Well, that's a pathetic story. It is hindsightism of the worst kind.
Sometimes the government (or any government) cannot win. If they had not done the challenge and ventilators turned out to be scarce, the same idiots would be screeching that the government were incompetently killing people. They make too many, and it's a waste of money.
It's almost as if they expect the exact number required to have been judged in advance, and that amount ordered.
And they got CPAP devices by the bucket load out of that same challenge....which were needed.
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.
Corbyn has been a Labour Party member for ever. All through the Blair years, he sat on the backbenches happily dividing his time between his allotment and attending demos on every left-wing cause. The PLP has always had people like him - not a problem, just as the Tory PLP has some 'eccentrics' that they tolerate.
What Starmer is focusing on is groups who are 'entryists' for want of a better name. People who, unlike Corbyn, have no Labour Party history, but were more likely to have been involved in the SWP or other Trotskyite groups in the past, and have tried to hijack the Labour Party, particularly in some CLPs.
Starmer is getting it right. He needs to purge the entryists, not the Labour left.
We're talking about the same people. A core of the hard left stayed aboard after the Kinnock purges, and when they took over the party in 2015 opened the door wide open to the lunatics. The problem now is how you separate the two. How do you remove the anti-semites and not Corbyn? How do you remove the revolutionary marxists and not MPs like John McDonnell who spend all their time associating with them?
Let’s end the infighting once and for all with a last round of infighting
As someone somewhat sympathetic to the Labour cause, I only have to picture in my mind's eye the angry, ruddy face of the late Eric Heffer to remind me what irrational, incompetent, useless, nasty-party Labour looks like.
Even Corbyn never managed to get as close to putting Labour in third place as Foot and Heffer did in 1983, Jenkins' SDP on 25% was just 2% behind Foot's Labour on 27%
Michael Foot was a decent, doddery old intellectual fool. Heffer's was the face of British-Soviet evil. Corbyn was just a less physically vomit-inducing version of Heffer.
Perhaps the greatest shame was that the SDP ultimately failed and we retain elements within the Labour Party who are steeped in Union-Baron corruption and of red flags flying over Downing Street. See, it isn't just Johnson who loves a flag!
Eric Heffer was not a great fan of the Soviet Union . He was a devout Anglican who was well liked by Thatcher. She attended his funeral in 1991.
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.
Corbyn has been a Labour Party member for ever. All through the Blair years, he sat on the backbenches happily dividing his time between his allotment and attending demos on every left-wing cause. The PLP has always had people like him - not a problem, just as the Tory PLP has some 'eccentrics' that they tolerate.
What Starmer is focusing on is groups who are 'entryists' for want of a better name. People who, unlike Corbyn, have no Labour Party history, but were more likely to have been involved in the SWP or other Trotskyite groups in the past, and have tried to hijack the Labour Party, particularly in some CLPs.
Starmer is getting it right. He needs to purge the entryists, not the Labour left.
We're talking about the same people. A core of the hard left stayed aboard after the Kinnock purges, and when they took over the party in 2015 opened the door wide open to the lunatics. The problem now is how you separate the two. How do you remove the anti-semites and not Corbyn? How do you remove the revolutionary marxists and not MPs like John McDonnell who spend all their time associating with them?
Let’s end the infighting once and for all with a last round of infighting
As someone somewhat sympathetic to the Labour cause, I only have to picture in my mind's eye the angry, ruddy face of the late Eric Heffer to remind me what irrational, incompetent, useless, nasty-party Labour looks like.
Even Corbyn never managed to get as close to putting Labour in third place as Foot and Heffer did in 1983, Jenkins' SDP on 25% was just 2% behind Foot's Labour on 27%
Michael Foot was a decent, doddery old intellectual fool. Heffer's was the face of British-Soviet evil. Corbyn was just a less physically vomit-inducing version of Heffer.
Perhaps the greatest shame was that the SDP ultimately failed and we retain elements within the Labour Party who are steeped in Union-Baron corruption and of red flags flying over Downing Street. See, it isn't just Johnson who loves a flag!
Eric Heffer was not a great fan of the Soviet Union . He was a devout Anglican who was well liked by Thatcher. She attended his funeral in 1991.
Apparently he planned to contribute to the final debate Mrs T participated in as PM, but was too ill. Frank Field was another Labour MP who had a warm relationship with her.
"Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there. One of the dominant facts in English life during the past three quarters of a century has been the decay of ability in the ruling class."
From one of the greatest Englishmen ever, too. (Had to look it up as I wasn't sure.)
Chesterton?
No, though he had a way with words too.
Orwell. Not entirely clear what particular 75 years he was talking about but it probably has a general application!
I wondered too.
1865-1940ish, or at least The Lion and the Unicorn which was published in 1941 (assuming that bit not recycled from earlier).
Our only major war in the 75 years after Waterloo was the Crimea and it is hard to think of a better example of stunning military incompetence by our ruling classes than that, at least until WW1.
The Boer War had far more military incompetence than WW1, partly because some lessons were learned.
Its not a period I have ever studied but my general impression was that we got caught with our pants down at the start but then won with ruthless tactics that included inventing the modern concentration camp. Morally reprehensible but not particularly incompetent. Isn't that where Kitchener made his reputation?
They discovered, often the hard way, the merits of the combination of modern rifles and trenches backed up with good artillery.
Anybody who observed any of the American Civil war on the eastern theatre really should not have had to learn that at all. It was the first truly modern war using industrial might to crush the battlefield under sheer weight of arms. The fact that it took 50 years from there to the first deployment of tanks is as good an example of the inherent conservatism of military thinking as I think you can find.
To be fair, wasn't the issue with tanks the means of propulsion? Because of their weight they need powerful engines, and those were simply not available much before WW1. I think the first tank prototypes were initially based on caterpillar tractors - which themselves were only introduced in the very early 1900s. Even then, the first military tanks were very underpowered and nasty to work in. I don't think they could have been made ten years earlier, yet alone 50.
I was a fan of Michael Moorcock (whom I'm vaguely surprised to find is still with us) when younger. Didn't he invent a universe where steam was still the primary energy source behind industrialised warfare? Of course that's probably why it only exist in fiction.
There was a pretty radical racial policy in operation there until the early 90s as I recall. Funny how this article doesn’t mention its legacy as a potential cause.
It’s 27 years since apartheid. The article mentions it plenty. 27 years is enough time to make life better. Life in SAis getting worse
Having been to RSA a number of times, though last time was about a decade ago, it is remarkable how little the end of Apartheid made to the peoples of the country. The whites still live in elegant suburbs and the blacks in shanty towns. There are small numbers of black middle class, but for many the end of Apartheid meant little change to their lives.
And that fairly appalling piece by Revolver is trying to support that situation by insisting that white economic dominance is the price of a successful economy and policies that seek to change that are doomed to failure, all with a deeply undemocratic American slant. Ugh.
Yes, you must watch for that. The brainworm wriggling in the heads of people who make great play of how shit things are in SA is often, "Blacks just can't run things. They're wild and clueless. They need a strong guiding hand. Can't say that, of course, not these days, you'd be cancelled, but it's true."
It's not necessarily this going on, I should stress, but be in no doubt that it very often is. See also attitudes to the Palestinians (vs the Israelis). Similar sentiments and (by and large) the same people holding them.
The colonial mindset. Still there. Still very much there.
The problem is this: if South Africa had been a great success since 1994, it would have been because black people had done things right. If it isn't a success, it's the fault of white people and their legacy.
Trite formulation dripping with White Fragility. Correction as below:
If you have managed to overcome the legacy of white supremacist colonialism, great and well done. If you haven't, not so great and not so well done. But does your failure (thus far) demonstrate the legacy is not real and powerful and toxic? No it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. Quite the opposite.
So what you say is a problem isn't a problem. The problem (here) is that you think it's a problem. And that's your problem. Yours and all who "think" like you.
The answer might be they had a bad legacy but still governed badly.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing is that they had 30+ years of evidence from the rest of Africa of what might or might not work.
Indeed. The abused often go on to abuse. It's not about giving a free pass. It's about context and perspective and (in particular) acknowledging uncomfortable truths rather than downplaying or denying them.
(((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?
No - the fact that Corbyn ended up having any chance at all is due entirely to the crass stupidity of the Acting Leader - Harriet Harman.
Ultimately though it was the Labour Paty selectorate that chose Corbyn, by a fairly clear margin. I think that there was a real desire to see the end of the tired veterans of New Labour, particularly Burnham and Cooper. A mistake perhaps but hard to see them doing better next time. It will be a new generation untainted by past mistakes in government that will have the leadership from now on.
If any white person critiquing South African governance is a colonialist oppressor, does that mean only black people are allowed an opinion? How black do they have to be? Perhaps we could put a pencil in their hair, and test it for curliness
And this must surely apply to white people who praise, say, Nelson Mandela? Isn’t that just patronising colonialism from the other angle?
Why post such infantile shit?
Is it so I'll get mad and reply in high blood tone, and then get so involved in any subsequent exchanges, and on this thread generally, that I'll miss the start of the Open golf?
Well it won't work. It's a brand new disciplined 'me'. Say it once, say it right.
Who is advising the Government, their judgment is just dreadful, when will the public give up, it is depressing they are still ahead!
They're still ahead because they are pitted in an ugly contest against Labour. It doesn't matter how bad one lot are if a sufficient number of voters are afraid that the alternative would be even worse.
Keir needs to carry on expelling the nutters, then people will see this is a different party
Blair should have gone for PR when he could, in the early days. By now there’d be three strong and significant parties of the left in England:
1. Labour, a solidly centre-left, social democratic party in the Nordic fashion 2. A hard left party, built by former Labourites dissatisfied with centrist Labour 3. The Greens
Between them, and with help from the Lib Dems, England could have kept the right wing nutters in check. Brexit wouldn’t have had a look in.
Hi Stuart, hope you're well.
This is why I hope the Lib Dems are in a position of power come the next GE, Labour must not be allowed to get away with not implementing PR again
Yes thank you Mr Battery!
I’m sitting in my wet swimming shorts on beautifully smooth, warm, pink granite after my dives into the cooling Kattegat off the rocks, and jumps from the 7m diving platform. Summer Bohuslän at its very best.
I got some inside info during a pleasant meal out last week. Delightful chap living in SW England, but frequently in London and Home Counties on business. He’s convinced the Tory bastions in the south are crumbling and the Lib Dems are going to thrash Johnson in his heartlands. I took it with a pinch of salt, but my dinner companion was very convincing on a wide range of topics, and his anecdata seemed plausible.
Only problem is this: a 10% swing from Con to LD would net the LDs just 26 Tory seats.
He didn’t talk arithmetic, but the rumblings my dining companion was sensing were seismic.
Of course he didn't talk arithmetic, the data doesn't back his rumblings up.
That's not to say the Conservatives don't have potential problems.
But just as northern England covers a multitude of different areas and different demographics so does southern England.
And while the Conservatives might have problems in areas filled with posh remainers, nimbyism and unaffordable housing its a different story in other parts.
Unaffordable housing and nimbyism are widespread problems down here; disproportionate concentrations of wealthy and highly educated cultural liberals (which is what the LDs really need to thrive IMHO) are a bit harder to come by. The prospect of boundary change complicates matters a little, but in the event of a significant revival, you'd have thought that the seats they'd be targeting most of their efforts on would be in the wealthier parts of the London commuter belt: SW London, the Thames Valley and out along the M3 and M4 corridors, Surrey and rural Sussex. Outside of that there are liable to be only a small handful of scattered opportunities that are worth pursuing.
Who is advising the Government, their judgment is just dreadful, when will the public give up, it is depressing they are still ahead!
They're still ahead because they are pitted in an ugly contest against Labour. It doesn't matter how bad one lot are if a sufficient number of voters are afraid that the alternative would be even worse.
Keir needs to carry on expelling the nutters, then people will see this is a different party
Blair should have gone for PR when he could, in the early days. By now there’d be three strong and significant parties of the left in England:
1. Labour, a solidly centre-left, social democratic party in the Nordic fashion 2. A hard left party, built by former Labourites dissatisfied with centrist Labour 3. The Greens
Between them, and with help from the Lib Dems, England could have kept the right wing nutters in check. Brexit wouldn’t have had a look in.
Hi Stuart, hope you're well.
This is why I hope the Lib Dems are in a position of power come the next GE, Labour must not be allowed to get away with not implementing PR again
Assumes rather that the LDs have sufficient leverage to insist upon reform.
Forgive my cynicism, but I doubt that Labour will back PR on principle - because it has two consequences for them:
1. The likelihood that they'll never be able to form a majority Government again, but even more critically 2. The likelihood that they'll split
The LDs wouldn't have the power in a Hung Parliament to demand PR. They've chosen to cast themselves as a centre-left rather than a centre-right party and thus, especially after the previous experience, they can't get back into bed with the Tories. They can make Labour's life difficult but, because of the inability to switch sides, and also because they can hardly promote electoral reform if they're not willing to work with other parties at all, they're unlikely to bring Labour down - and all involved will know it.
Since entering the Coalition the LDs are perceived as being centre - right - indeed in terms of economic policy the party is to the right of Johnson's Government.
If any white person critiquing South African governance is a colonialist oppressor, does that mean only black people are allowed an opinion? How black do they have to be? Perhaps we could put a pencil in their hair, and test it for curliness
And this must surely apply to white people who praise, say, Nelson Mandela? Isn’t that just patronising colonialism from the other angle?
There's absolutely no humiliation that BJ could inflict on Jenrick that would force him to tell the amoral **** where to shove it, is there? A safe pair of hands unconcerned by being smeared in other people's shit, a great quality to possess in the brave new world of Borisism.
(((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?
No - the fact that Corbyn ended up having any chance at all is due entirely to the crass stupidity of the Acting Leader - Harriet Harman.
Ultimately though it was the Labour Paty selectorate that chose Corbyn, by a fairly clear margin. I think that there was a real desire to see the end of the tired veterans of New Labour, particularly Burnham and Cooper. A mistake perhaps but hard to see them doing better next time. It will be a new generation untainted by past mistakes in government that will have the leadership from now on.
The context is important here. Corbyn did not actually want to win the leadership election in 2015 - and had no expectation initially of doing better than a respectable third place behind Cooper & Burnham. The dynamics of the contest changed when Harman forced the Shadow Cabinet to abstain on Osborne's Welfare Reform proposals. This caused outrage throughout the wider membership - and left Corbyn as the only candidate who ended up voting against them! Burnham and Cooper ought to have stepped down from the Shadow Cabinet to free themselves up to do likewise. Nevertheless , Harriet Harman does have a lot to answer for . I hope it weighs heavily on her conscience.
I wonder who will get the blame in Number 10 for giving the wrong initial advice to the PM?
How high would this issue have gone - chief of staff level? Whoever advised the PM on this will likely be criticised for not having a good ear for politics
How long before #ClassicDom points the finger at Carrie?
Why does DC keep going on about Carrie? Presumably he was behind the unattributed material about her role that appeared in the press around the time of his departure from Number 10/70 too.
Does he believe that as a man who is super-endowed with skill in conflict he has identified a terribly weak spot in his adversary's citadel? Or is he just reaching for the go-to insult of calling BJ a girly man who lets himself be dominated by a woman?
I reckon he's saying the latter, which demonstrates not the PM's weakness but his own. See too the use of the moniker "Princess Nut Nuts", which demeans its users, not its target.
Comments
At least until my underlings point out what a stupid idea I have had (yet again).
Is it so I'll get mad and reply in high blood tone, and then get so involved in any subsequent exchanges, and on this thread generally, that I'll miss the start of the Open golf?
Well it won't work. It's a brand new disciplined 'me'. Say it once, say it right.
Does he believe that as a man who is super-endowed with skill in conflict he has identified a terribly weak spot in his adversary's citadel? Or is he just reaching for the go-to insult of calling BJ a girly man who lets himself be dominated by a woman?
I reckon he's saying the latter, which demonstrates not the PM's weakness but his own. See too the use of the moniker "Princess Nut Nuts", which demeans its users, not its target.