central government by telling them to bid for pots of cash distributed from Whitehall. Money from the centrally controlled towns and levelling-up funds have disproportionately favoured places represented by Tories. That’s not about levelling up, that’s about pork barrelling.
Tories who know him well say that if anyone can make sense of the prime minister’s “Big Idea” it is Neil O’Brien. First, he will have to work on levelling up the prime minister. That won’t be easy either.
If it means masks, and distancing, and self-isolation, what's the point?
Edited extra bit: to clarify, if there's any doubt, I'm pro-vaccination. But very anti-vaccine passport and maintaining restrictions longer than we need them. The comfort some feel with such restrictions seems utterly bizarre to me, even as a huge introvert.
It was always obvious that it was a choice between vaccination and herd immunity to sort out Covid. Track and trace was an attempt to reduce the acute effects on the NHS to a chronic one. It was never going to stop the disease. How many people have been cured by a diagnosis?
The infectivity was bound to increase if Charlie Darwin had it right. You can't lock down sixty million people effectively in a small island in the middle of Europe.
On that basis, I'll give the government 7 out of 10, purely because we don't have the anti-vaccine hysteria of parts of Europe or the USA. Macron deserves the booby prize for that, but then, he shouldn't have relied on the Sanofi vaccine. One vaccine is bound to be a gamble. A hundred candidates doesn't approach certainty but it's a bloody good try, and we had several good candidates to choose from. There was no excuse for being mardy.
The worst is over, but that story doesn't spawn a multitude of other stories, which is what the press survive on. The truth can be too boring for them.
They need to generate outrage. There have been excess deaths from this disease, but the final number will be a lot less than it could have been. Viruses have been with us forever. We can afford to be generous now and give our excess to the developing world.
Most British people who refuse the jab will survive. Let ignorance continue to be bliss for them.
This whole post is attitudinising, right from the word go. The entire point of any mass vaccination campaign is precisely to establish herd immunity. You think you are critical of the press, but that's where you seem to have acquired your understanding of "herd immunity" from.
As for lockdown not working, I can't see what being an island has got to do with it, nor being located in Europe as opposed to in any of the world's inhabited continents. China locked down and it worked.
What do Darwin's writings tell us about anything to do with the SARS variants currently going around that doesn't apply for example to rhinoviruses?
But excitable foreigners and their hysteria and their lack of straight backs, eh?
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether you are right (you may well be) your post nevertheless demonstrates the problem I’m identifying.
Gross inequalities...are a blight that squanders potential and corrodes national cohesion. The feeling that some parts of the country have thrived while others have been left to wither has fuelled a lot of grievance. The Tory leader used that resentment for his own ends in the Brexit referendum and at the last election. He would be right to worry that the bitterness will reflux on him if those voters conclude that he was never really serious about doing something for their communities. That will involve hard work and tough choices. These imbalances are the result of economic and social trends that reach back decades and have been troubling British governments since Harold Wilson was at Number 10. A genuine endeavour to start tackling it demands leadership that is capable of thinking very long term.
Unless we are extremely unlucky, Mr Johnson will not be prime minister for a generation and he habitually acts as if he struggles to think much further ahead than tomorrow’s headlines. The speech betrayed that weakness.
Tory MPs [report] that they had detected a festering resentment among southern voters that “levelling up” essentially means taking money away from them to give to the north. When he faces a conflict like this, the prime minister’s default is to try to fudge it out of existence.
Yet if it is a meaningful enterprise then it has to entail allocating disadvantaged areas a larger slice of the resources...Rachel Wolf, who co-wrote the Tory 2019 manifesto, has said that the Conservatives will have to choose whether they focus on the “just about managing” or concentrate on “affluent Britain” and “there is no third magic middle path”.
The UK is not only one of the most imbalanced countries in the western world, it is also one of the most centralised, and the prime minister now acknowledges that these two defects are connected. This has long been accepted by Tories who have worked on these issues.
I will believe it when I see it if this government is genuinely prepared to relinquish control, particularly over money, and especially if it involves handing it to representatives of other parties. The form so far has been to make councils dance to the tunes of central government by telling them to bid for pots of cash distributed from Whitehall. Money from the centrally controlled towns and levelling-up funds have disproportionately favoured places represented by Tories. That’s not about levelling up, that’s about pork barrelling.
Tories who know him well say that if anyone can make sense of the prime minister’s “Big Idea” it is Neil O’Brien. First, he will have to work on levelling up the prime minister. That won’t be easy either.
The penultimate paragraph is spot on (though since towns are more Tory now i dont know how disproportionate allocation may or may not be) in terms government not relinquishing control. There's not a hope in hell of that - every party sticks something about empowering councils or localities but Whitehall would never wear that.
Why does someone who has had Covid and been double jabbed like Boris have to self isolate? Surely this is where we are going wrong. The risk of anyone who has been double jabbed more than 3 weeks ago either being infected or carrying the virus are infinitesimal. I am, without conclusive evidence, of the view that such a person who has also had a fairly serious dose of Covid doing either is non existent.
We are in danger of losing the benefits of "freedom" by an excess of caution. Wish we had been faster with the vaccinations though.
Well, he shouldn’t.
But his own rules say he should.
As with Cummings, Hancock etc there appears to be one rule for them and a different set for us.
That’s the other problem with this decision - it feeds the narrative of arrogant selfishness that’s being established. Never a good look for a government.
"The entire point of any mass vaccination campaign is precisely to establish herd immunity." Of course, the difference being effect on the patients.
"China locked down and it worked." On what basis? Call me cynical, but what was the death toll?
Very few less infective viruses survive. But their virulence doesn't naturally increase. There's always a balance to achieve.
Incidentally, Not sure about giving the rest of the world the 'recipe'. If a great chef gave me his recipe for a souffle free of charge, mine would still be inedible, and that's without the QC standards. OK, as I spent 20 years in the Pharmaceutical industry, I would say that.
But Bo-Jo is a lucky general. He doesn't deserve it, but he is.
Sporting index up with their team GB medals and gold medals spread - the gold spread around 14 and total medals around 45 show a depressing outlook from the highs of 2012 and 2016.
UK Sport (public department) have moved away from their win at all (legal) costs attitude (and pretended to never have had it in the first place and passed the buck /blame over to the likes of British Cycling etc which was shameful).
I think this change of attitude has the downside of a lot less medals . If I were a young elite athlete would I ultimately want a medal in the future or nicer touchy feeling coaching and no medal .errm think most would want a medal
‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘
The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.
[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.
While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.
"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."
“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:
Rishi Sunak 14/5 Michael Gove 10/1 Jeremy Hunt 12/1 Dominic Raab 20/1
Spot the sneak.
Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...
Good morning everybody.
How does one get on the 'pilot scheme'? As far as I can see it only applies to senior ministers.
The pilot has been running since 9th May when it had a target of covering 40,000 people. Anyone contacted by NHS Test and Trace is offered the chance to join the pilot. They are eligible to take part if they don't have symptoms, are 18 or over, live in England, are not in full time education and are not under quarantine rules. You can read about it at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-launch-40000-person-daily-contact-testing-study. So no, this isn't something special for senior ministers and they are not being treated differently from the rest of us.
Only someone who doesn't live here could claim this Government are doing well.
It's an absolute shambles right now.
And crowing about our vaccine success over Europe (Fishing) is rapidly coming undone. European countries are starting to fare far better on case rates, morbidity and vaccinations. The UK's decision not to vaccinated under-18's is unbelievably stupid. A disastrous mistake.
In my lifetime the only other Government that competes with this one on shambles is Callaghan's during the Winter of Discontent. Not even Major's 1992-7 farce comes close, nor the Remainer Parliament of 2017-19. That's how bad things are.
Why are they still 10% ahead in most polls?
I think we need to distinguish between this shambolic disaster of a Conserative government on the one hand, and the "ideal" Conservative governments from days gone by. I didn't agree with their policies then, of course, but at least they were decent, honest and straightforward. Respectable.
So if you give people a choice between the sort of Conservative government they remember and Labour (either the extremist Corbyn variety or the ineffective Starmer variety) they will say the prefer the Conservative Party.
But when people actually think about the shambolic Johnson version of Conservatism and compare that with the inoffensive blank sheet that Starmer represents, then the votes will be rather different in the ballot box.
Meanwhile our PB Tories will parrot the line about a 80 seat majority and 10% lead in the polls. The new PB Tories anyway - the old ones have at long last realised that they were defending the indefensible and have given up on Johnson.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Corbyn is already suspended. What difference has it made? There is a problem with the trots (who made the antisemitic attacks on Luciana Berger) but they are not the same as the Corbynistas. The problem Starmer has is that he has provided no reason for voting Labour and no reason for voting against a government led by a corrupt and incompetent liar. Corbyn is an irrelevance. The trouble is, for most voters, so is Keir Starmer.
Mr. Away, I mean, how do they approach it differently?
It's like turning up to work and not having a 'do some work' mentality. Or cooking something but not having a 'check to make sure it's safe to eat' approach.
If you're in sport then you're in to try and win, or at least do the best with what you have. If that's the Olympics, it means going for medals.
I criticise F1 when it gets things wrong, but nobody could accuse the teams of not trying hard enough to win.
Why does someone who has had Covid and been double jabbed like Boris have to self isolate? Surely this is where we are going wrong. The risk of anyone who has been double jabbed more than 3 weeks ago either being infected or carrying the virus are infinitesimal. I am, without conclusive evidence, of the view that such a person who has also had a fairly serious dose of Covid doing either is non existent.
We are in danger of losing the benefits of "freedom" by an excess of caution. Wish we had been faster with the vaccinations though.
Well, he shouldn’t.
But his own rules say he should.
As with Cummings, Hancock etc there appears to be one rule for them and a different set for us.
That’s the other problem with this decision - it feeds the narrative of arrogant selfishness that’s being established. Never a good look for a government.
No!
Despite being pinged by the NHS app Sunak and Johnson do not apparantly have to isolate as they have generously and kindly offered themselves up as Guinea pigs in an experiment to see whether the system you decry can be modified quickly. (It must be true, I read it in the Guardian).
A pair of special and patriotic Superheroes thinking of the nation's welfare over and above their own safety. Nothing whatsoever do do with their own convenience.
Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate... I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers
I deleted it days ago as did my family and our WhatsApp group
To be honest Boris and HMG deserve all the criticism they are receiving
Their PR is worse than even Ratner
If - as I expect - this turns into a PR disaster it also won’t look good for your favourite Sunak.
Pile on Hunt to be next leader.
You could be right, but right now any one of Rishi, Hunt, Raab, or Truss would be a huge improvement
I would just say the one thing that may save then ironically is the good sense of the vast majority of the public who will not cast off all care tomorrow, but practice their own common sense
Indeed my son and his partner, their parents and our family are going into self imposed lockdown from tomorrow, to do our best to keep covid away from having a serious consequence for their wedding on the 31st July
I expect a slump in their poll ratings for Boris and HMG which would be entirely self inflicted
You and your family seem to have a lot of common sense, Big G, but I'm not at all persuaded about the "vast majority". About a quarter of the customers in the supermarket I use don't bother covering up their nostrils.
I bought a lot of IIR ("blue") masks early last year (which I've been using). 2 litres of almost 100% isopropanol (which lasts a long time), plus a small quantity of N99 (FFP3) masks in case things got worse (which I haven't used yet). Remember those reports of people dropping dead in the streets in Iran.
Yesterday I ordered a respirator with long-lasting P3 filters, P3 offering more protection than even N99. I reckon the ongoing wave will soon top out - within days - but who knows what might happen next after that, and to what parts of the population? The government's own advisers seem to be all over the f***ing place.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Corbyn is already suspended. What difference has it made? There is a problem with the trots (who made the antisemitic attacks on Luciana Berger) but they are not the same as the Corbynistas. The problem Starmer has is that he has provided no reason for voting Labour and no reason for voting against a government led by a corrupt and incompetent liar. Corbyn is an irrelevance. The trouble is, for most voters, so is Keir Starmer.
Again, here’s the problem. Identified in your post are competing tribes of Trots, Corbynistas and (impliedly) Starmerites. That’s before we get to the LDs, the Greens, SNP and PC. With fragmentation like that…
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
The here to hear session with former Labour voters?
The one with fthe ormer Tory Candidate pretending to be a former Labour voter.
Concludes Labour is shit and all young people are lazy.
Wheras in reality SKS is shit and centrism is lazy
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Corbyn is already suspended. What difference has it made? There is a problem with the trots (who made the antisemitic attacks on Luciana Berger) but they are not the same as the Corbynistas. The problem Starmer has is that he has provided no reason for voting Labour and no reason for voting against a government led by a corrupt and incompetent liar. Corbyn is an irrelevance. The trouble is, for most voters, so is Keir Starmer.
Exactly right. The diehard Blairites just think all you can do is reheat the Kinnock expulsion of militant or the clause 4 vote and all will be well. Corbyn was one reason not to vote labour but there were many others. Starmer is an ideological void. What does he or labour now stand for. They have not shown any empathy for the former red wall seats so far. Indeed there is a school of thought in labour these should be abandoned and they should go for other targets. Labour just seems a rag tag collection of single issue lobbyists all pulled together under one umbrella. It is in a poor state and I say that as someone who votes labour, and always has, in general elections.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
The here to hear session with former Labour voters?
The one with fthe ormer Tory Candidate pretending to be a former Labour voter.
Concludes Labour is shit and all young people are lazy.
Wheras in reality SKS is shit and centrism is lazy
And again, we in the opposition dislike each other as much as we dislike the Tories.
On the standing of the government I would give them at least a 7. The UK jobs miracle is back in business, the forecasts for growth are strong, vaccines, there are a lot of positives which are reflected in their polling which is immensely strong for a mid term government. We haven't seen the like since the heyday of Tony Blair.
What I think is different from those times is the manic shrieking of social media and a press absolutely obsessed with clicks competing with itself for the latest gotcha or scream of vituperation. The vast majority of the population simply ignore this noise but it distorts perceptions of how things are going and indeed forecast to go over the next few years.
Some of the noise is justified of course: Jenrick should not be in office, I don't think Patel should be either, Williamson is a complete clot, it is astonishing (to me) that Cressida Dick is still in office and there is even discussion about a second term. I don't like their attempts to restrain JR or their changes in the laws re immigration but the hysteria against these errors is hyperbolic in the extreme.
So I would say that they have got the big calls right, they are the usual muddle on the smaller stuff but the noise being generated is extreme and distorting and that they deserve at least a 7. I await the usual brickbats from some of our more excitable contributors.
Sporting index up with their team GB medals and gold medals spread - the gold spread around 14 and total medals around 45 show a depressing outlook from the highs of 2012 and 2016.
UK Sport (public department) have moved away from their win at all (legal) costs attitude (and pretended to never have had it in the first place and passed the buck /blame over to the likes of British Cycling etc which was shameful).
I think this change of attitude has the downside of a lot less medals . If I were a young elite athlete would I ultimately want a medal in the future or nicer touchy feeling coaching and no medal .errm think most would want a medal
Those spread numbers look like buys. We got 27 gold and 67 total in Rio.
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.
Personally we will feel Brexit pain for many years to come, covid has masked the disaster. Truss is absolutely useless. Rest I agree , at best 2 out of 10 and put on the pointy hat with big D on it and go sit in the corner.
Why does someone who has had Covid and been double jabbed like Boris have to self isolate? Surely this is where we are going wrong. The risk of anyone who has been double jabbed more than 3 weeks ago either being infected or carrying the virus are infinitesimal. I am, without conclusive evidence, of the view that such a person who has also had a fairly serious dose of Covid doing either is non existent.
We are in danger of losing the benefits of "freedom" by an excess of caution. Wish we had been faster with the vaccinations though.
Isn't the point that the double jabbed can get and carry the virus but just don't experience severe symptoms?
Why does someone who has had Covid and been double jabbed like Boris have to self isolate? Surely this is where we are going wrong. The risk of anyone who has been double jabbed more than 3 weeks ago either being infected or carrying the virus are infinitesimal. I am, without conclusive evidence, of the view that such a person who has also had a fairly serious dose of Covid doing either is non existent.
We are in danger of losing the benefits of "freedom" by an excess of caution. Wish we had been faster with the vaccinations though.
Well, he shouldn’t.
But his own rules say he should.
As with Cummings, Hancock etc there appears to be one rule for them and a different set for us.
That’s the other problem with this decision - it feeds the narrative of arrogant selfishness that’s being established. Never a good look for a government.
What it shows is that the rules are wrong and should not be in their current form. Those who have been double vaxxed for more than 3 weeks should not have to self isolate, whether because they have been in contact with someone who is infected or because they have been to a red country. It is simply disproportionate to the risk.
The problem is of course we will never get full 'Freedom Day' because Covid is not going away, even getting double jabbed merely drastically reduces the risk of hospitalisation and death from it, it does not eliminate your chance of catching it or getting symptoms.
Now Boris could have delayed the ending of mandatory restrictions to September, when almost everyone will have been offered both jabs but at huge cost to the hospitality and domestic tourism industry in their peak summer period. Delaying it any further than that would have been impossible as we moved into winter flu season
Following recent events, Downing Street have announced the PM will be taking part in a new testing regime.
‘It’s a bit of a long shot to be honest,’ said the PM’s spokesperson, ‘but the possible benefits are incalculable if it works.’
Every day, the prime minister will undertake a series of basic tasks to prove his intelligence. If he even shows the slightest sign of intelligence, officials will rush in to ensure he makes the important decisions there and then, while he is most likely to get them vaguely right.
The new system follows growing doubts about the Prime Minister’s judgement, after his appalling choice in interior decor, appointing a lunatic as his Chief of Staff and being unable to realise Matt was handling his cock a little too often until 48 hours had passed.
Sir Keir Starmer, consulted, said that he had reservations about the process but ‘anything that improves the governance of our country must be a good thing.’ He also hinted he might take the same tests before having all the Commie bastards in Labour shot.
I have a quibble; surely it wasn't Matt Hancock who was handling his cock.
Johnson and Sunak wont have to isolate. Special trial scheme.
They f*cking don't care anymore do they?
One rule.
Labour need to hammer this like there is nothing else in the universe. Day after day, hour after hour, every spokesperson, every press release, every TV appearance, every tweet.
Why does someone who has had Covid and been double jabbed like Boris have to self isolate? Surely this is where we are going wrong. The risk of anyone who has been double jabbed more than 3 weeks ago either being infected or carrying the virus are infinitesimal. I am, without conclusive evidence, of the view that such a person who has also had a fairly serious dose of Covid doing either is non existent.
We are in danger of losing the benefits of "freedom" by an excess of caution. Wish we had been faster with the vaccinations though.
Isn't the point that the double jabbed can get and carry the virus but just don't experience severe symptoms?
They can carry it but whether, in the vast majority of cases, they carry enough of it to infect others is still unclear. And those who have the additional protection of having had it as well are surely bullet proof.
‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘
The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.
[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.
While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.
"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."
“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:
Rishi Sunak 14/5 Michael Gove 10/1 Jeremy Hunt 12/1 Dominic Raab 20/1
Spot the sneak.
Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...
Good morning everybody.
How does one get on the 'pilot scheme'? As far as I can see it only applies to senior ministers.
It seems you have to go Oxford, register and get some PPE.
Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate... I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers
I deleted it days ago as did my family and our WhatsApp group
To be honest Boris and HMG deserve all the criticism they are receiving
Their PR is worse than even Ratner
If - as I expect - this turns into a PR disaster it also won’t look good for your favourite Sunak.
Pile on Hunt to be next leader.
You could be right, but right now any one of Rishi, Hunt, Raab, or Truss would be a huge improvement
I would just say the one thing that may save then ironically is the good sense of the vast majority of the public who will not cast off all care tomorrow, but practice their own common sense
Indeed my son and his partner, their parents and our family are going into self imposed lockdown from tomorrow, to do our best to keep covid away from having a serious consequence for their wedding on the 31st July
I expect a slump in their poll ratings for Boris and HMG which would be entirely self inflicted
You lot keep going on about "common sense". What common sense? What do you or I know about viruses and pandemics that we haven't been told by the experts and fed by the government and its media?
"Use your common sense" is bullshit. What they want is for people to do what they want, free of government, so that government can blame them when it goes wrong.
To be honest I have given you an example of common sense over my son's wedding
The British public have far more common sense then you give them credit for
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h I cannot think of a more politically insane decision in my lifetime than the one Boris has just taken on self-isolation.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Corbyn is already suspended. What difference has it made? There is a problem with the trots (who made the antisemitic attacks on Luciana Berger) but they are not the same as the Corbynistas. The problem Starmer has is that he has provided no reason for voting Labour and no reason for voting against a government led by a corrupt and incompetent liar. Corbyn is an irrelevance. The trouble is, for most voters, so is Keir Starmer.
Again, here’s the problem. Identified in your post are competing tribes of Trots, Corbynistas and (impliedly) Starmerites. That’s before we get to the LDs, the Greens, SNP and PC. With fragmentation like that…
Most Labour leaders make a point of taking on some internal opponents but they then move on to a positive rallying cry. There are plenty of those you list who will support any reasonably progressive agenda as an alternative to the Tory shambles - I know left-wingers who would be perfectly willing to back a Blairite programme for now - schools, NHS, minimum wage, and OK, private provision if you must.
We get that Starmer isn't a left-wing extremist. But he needs to get on to what he is.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Corbyn is already suspended. What difference has it made? There is a problem with the trots (who made the antisemitic attacks on Luciana Berger) but they are not the same as the Corbynistas. The problem Starmer has is that he has provided no reason for voting Labour and no reason for voting against a government led by a corrupt and incompetent liar. Corbyn is an irrelevance. The trouble is, for most voters, so is Keir Starmer.
Again, here’s the problem. Identified in your post are competing tribes of Trots, Corbynistas and (impliedly) Starmerites. That’s before we get to the LDs, the Greens, SNP and PC. With fragmentation like that…
While that fragmentation means Starmer has near zero chance of winning a Labour majority, coupled with the fact he does not have the appeal in the Northern Red Wall Andy Burnham does, it does not mean he cannot become PM.
If the Tories lose their majority at the next general election it is perfectly possible Starmer could become PM propped up by the LDs (if they make significant gains in southern Tory Remain seats like Chesham), SNP, Greens and PC, SDLP and Alliance with the DUP abstaining unlike 2017 because of the Irish Sea border even if the Tories have still won most seats
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether you are right (you may well be) your post nevertheless demonstrates the problem I’m identifying.
Absolutely - and isn't it time to end the fight? The loony left actively want to remain in self-righteous opposition. They are repulsive to normal voters and bring Labour into disrepute.
The solution is nuke them. A one-off mass expulsion of the hard left who splinter off into a myriad of factions. Labour go back to talking to the mass of centre ground voters, don't look crazy any more, start to gain support.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h I cannot think of a more politically insane decision in my lifetime than the one Boris has just taken on self-isolation.
Whoever in the Labour party thought it would be nice to nominate Corbyn when they thought he had no chance and would be a disaster?
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 42m The Government's line is literally "You lot have to do this, but we don't". It's not a caricature. It's not an attack line dreamt up by Labour. It's the official Government position.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h I cannot think of a more politically insane decision in my lifetime than the one Boris has just taken on self-isolation.
The only thing that is insane about it is that it doesn't apply to everyone else too.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h I cannot think of a more politically insane decision in my lifetime than the one Boris has just taken on self-isolation.
The only thing that is insane about it is that it doesn't apply to everyone else too.
If the govt impose insane rules on millions over the last month, they surely can't simply ignore the rules for themselves?
This is not like it only impacted dozens so ministers were not aware.
I see Bolton now has 2 days of cases above their May 7-day average peak.
The mathematically impossible has happened!
Eh?
Who claimed it was mathematically impossible for cases to be above May peaks?
Delta is highly transmissable. Schools are (or were) operating normally. And children are unvaccinated.
The question is what happens next, now that schools break up, the weather has improved and the Euros are behind us.
That fact that Bolton peaked in May was used as extremely confident evidence that Delta had burned out fast.
It had ripped through the remaining unvaccinated and that was it done. With increasing vaccination numbers there was no new people to infect and it was over. Delta had flared briefly and was gone with only faint echoes in the surrounding counties.
Cases 100% deffo peaked at less than 10k.
Are you really trying to compare individual days now with a weekly average in a different period ?
Really ???
How is Kirklees working out for you?
Edit: thr implication is that the Bol on current 7 day average is going to rise pas the May "peak".
Kirklees has significantly fewer cases now than it did last autumn:
Different places have different levels of cases and over different periods of time but its quite clear that nowhere goes exponential to infinity.
Absolutely tremendous goalpost shifting.
Just, Phenomenal.
Look at the data and see the reality.
You seem to be a bit bitter that things aren't bad enough.
Strange. Very strange.
You said "its bollox" that we'd get to 40,000 cases a day by July because of "the data from Bolton, Blackburn, Bedfordshire and Kirklees".
I looked at the data (as you requested above) and saw the reality that new cases in Kirklees has gone vastly higher than when you said that and that Bolton and Bedfordshire's fall has stalled and in fact new cases have been increasing for the last month.
And we are over 40,000 cases a day.
Yet somehow you think your predictions were correct and you didn't pronounce too hastily given the data available?
It's a view I suppose.
I said it was bollox that cases would extrapolate to infinity and I was extremely sceptical that cases would exceed the peak in January as that didn't happen in Bolton or Blackburn.
And infections are certainly not going to extrapolate to infinity and, so far, haven't reached the level of January.
Though the pattern I pointed out of local cases not exceeding their previous peaks has been broken in parts of the North-East and Yorkshire. Why that has happened in July when it didn't happen in the North-West in June I don't know but I would speculate that the football led to more super-spreader events than the slow seepage in Lancashire and they will have a higher but narrower peak. On a more positive side London has been affected much less by Delta than it was in the winter wave, again for reasons we cannot be sure about.
I do find it fascinating that you are so obsessed at trying, and failing, to prove that things are so much worse than some people thought they would be.
Yet you spend no time being concerned about any predictions of enormous numbers of infections and collapsing health services.
Perhaps you actually want higher cases and more deaths because winning a pointless argument on the internet is more important to you than the damage to people's lives which would result from it.
‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘
The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.
[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.
While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.
"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."
“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:
Rishi Sunak 14/5 Michael Gove 10/1 Jeremy Hunt 12/1 Dominic Raab 20/1
Spot the sneak.
Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...
Good morning everybody.
How does one get on the 'pilot scheme'? As far as I can see it only applies to senior ministers.
The pilot has been running since 9th May when it had a target of covering 40,000 people. Anyone contacted by NHS Test and Trace is offered the chance to join the pilot. They are eligible to take part if they don't have symptoms, are 18 or over, live in England, are not in full time education and are not under quarantine rules. You can read about it at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-launch-40000-person-daily-contact-testing-study. So no, this isn't something special for senior ministers and they are not being treated differently from the rest of us.
I believe you, of course, but it's 'odd' that three (at least) senior ministers appear to have been included in the pilot, but no-one here appears to have been.
Tom Harwood @tomhfh · 3m Scorching analysis from @DPJHodges just now on GB News.
“Does Number 10 think we are idiots?”
Seems like a stunning decision - we are supposed to believe Boris and Rishi were randomly selected. 50% of pilot participants are supposed to isolate while 50% can test instead.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Corbyn is already suspended. What difference has it made? There is a problem with the trots (who made the antisemitic attacks on Luciana Berger) but they are not the same as the Corbynistas. The problem Starmer has is that he has provided no reason for voting Labour and no reason for voting against a government led by a corrupt and incompetent liar. Corbyn is an irrelevance. The trouble is, for most voters, so is Keir Starmer.
Again, here’s the problem. Identified in your post are competing tribes of Trots, Corbynistas and (impliedly) Starmerites. That’s before we get to the LDs, the Greens, SNP and PC. With fragmentation like that…
While that fragmentation means Starmer has near zero chance of winning a Labour majority, coupled with the fact he does not have the appeal in the Northern Red Wall Andy Burnham does, it does not mean he cannot become PM.
If the Tories lose their majority at the next general election it is perfectly possible Starmer could become PM propped up by the LDs (if they make significant gains in southern Tory Remain seats like Chesham), SNP, Greens and PC, SDLP and Alliance with the DUP abstaining unlike 2017 because of the Irish Sea border even if the Tories have still won most seats
That would involve a lot of disparate tribes playing nicely with one another. Ain’t happening.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h I cannot think of a more politically insane decision in my lifetime than the one Boris has just taken on self-isolation.
The only thing that is insane about it is that it doesn't apply to everyone else too.
If the govt impose insane rules on millions over the last month, they surely can't simply ignore the rules for themselves?
This is not like it only impacted dozens so ministers were not aware.
The rules need to go. Tomorrow. For the double vaxxed. Surely this is what freedom meant?
Only someone who doesn't live here could claim this Government are doing well.
It's an absolute shambles right now.
And crowing about our vaccine success over Europe (Fishing) is rapidly coming undone. European countries are starting to fare far better on case rates, morbidity and vaccinations. The UK's decision not to vaccinated under-18's is unbelievably stupid. A disastrous mistake.
In my lifetime the only other Government that competes with this one on shambles is Callaghan's during the Winter of Discontent. Not even Major's 1992-7 farce comes close, nor the Remainer Parliament of 2017-19.
And let's see. That long slow slide is well underway. I predict that the latest shambolic week, and England's defeat last Sunday and evaporation of 'football's coming home' euphoric hype, will see Mr Johnson's Conservative lead dip even further into the 4-5% range.
They were sensationally defeated in their Chesham & Amersham southern heartland and they failed to win Batley & Spen, much to the surprise of political commentators.
Continually pumping out the same rubbish every day. Always suspicious of these new accounts. The Tories have been steady in the early 40s for a long time now. Not sure where you think these Tory votes will disappear to right now unless you know something about the Reform Party the rest of us don’t.
Relatively long standing accounts are perfectly capable of pumping out the same rubbish every day.
Indeed. I thought it was rather a cheap and unnecessarily grumpy shot.
I hope this site continues to receive new subscribers, bringing fresh insight, comment and punditry. And I hope they receive a rather more polite response than that.
I thought it was fair and squarely aimed at the existing dullards that pump out crap daily rather than the new poster. May be worth rereading it.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
The here to hear session with former Labour voters?
The one with fthe ormer Tory Candidate pretending to be a former Labour voter.
Concludes Labour is shit and all young people are lazy.
Wheras in reality SKS is shit and centrism is lazy
Again I congratulate you, and Corbyn, on your magnificent -80 seat victory in December 2019.
Labour are currently irrelevant, primarily because of the direction Corbyn felt the nation needed to go, namely down a Soviet-style anti-Semitic rabbit hole. And the nation declined. As it stands Labour are an inconsequential protest group.
At the moment the voters are also content that "cometh the hour, cometh the man" Boris Johnson has been a magnificent General during the victorious war on Covid and the economic cost-free miracle he has overseen during the pandemic has seen those who vote "having never had it so good". Now should circumstances change, Starmer (well pretty well anyone, for that matter) is a better bet to take over the reins of Government than Corbyn was.
Starmer is mediocrity personified, but if you think Corbyn did a sound job, you are delusional. He facilitated Johnson.
Why does someone who has had Covid and been double jabbed like Boris have to self isolate? Surely this is where we are going wrong. The risk of anyone who has been double jabbed more than 3 weeks ago either being infected or carrying the virus are infinitesimal. I am, without conclusive evidence, of the view that such a person who has also had a fairly serious dose of Covid doing either is non existent.
We are in danger of losing the benefits of "freedom" by an excess of caution. Wish we had been faster with the vaccinations though.
Well, he shouldn’t.
But his own rules say he should.
As with Cummings, Hancock etc there appears to be one rule for them and a different set for us.
That’s the other problem with this decision - it feeds the narrative of arrogant selfishness that’s being established. Never a good look for a government.
It does at least expose the unpleasant 'people control' aspect of the app.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
The here to hear session with former Labour voters?
The one with fthe ormer Tory Candidate pretending to be a former Labour voter.
Concludes Labour is shit and all young people are lazy.
Wheras in reality SKS is shit and centrism is lazy
Exactly. The Labour Party cannot exist and be successful with you and Starmer in it. Wouldn't it be in everyone's best interests for you and the revolutionary marxists and the true socialists to set up on your own, pure and resplendent and unencumbered by the need to win the support of the electorate?
‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘
The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.
[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.
While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.
"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."
“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:
Rishi Sunak 14/5 Michael Gove 10/1 Jeremy Hunt 12/1 Dominic Raab 20/1
Spot the sneak.
Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...
Good morning everybody.
How does one get on the 'pilot scheme'? As far as I can see it only applies to senior ministers.
The pilot has been running since 9th May when it had a target of covering 40,000 people. Anyone contacted by NHS Test and Trace is offered the chance to join the pilot. They are eligible to take part if they don't have symptoms, are 18 or over, live in England, are not in full time education and are not under quarantine rules. You can read about it at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-launch-40000-person-daily-contact-testing-study. So no, this isn't something special for senior ministers and they are not being treated differently from the rest of us.
‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘
The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.
[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.
While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.
"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."
“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:
Rishi Sunak 14/5 Michael Gove 10/1 Jeremy Hunt 12/1 Dominic Raab 20/1
Spot the sneak.
Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...
Good morning everybody.
How does one get on the 'pilot scheme'? As far as I can see it only applies to senior ministers.
The pilot has been running since 9th May when it had a target of covering 40,000 people. Anyone contacted by NHS Test and Trace is offered the chance to join the pilot. They are eligible to take part if they don't have symptoms, are 18 or over, live in England, are not in full time education and are not under quarantine rules. You can read about it at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-launch-40000-person-daily-contact-testing-study. So no, this isn't something special for senior ministers and they are not being treated differently from the rest of us.
Though South Africa is also riven by tribal conflict between the pro Zuma Zulus and pro Ramaphosa Xhosas within the ANC across most of the country apart from Western Cape which is the only South African province not controlled by the ANC
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h I cannot think of a more politically insane decision in my lifetime than the one Boris has just taken on self-isolation.
The only thing that is insane about it is that it doesn't apply to everyone else too.
If the govt impose insane rules on millions over the last month, they surely can't simply ignore the rules for themselves?
This is not like it only impacted dozens so ministers were not aware.
The rules need to go. Tomorrow. For the double vaxxed. Surely this is what freedom meant?
My suggestion before was contacts do LFT on day 3 & 5 and end isolation on day 5 if both negative. I think that is a reasonable balance.
But the question of the rules needing to go is entirely separate from the duty of the PM to lead, and lead does not mean, its a national emergency so do what you are told and I and my chums shall be exempt and do what we want.
Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate... I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers
I deleted it days ago as did my family and our WhatsApp group
To be honest Boris and HMG deserve all the criticism they are receiving
Their PR is worse than even Ratner
If - as I expect - this turns into a PR disaster it also won’t look good for your favourite Sunak.
Pile on Hunt to be next leader.
You could be right, but right now any one of Rishi, Hunt, Raab, or Truss would be a huge improvement
I would just say the one thing that may save then ironically is the good sense of the vast majority of the public who will not cast off all care tomorrow, but practice their own common sense
Indeed my son and his partner, their parents and our family are going into self imposed lockdown from tomorrow, to do our best to keep covid away from having a serious consequence for their wedding on the 31st July
I expect a slump in their poll ratings for Boris and HMG which would be entirely self inflicted
Dear God, what a line up of absoute useless donkeys. If that is the best the Tories have even useless Starmer can have hope.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Corbyn is already suspended. What difference has it made? There is a problem with the trots (who made the antisemitic attacks on Luciana Berger) but they are not the same as the Corbynistas. The problem Starmer has is that he has provided no reason for voting Labour and no reason for voting against a government led by a corrupt and incompetent liar. Corbyn is an irrelevance. The trouble is, for most voters, so is Keir Starmer.
Exactly right. The diehard Blairites just think all you can do is reheat the Kinnock expulsion of militant or the clause 4 vote and all will be well. Corbyn was one reason not to vote labour but there were many others. Starmer is an ideological void. What does he or labour now stand for. They have not shown any empathy for the former red wall seats so far. Indeed there is a school of thought in labour these should be abandoned and they should go for other targets. Labour just seems a rag tag collection of single issue lobbyists all pulled together under one umbrella. It is in a poor state and I say that as someone who votes labour, and always has, in general elections.
Expulsion of the anti-semites and revolutionary marxists won't fix all their problems. The party is still adrift and bereft of basic feel never mind ideas and policies. The point is that it cannot fix the latter with the former remaining as the cancer in the party.
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I keep banging on about this but it’s because we who oppose them hate each other as much (or almost as much) as the Tories. Which is why Starmer’s major battle this week will be within his own party. Again.
Look at the first of Starmer's here to Hear sessions in Blackpool. Corbyn and the hard left brought up as why people don't vote Labour any more.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Corbyn is already suspended. What difference has it made? There is a problem with the trots (who made the antisemitic attacks on Luciana Berger) but they are not the same as the Corbynistas. The problem Starmer has is that he has provided no reason for voting Labour and no reason for voting against a government led by a corrupt and incompetent liar. Corbyn is an irrelevance. The trouble is, for most voters, so is Keir Starmer.
Exactly right. The diehard Blairites just think all you can do is reheat the Kinnock expulsion of militant or the clause 4 vote and all will be well. Corbyn was one reason not to vote labour but there were many others. Starmer is an ideological void. What does he or labour now stand for. They have not shown any empathy for the former red wall seats so far. Indeed there is a school of thought in labour these should be abandoned and they should go for other targets. Labour just seems a rag tag collection of single issue lobbyists all pulled together under one umbrella. It is in a poor state and I say that as someone who votes labour, and always has, in general elections.
The genius of Boris (or Dom or CCHQ) is to have seen what happened in the 2017 election and covered all Corbyn's best hits. As I've said before, Boris ran against May and Cameron's Conservatism. (Some of the stirrings on the backbenches and in the right-wing press recently is because Tories are starting to notice.) The corollary of this is Boris shot Labour's foxes on investment, the NHS and so on. So what is the point of Labour?
Starmer needs to answer that question, and also needs to nail Boris.
Comments
‘It’s a bit of a long shot to be honest,’ said the PM’s spokesperson, ‘but the possible benefits are incalculable if it works.’
Every day, the prime minister will undertake a series of basic tasks to prove his intelligence. If he even shows the slightest sign of intelligence, officials will rush in to ensure he makes the important decisions there and then, while he is most likely to get them vaguely right.
The new system follows growing doubts about the Prime Minister’s judgement, after his appalling choice in interior decor, appointing a lunatic as his Chief of Staff and being unable to realise Matt was handling his cock a little too often until 48 hours had passed.
Sir Keir Starmer, consulted, said that he had reservations about the process but ‘anything that improves the governance of our country must be a good thing.’ He also hinted he might take the same tests before having all the Commie bastards in Labour shot.
A dog’s breakfast is less messy.
The infectivity was bound to increase if Charlie Darwin had it right. You can't lock down sixty million people effectively in a small island in the middle of Europe.
On that basis, I'll give the government 7 out of 10, purely because we don't have the anti-vaccine hysteria of parts of Europe or the USA. Macron deserves the booby prize for that, but then, he shouldn't have relied on the Sanofi vaccine. One vaccine is bound to be a gamble. A hundred candidates doesn't approach certainty but it's a bloody good try, and we had several good candidates to choose from. There was no excuse for being mardy.
The worst is over, but that story doesn't spawn a multitude of other stories, which is what the press survive on. The truth can be too boring for them.
They need to generate outrage. There have been excess deaths from this disease, but the final number will be a lot less than it could have been. Viruses have been with us forever. We can afford to be generous now and give our excess to the developing world.
Most British people who refuse the jab will survive. Let ignorance continue to be bliss for them.
I would just say the one thing that may save then ironically is the good sense of the vast majority of the public who will not cast off all care tomorrow, but practice their own common sense
Indeed my son and his partner, their parents and our family are going into self imposed lockdown from tomorrow, to do our best to keep covid away from having a serious consequence for their wedding on the 31st July
I expect a slump in their poll ratings for Boris and HMG which would be entirely self inflicted
Hard to rate administrations, but weirdly Boris’s does feel like Brown’s or Major’s in terms of wheels falling off.
Weird because the polls don’t show this.
I see with hindsight I was morally right to do so.
"Use your common sense" is bullshit. What they want is for people to do what they want, free of government, so that government can blame them when it goes wrong.
Or an interest-free "loan" to finance some "personal" prime-minsterial "expenditure".
Again, not reflected in polls as far as I can see.
One other point I’d make is that the Tory press don’t seem very onside. It could be silly seasons stuff, but the smirking triumphalism that characterises the Tory press in full brown-nose mode seems to have collapsed.
Too often, opponents of the government come across as being full of hatred, as opposed to disagreeing on policy.
Most people, even if they’re not fans of the government, see them as trying their best in the face of an unprecedented situation, and not doing too badly compared to other comparable countries.
Participants are selected at random according to the govt. press release.
The Putinification continues with blatant lies that spineless loyalists will defend.
Then one day the polls seemed to catch up with reality.
For clarification: are you predicting large-scale abstentionism by Con voters?
The govt needs to get a handle on the so called pingdemic. I have no faith they will.
Had Rishi stood up to him and done the right thing, he would have made himself unpopular with the "Covid is nothing at all" crowd and reduced his chances of taking over. By going along with this blatant scam, he undercuts any "Borisism without the ghastly Boris" pitch, which I think some are projecting onto him.
Give him his due, BoJo understands gang dynamics.
(But it is a scam, isn't it? There is nothing essential in either job that can't be done via video link. Unlike actual key workers.)
We are in danger of losing the benefits of "freedom" by an excess of caution. Wish we had been faster with the vaccinations though.
He needs to kill off the lunatics. Expel them. Have the anti-semites and the revolutionary marxists expelled. Its not like they are going to take voters with them. The problem for Labour is that serkeir is frit. Had the chance to get this done by shitcanning Corbyn and blew it.
Gross inequalities...are a blight that squanders potential and corrodes national cohesion. The feeling that some parts of the country have thrived while others have been left to wither has fuelled a lot of grievance. The Tory leader used that resentment for his own ends in the Brexit referendum and at the last election. He would be right to worry that the bitterness will reflux on him if those voters conclude that he was never really serious about doing something for their communities. That will involve hard work and tough choices. These imbalances are the result of economic and social trends that reach back decades and have been troubling British governments since Harold Wilson was at Number 10. A genuine endeavour to start tackling it demands leadership that is capable of thinking very long term.
Unless we are extremely unlucky, Mr Johnson will not be prime minister for a generation and he habitually acts as if he struggles to think much further ahead than tomorrow’s headlines. The speech betrayed that weakness.
Tory MPs [report] that they had detected a festering resentment among southern voters that “levelling up” essentially means taking money away from them to give to the north. When he faces a conflict like this, the prime minister’s default is to try to fudge it out of existence.
Yet if it is a meaningful enterprise then it has to entail allocating disadvantaged areas a larger slice of the resources...Rachel Wolf, who co-wrote the Tory 2019 manifesto, has said that the Conservatives will have to choose whether they focus on the “just about managing” or concentrate on “affluent Britain” and “there is no third magic middle path”.
The UK is not only one of the most imbalanced countries in the western world, it is also one of the most centralised, and the prime minister now acknowledges that these two defects are connected. This has long been accepted by Tories who have worked on these issues.
I will believe it when I see it if this government is genuinely prepared to relinquish control, particularly over money, and especially if it involves handing it to representatives of other parties. The form so far has been to make councils dance to the tunes of central government by telling them to bid for pots of cash distributed from Whitehall. Money from the centrally controlled towns and levelling-up funds have disproportionately favoured places represented by Tories. That’s not about levelling up, that’s about pork barrelling.
Tories who know him well say that if anyone can make sense of the prime minister’s “Big Idea” it is Neil O’Brien. First, he will have to work on levelling up the prime minister. That won’t be easy either.
Vaccination is meant to return us to normal.
If it means masks, and distancing, and self-isolation, what's the point?
Edited extra bit: to clarify, if there's any doubt, I'm pro-vaccination. But very anti-vaccine passport and maintaining restrictions longer than we need them. The comfort some feel with such restrictions seems utterly bizarre to me, even as a huge introvert.
As for lockdown not working, I can't see what being an island has got to do with it, nor being located in Europe as opposed to in any of the world's inhabited continents. China locked down and it worked.
What do Darwin's writings tell us about anything to do with the SARS variants currently going around that doesn't apply for example to rhinoviruses?
But excitable foreigners and their hysteria and their lack of straight backs, eh?
But his own rules say he should.
As with Cummings, Hancock etc there appears to be one rule for them and a different set for us.
That’s the other problem with this decision - it feeds the narrative of arrogant selfishness that’s being established. Never a good look for a government.
https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro-2020/news/0254-0d41684d1216-06773df7faed-1000--euro-2020-all-the-fixtures/
I don't rule out a football effect but without knowing more, the plot is not convincing.
"The entire point of any mass vaccination campaign is precisely to establish herd immunity." Of course, the difference being effect on the patients.
"China locked down and it worked." On what basis? Call me cynical, but what was the death toll?
Very few less infective viruses survive. But their virulence doesn't naturally increase. There's always a balance to achieve.
Incidentally, Not sure about giving the rest of the world the 'recipe'. If a great chef gave me his recipe for a souffle free of charge, mine would still be inedible, and that's without the QC standards. OK, as I spent 20 years in the Pharmaceutical industry, I would say that.
But Bo-Jo is a lucky general. He doesn't deserve it, but he is.
UK Sport (public department) have moved away from their win at all (legal) costs attitude (and pretended to never have had it in the first place and passed the buck /blame over to the likes of British Cycling etc which was shameful).
I think this change of attitude has the downside of a lot less medals . If I were a young elite athlete would I ultimately want a medal in the future or nicer touchy feeling coaching and no medal .errm think most would want a medal
So if you give people a choice between the sort of Conservative government they remember and Labour (either the extremist Corbyn variety or the ineffective Starmer variety) they will say the prefer the Conservative Party.
But when people actually think about the shambolic Johnson version of Conservatism and compare that with the inoffensive blank sheet that Starmer represents, then the votes will be rather different in the ballot box.
Meanwhile our PB Tories will parrot the line about a 80 seat majority and 10% lead in the polls. The new PB Tories anyway - the old ones have at long last realised that they were defending the indefensible and have given up on Johnson.
It's like turning up to work and not having a 'do some work' mentality. Or cooking something but not having a 'check to make sure it's safe to eat' approach.
If you're in sport then you're in to try and win, or at least do the best with what you have. If that's the Olympics, it means going for medals.
I criticise F1 when it gets things wrong, but nobody could accuse the teams of not trying hard enough to win.
Despite being pinged by the NHS app Sunak and Johnson do not apparantly have to isolate as they have generously and kindly offered themselves up as Guinea pigs in an experiment to see whether the system you decry can be modified quickly. (It must be true, I read it in the Guardian).
A pair of special and patriotic Superheroes thinking of the nation's welfare over and above their own safety. Nothing whatsoever do do with their own convenience.
I bought a lot of IIR ("blue") masks early last year (which I've been using). 2 litres of almost 100% isopropanol (which lasts a long time), plus a small quantity of N99 (FFP3) masks in case things got worse (which I haven't used yet). Remember those reports of people dropping dead in the streets in Iran.
Yesterday I ordered a respirator with long-lasting P3 filters, P3 offering more protection than even N99. I reckon the ongoing wave will soon top out - within days - but who knows what might happen next after that, and to what parts of the population? The government's own advisers seem to be all over the f***ing place.
The one with fthe ormer Tory Candidate pretending to be a former Labour voter.
Concludes Labour is shit and all young people are lazy.
Wheras in reality SKS is shit and centrism is lazy
What I think is different from those times is the manic shrieking of social media and a press absolutely obsessed with clicks competing with itself for the latest gotcha or scream of vituperation. The vast majority of the population simply ignore this noise but it distorts perceptions of how things are going and indeed forecast to go over the next few years.
Some of the noise is justified of course: Jenrick should not be in office, I don't think Patel should be either, Williamson is a complete clot, it is astonishing (to me) that Cressida Dick is still in office and there is even discussion about a second term. I don't like their attempts to restrain JR or their changes in the laws re immigration but the hysteria against these errors is hyperbolic in the extreme.
So I would say that they have got the big calls right, they are the usual muddle on the smaller stuff but the noise being generated is extreme and distorting and that they deserve at least a 7. I await the usual brickbats from some of our more excitable contributors.
Rest I agree , at best 2 out of 10 and put on the pointy hat with big D on it and go sit in the corner.
Now Boris could have delayed the ending of mandatory restrictions to September, when almost everyone will have been offered both jabs but at huge cost to the hospitality and domestic tourism industry in their peak summer period. Delaying it any further than that would have been impossible as we moved into winter flu season
They f*cking don't care anymore do they?
One rule.
Labour need to hammer this like there is nothing else in the universe. Day after day, hour after hour, every spokesperson, every press release, every TV appearance, every tweet.
Then we will see how the poll lead looks.
The British public have far more common sense then you give them credit for
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
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1h
I cannot think of a more politically insane decision in my lifetime than the one Boris has just taken on self-isolation.
We get that Starmer isn't a left-wing extremist. But he needs to get on to what he is.
If the Tories lose their majority at the next general election it is perfectly possible Starmer could become PM propped up by the LDs (if they make significant gains in southern Tory Remain seats like Chesham), SNP, Greens and PC, SDLP and Alliance with the DUP abstaining unlike 2017 because of the Irish Sea border even if the Tories have still won most seats
Millions will now delete the app.
@PoliticsForAlI
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1h
🚨 | NEW: 530,126 people were told by NHS Test and Trace last week that they - legally - had to isolate
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak won’t
The solution is nuke them. A one-off mass expulsion of the hard left who splinter off into a myriad of factions. Labour go back to talking to the mass of centre ground voters, don't look crazy any more, start to gain support.
@DPJHodges
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42m
The Government's line is literally "You lot have to do this, but we don't". It's not a caricature. It's not an attack line dreamt up by Labour. It's the official Government position.
This is not like it only impacted dozens so ministers were not aware.
And infections are certainly not going to extrapolate to infinity and, so far, haven't reached the level of January.
Though the pattern I pointed out of local cases not exceeding their previous peaks has been broken in parts of the North-East and Yorkshire. Why that has happened in July when it didn't happen in the North-West in June I don't know but I would speculate that the football led to more super-spreader events than the slow seepage in Lancashire and they will have a higher but narrower peak. On a more positive side London has been affected much less by Delta than it was in the winter wave, again for reasons we cannot be sure about.
I do find it fascinating that you are so obsessed at trying, and failing, to prove that things are so much worse than some people thought they would be.
Yet you spend no time being concerned about any predictions of enormous numbers of infections and collapsing health services.
Perhaps you actually want higher cases and more deaths because winning a pointless argument on the internet is more important to you than the damage to people's lives which would result from it.
@tomhfh
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3m
Scorching analysis from
@DPJHodges
just now on GB News.
“Does Number 10 think we are idiots?”
Seems like a stunning decision - we are supposed to believe Boris and Rishi were randomly selected. 50% of pilot participants are supposed to isolate while 50% can test instead.
Labour are currently irrelevant, primarily because of the direction Corbyn felt the nation needed to go, namely down a Soviet-style anti-Semitic rabbit hole. And the nation declined. As it stands Labour are an inconsequential protest group.
At the moment the voters are also content that "cometh the hour, cometh the man" Boris Johnson has been a magnificent General during the victorious war on Covid and the economic cost-free miracle he has overseen during the pandemic has seen those who vote "having never had it so good". Now should circumstances change, Starmer (well pretty well anyone, for that matter) is a better bet to take over the reins of Government than Corbyn was.
Starmer is mediocrity personified, but if you think Corbyn did a sound job, you are delusional. He facilitated Johnson.
https://www.revolver.news/2021/07/south-africa-riots-looting-critical-race-theory/
This is why CRT is do dangerous
But the question of the rules needing to go is entirely separate from the duty of the PM to lead, and lead does not mean, its a national emergency so do what you are told and I and my chums shall be exempt and do what we want.
https://twitter.com/almurray/status/1416667935830159361
Predicts 1,000 hospitalisations a day coming too
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbcone
Starmer needs to answer that question, and also needs to nail Boris.