It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
There are already enough fights with doorman over not letting people in because they don't like the look of them or the venue is too full.
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
" Got hold of Labour’s own Liverpool report ahead of NEC today. Here are the panel’s key findings (incl bullying, misogyny, toxic culture) and recommendations (“Nothing less than a full reset of the Labour Party in Liverpool is needed”):"
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
Early stats from the Welsh looking surprisingly good: 555 positive tests, no deaths ,as against 737 positives and 1 death last week. First time for a while Wales has undershot its previous week. Early impact of schools breaking up?
I also expect a big impact from the holidays this week and next in England. Equally, I expect a big surge at the end of August/beginning of September as millions of pupils and teachers start doing LFTs again.
Sorry but its just not true that having a premature lockdown works and the SAGE experts are right on this, because the second that you lift a premature lockdown cases start rising again.
But the cases rise from a lower base, meaning you have fewer cases overall. This is the key thing to understand -> an earlier lockdown means fewer cases.
No it doesn't, because they just restart rising with exponential growth.
Exponential growth means that whatever amount of cases you start with is pretty irrelevant, before long you end up back at high numbers again.
Unless you can find a way to break the back of exponential growth, then premature lockdowns are useless.
See this is where you're wrong.
Mathematical exercise for you:
Put 100 in a column in excel. Double it for five rows, then halve it. Put 100 in a column in excel. Halve it. Then double it for five rows.
In both columns you will have the same number in the last row.
But the total will not be the same.
Yes, in theory, if you have the same number of lockdown weeks, but you have them earlier, then you have many fewer cases.
However, this assumes that the public will respond to the lockdown in the same way. There's a lot of evidence that they don't, that people make their own judgements based on perceived risk.
So the mathematical argument might not hold in reality.
You s but the point were making is that "exponential means you can't do anything" is not a good argument and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how numbers work
Nobody said exponential means you can't do anything. But exponential means you still have to be smart.
Having a pathetic two week lockdown, with the inevitability of pre and post lockdown parties (because that's how humans behave) is a stupid, stupid idea that doesn't work. File it like communism as something that simply doesn't work with humanity.
Other ideas may work. But a fortnightly lockdown is absolutely irrelevant to the problem, unless your cases are so low and lockdown so draconian you can have eradication as the result.
Even if we'd had the two week lockdown in September, we would have still had our winter lockdown peak. Like in Wales, it may have even arrived sooner since fortnightly lockdowns are actually counterproductive.
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
There are already enough fights with doorman over not letting people in because they don't like the look of them or the venue is too full.
The government servers would be a prime target for mischief makers, they currently have to get their jollies disrupting on line game login servers. I suspect the vaxport servers and the idea they can ruin millions of peoples nights will be just too tempting.
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
There are already enough fights with doorman over not letting people in because they don't like the look of them or the venue is too full.
The government servers would be a prime target for mischief makers, they currently have to get their jollies disrupting on line game login servers. I suspect the vaxport servers and the idea they can ruin millions of peoples nights will be just too tempting.
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
Waitrose is very middle class, and I expect most to carry on wearing masks. Other stores not so much. Weirdly, I'm not so bothered about wearing one when it is voluntary, than I was when it was mandatory. I'm weird.
Me too. Happy to do it when asked to by the owner of a business I can see right there in front of me also wearing one. Resistant to do so when forced to by a far off government official.
" Got hold of Labour’s own Liverpool report ahead of NEC today. Here are the panel’s key findings (incl bullying, misogyny, toxic culture) and recommendations (“Nothing less than a full reset of the Labour Party in Liverpool is needed”):"
Wot, no criminality in that list? Sub-judice, I guess....
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
Waitrose is very middle class, and I expect most to carry on wearing masks. Other stores not so much. Weirdly, I'm not so bothered about wearing one when it is voluntary, than I was when it was mandatory. I'm weird.
Not many in the Temple Fortune one a couple of days ago. Sainsbury's in Muswell Hill was 95%+ masked and tuts for staff not wearing them.
Boris Johnson to delay social care reform plans until autumn
Which autumn
The autumn he ceases being PM
Evidenced @HYUFD is not a complete Boris fanboy I think.
(And I think your are probably right).
It really is the sort of political nightmare that Boris will promote before ensuring he is well away from the nightmare of implementing it.
On the other hand if he promoted it in such a way that it had to be implemented I would neither blame him for running away prior to release and congratulate him on avoiding the pain.
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
Very forseeable so the gov't will of course ensure the server capacity is increased prior to it being a condition
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
I reckon Asda will be the lowest.
Home Bargains
The Range will be worse than Home Bargains.
The Range is quite pleasant. B&M will be "worse" if that's how you're measuring good or bad.
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
There are already enough fights with doorman over not letting people in because they don't like the look of them or the venue is too full.
The government servers would be a prime target for mischief makers, they currently have to get their jollies disrupting on line game login servers. I suspect the vaxport servers and the idea they can ruin millions of peoples nights will be just too tempting.
Revenue of the incels.....
Or just people who don't want vaxports and want to put grit in the wheel
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
Very forseeable so the gov't will of course ensure the server capacity is increased prior to it being a condition
You can't increase the capacity that much, botnets are cheap to hire and IoT has provide many more millions of devices to run them on. Plus when did you last see a competent government it operation
Morning all. Sorry, only just read the @Cyclefree PT header on the stubborn Tory poll lead. It's a very good helicopter piece.
"If the choice is between the Tories and an empty space, the latter is unlikely to win."
The above line jumped out at me. You read it and reflexively nod and think "too right". It's one of those.
But then - if you're me - you dwell on it a while and wonder whether it is such a slam dunk. This government (and particularly this PM) are increasingly being viewed by anybody with eyes to see and ears to listen and noses to smell and mouths to - ok ok you get the picture - as an utter shambles. No principles. No competence. 'No' as in ZERO.
They've got away with it so far (pollwise) but for how long? Brexit is shedding its potency as iconic wedge issue. Slowly, to be sure, but it is. They can poke the fires of its culture war aspect but is this enough to stay at 40%? I doubt it. Tough times lie ahead with the economy and in Fiscal Corner. Leveling Up, for example, has to move from soundbite to hard policy choices and this will piss some people off. If it doesn't it's not real and remains a soundbite. Which would also start to piss some people off, just a different bunch, those Leavers who voted for this agenda, believing it to be genuine. Because these folk are not total blithering idiots - not in the main and not all the time. Whatever, poll damage is coming either way. Ditto with Social Care. There are no votes in that. Only negative ones if you get serious about it. Ask Andy Burnham or Theresa May. So the same choice there. A solid plan and loss of popularity or a cop out and loss of popularity.
Now we have this mismanaged exit from the pandemic. Plus (the header here) further damaging reveals from Cummings - who was right there in the middle of it - about the response and attitude throughout. The PM at key moments in thrall to bizarre right-wing 'contrarians' for heaven's sake, most of them no wiser than our PB one. His focus not on preventing Covid running amok in England and killing tens of thousands but on something far more important - impressing the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.
I could go on. The challenge is to stop. But I can do that too. I'm going out maskless in a minute. Big moment. The point is, surely all of this shit is probably going to lead within a year to the Cons polling no better than mid 30s. And then come the GE, given things can only get worse, if the choice is indeed between more of the same or a nice cool empty space fronted by a non-scary, competent, decent sounding bloke who looks like he could run a whelk stall and could manage to tell the truth every now and again, well for me that's a toss up.
I could have written a header about all the things the Tories are getting wrong. In fact, I've already written a few of those.
But I wanted to challenge myself to understand why the Tories are in the lead. And in fact it wasn't that hard to do.
I am not a Boris supporter. But I simply cannot drum up any enthusiasm for Labour and Starmer has done some things which actively repel me from voting Labour.
A lot of the things you mention above are perfectly valid. But most people will not pay them much attention or will take the view that any government would probably have made similar mistakes. Is there any evidence at all that Starmer has or had any better plan for dealing with Covid, for instance?
For now, the government is getting the benefit of the doubt. How long that will last I have no idea. There are a lot of things which could go wrong and which could lead to the electorate turning against it. But Labour are simply unable to describe coherently the following:-
- This is who we are - This is what we're for - This is how we behave - This is where we're going and the sort of country we want to lead - This is how we're going to get there
Stringing together a lot of adjectives: "progressive" "fair" is not an answer.
In fact, I am deeply sceptical of any group which includes a lot of adjectives in its description or mission statement. It seems to me to act as a bar to any sort of critical intelligent thought. The word "progressive", in particular, is used as a battering ram to shut down objections as if it is a magic incantation which should stop anyone querying whether the reality of what is being proposed is really as wonderful as claimed.
Say what you are going to do, how you are going to to do these things and explain the consequences of what you are going to do.
The audience can - and will - supply their own adjectives.
No, it was an excellent header. The Con lead takes some explaining and you had a good go. My little piece was infused more by hope than expectation if I'm honest. My preference is for Starmer's Labour to cast caution to the winds and present a clear and distinctive alternative. I think he should stop listening to people and start telling them stuff. But if he flunks this, goes instead for something anodyne and 'everyone's a winner', my feeling is there's still a decent chance of winning enough seats to remove the Tories from office. Why? Simply because this government is hitting new lows on competence and integrity and their luck is surely running out.
If the choice is between losing money and getting rid of the people that only lead Labour to being racist and losing, then lose the money. Well done Keir, if nothing else he will reform the party so it can once again win again.
Reform the voting next please, a Corbyn-type must never be able to win again and I say that as a former Corbynite. Prevent my stupidity in voting
The irony was that the reform was already there: Corbyn almost did not get on the ballot as he did not have enough nominations from MPs. Then one decided to nominate him even though they didn’t think he was up to running the party and the rest is history.
Possibly one of the most significant decisions in history: a more committed Labour leader may well have swung enough votes that the Brexit referendum would have gone the other way (and would certainly have not been so far behind in the polls in ‘17 that May would have thought a snap election was a good idea).
My take on the Brexit referendum:-
Jeremy Corbyn: Leaver pretending to be a Remainer Theresa May: Leaver pretending to be a Remainer Boris: Remainer pretending to be a Leaver
But probably, like most people who have never had dinner with Bill Cash, they'd not given the matter too much thought before needing to decide.
I think May was genuinely on the fence but edged towards Remain because of her inherent conservatism towards change. If you read Boris' two columns, he clearly had his heart with Leave.
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
I reckon Asda will be the lowest.
That was the supermarket that asked my son to mask up - my wife went into a different Asda yesterday wearing her mask (unprompted) - she said most people still were.
I shopped in the big M&S at Torquay yesterday - and only saw two people there without masks. And they were both heavily overweight young women. People who really wouldn't want to risk getting Covid.
The nearby paint merchant was also requiring masks "because our owners are Welsh and they are still in lockdown - so we are too".
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
I reckon Asda will be the lowest.
That was the supermarket that asked my son to mask up - my wife went into a different Asda yesterday wearing her mask (unprompted) - she said most people still were.
I shopped in the big M&S at Torquay yesterday - and only saw two people there without masks. And they were both heavily overweight young women. People who really wouldn't want to risk getting Covid.
The nearby paint merchant was also requiring masks "because our owners are Welsh and they are still in lockdown - so we are too".
Again all this new messaging from the government....again the talk of the risk of being a fatty has gone. Its one of the things everybody, especially younger end of the scale can do to reduce our risk.
Bywire News™ @bywirenews · 1h NEW: Keir Starmer has almost bankrupted the Labour Party.
The party’s financial reserves are down to just one months’ payroll - with senior staff blaming a huge swathe of lost members and legal fees.
Labour were the richest party in Britain under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
So with a reduction in subs from fly by night Trots who have scabbed off, and a reduction in union subs from Red Len, Starmer needs to go after private sector benefactors. No problem.
He has being trying to make good the shortfall from wealthy individuals ever since he became leader.
Unsurprisingly he has failed as he inspires nobody but a few anti Corbyn cranks
I am sure the staff losing their jobs will be extremely impressed by the success of your plan.
He needs the donations to keep the staff. Should have done it earlier of course.
Your argument is well made though. Without Corbyn the party is bankrupt. Which is why there should be an amicable divorce - let Labour Against the Witchhunt and Corbyn and the anti-semites and Chris Williamson stay, and have Starmer and the members and the voters leave.
The negative is that you'll lose the handful of trot MPs like Sultana who stay with you. The positive is that you'll have a large pot of money to defend the party against the endless legal cases. Well, until its all spent of course.
The antisemites are mainly the trots, not the Corbynistas (especially if you maintain the old-fashioned distinction between Israel and Jews).
The theory was that Blair-era big personal donors who'd left over Corbyn would come back with Starmer. Have they? I'm not too sure how far in arrears these things are accounted for. If not, will they?
Bywire News™ @bywirenews · 1h NEW: Keir Starmer has almost bankrupted the Labour Party.
The party’s financial reserves are down to just one months’ payroll - with senior staff blaming a huge swathe of lost members and legal fees.
Labour were the richest party in Britain under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
So with a reduction in subs from fly by night Trots who have scabbed off, and a reduction in union subs from Red Len, Starmer needs to go after private sector benefactors. No problem.
He has being trying to make good the shortfall from wealthy individuals ever since he became leader.
Unsurprisingly he has failed as he inspires nobody but a few anti Corbyn cranks
I am sure the staff losing their jobs will be extremely impressed by the success of your plan.
He needs the donations to keep the staff. Should have done it earlier of course.
Your argument is well made though. Without Corbyn the party is bankrupt. Which is why there should be an amicable divorce - let Labour Against the Witchhunt and Corbyn and the anti-semites and Chris Williamson stay, and have Starmer and the members and the voters leave.
The negative is that you'll lose the handful of trot MPs like Sultana who stay with you. The positive is that you'll have a large pot of money to defend the party against the endless legal cases. Well, until its all spent of course.
The antisemites are mainly the trots, not the Corbynistas (especially if you maintain the old-fashioned distinction between Israel and Jews).
The theory was that Blair-era big personal donors who'd left over Corbyn would come back with Starmer. Have they? I'm not too sure how far in arrears these things are accounted for. If not, will they?
Out of curiousity what if any ramifications are there of a political party going bankrupt?
Dominic Cummings is selling "subscriber rights", which will include the right to ask him questions online during the BBC broadcast this evening.
Just the right to ask, mind.
He is making himself totally unemployable isn't he.
Dominic Cummings' attraction is that he won the Brexit referendum. Some might say GE2019 as well but I expect there will be many claimants for that one. So if you want to hire him to win a specific campaign, why not?
You can subscribe to Cummings at Substack for £10 a month. It only needs a thousand or so subscribers before he matches whatever Boris paid him as Chief SpAd.
And how much money does the man need given his main leisure pursuit is reading?
I doubt 1000 people will be subscribed for very long....how many people want to pay month in month out to read 1000s of lines of poorly written prose, claiming they were always right inhindsight.
Fair question. I toyed with subscribing but now I'm jobless, it's a bit steep. But there must be a few on PB who'd not miss £120 a year and who could get work to pay in any case. The thing is, the headlines will be tweeted out by journalists anyway.
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
I reckon Asda will be the lowest.
That was the supermarket that asked my son to mask up - my wife went into a different Asda yesterday wearing her mask (unprompted) - she said most people still were.
I went into an Asda maskless earlier this morning. It was very empty but most customers wore masks. Most of the staff didn't.
Early stats from the Welsh looking surprisingly good: 555 positive tests, no deaths ,as against 737 positives and 1 death last week. First time for a while Wales has undershot its previous week. Early impact of schools breaking up?
My Welsh mole reckons they break up today-ish so even allowing for the final week being school in name only, especially for the exam cohorts, it is doubtful but just about possible.
Bywire News™ @bywirenews · 1h NEW: Keir Starmer has almost bankrupted the Labour Party.
The party’s financial reserves are down to just one months’ payroll - with senior staff blaming a huge swathe of lost members and legal fees.
Labour were the richest party in Britain under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
So with a reduction in subs from fly by night Trots who have scabbed off, and a reduction in union subs from Red Len, Starmer needs to go after private sector benefactors. No problem.
He has being trying to make good the shortfall from wealthy individuals ever since he became leader.
Unsurprisingly he has failed as he inspires nobody but a few anti Corbyn cranks
I am sure the staff losing their jobs will be extremely impressed by the success of your plan.
He needs the donations to keep the staff. Should have done it earlier of course.
Your argument is well made though. Without Corbyn the party is bankrupt. Which is why there should be an amicable divorce - let Labour Against the Witchhunt and Corbyn and the anti-semites and Chris Williamson stay, and have Starmer and the members and the voters leave.
The negative is that you'll lose the handful of trot MPs like Sultana who stay with you. The positive is that you'll have a large pot of money to defend the party against the endless legal cases. Well, until its all spent of course.
Oh how I wish that would happen. A Labour party shorn of the likes of Williamson and Corbyn and Sultana and all the people who support them would be one I could support. It could certainly recapture the centre ground from the Tories. At the expense of losing the far left, of course, but I think the prize would be worth it.
I don't wish to be rude, Rochdale, but have you had some good news or something today? The tone of your posts is a bit different and more like the Rochdale of Teesside days. Apologies if I am reading too much into things.
Bywire News™ @bywirenews · 1h NEW: Keir Starmer has almost bankrupted the Labour Party.
The party’s financial reserves are down to just one months’ payroll - with senior staff blaming a huge swathe of lost members and legal fees.
Labour were the richest party in Britain under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
So with a reduction in subs from fly by night Trots who have scabbed off, and a reduction in union subs from Red Len, Starmer needs to go after private sector benefactors. No problem.
He has being trying to make good the shortfall from wealthy individuals ever since he became leader.
Unsurprisingly he has failed as he inspires nobody but a few anti Corbyn cranks
I am sure the staff losing their jobs will be extremely impressed by the success of your plan.
He needs the donations to keep the staff. Should have done it earlier of course.
Your argument is well made though. Without Corbyn the party is bankrupt. Which is why there should be an amicable divorce - let Labour Against the Witchhunt and Corbyn and the anti-semites and Chris Williamson stay, and have Starmer and the members and the voters leave.
The negative is that you'll lose the handful of trot MPs like Sultana who stay with you. The positive is that you'll have a large pot of money to defend the party against the endless legal cases. Well, until its all spent of course.
The antisemites are mainly the trots, not the Corbynistas (especially if you maintain the old-fashioned distinction between Israel and Jews).
The theory was that Blair-era big personal donors who'd left over Corbyn would come back with Starmer. Have they? I'm not too sure how far in arrears these things are accounted for. If not, will they?
Out of curiousity what if any ramifications are there of a political party going bankrupt?
Bywire News™ @bywirenews · 1h NEW: Keir Starmer has almost bankrupted the Labour Party.
The party’s financial reserves are down to just one months’ payroll - with senior staff blaming a huge swathe of lost members and legal fees.
Labour were the richest party in Britain under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
So with a reduction in subs from fly by night Trots who have scabbed off, and a reduction in union subs from Red Len, Starmer needs to go after private sector benefactors. No problem.
He has being trying to make good the shortfall from wealthy individuals ever since he became leader.
Unsurprisingly he has failed as he inspires nobody but a few anti Corbyn cranks
I am sure the staff losing their jobs will be extremely impressed by the success of your plan.
He needs the donations to keep the staff. Should have done it earlier of course.
Your argument is well made though. Without Corbyn the party is bankrupt. Which is why there should be an amicable divorce - let Labour Against the Witchhunt and Corbyn and the anti-semites and Chris Williamson stay, and have Starmer and the members and the voters leave.
The negative is that you'll lose the handful of trot MPs like Sultana who stay with you. The positive is that you'll have a large pot of money to defend the party against the endless legal cases. Well, until its all spent of course.
The antisemites are mainly the trots, not the Corbynistas (especially if you maintain the old-fashioned distinction between Israel and Jews).
The theory was that Blair-era big personal donors who'd left over Corbyn would come back with Starmer. Have they? I'm not too sure how far in arrears these things are accounted for. If not, will they?
Out of curiousity what if any ramifications are there of a political party going bankrupt?
10 point deduction like in the football league?
I meant for example would they still be able to campaign and stand as labour? Would they have to close down etc?
Morning all. Sorry, only just read the @Cyclefree PT header on the stubborn Tory poll lead. It's a very good helicopter piece.
"If the choice is between the Tories and an empty space, the latter is unlikely to win."
The above line jumped out at me. You read it and reflexively nod and think "too right". It's one of those.
But then - if you're me - you dwell on it a while and wonder whether it is such a slam dunk. This government (and particularly this PM) are increasingly being viewed by anybody with eyes to see and ears to listen and noses to smell and mouths to - ok ok you get the picture - as an utter shambles. No principles. No competence. 'No' as in ZERO.
They've got away with it so far (pollwise) but for how long? Brexit is shedding its potency as iconic wedge issue. Slowly, to be sure, but it is. They can poke the fires of its culture war aspect but is this enough to stay at 40%? I doubt it. Tough times lie ahead with the economy and in Fiscal Corner. Leveling Up, for example, has to move from soundbite to hard policy choices and this will piss some people off. If it doesn't it's not real and remains a soundbite. Which would also start to piss some people off, just a different bunch, those Leavers who voted for this agenda, believing it to be genuine. Because these folk are not total blithering idiots - not in the main and not all the time. Whatever, poll damage is coming either way. Ditto with Social Care. There are no votes in that. Only negative ones if you get serious about it. Ask Andy Burnham or Theresa May. So the same choice there. A solid plan and loss of popularity or a cop out and loss of popularity.
Now we have this mismanaged exit from the pandemic. Plus (the header here) further damaging reveals from Cummings - who was right there in the middle of it - about the response and attitude throughout. The PM at key moments in thrall to bizarre right-wing 'contrarians' for heaven's sake, most of them no wiser than our PB one. His focus not on preventing Covid running amok in England and killing tens of thousands but on something far more important - impressing the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.
I could go on. The challenge is to stop. But I can do that too. I'm going out maskless in a minute. Big moment. The point is, surely all of this shit is probably going to lead within a year to the Cons polling no better than mid 30s. And then come the GE, given things can only get worse, if the choice is indeed between more of the same or a nice cool empty space fronted by a non-scary, competent, decent sounding bloke who looks like he could run a whelk stall and could manage to tell the truth every now and again, well for me that's a toss up.
I take issue with 'poke the fires of its culture war aspect'. Blaming the right for the culture war is like blaming Poland for World War Two. The right isn't trying to move back to 1953, it just doesn't want to be dragged forward to year zero. All the movement on the culture war is from the left. The right isn't trying to rewrite history. The right is, occasionally, suggesting that perhaps the left might be going a bit too far. Now you're astute, and you'll notice I'm saying 'the left' and not 'the Labour Party'. SKS is trying his hardest to avoid the loonier fringes of the culture war, though his party occasionally drag him into it. But to the electorate as a whole, that's not enough. Neil Kinnock was no culture warrior. But the culture warriors of the wider left - the ILEA, for example - lost him votes. How does SKS distance Labour from the likes of Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome?
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
As named, I’ll explain.
My point being the argument between authoritarian and libertarian is not a left right one, nor is it a case of one side being right, the other wrong. It’s a case of both should listen to the other and debate the other, to help get things right.
It shows up clearly in Covid politics, commentators in the Telegraph (Conservative in party politics, split between libertarian and authoritarian in Covid response) and the Daily Mail (Conservative till sixties, populist right since) also to a smaller degree split between authoritarian and libertarian, though tending toward libertarian in editorial.
In downing street yesterday, JVT Libertarian, open nite clubs, Vallance authoritarian, against doing it right now.
But with the success of vaccines, things have now moved on, old media and new media like this blog very slow to realise how things have moved. It’s never been, if not now then when, it was always going to be how, post vaccine.
It’s not about vaccines now, it’s about behaviours. The horse taken to water (jabbed) could say the easier equation than getting it to drink (behaviour) hence now proper debate required between authoritarian and libertarian to achieve those behaviours.
The government have already decided the road ahead and won’t u turn. My evidence? The main headline this lunchtime, government no intention to tackle pingdemic, they are determined to generate it, latest missive from Downing Street, if you are pinged then isolate.
So if you delete the app, ie show the wrong behaviour, the government won’t concede to you, they will coerce you into the behaviours in the end.
I don’t make this up, I’m just the messenger where for many the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
If the choice is between losing money and getting rid of the people that only lead Labour to being racist and losing, then lose the money. Well done Keir, if nothing else he will reform the party so it can once again win again.
Reform the voting next please, a Corbyn-type must never be able to win again and I say that as a former Corbynite. Prevent my stupidity in voting
The irony was that the reform was already there: Corbyn almost did not get on the ballot as he did not have enough nominations from MPs. Then one decided to nominate him even though they didn’t think he was up to running the party and the rest is history.
Possibly one of the most significant decisions in history: a more committed Labour leader may well have swung enough votes that the Brexit referendum would have gone the other way (and would certainly have not been so far behind in the polls in ‘17 that May would have thought a snap election was a good idea).
My take on the Brexit referendum:-
Jeremy Corbyn: Leaver pretending to be a Remainer Theresa May: Leaver pretending to be a Remainer Boris: Remainer pretending to be a Leaver
But probably, like most people who have never had dinner with Bill Cash, they'd not given the matter too much thought before needing to decide.
I think May was genuinely on the fence but edged towards Remain because of her inherent conservatism towards change. If you read Boris' two columns, he clearly had his heart with Leave.
There were reports at the time that Boris was war-gaming his choices based not on what he believed but on maximising his chances of replacing David Cameron in Number 10. You might remember suggestions the next morning that Boris and Gove looked gobsmacked at their victory press conference. They were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off because an honourable second would be enough to secure the votes of the Eurosceptic wing of the party.
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
Very forseeable so the gov't will of course ensure the server capacity is increased prior to it being a condition
You can't increase the capacity that much, botnets are cheap to hire and IoT has provide many more millions of devices to run them on. Plus when did you last see a competent government it operation
Well if I just stick to things I've used recently I'd say that the DVLA, passports, HMRC, NHS Login/App, and gov.uk generally are all quite good. That's not to say that they are invulnerable, but the idea that government IT is automatically rubbish isn't really true.
Early stats from the Welsh looking surprisingly good: 555 positive tests, no deaths ,as against 737 positives and 1 death last week. First time for a while Wales has undershot its previous week. Early impact of schools breaking up?
My Welsh mole reckons they break up today-ish so even allowing for the final week being school in name only, especially for the exam cohorts, it is doubtful but just about possible.
Well in that context the Welsh figures are even better.
My understanding is that the Zoe app reckons this wave has peaked.
My view is that numbers of positives reported keeps rising for a couple of weeks or so at least after actual prevalence peaks, due to the (justifiably) non-random way that people are tested - that is, we look for cases where we expect to find them.
If the choice is between losing money and getting rid of the people that only lead Labour to being racist and losing, then lose the money. Well done Keir, if nothing else he will reform the party so it can once again win again.
Reform the voting next please, a Corbyn-type must never be able to win again and I say that as a former Corbynite. Prevent my stupidity in voting
The irony was that the reform was already there: Corbyn almost did not get on the ballot as he did not have enough nominations from MPs. Then one decided to nominate him even though they didn’t think he was up to running the party and the rest is history.
Possibly one of the most significant decisions in history: a more committed Labour leader may well have swung enough votes that the Brexit referendum would have gone the other way (and would certainly have not been so far behind in the polls in ‘17 that May would have thought a snap election was a good idea).
My take on the Brexit referendum:-
Jeremy Corbyn: Leaver pretending to be a Remainer Theresa May: Leaver pretending to be a Remainer Boris: Remainer pretending to be a Leaver
But probably, like most people who have never had dinner with Bill Cash, they'd not given the matter too much thought before needing to decide.
I think May was genuinely on the fence but edged towards Remain because of her inherent conservatism towards change. If you read Boris' two columns, he clearly had his heart with Leave.
Perhaps only because "his heart" is nearest his ego, and pretending to be in favour of Leave advanced his ambition that feeds that ego. None of his family seemed to think he was being genuine. It is almost admirable in a perverse sort of way; his ambition was such that he was prepared to put his all consuming life plan to become PM far above any loyalty to his friends that he had known since school
As Jeremy Thorpe said of Harold Macmillian: "Greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his friends for his life."
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
I reckon Asda will be the lowest.
That was the supermarket that asked my son to mask up - my wife went into a different Asda yesterday wearing her mask (unprompted) - she said most people still were.
I shopped in the big M&S at Torquay yesterday - and only saw two people there without masks. And they were both heavily overweight young women. People who really wouldn't want to risk getting Covid.
The nearby paint merchant was also requiring masks "because our owners are Welsh and they are still in lockdown - so we are too".
The nicest change I've noticed in the last couple of days is the fear/disgust/jealousy from those wearing masks towards those not wearing masks seems to have gone. I don't wear them in shops, nor do I require them in mine. People have IMO been too judgey over the past year. A return to tolerance would be a welcome move....
Bywire News™ @bywirenews · 1h NEW: Keir Starmer has almost bankrupted the Labour Party.
The party’s financial reserves are down to just one months’ payroll - with senior staff blaming a huge swathe of lost members and legal fees.
Labour were the richest party in Britain under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
So with a reduction in subs from fly by night Trots who have scabbed off, and a reduction in union subs from Red Len, Starmer needs to go after private sector benefactors. No problem.
He has being trying to make good the shortfall from wealthy individuals ever since he became leader.
Unsurprisingly he has failed as he inspires nobody but a few anti Corbyn cranks
I am sure the staff losing their jobs will be extremely impressed by the success of your plan.
He needs the donations to keep the staff. Should have done it earlier of course.
Your argument is well made though. Without Corbyn the party is bankrupt. Which is why there should be an amicable divorce - let Labour Against the Witchhunt and Corbyn and the anti-semites and Chris Williamson stay, and have Starmer and the members and the voters leave.
The negative is that you'll lose the handful of trot MPs like Sultana who stay with you. The positive is that you'll have a large pot of money to defend the party against the endless legal cases. Well, until its all spent of course.
The antisemites are mainly the trots, not the Corbynistas (especially if you maintain the old-fashioned distinction between Israel and Jews).
The theory was that Blair-era big personal donors who'd left over Corbyn would come back with Starmer. Have they? I'm not too sure how far in arrears these things are accounted for. If not, will they?
Out of curiousity what if any ramifications are there of a political party going bankrupt?
I think all UK political parties have been morally bankrupt for some time.
Morning all. Sorry, only just read the @Cyclefree PT header on the stubborn Tory poll lead. It's a very good helicopter piece.
"If the choice is between the Tories and an empty space, the latter is unlikely to win."
The above line jumped out at me. You read it and reflexively nod and think "too right". It's one of those.
But then - if you're me - you dwell on it a while and wonder whether it is such a slam dunk. This government (and particularly this PM) are increasingly being viewed by anybody with eyes to see and ears to listen and noses to smell and mouths to - ok ok you get the picture - as an utter shambles. No principles. No competence. 'No' as in ZERO.
They've got away with it so far (pollwise) but for how long? Brexit is shedding its potency as iconic wedge issue. Slowly, to be sure, but it is. They can poke the fires of its culture war aspect but is this enough to stay at 40%? I doubt it. Tough times lie ahead with the economy and in Fiscal Corner. Leveling Up, for example, has to move from soundbite to hard policy choices and this will piss some people off. If it doesn't it's not real and remains a soundbite. Which would also start to piss some people off, just a different bunch, those Leavers who voted for this agenda, believing it to be genuine. Because these folk are not total blithering idiots - not in the main and not all the time. Whatever, poll damage is coming either way. Ditto with Social Care. There are no votes in that. Only negative ones if you get serious about it. Ask Andy Burnham or Theresa May. So the same choice there. A solid plan and loss of popularity or a cop out and loss of popularity.
Now we have this mismanaged exit from the pandemic. Plus (the header here) further damaging reveals from Cummings - who was right there in the middle of it - about the response and attitude throughout. The PM at key moments in thrall to bizarre right-wing 'contrarians' for heaven's sake, most of them no wiser than our PB one. His focus not on preventing Covid running amok in England and killing tens of thousands but on something far more important - impressing the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.
I could go on. The challenge is to stop. But I can do that too. I'm going out maskless in a minute. Big moment. The point is, surely all of this shit is probably going to lead within a year to the Cons polling no better than mid 30s. And then come the GE, given things can only get worse, if the choice is indeed between more of the same or a nice cool empty space fronted by a non-scary, competent, decent sounding bloke who looks like he could run a whelk stall and could manage to tell the truth every now and again, well for me that's a toss up.
I take issue with 'poke the fires of its culture war aspect'. Blaming the right for the culture war is like blaming Poland for World War Two. The right isn't trying to move back to 1953, it just doesn't want to be dragged forward to year zero. All the movement on the culture war is from the left. The right isn't trying to rewrite history. The right is, occasionally, suggesting that perhaps the left might be going a bit too far. Now you're astute, and you'll notice I'm saying 'the left' and not 'the Labour Party'. SKS is trying his hardest to avoid the loonier fringes of the culture war, though his party occasionally drag him into it. But to the electorate as a whole, that's not enough. Neil Kinnock was no culture warrior. But the culture warriors of the wider left - the ILEA, for example - lost him votes. How does SKS distance Labour from the likes of Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome?
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
As named, I’ll explain.
My point being the argument between authoritarian and libertarian is not a left right one, nor is it a case of one side being right, the other wrong. It’s a case of both should listen to the other and debate the other, to help get things right.
It shows up clearly in Covid politics, commentators in the Telegraph (Conservative in party politics, split between libertarian and authoritarian in Covid response) and the Daily Mail (Conservative till sixties, populist right since) also to a smaller degree split between authoritarian and libertarian, though tending toward libertarian in editorial.
In downing street yesterday, JVT Libertarian, open nite clubs, Vallance authoritarian, against doing it right now.
But with the success of vaccines, things have now moved on, old media and new media like this blog very slow to realise how things have moved. It’s never been, if not now then when, it was always going to be how, post vaccine.
It’s not about vaccines now, it’s about behaviours. The horse taken to water (jabbed) could say the easier equation than getting it to drink (behaviour) hence now proper debate required between authoritarian and libertarian to achieve those behaviours.
The government have already decided the road ahead and won’t u turn. My evidence? The main headline this lunchtime, government no intention to tackle pingdemic, they are determined to generate it, latest missive from Downing Street, if you are pinged then isolate.
So if you delete the app, ie show the wrong behaviour, the government won’t concede to you, they will coerce you into the behaviours in the end.
I don’t make this up, I’m just the messenger where for many the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
Fair enough. I wasn't sure how genuinely supportive you were of this approach though (and I'm still not, to be honest.)
Surely sticking to 'if you are pinged then isolate' just encourages people to delete the app though?
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
Waitrose IS a 'wear a mask' type of place. For my one the acid test will be Julie Hartley Brewer. She shops there (although no sign today) and it'll be interesting to see what happens there. A case of irresistible force versus immovable object.
Dominic Cummings is selling "subscriber rights", which will include the right to ask him questions online during the BBC broadcast this evening.
Just the right to ask, mind.
He is making himself totally unemployable isn't he.
Dominic Cummings' attraction is that he won the Brexit referendum. Some might say GE2019 as well but I expect there will be many claimants for that one. So if you want to hire him to win a specific campaign, why not?
You can subscribe to Cummings at Substack for £10 a month. It only needs a thousand or so subscribers before he matches whatever Boris paid him as Chief SpAd.
And how much money does the man need given his main leisure pursuit is reading?
I doubt 1000 people will be subscribed for very long....how many people want to pay month in month out to read 1000s of lines of poorly written prose, claiming they were always right inhindsight.
The nicest change I've noticed in the last couple of days is the fear/disgust/jealousy from those wearing masks towards those not wearing masks seems to have gone. I don't wear them in shops, nor do I require them in mine. People have IMO been too judgey over the past year. A return to tolerance would be a welcome move....
Should cut both ways, shouldn't it? Philip sneering at Waitrose customers wearing masks because they're "notoriously pretentious" is a bit of unnecessary culture war.
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
Waitrose IS a 'wear a mask' type of place. For my one the acid test will be Julie Hartley Brewer. She shops there (although no sign today) and it'll be interesting to see what happens there. A case of irresistible force versus immovable object.
Anti lockdown, anti mask etc are a funny coalition from your Piers Corbyns to the likes of JHB, Isbael Oakenshot.
The nicest change I've noticed in the last couple of days is the fear/disgust/jealousy from those wearing masks towards those not wearing masks seems to have gone. I don't wear them in shops, nor do I require them in mine. People have IMO been too judgey over the past year. A return to tolerance would be a welcome move....
Should cut both ways, shouldn't it? Philip sneering at Waitrose customers wearing masks because they're "notoriously pretentious" is a bit of unnecessary culture war.
Bywire News™ @bywirenews · 1h NEW: Keir Starmer has almost bankrupted the Labour Party.
The party’s financial reserves are down to just one months’ payroll - with senior staff blaming a huge swathe of lost members and legal fees.
Labour were the richest party in Britain under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
So with a reduction in subs from fly by night Trots who have scabbed off, and a reduction in union subs from Red Len, Starmer needs to go after private sector benefactors. No problem.
He has being trying to make good the shortfall from wealthy individuals ever since he became leader.
Unsurprisingly he has failed as he inspires nobody but a few anti Corbyn cranks
I am sure the staff losing their jobs will be extremely impressed by the success of your plan.
He needs the donations to keep the staff. Should have done it earlier of course.
Your argument is well made though. Without Corbyn the party is bankrupt. Which is why there should be an amicable divorce - let Labour Against the Witchhunt and Corbyn and the anti-semites and Chris Williamson stay, and have Starmer and the members and the voters leave.
The negative is that you'll lose the handful of trot MPs like Sultana who stay with you. The positive is that you'll have a large pot of money to defend the party against the endless legal cases. Well, until its all spent of course.
Oh how I wish that would happen. A Labour party shorn of the likes of Williamson and Corbyn and Sultana and all the people who support them would be one I could support. It could certainly recapture the centre ground from the Tories. At the expense of losing the far left, of course, but I think the prize would be worth it.
I don't wish to be rude, Rochdale, but have you had some good news or something today? The tone of your posts is a bit different and more like the Rochdale of Teesside days. Apologies if I am reading too much into things.
No the Labour right just won three elections and put the most amount of money into the NHS ever, virtually eliminated homelessness and halved child poverty.
The Blue Origin test flight makes the Virgin Galactic one look like the children's matinee. I am hoping that when the Bezos and his guests come out they aren't wearing tone-deaf costumes and "Astronaut 0001" nomenclatures that made the Virgin flight look so tacky.
No the Labour right just won three elections and put the most amount of money into the NHS ever, virtually eliminated homelessness and halved child poverty.
But no good! We must keep losing!
And yet Novara Media still has higher production values than GB News
No the Labour right just won three elections and put the most amount of money into the NHS ever, virtually eliminated homelessness and halved child poverty.
But no good! We must keep losing!
And yet Novara Media still has higher production values than GB News
No the Labour right just won three elections and put the most amount of money into the NHS ever, virtually eliminated homelessness and halved child poverty.
But no good! We must keep losing!
And yet Novara Media still has higher production values than GB News
The content is equally unwatchable though....
Oh, I don't know. I could watch their 2019 GE coverage again and again and again.
No the Labour right just won three elections and put the most amount of money into the NHS ever, virtually eliminated homelessness and halved child poverty.
But no good! We must keep losing!
And yet Novara Media still has higher production values than GB News
The content is equally unwatchable though....
Oh, I don't know. I could watch their 2019 GE coverage again and again and again.
The denial and lack of introspection was what got me out of the cult. I am being genuinely serious
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
Waitrose is very middle class, and I expect most to carry on wearing masks. Other stores not so much. Weirdly, I'm not so bothered about wearing one when it is voluntary, than I was when it was mandatory. I'm weird.
I'm the same - mandatory - imposition on me - voluntary - courtesy to others.
Morning all. Sorry, only just read the @Cyclefree PT header on the stubborn Tory poll lead. It's a very good helicopter piece.
"If the choice is between the Tories and an empty space, the latter is unlikely to win."
The above line jumped out at me. You read it and reflexively nod and think "too right". It's one of those.
But then - if you're me - you dwell on it a while and wonder whether it is such a slam dunk. This government (and particularly this PM) are increasingly being viewed by anybody with eyes to see and ears to listen and noses to smell and mouths to - ok ok you get the picture - as an utter shambles. No principles. No competence. 'No' as in ZERO.
They've got away with it so far (pollwise) but for how long? Brexit is shedding its potency as iconic wedge issue. Slowly, to be sure, but it is. They can poke the fires of its culture war aspect but is this enough to stay at 40%? I doubt it. Tough times lie ahead with the economy and in Fiscal Corner. Leveling Up, for example, has to move from soundbite to hard policy choices and this will piss some people off. If it doesn't it's not real and remains a soundbite. Which would also start to piss some people off, just a different bunch, those Leavers who voted for this agenda, believing it to be genuine. Because these folk are not total blithering idiots - not in the main and not all the time. Whatever, poll damage is coming either way. Ditto with Social Care. There are no votes in that. Only negative ones if you get serious about it. Ask Andy Burnham or Theresa May. So the same choice there. A solid plan and loss of popularity or a cop out and loss of popularity.
Now we have this mismanaged exit from the pandemic. Plus (the header here) further damaging reveals from Cummings - who was right there in the middle of it - about the response and attitude throughout. The PM at key moments in thrall to bizarre right-wing 'contrarians' for heaven's sake, most of them no wiser than our PB one. His focus not on preventing Covid running amok in England and killing tens of thousands but on something far more important - impressing the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.
I could go on. The challenge is to stop. But I can do that too. I'm going out maskless in a minute. Big moment. The point is, surely all of this shit is probably going to lead within a year to the Cons polling no better than mid 30s. And then come the GE, given things can only get worse, if the choice is indeed between more of the same or a nice cool empty space fronted by a non-scary, competent, decent sounding bloke who looks like he could run a whelk stall and could manage to tell the truth every now and again, well for me that's a toss up.
I take issue with 'poke the fires of its culture war aspect'. Blaming the right for the culture war is like blaming Poland for World War Two. The right isn't trying to move back to 1953, it just doesn't want to be dragged forward to year zero. All the movement on the culture war is from the left. The right isn't trying to rewrite history. The right is, occasionally, suggesting that perhaps the left might be going a bit too far. Now you're astute, and you'll notice I'm saying 'the left' and not 'the Labour Party'. SKS is trying his hardest to avoid the loonier fringes of the culture war, though his party occasionally drag him into it. But to the electorate as a whole, that's not enough. Neil Kinnock was no culture warrior. But the culture warriors of the wider left - the ILEA, for example - lost him votes. How does SKS distance Labour from the likes of Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome?
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
As named, I’ll explain.
My point being the argument between authoritarian and libertarian is not a left right one, nor is it a case of one side being right, the other wrong. It’s a case of both should listen to the other and debate the other, to help get things right.
It shows up clearly in Covid politics, commentators in the Telegraph (Conservative in party politics, split between libertarian and authoritarian in Covid response) and the Daily Mail (Conservative till sixties, populist right since) also to a smaller degree split between authoritarian and libertarian, though tending toward libertarian in editorial.
In downing street yesterday, JVT Libertarian, open nite clubs, Vallance authoritarian, against doing it right now.
But with the success of vaccines, things have now moved on, old media and new media like this blog very slow to realise how things have moved. It’s never been, if not now then when, it was always going to be how, post vaccine.
It’s not about vaccines now, it’s about behaviours. The horse taken to water (jabbed) could say the easier equation than getting it to drink (behaviour) hence now proper debate required between authoritarian and libertarian to achieve those behaviours.
The government have already decided the road ahead and won’t u turn. My evidence? The main headline this lunchtime, government no intention to tackle pingdemic, they are determined to generate it, latest missive from Downing Street, if you are pinged then isolate.
So if you delete the app, ie show the wrong behaviour, the government won’t concede to you, they will coerce you into the behaviours in the end.
I don’t make this up, I’m just the messenger where for many the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
Marginally following this up, isn't one of Labour's problems that very few of the real choices we face are left v right. A number of left issues are over, and therefore discounted. The NHS, free education to 18, not being an imperial power, social housing, payments to those not in work, House of Lords reform, minimum wage, employment rights, high taxes on the rich, health and safety etc. The centre left has won all the battles, and the centre right occupies what would have been a centre/centre left position.
Covid, Brexit, China, Russia, Islamic extremism, free speech, debt and deficit, the state of the UK union - none of these have obvious left v right alternative solutions.
The game has changed. I think so far the Tories have been better at silently shifting. Labour members still seem to think that the very people who vote in Patel, Sunak, Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi are filthy racists because they don't think Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Zarah Sultana are outstanding politicians.
No the Labour right just won three elections and put the most amount of money into the NHS ever, virtually eliminated homelessness and halved child poverty.
But no good! We must keep losing!
And yet Novara Media still has higher production values than GB News
The content is equally unwatchable though....
Oh, I don't know. I could watch their 2019 GE coverage again and again and again.
Good point, that was the comedy event of the year.
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
Waitrose IS a 'wear a mask' type of place. For my one the acid test will be Julie Hartley Brewer. She shops there (although no sign today) and it'll be interesting to see what happens there. A case of irresistible force versus immovable object.
Anti lockdown, anti mask etc are a funny coalition from your Piers Corbyns to the likes of JHB, Isbael Oakenshot.
Yes, mainly on the Right but also crosses over. I think it's where there's that particular mix of irrationality, fetish for the individual, and distrust/dislike of THE AUTHORITIES.
No the Labour right just won three elections and put the most amount of money into the NHS ever, virtually eliminated homelessness and halved child poverty.
But no good! We must keep losing!
And yet Novara Media still has higher production values than GB News
Most 12 year olds' day 1 twitch streams have higher production values than GB News.
At least today’s billionaires are interested in improving the state of technology. Awesome to watch.
The thing is Branson's technology is a dead-end. At least New Shepard is being built by a rocket company that is also building a humongous rocket (and New Glenn will be humongous; it's just that SH/SS resets the terms.)
BTW, I hate the name 'Starship'. Starship has a definition that has been used for well over 100 years: a vessel that can be used for interstellar travel. SS never will. It's another Muskian over-promise.
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
Very forseeable so the gov't will of course ensure the server capacity is increased prior to it being a condition
You can't increase the capacity that much, botnets are cheap to hire and IoT has provide many more millions of devices to run them on. Plus when did you last see a competent government it operation
The vaccine passport is on the users phone. No need for the nightclub to have computer access, just a doorman who knows what to look for. Same when you fly etc*. So no government IT to bring down.
*One of our nurses was in Spain a couple of weeks back. No one checked either way.
The nicest change I've noticed in the last couple of days is the fear/disgust/jealousy from those wearing masks towards those not wearing masks seems to have gone. I don't wear them in shops, nor do I require them in mine. People have IMO been too judgey over the past year. A return to tolerance would be a welcome move....
Should cut both ways, shouldn't it? Philip sneering at Waitrose customers wearing masks because they're "notoriously pretentious" is a bit of unnecessary culture war.
I apologise if that was offensive, I didn't mean it that way.
It was entirely tongue in cheek and meant to be humorous, but if it caused offense then I apologise unreservedly.
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
Sorry, missed your edits.
Johnson: I was referring to his "I don't buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff" type thing that he was coming out with. After months of the crisis the PM had about the same grasp of the issues as Toby Young on his 4th pint. Or whatever Tobes' tipple is.
Maskless: Yep, did it, but not a great success. Waitrose was full of people still wearing. I really stood out. Got a few eyeballs along the lines of "Look at him, giving it the big John Wayne. Oh dear oh dear". So I think a compromise next time. I'll wear it, but once I've been through checkout I'll take it straight off rather than wait till I get outside the shop. A journey of 1000 miles starts with one small step ...
I wonder if masking rates vary by supermarket? With Waitrose being notoriously pretentious it probably has the highest masking rates.
I got no funny looks being unmasked at Tesco's.
Waitrose IS a 'wear a mask' type of place. For my one the acid test will be Julie Hartley Brewer. She shops there (although no sign today) and it'll be interesting to see what happens there. A case of irresistible force versus immovable object.
Anti lockdown, anti mask etc are a funny coalition from your Piers Corbyns to the likes of JHB, Isbael Oakenshot.
Yes, mainly on the Right but also crosses over. I think it's where there's that particular mix of irrationality, fetish for the individual, and distrust/dislike of THE AUTHORITIES.
You should never trust the authorities whether of left or right. They don't have your interests at heart but their's
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
Very forseeable so the gov't will of course ensure the server capacity is increased prior to it being a condition
You can't increase the capacity that much, botnets are cheap to hire and IoT has provide many more millions of devices to run them on. Plus when did you last see a competent government it operation
The vaccine passport is on the users phone. No need for the nightclub to have computer access, just a doorman who knows what to look for. Same when you fly etc*. So no government IT to bring down.
*One of our nurses was in Spain a couple of weeks back. No one checked either way.
The vaccine passport SHOWS on your phone but the backend is all gov't servers.
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
Very forseeable so the gov't will of course ensure the server capacity is increased prior to it being a condition
You can't increase the capacity that much, botnets are cheap to hire and IoT has provide many more millions of devices to run them on. Plus when did you last see a competent government it operation
The vaccine passport is on the users phone. No need for the nightclub to have computer access, just a doorman who knows what to look for. Same when you fly etc*. So no government IT to bring down.
*One of our nurses was in Spain a couple of weeks back. No one checked either way.
If it is just on the users phones then its easily forgeable and therefore pointless. I just get a friend to take a screenshot of theirs. Same with a paper version
The nicest change I've noticed in the last couple of days is the fear/disgust/jealousy from those wearing masks towards those not wearing masks seems to have gone. I don't wear them in shops, nor do I require them in mine. People have IMO been too judgey over the past year. A return to tolerance would be a welcome move....
Should cut both ways, shouldn't it? Philip sneering at Waitrose customers wearing masks because they're "notoriously pretentious" is a bit of unnecessary culture war.
Yes, and I bit back a retort about gammony Tescos. Hats off me.
Morning all. Sorry, only just read the @Cyclefree PT header on the stubborn Tory poll lead. It's a very good helicopter piece.
"If the choice is between the Tories and an empty space, the latter is unlikely to win."
The above line jumped out at me. You read it and reflexively nod and think "too right". It's one of those.
But then - if you're me - you dwell on it a while and wonder whether it is such a slam dunk. This government (and particularly this PM) are increasingly being viewed by anybody with eyes to see and ears to listen and noses to smell and mouths to - ok ok you get the picture - as an utter shambles. No principles. No competence. 'No' as in ZERO.
They've got away with it so far (pollwise) but for how long? Brexit is shedding its potency as iconic wedge issue. Slowly, to be sure, but it is. They can poke the fires of its culture war aspect but is this enough to stay at 40%? I doubt it. Tough times lie ahead with the economy and in Fiscal Corner. Leveling Up, for example, has to move from soundbite to hard policy choices and this will piss some people off. If it doesn't it's not real and remains a soundbite. Which would also start to piss some people off, just a different bunch, those Leavers who voted for this agenda, believing it to be genuine. Because these folk are not total blithering idiots - not in the main and not all the time. Whatever, poll damage is coming either way. Ditto with Social Care. There are no votes in that. Only negative ones if you get serious about it. Ask Andy Burnham or Theresa May. So the same choice there. A solid plan and loss of popularity or a cop out and loss of popularity.
Now we have this mismanaged exit from the pandemic. Plus (the header here) further damaging reveals from Cummings - who was right there in the middle of it - about the response and attitude throughout. The PM at key moments in thrall to bizarre right-wing 'contrarians' for heaven's sake, most of them no wiser than our PB one. His focus not on preventing Covid running amok in England and killing tens of thousands but on something far more important - impressing the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.
I could go on. The challenge is to stop. But I can do that too. I'm going out maskless in a minute. Big moment. The point is, surely all of this shit is probably going to lead within a year to the Cons polling no better than mid 30s. And then come the GE, given things can only get worse, if the choice is indeed between more of the same or a nice cool empty space fronted by a non-scary, competent, decent sounding bloke who looks like he could run a whelk stall and could manage to tell the truth every now and again, well for me that's a toss up.
I take issue with 'poke the fires of its culture war aspect'. Blaming the right for the culture war is like blaming Poland for World War Two. The right isn't trying to move back to 1953, it just doesn't want to be dragged forward to year zero. All the movement on the culture war is from the left. The right isn't trying to rewrite history. The right is, occasionally, suggesting that perhaps the left might be going a bit too far. Now you're astute, and you'll notice I'm saying 'the left' and not 'the Labour Party'. SKS is trying his hardest to avoid the loonier fringes of the culture war, though his party occasionally drag him into it. But to the electorate as a whole, that's not enough. Neil Kinnock was no culture warrior. But the culture warriors of the wider left - the ILEA, for example - lost him votes. How does SKS distance Labour from the likes of Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome?
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
As named, I’ll explain.
My point being the argument between authoritarian and libertarian is not a left right one, nor is it a case of one side being right, the other wrong. It’s a case of both should listen to the other and debate the other, to help get things right.
It shows up clearly in Covid politics, commentators in the Telegraph (Conservative in party politics, split between libertarian and authoritarian in Covid response) and the Daily Mail (Conservative till sixties, populist right since) also to a smaller degree split between authoritarian and libertarian, though tending toward libertarian in editorial.
In downing street yesterday, JVT Libertarian, open nite clubs, Vallance authoritarian, against doing it right now.
But with the success of vaccines, things have now moved on, old media and new media like this blog very slow to realise how things have moved. It’s never been, if not now then when, it was always going to be how, post vaccine.
It’s not about vaccines now, it’s about behaviours. The horse taken to water (jabbed) could say the easier equation than getting it to drink (behaviour) hence now proper debate required between authoritarian and libertarian to achieve those behaviours.
The government have already decided the road ahead and won’t u turn. My evidence? The main headline this lunchtime, government no intention to tackle pingdemic, they are determined to generate it, latest missive from Downing Street, if you are pinged then isolate.
So if you delete the app, ie show the wrong behaviour, the government won’t concede to you, they will coerce you into the behaviours in the end.
I don’t make this up, I’m just the messenger where for many the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
Marginally following this up, isn't one of Labour's problems that very few of the real choices we face are left v right. A number of left issues are over, and therefore discounted. The NHS, free education to 18, not being an imperial power, social housing, payments to those not in work, House of Lords reform, minimum wage, employment rights, high taxes on the rich, health and safety etc. The centre left has won all the battles, and the centre right occupies what would have been a centre/centre left position.
Covid, Brexit, China, Russia, Islamic extremism, free speech, debt and deficit, the state of the UK union - none of these have obvious left v right alternative solutions.
The game has changed. I think so far the Tories have been better at silently shifting. Labour members still seem to think that the very people who vote in Patel, Sunak, Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi are filthy racists because they don't think Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Zarah Sultana are outstanding politicians.
The next left/right debate is UBI (and the terms of that debate will, in part be set by the experience of furlough, and our economic path over the next 5 years or so).
I think the left is at *extreme* danger of being outflanked on this by the right, with a post-industrial market-economy argument being made (and won) for its introduction by a future Tory administration, while Labour sits it out, scared of frightening the middle-england horses.
At least today’s billionaires are interested in improving the state of technology. Awesome to watch.
For a glorious moment earlier when I heard the reference to Bez Lightyear, I thought by some improbable twist of events that this fella was being blasted into space:
No the Labour right just won three elections and put the most amount of money into the NHS ever, virtually eliminated homelessness and halved child poverty.
But no good! We must keep losing!
And yet Novara Media still has higher production values than GB News
The content is equally unwatchable though....
Oh, I don't know. I could watch their 2019 GE coverage again and again and again.
Good point, that was the comedy event of the year.
“Maybe we are just a bunch of rich c***s talking to each other?” was one of the funniest public realisations of self-awareness ever.
Morning all. Sorry, only just read the @Cyclefree PT header on the stubborn Tory poll lead. It's a very good helicopter piece.
"If the choice is between the Tories and an empty space, the latter is unlikely to win."
The above line jumped out at me. You read it and reflexively nod and think "too right". It's one of those.
But then - if you're me - you dwell on it a while and wonder whether it is such a slam dunk. This government (and particularly this PM) are increasingly being viewed by anybody with eyes to see and ears to listen and noses to smell and mouths to - ok ok you get the picture - as an utter shambles. No principles. No competence. 'No' as in ZERO.
They've got away with it so far (pollwise) but for how long? Brexit is shedding its potency as iconic wedge issue. Slowly, to be sure, but it is. They can poke the fires of its culture war aspect but is this enough to stay at 40%? I doubt it. Tough times lie ahead with the economy and in Fiscal Corner. Leveling Up, for example, has to move from soundbite to hard policy choices and this will piss some people off. If it doesn't it's not real and remains a soundbite. Which would also start to piss some people off, just a different bunch, those Leavers who voted for this agenda, believing it to be genuine. Because these folk are not total blithering idiots - not in the main and not all the time. Whatever, poll damage is coming either way. Ditto with Social Care. There are no votes in that. Only negative ones if you get serious about it. Ask Andy Burnham or Theresa May. So the same choice there. A solid plan and loss of popularity or a cop out and loss of popularity.
Now we have this mismanaged exit from the pandemic. Plus (the header here) further damaging reveals from Cummings - who was right there in the middle of it - about the response and attitude throughout. The PM at key moments in thrall to bizarre right-wing 'contrarians' for heaven's sake, most of them no wiser than our PB one. His focus not on preventing Covid running amok in England and killing tens of thousands but on something far more important - impressing the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.
I could go on. The challenge is to stop. But I can do that too. I'm going out maskless in a minute. Big moment. The point is, surely all of this shit is probably going to lead within a year to the Cons polling no better than mid 30s. And then come the GE, given things can only get worse, if the choice is indeed between more of the same or a nice cool empty space fronted by a non-scary, competent, decent sounding bloke who looks like he could run a whelk stall and could manage to tell the truth every now and again, well for me that's a toss up.
I take issue with 'poke the fires of its culture war aspect'. Blaming the right for the culture war is like blaming Poland for World War Two. The right isn't trying to move back to 1953, it just doesn't want to be dragged forward to year zero. All the movement on the culture war is from the left. The right isn't trying to rewrite history. The right is, occasionally, suggesting that perhaps the left might be going a bit too far. Now you're astute, and you'll notice I'm saying 'the left' and not 'the Labour Party'. SKS is trying his hardest to avoid the loonier fringes of the culture war, though his party occasionally drag him into it. But to the electorate as a whole, that's not enough. Neil Kinnock was no culture warrior. But the culture warriors of the wider left - the ILEA, for example - lost him votes. How does SKS distance Labour from the likes of Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome?
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
As named, I’ll explain.
My point being the argument between authoritarian and libertarian is not a left right one, nor is it a case of one side being right, the other wrong. It’s a case of both should listen to the other and debate the other, to help get things right.
It shows up clearly in Covid politics, commentators in the Telegraph (Conservative in party politics, split between libertarian and authoritarian in Covid response) and the Daily Mail (Conservative till sixties, populist right since) also to a smaller degree split between authoritarian and libertarian, though tending toward libertarian in editorial.
In downing street yesterday, JVT Libertarian, open nite clubs, Vallance authoritarian, against doing it right now.
But with the success of vaccines, things have now moved on, old media and new media like this blog very slow to realise how things have moved. It’s never been, if not now then when, it was always going to be how, post vaccine.
It’s not about vaccines now, it’s about behaviours. The horse taken to water (jabbed) could say the easier equation than getting it to drink (behaviour) hence now proper debate required between authoritarian and libertarian to achieve those behaviours.
The government have already decided the road ahead and won’t u turn. My evidence? The main headline this lunchtime, government no intention to tackle pingdemic, they are determined to generate it, latest missive from Downing Street, if you are pinged then isolate.
So if you delete the app, ie show the wrong behaviour, the government won’t concede to you, they will coerce you into the behaviours in the end.
I don’t make this up, I’m just the messenger where for many the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
Marginally following this up, isn't one of Labour's problems that very few of the real choices we face are left v right. A number of left issues are over, and therefore discounted. The NHS, free education to 18, not being an imperial power, social housing, payments to those not in work, House of Lords reform, minimum wage, employment rights, high taxes on the rich, health and safety etc. The centre left has won all the battles, and the centre right occupies what would have been a centre/centre left position.
Covid, Brexit, China, Russia, Islamic extremism, free speech, debt and deficit, the state of the UK union - none of these have obvious left v right alternative solutions.
The game has changed. I think so far the Tories have been better at silently shifting. Labour members still seem to think that the very people who vote in Patel, Sunak, Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi are filthy racists because they don't think Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Zarah Sultana are outstanding politicians.
The next left/right debate is UBI (and the terms of that debate will, in part be set by the experience of furlough, and our economic path over the next 5 years or so).
I think the left is at *extreme* danger of being outflanked on this by the right, with a post-industrial market-economy argument being made (and won) for its introduction by a future Tory administration, while Labour sits it out, scared of frightening the middle-england horses.
There is no debate to be had, UBI which is enough to live on is unaffordable
Bywire News™ @bywirenews · 1h NEW: Keir Starmer has almost bankrupted the Labour Party.
The party’s financial reserves are down to just one months’ payroll - with senior staff blaming a huge swathe of lost members and legal fees.
Labour were the richest party in Britain under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
So with a reduction in subs from fly by night Trots who have scabbed off, and a reduction in union subs from Red Len, Starmer needs to go after private sector benefactors. No problem.
He has being trying to make good the shortfall from wealthy individuals ever since he became leader.
Unsurprisingly he has failed as he inspires nobody but a few anti Corbyn cranks
I am sure the staff losing their jobs will be extremely impressed by the success of your plan.
He needs the donations to keep the staff. Should have done it earlier of course.
Your argument is well made though. Without Corbyn the party is bankrupt. Which is why there should be an amicable divorce - let Labour Against the Witchhunt and Corbyn and the anti-semites and Chris Williamson stay, and have Starmer and the members and the voters leave.
The negative is that you'll lose the handful of trot MPs like Sultana who stay with you. The positive is that you'll have a large pot of money to defend the party against the endless legal cases. Well, until its all spent of course.
The antisemites are mainly the trots, not the Corbynistas (especially if you maintain the old-fashioned distinction between Israel and Jews).
The theory was that Blair-era big personal donors who'd left over Corbyn would come back with Starmer. Have they? I'm not too sure how far in arrears these things are accounted for. If not, will they?
Out of curiousity what if any ramifications are there of a political party going bankrupt?
I think all UK political parties have been morally bankrupt for some time.
On party bankruptcy, it will depend on the constitutional arrangements of each party but this,
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
Very forseeable so the gov't will of course ensure the server capacity is increased prior to it being a condition
You can't increase the capacity that much, botnets are cheap to hire and IoT has provide many more millions of devices to run them on. Plus when did you last see a competent government it operation
The vaccine passport is on the users phone. No need for the nightclub to have computer access, just a doorman who knows what to look for. Same when you fly etc*. So no government IT to bring down.
*One of our nurses was in Spain a couple of weeks back. No one checked either way.
If it is just on the users phones then its easily forgeable and therefore pointless. I just get a friend to take a screenshot of theirs. Same with a paper version
I believe one of the debates happening in government is about the 'easy to fraud' problem.
The nicest change I've noticed in the last couple of days is the fear/disgust/jealousy from those wearing masks towards those not wearing masks seems to have gone. I don't wear them in shops, nor do I require them in mine. People have IMO been too judgey over the past year. A return to tolerance would be a welcome move....
Should cut both ways, shouldn't it? Philip sneering at Waitrose customers wearing masks because they're "notoriously pretentious" is a bit of unnecessary culture war.
I apologise if that was offensive, I didn't mean it that way.
It was entirely tongue in cheek and meant to be humorous, but if it caused offense then I apologise unreservedly.
Morning all. Sorry, only just read the @Cyclefree PT header on the stubborn Tory poll lead. It's a very good helicopter piece.
"If the choice is between the Tories and an empty space, the latter is unlikely to win."
The above line jumped out at me. You read it and reflexively nod and think "too right". It's one of those.
But then - if you're me - you dwell on it a while and wonder whether it is such a slam dunk. This government (and particularly this PM) are increasingly being viewed by anybody with eyes to see and ears to listen and noses to smell and mouths to - ok ok you get the picture - as an utter shambles. No principles. No competence. 'No' as in ZERO.
They've got away with it so far (pollwise) but for how long? Brexit is shedding its potency as iconic wedge issue. Slowly, to be sure, but it is. They can poke the fires of its culture war aspect but is this enough to stay at 40%? I doubt it. Tough times lie ahead with the economy and in Fiscal Corner. Leveling Up, for example, has to move from soundbite to hard policy choices and this will piss some people off. If it doesn't it's not real and remains a soundbite. Which would also start to piss some people off, just a different bunch, those Leavers who voted for this agenda, believing it to be genuine. Because these folk are not total blithering idiots - not in the main and not all the time. Whatever, poll damage is coming either way. Ditto with Social Care. There are no votes in that. Only negative ones if you get serious about it. Ask Andy Burnham or Theresa May. So the same choice there. A solid plan and loss of popularity or a cop out and loss of popularity.
Now we have this mismanaged exit from the pandemic. Plus (the header here) further damaging reveals from Cummings - who was right there in the middle of it - about the response and attitude throughout. The PM at key moments in thrall to bizarre right-wing 'contrarians' for heaven's sake, most of them no wiser than our PB one. His focus not on preventing Covid running amok in England and killing tens of thousands but on something far more important - impressing the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.
I could go on. The challenge is to stop. But I can do that too. I'm going out maskless in a minute. Big moment. The point is, surely all of this shit is probably going to lead within a year to the Cons polling no better than mid 30s. And then come the GE, given things can only get worse, if the choice is indeed between more of the same or a nice cool empty space fronted by a non-scary, competent, decent sounding bloke who looks like he could run a whelk stall and could manage to tell the truth every now and again, well for me that's a toss up.
I take issue with 'poke the fires of its culture war aspect'. Blaming the right for the culture war is like blaming Poland for World War Two. The right isn't trying to move back to 1953, it just doesn't want to be dragged forward to year zero. All the movement on the culture war is from the left. The right isn't trying to rewrite history. The right is, occasionally, suggesting that perhaps the left might be going a bit too far. Now you're astute, and you'll notice I'm saying 'the left' and not 'the Labour Party'. SKS is trying his hardest to avoid the loonier fringes of the culture war, though his party occasionally drag him into it. But to the electorate as a whole, that's not enough. Neil Kinnock was no culture warrior. But the culture warriors of the wider left - the ILEA, for example - lost him votes. How does SKS distance Labour from the likes of Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome?
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
As named, I’ll explain.
My point being the argument between authoritarian and libertarian is not a left right one, nor is it a case of one side being right, the other wrong. It’s a case of both should listen to the other and debate the other, to help get things right.
It shows up clearly in Covid politics, commentators in the Telegraph (Conservative in party politics, split between libertarian and authoritarian in Covid response) and the Daily Mail (Conservative till sixties, populist right since) also to a smaller degree split between authoritarian and libertarian, though tending toward libertarian in editorial.
In downing street yesterday, JVT Libertarian, open nite clubs, Vallance authoritarian, against doing it right now.
But with the success of vaccines, things have now moved on, old media and new media like this blog very slow to realise how things have moved. It’s never been, if not now then when, it was always going to be how, post vaccine.
It’s not about vaccines now, it’s about behaviours. The horse taken to water (jabbed) could say the easier equation than getting it to drink (behaviour) hence now proper debate required between authoritarian and libertarian to achieve those behaviours.
The government have already decided the road ahead and won’t u turn. My evidence? The main headline this lunchtime, government no intention to tackle pingdemic, they are determined to generate it, latest missive from Downing Street, if you are pinged then isolate.
So if you delete the app, ie show the wrong behaviour, the government won’t concede to you, they will coerce you into the behaviours in the end.
I don’t make this up, I’m just the messenger where for many the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
Marginally following this up, isn't one of Labour's problems that very few of the real choices we face are left v right. A number of left issues are over, and therefore discounted. The NHS, free education to 18, not being an imperial power, social housing, payments to those not in work, House of Lords reform, minimum wage, employment rights, high taxes on the rich, health and safety etc. The centre left has won all the battles, and the centre right occupies what would have been a centre/centre left position.
Covid, Brexit, China, Russia, Islamic extremism, free speech, debt and deficit, the state of the UK union - none of these have obvious left v right alternative solutions.
The game has changed. I think so far the Tories have been better at silently shifting. Labour members still seem to think that the very people who vote in Patel, Sunak, Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi are filthy racists because they don't think Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Zarah Sultana are outstanding politicians.
The next left/right debate is UBI (and the terms of that debate will, in part be set by the experience of furlough, and our economic path over the next 5 years or so).
I think the left is at *extreme* danger of being outflanked on this by the right, with a post-industrial market-economy argument being made (and won) for its introduction by a future Tory administration, while Labour sits it out, scared of frightening the middle-england horses.
There is no debate to be had, UBI which is enough to live on is unaffordable
UBI already exists in this country, we just don't call it that and we have an extremely high real marginal income tax on it.
A sensible UBI introduction would be to merge existing things together, sort out the tax rates so they're sensible, then call it UBI. Not introduce massive new benefits.
A bit like Osborne introducing a Living Wage, based upon the pre-existing Minimum Wage and not dramatically different.
It will piss even more off if they try to implement it....imagine long queues building up outside pubs. restaurants, nightclubs,gigs ...."Sorry cant let you in because cant verify your status as the servers are down"
Very forseeable so the gov't will of course ensure the server capacity is increased prior to it being a condition
You can't increase the capacity that much, botnets are cheap to hire and IoT has provide many more millions of devices to run them on. Plus when did you last see a competent government it operation
The vaccine passport is on the users phone. No need for the nightclub to have computer access, just a doorman who knows what to look for. Same when you fly etc*. So no government IT to bring down.
*One of our nurses was in Spain a couple of weeks back. No one checked either way.
If it is just on the users phones then its easily forgeable and therefore pointless. I just get a friend to take a screenshot of theirs. Same with a paper version
I believe one of the debates happening in government is about the 'easy to fraud' problem.
They can debate all they want but like most things governments dont have the brightest people working for them, the brightest in it are outside and delight in a challenge of breaking things wide open and figuring out how to
Dear me, do people really think that checking a vaccine certificate requires communicating with government servers? I suppose such spectacular ignorance is because the government has stupidly not explained anything or laid the groundwork, but it's very hard to correct such nonsensical beliefs once they get around.
The nicest change I've noticed in the last couple of days is the fear/disgust/jealousy from those wearing masks towards those not wearing masks seems to have gone. I don't wear them in shops, nor do I require them in mine. People have IMO been too judgey over the past year. A return to tolerance would be a welcome move....
Should cut both ways, shouldn't it? Philip sneering at Waitrose customers wearing masks because they're "notoriously pretentious" is a bit of unnecessary culture war.
Yes, and I bit back a retort about gammony Tescos. Hats off me.
On which subject, I had a lengthy clabby* conversation with the Tesco delivery driver yesterday about covid - he blamed Boris for 'not keeping out all those Indians', but also blamed pretty much everyone else, not least people who pretended to have been pinged and were phoning in sick leaving more honest workers to pick up the slack. He was keen to point out how responsible he was, and that he always wore a mask, despite being the first Tesco delivery driver in around a year not to wear a mask when doing the drop off.
Then Loki, my small black kitten, saw his opportunity to get out, and he apologised and made his excuses and left while I attempted to tempt Loki out of the shrubbery with some Dreamies.
*'Clabby' - from The Meaning of Liff - a conversation you neither enjoy nor benefit from, generally initiated with a confusing opening gambit primarily as a ruse to get out of doing any work. The opening gambit to this one was about how his bosses had given him too many drop offs and he was never going to get them finished. Not if you spend each delivery blethering on about covid, you aren't, no.
Morning all. Sorry, only just read the @Cyclefree PT header on the stubborn Tory poll lead. It's a very good helicopter piece.
"If the choice is between the Tories and an empty space, the latter is unlikely to win."
The above line jumped out at me. You read it and reflexively nod and think "too right". It's one of those.
But then - if you're me - you dwell on it a while and wonder whether it is such a slam dunk. This government (and particularly this PM) are increasingly being viewed by anybody with eyes to see and ears to listen and noses to smell and mouths to - ok ok you get the picture - as an utter shambles. No principles. No competence. 'No' as in ZERO.
They've got away with it so far (pollwise) but for how long? Brexit is shedding its potency as iconic wedge issue. Slowly, to be sure, but it is. They can poke the fires of its culture war aspect but is this enough to stay at 40%? I doubt it. Tough times lie ahead with the economy and in Fiscal Corner. Leveling Up, for example, has to move from soundbite to hard policy choices and this will piss some people off. If it doesn't it's not real and remains a soundbite. Which would also start to piss some people off, just a different bunch, those Leavers who voted for this agenda, believing it to be genuine. Because these folk are not total blithering idiots - not in the main and not all the time. Whatever, poll damage is coming either way. Ditto with Social Care. There are no votes in that. Only negative ones if you get serious about it. Ask Andy Burnham or Theresa May. So the same choice there. A solid plan and loss of popularity or a cop out and loss of popularity.
Now we have this mismanaged exit from the pandemic. Plus (the header here) further damaging reveals from Cummings - who was right there in the middle of it - about the response and attitude throughout. The PM at key moments in thrall to bizarre right-wing 'contrarians' for heaven's sake, most of them no wiser than our PB one. His focus not on preventing Covid running amok in England and killing tens of thousands but on something far more important - impressing the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.
I could go on. The challenge is to stop. But I can do that too. I'm going out maskless in a minute. Big moment. The point is, surely all of this shit is probably going to lead within a year to the Cons polling no better than mid 30s. And then come the GE, given things can only get worse, if the choice is indeed between more of the same or a nice cool empty space fronted by a non-scary, competent, decent sounding bloke who looks like he could run a whelk stall and could manage to tell the truth every now and again, well for me that's a toss up.
I take issue with 'poke the fires of its culture war aspect'. Blaming the right for the culture war is like blaming Poland for World War Two. The right isn't trying to move back to 1953, it just doesn't want to be dragged forward to year zero. All the movement on the culture war is from the left. The right isn't trying to rewrite history. The right is, occasionally, suggesting that perhaps the left might be going a bit too far. Now you're astute, and you'll notice I'm saying 'the left' and not 'the Labour Party'. SKS is trying his hardest to avoid the loonier fringes of the culture war, though his party occasionally drag him into it. But to the electorate as a whole, that's not enough. Neil Kinnock was no culture warrior. But the culture warriors of the wider left - the ILEA, for example - lost him votes. How does SKS distance Labour from the likes of Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome?
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
As named, I’ll explain.
My point being the argument between authoritarian and libertarian is not a left right one, nor is it a case of one side being right, the other wrong. It’s a case of both should listen to the other and debate the other, to help get things right.
It shows up clearly in Covid politics, commentators in the Telegraph (Conservative in party politics, split between libertarian and authoritarian in Covid response) and the Daily Mail (Conservative till sixties, populist right since) also to a smaller degree split between authoritarian and libertarian, though tending toward libertarian in editorial.
In downing street yesterday, JVT Libertarian, open nite clubs, Vallance authoritarian, against doing it right now.
But with the success of vaccines, things have now moved on, old media and new media like this blog very slow to realise how things have moved. It’s never been, if not now then when, it was always going to be how, post vaccine.
It’s not about vaccines now, it’s about behaviours. The horse taken to water (jabbed) could say the easier equation than getting it to drink (behaviour) hence now proper debate required between authoritarian and libertarian to achieve those behaviours.
The government have already decided the road ahead and won’t u turn. My evidence? The main headline this lunchtime, government no intention to tackle pingdemic, they are determined to generate it, latest missive from Downing Street, if you are pinged then isolate.
So if you delete the app, ie show the wrong behaviour, the government won’t concede to you, they will coerce you into the behaviours in the end.
I don’t make this up, I’m just the messenger where for many the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
Marginally following this up, isn't one of Labour's problems that very few of the real choices we face are left v right. A number of left issues are over, and therefore discounted. The NHS, free education to 18, not being an imperial power, social housing, payments to those not in work, House of Lords reform, minimum wage, employment rights, high taxes on the rich, health and safety etc. The centre left has won all the battles, and the centre right occupies what would have been a centre/centre left position.
Covid, Brexit, China, Russia, Islamic extremism, free speech, debt and deficit, the state of the UK union - none of these have obvious left v right alternative solutions.
The game has changed. I think so far the Tories have been better at silently shifting. Labour members still seem to think that the very people who vote in Patel, Sunak, Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi are filthy racists because they don't think Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Zarah Sultana are outstanding politicians.
The next left/right debate is UBI (and the terms of that debate will, in part be set by the experience of furlough, and our economic path over the next 5 years or so).
I think the left is at *extreme* danger of being outflanked on this by the right, with a post-industrial market-economy argument being made (and won) for its introduction by a future Tory administration, while Labour sits it out, scared of frightening the middle-england horses.
There is no debate to be had, UBI which is enough to live on is unaffordable
UBI already exists in this country, we just don't call it that and we have an extremely high real marginal income tax on it.
A sensible UBI introduction would be to merge existing things together, sort out the tax rates so they're sensible, then call it UBI. Not introduce massive new benefits.
A bit like Osborne introducing a Living Wage, based upon the pre-existing Minimum Wage and not dramatically different.
No it really doesnt. UC to which you refer is not UBI. The clue is in the name UNIVERSAL which means every single one of us gets paid it. Most people do not get any form of UC in daily living though it is approaching half
Glad to see so many giant Palestinian flags being flown by the various trot lunatics outside the Labour NEC meeting. It really is the only policy concern that former Labour voters in the red wall have. https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1417450184762662924
As @bigjohnowls points out, the party is nearly bankrupt. If the NEC stands up to Starmer, reinstates the people with their Palestinian flags and their abuse of Jews and their sneering attacks on anyone who isn't as politically pure as they are, the party will soon have enough money to pay its staff*
*ok by "staff" I mean the QCs hired to defend the party in the high court as it gets sued to death
Dear me, do people really think that checking a vaccine certificate requires communicating with government servers? I suppose such spectacular ignorance is because the government has stupidly not explained anything or laid the groundwork, but it's very hard to correct such nonsensical beliefs once they get around.
You would need to have a secure chain API with a bring your own device front end to scan the QR code and get a response from the server saying it's legit. Otherwise why bother?
Dear me, do people really think that checking a vaccine certificate requires communicating with government servers? I suppose such spectacular ignorance is because the government has stupidly not explained anything or laid the groundwork, but it's very hard to correct such nonsensical beliefs once they get around.
You would need to have a secure chain API with a bring your own device front end to scan the QR code and get a response from the server saying it's legit. Otherwise why bother?
Morning all. Sorry, only just read the @Cyclefree PT header on the stubborn Tory poll lead. It's a very good helicopter piece.
"If the choice is between the Tories and an empty space, the latter is unlikely to win."
The above line jumped out at me. You read it and reflexively nod and think "too right". It's one of those.
But then - if you're me - you dwell on it a while and wonder whether it is such a slam dunk. This government (and particularly this PM) are increasingly being viewed by anybody with eyes to see and ears to listen and noses to smell and mouths to - ok ok you get the picture - as an utter shambles. No principles. No competence. 'No' as in ZERO.
They've got away with it so far (pollwise) but for how long? Brexit is shedding its potency as iconic wedge issue. Slowly, to be sure, but it is. They can poke the fires of its culture war aspect but is this enough to stay at 40%? I doubt it. Tough times lie ahead with the economy and in Fiscal Corner. Leveling Up, for example, has to move from soundbite to hard policy choices and this will piss some people off. If it doesn't it's not real and remains a soundbite. Which would also start to piss some people off, just a different bunch, those Leavers who voted for this agenda, believing it to be genuine. Because these folk are not total blithering idiots - not in the main and not all the time. Whatever, poll damage is coming either way. Ditto with Social Care. There are no votes in that. Only negative ones if you get serious about it. Ask Andy Burnham or Theresa May. So the same choice there. A solid plan and loss of popularity or a cop out and loss of popularity.
Now we have this mismanaged exit from the pandemic. Plus (the header here) further damaging reveals from Cummings - who was right there in the middle of it - about the response and attitude throughout. The PM at key moments in thrall to bizarre right-wing 'contrarians' for heaven's sake, most of them no wiser than our PB one. His focus not on preventing Covid running amok in England and killing tens of thousands but on something far more important - impressing the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.
I could go on. The challenge is to stop. But I can do that too. I'm going out maskless in a minute. Big moment. The point is, surely all of this shit is probably going to lead within a year to the Cons polling no better than mid 30s. And then come the GE, given things can only get worse, if the choice is indeed between more of the same or a nice cool empty space fronted by a non-scary, competent, decent sounding bloke who looks like he could run a whelk stall and could manage to tell the truth every now and again, well for me that's a toss up.
I take issue with 'poke the fires of its culture war aspect'. Blaming the right for the culture war is like blaming Poland for World War Two. The right isn't trying to move back to 1953, it just doesn't want to be dragged forward to year zero. All the movement on the culture war is from the left. The right isn't trying to rewrite history. The right is, occasionally, suggesting that perhaps the left might be going a bit too far. Now you're astute, and you'll notice I'm saying 'the left' and not 'the Labour Party'. SKS is trying his hardest to avoid the loonier fringes of the culture war, though his party occasionally drag him into it. But to the electorate as a whole, that's not enough. Neil Kinnock was no culture warrior. But the culture warriors of the wider left - the ILEA, for example - lost him votes. How does SKS distance Labour from the likes of Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome?
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
As named, I’ll explain.
My point being the argument between authoritarian and libertarian is not a left right one, nor is it a case of one side being right, the other wrong. It’s a case of both should listen to the other and debate the other, to help get things right.
It shows up clearly in Covid politics, commentators in the Telegraph (Conservative in party politics, split between libertarian and authoritarian in Covid response) and the Daily Mail (Conservative till sixties, populist right since) also to a smaller degree split between authoritarian and libertarian, though tending toward libertarian in editorial.
In downing street yesterday, JVT Libertarian, open nite clubs, Vallance authoritarian, against doing it right now.
But with the success of vaccines, things have now moved on, old media and new media like this blog very slow to realise how things have moved. It’s never been, if not now then when, it was always going to be how, post vaccine.
It’s not about vaccines now, it’s about behaviours. The horse taken to water (jabbed) could say the easier equation than getting it to drink (behaviour) hence now proper debate required between authoritarian and libertarian to achieve those behaviours.
The government have already decided the road ahead and won’t u turn. My evidence? The main headline this lunchtime, government no intention to tackle pingdemic, they are determined to generate it, latest missive from Downing Street, if you are pinged then isolate.
So if you delete the app, ie show the wrong behaviour, the government won’t concede to you, they will coerce you into the behaviours in the end.
I don’t make this up, I’m just the messenger where for many the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
Marginally following this up, isn't one of Labour's problems that very few of the real choices we face are left v right. A number of left issues are over, and therefore discounted. The NHS, free education to 18, not being an imperial power, social housing, payments to those not in work, House of Lords reform, minimum wage, employment rights, high taxes on the rich, health and safety etc. The centre left has won all the battles, and the centre right occupies what would have been a centre/centre left position.
Covid, Brexit, China, Russia, Islamic extremism, free speech, debt and deficit, the state of the UK union - none of these have obvious left v right alternative solutions.
The game has changed. I think so far the Tories have been better at silently shifting. Labour members still seem to think that the very people who vote in Patel, Sunak, Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi are filthy racists because they don't think Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Zarah Sultana are outstanding politicians.
The next left/right debate is UBI (and the terms of that debate will, in part be set by the experience of furlough, and our economic path over the next 5 years or so).
I think the left is at *extreme* danger of being outflanked on this by the right, with a post-industrial market-economy argument being made (and won) for its introduction by a future Tory administration, while Labour sits it out, scared of frightening the middle-england horses.
There is no debate to be had, UBI which is enough to live on is unaffordable
That's certainly one side of the debate. And one interpretation of UBI.
Morning all. Sorry, only just read the @Cyclefree PT header on the stubborn Tory poll lead. It's a very good helicopter piece.
"If the choice is between the Tories and an empty space, the latter is unlikely to win."
The above line jumped out at me. You read it and reflexively nod and think "too right". It's one of those.
But then - if you're me - you dwell on it a while and wonder whether it is such a slam dunk. This government (and particularly this PM) are increasingly being viewed by anybody with eyes to see and ears to listen and noses to smell and mouths to - ok ok you get the picture - as an utter shambles. No principles. No competence. 'No' as in ZERO.
They've got away with it so far (pollwise) but for how long? Brexit is shedding its potency as iconic wedge issue. Slowly, to be sure, but it is. They can poke the fires of its culture war aspect but is this enough to stay at 40%? I doubt it. Tough times lie ahead with the economy and in Fiscal Corner. Leveling Up, for example, has to move from soundbite to hard policy choices and this will piss some people off. If it doesn't it's not real and remains a soundbite. Which would also start to piss some people off, just a different bunch, those Leavers who voted for this agenda, believing it to be genuine. Because these folk are not total blithering idiots - not in the main and not all the time. Whatever, poll damage is coming either way. Ditto with Social Care. There are no votes in that. Only negative ones if you get serious about it. Ask Andy Burnham or Theresa May. So the same choice there. A solid plan and loss of popularity or a cop out and loss of popularity.
Now we have this mismanaged exit from the pandemic. Plus (the header here) further damaging reveals from Cummings - who was right there in the middle of it - about the response and attitude throughout. The PM at key moments in thrall to bizarre right-wing 'contrarians' for heaven's sake, most of them no wiser than our PB one. His focus not on preventing Covid running amok in England and killing tens of thousands but on something far more important - impressing the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator.
I could go on. The challenge is to stop. But I can do that too. I'm going out maskless in a minute. Big moment. The point is, surely all of this shit is probably going to lead within a year to the Cons polling no better than mid 30s. And then come the GE, given things can only get worse, if the choice is indeed between more of the same or a nice cool empty space fronted by a non-scary, competent, decent sounding bloke who looks like he could run a whelk stall and could manage to tell the truth every now and again, well for me that's a toss up.
I take issue with 'poke the fires of its culture war aspect'. Blaming the right for the culture war is like blaming Poland for World War Two. The right isn't trying to move back to 1953, it just doesn't want to be dragged forward to year zero. All the movement on the culture war is from the left. The right isn't trying to rewrite history. The right is, occasionally, suggesting that perhaps the left might be going a bit too far. Now you're astute, and you'll notice I'm saying 'the left' and not 'the Labour Party'. SKS is trying his hardest to avoid the loonier fringes of the culture war, though his party occasionally drag him into it. But to the electorate as a whole, that's not enough. Neil Kinnock was no culture warrior. But the culture warriors of the wider left - the ILEA, for example - lost him votes. How does SKS distance Labour from the likes of Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome?
EDIT - and have you read the Telegraph or the Spectator recently? If the PM has been trying to impress the Telegraph and the Spectator, he's going about it abysmally. What he's trying to do (and succeeding) is to impress the authoritarian lobby which want more laws on other people (like @gealbhan yesterday - although I wasn't sure how serious he was).
EDIT2: And good luck going maskless. Enjoy exchanging smiles with other demaskers!
As named, I’ll explain.
My point being the argument between authoritarian and libertarian is not a left right one, nor is it a case of one side being right, the other wrong. It’s a case of both should listen to the other and debate the other, to help get things right.
It shows up clearly in Covid politics, commentators in the Telegraph (Conservative in party politics, split between libertarian and authoritarian in Covid response) and the Daily Mail (Conservative till sixties, populist right since) also to a smaller degree split between authoritarian and libertarian, though tending toward libertarian in editorial.
In downing street yesterday, JVT Libertarian, open nite clubs, Vallance authoritarian, against doing it right now.
But with the success of vaccines, things have now moved on, old media and new media like this blog very slow to realise how things have moved. It’s never been, if not now then when, it was always going to be how, post vaccine.
It’s not about vaccines now, it’s about behaviours. The horse taken to water (jabbed) could say the easier equation than getting it to drink (behaviour) hence now proper debate required between authoritarian and libertarian to achieve those behaviours.
The government have already decided the road ahead and won’t u turn. My evidence? The main headline this lunchtime, government no intention to tackle pingdemic, they are determined to generate it, latest missive from Downing Street, if you are pinged then isolate.
So if you delete the app, ie show the wrong behaviour, the government won’t concede to you, they will coerce you into the behaviours in the end.
I don’t make this up, I’m just the messenger where for many the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
Marginally following this up, isn't one of Labour's problems that very few of the real choices we face are left v right. A number of left issues are over, and therefore discounted. The NHS, free education to 18, not being an imperial power, social housing, payments to those not in work, House of Lords reform, minimum wage, employment rights, high taxes on the rich, health and safety etc. The centre left has won all the battles, and the centre right occupies what would have been a centre/centre left position.
Covid, Brexit, China, Russia, Islamic extremism, free speech, debt and deficit, the state of the UK union - none of these have obvious left v right alternative solutions.
The game has changed. I think so far the Tories have been better at silently shifting. Labour members still seem to think that the very people who vote in Patel, Sunak, Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi are filthy racists because they don't think Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Zarah Sultana are outstanding politicians.
The next left/right debate is UBI (and the terms of that debate will, in part be set by the experience of furlough, and our economic path over the next 5 years or so).
I think the left is at *extreme* danger of being outflanked on this by the right, with a post-industrial market-economy argument being made (and won) for its introduction by a future Tory administration, while Labour sits it out, scared of frightening the middle-england horses.
There is no debate to be had, UBI which is enough to live on is unaffordable
UBI already exists in this country, we just don't call it that and we have an extremely high real marginal income tax on it.
A sensible UBI introduction would be to merge existing things together, sort out the tax rates so they're sensible, then call it UBI. Not introduce massive new benefits.
A bit like Osborne introducing a Living Wage, based upon the pre-existing Minimum Wage and not dramatically different.
UBI will not work until they sort out housing benefit, specifically in London and the south.
The current numbers require something like £1k a month for an adult, £500 for a child, and an income tax rate of 35% with no personal allowance. Then start making allowances for behavioural changes, all of which will be on the downside for the Chancellor.
Comments
https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1417354275777302529
" Got hold of Labour’s own Liverpool report ahead of NEC today. Here are the panel’s key findings (incl bullying, misogyny, toxic culture) and recommendations (“Nothing less than a full reset of the Labour Party in Liverpool is needed”):"
Having a pathetic two week lockdown, with the inevitability of pre and post lockdown parties (because that's how humans behave) is a stupid, stupid idea that doesn't work. File it like communism as something that simply doesn't work with humanity.
Other ideas may work. But a fortnightly lockdown is absolutely irrelevant to the problem, unless your cases are so low and lockdown so draconian you can have eradication as the result.
Even if we'd had the two week lockdown in September, we would have still had our winter lockdown peak. Like in Wales, it may have even arrived sooner since fortnightly lockdowns are actually counterproductive.
On the other hand if he promoted it in such a way that it had to be implemented I would neither blame him for running away prior to release and congratulate him on avoiding the pain.
The nearby paint merchant was also requiring masks "because our owners are Welsh and they are still in lockdown - so we are too".
In which case, job done.
But where else is £10 billion a year (£200 an adult) coming from?
The theory was that Blair-era big personal donors who'd left over Corbyn would come back with Starmer. Have they? I'm not too sure how far in arrears these things are accounted for. If not, will they?
I don't wish to be rude, Rochdale, but have you had some good news or something today? The tone of your posts is a bit different and more like the Rochdale of Teesside days. Apologies if I am reading too much into things.
My point being the argument between authoritarian and libertarian is not a left right one, nor is it a case of one side being right, the other wrong. It’s a case of both should listen to the other and debate the other, to help get things right.
It shows up clearly in Covid politics, commentators in the Telegraph (Conservative in party politics, split between libertarian and authoritarian in Covid response) and the Daily Mail (Conservative till sixties, populist right since) also to a smaller degree split between authoritarian and libertarian, though tending toward libertarian in editorial.
In downing street yesterday, JVT Libertarian, open nite clubs, Vallance authoritarian, against doing it right now.
But with the success of vaccines, things have now moved on, old media and new media like this blog very slow to realise how things have moved. It’s never been, if not now then when, it was always going to be how, post vaccine.
It’s not about vaccines now, it’s about behaviours. The horse taken to water (jabbed) could say the easier equation than getting it to drink (behaviour) hence now proper debate required between authoritarian and libertarian to achieve those behaviours.
The government have already decided the road ahead and won’t u turn. My evidence? The main headline this lunchtime, government no intention to tackle pingdemic, they are determined to generate it, latest missive from Downing Street, if you are pinged then isolate.
So if you delete the app, ie show the wrong behaviour, the government won’t concede to you, they will coerce you into the behaviours in the end.
I don’t make this up, I’m just the messenger where for many the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
My understanding is that the Zoe app reckons this wave has peaked.
My view is that numbers of positives reported keeps rising for a couple of weeks or so at least after actual prevalence peaks, due to the (justifiably) non-random way that people are tested - that is, we look for cases where we expect to find them.
As Jeremy Thorpe said of Harold Macmillian: "Greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his friends for his life."
Surely sticking to 'if you are pinged then isolate' just encourages people to delete the app though?
Nothing less than a full reset of the Labour Party itself is needed
No the Labour right just won three elections and put the most amount of money into the NHS ever, virtually eliminated homelessness and halved child poverty.
But no good! We must keep losing!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/20/boris-johnson-to-delay-social-care-reform-plans-until-autumn
Covid, Brexit, China, Russia, Islamic extremism, free speech, debt and deficit, the state of the UK union - none of these have obvious left v right alternative solutions.
The game has changed. I think so far the Tories have been better at silently shifting. Labour members still seem to think that the very people who vote in Patel, Sunak, Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi are filthy racists because they don't think Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Zarah Sultana are outstanding politicians.
BTW, I hate the name 'Starship'. Starship has a definition that has been used for well over 100 years: a vessel that can be used for interstellar travel. SS never will. It's another Muskian over-promise.
*One of our nurses was in Spain a couple of weeks back. No one checked either way.
It was entirely tongue in cheek and meant to be humorous, but if it caused offense then I apologise unreservedly.
Mr. Jessop, what name would you prefer?
COVID started in Italy?
Maybe…
I think the left is at *extreme* danger of being outflanked on this by the right, with a post-industrial market-economy argument being made (and won) for its introduction by a future Tory administration, while Labour sits it out, scared of frightening the middle-england horses.
Although if it was up to me, I'd call it the 'Interplanetary Baggage System', whose abbreviation sums up how Musk makes many people feel...
Anyway, time for me to be off. Happy freedom, comrades. Don't forget to take your papers with you.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/may/29/labour
while old, may be an indicator.
A sensible UBI introduction would be to merge existing things together, sort out the tax rates so they're sensible, then call it UBI. Not introduce massive new benefits.
A bit like Osborne introducing a Living Wage, based upon the pre-existing Minimum Wage and not dramatically different.
Then Loki, my small black kitten, saw his opportunity to get out, and he apologised and made his excuses and left while I attempted to tempt Loki out of the shrubbery with some Dreamies.
*'Clabby' - from The Meaning of Liff - a conversation you neither enjoy nor benefit from, generally initiated with a confusing opening gambit primarily as a ruse to get out of doing any work. The opening gambit to this one was about how his bosses had given him too many drop offs and he was never going to get them finished. Not if you spend each delivery blethering on about covid, you aren't, no.
As @bigjohnowls points out, the party is nearly bankrupt. If the NEC stands up to Starmer, reinstates the people with their Palestinian flags and their abuse of Jews and their sneering attacks on anyone who isn't as politically pure as they are, the party will soon have enough money to pay its staff*
*ok by "staff" I mean the QCs hired to defend the party in the high court as it gets sued to death
The current numbers require something like £1k a month for an adult, £500 for a child, and an income tax rate of 35% with no personal allowance. Then start making allowances for behavioural changes, all of which will be on the downside for the Chancellor.