A really excellent interview by Laura Kuennsberg. I wasn’t expecting it to be this good . I think we should all breathe a sigh of relief that Cummings is no longer at no 10 so thanks Carrie . The bumbling fool remains there but at least isn’t now the puppet of Cummings who is a deeply dangerous individual .
Cummings' hatred for Carrie is perhaps the most visceral thing at play in domestic politics today.
A really excellent interview by Laura Kuennsberg. I wasn’t expecting it to be this good . I think we should all breathe a sigh of relief that Cummings is no longer at no 10 so thanks Carrie . The bumbling fool remains there but at least isn’t now the puppet of Cummings who is a deeply dangerous individual .
Cummings' hatred for Carrie is perhaps the most visceral thing at play in domestic politics today.
I am now able to report from the Covid Freedom Day Front Line AKA the gastropubs of Highgate
Verdict: a disappointing lack of jubilation, or, indeed, Freedom. You weren't allowed to order at the bar, you had to check in at the door, the staff were mostly wearing masks, it was table service only
Almost nothing has changed
Indeed I've just been out shopping in Camden and if anything there seem to be MORE masks, people look even more nervous. for the first time ever I saw someone wearing the full Covid monty: mask, visor and disposable blue nitrile gloves WHILE WALKING DOWN THE STREET
Have we terrified humanity - or at least the British part of it - into some ridiculous, unnecessary dystopia?
Maybe you could do another report from a working-class area to see if there any differences. Basildon or Harlow for example.
Camden - down by the Tube - really isn't posh in any sense. It is all of humankind, rich, poor, middling, homeless, trustafarian, Muslim, atheist, Goth, emo, Gen X Gen Z Gen Lambda, 50-something flint knappers buying laksa ingredients
This is a big reason I am attached to it, I like the grittiness and the melee (tho I am glad I live at the slightly posher end, we are all human)
So Camden is probably quite representative - at least of London as a whole (and Highgate felt very similar). Dunno about the UK
I used to agree about Camden. Then the Monarch closed down, just the latest "gritty" late night bar to close and be replaced with yet another wanky cocktail bar. It's become as sterile as the places it used to mock. Sadly there aren't many places left in London that capture the essence of what the city used to be, maybe the Queen's Crescent area of Kentish Town and a few bits of Archway still have some of the magic but London is over.
On bad days I agree with you. I wonder if London can recover from Covid (and everything else)
But then you get a sunny day and the parks fill up and the beer gardens sing and there is, still, a distinct and glorious energy, perhaps made bubblier by the toughness of the times. And it is a very contemporary London energy, not like Paris or NYC or LA
When I am not fretting about all the closed restaurants and bars (and they are worrying) I've also noticed that London literally seems younger, after Covid. The average age on the street and in the shops is down about 5 years. The kidz have taken over. I can see why - the old have fled or are hiding, the middle aged are working from home - and hiding - it will be fascinating to see where it goes from here.
Is London Rome in 440AD? Or Paris in 1944?
I think part of the issue is that the next generation coming up is so much more sterile than mine was. I was talking to a guy selling us some mandy pre-lockdown and he said that his walk ups are predominantly over 30 and he struggles to get under 30s to buy any kind of party drugs because they're all too concerned with health and other such inanities. I expect after COVID it will just get worse.
Who in the next generation is going to do a line of charlie and become a complete c*** to their mates and everyone around them? Those experiences just won't happen now but it's part of growing up and the next generation is just completely missing out because they've become conditioned by social media and influencers that being anything than 100% straight up will be a disaster.
Even outside of that stuff I just think London is becoming a shadow of it's former self and I say that as someone who has just spent a 7 figure number buying a house here.
Some truth in that
The Boris-hating waitress in my Highgate pub said she hated Boris because "my Mum does". I put it to her that she should be rebellious, at her age, not just following her Mum's opinions and she looked utterly bewildered at this concept and she said "oh, No, my Mum would kill me"
The under 30s are a notably conformative and censorious bunch, especially by the standards of my generation, which was outrageously misbehaved. And still is, at times. Ahem
But then, my cohort had it so much easier. Student GRANTS, cheaper property, lad magazines, sex everywhere, exciting new drugs, a permissive society, no apocalyptic worries about climate change and all that, and, maybe most importantly, no social media to cancel us (and Jeez, we would have been cancelled a thousand times a year for some of the shit we did)
So I also have sympathies for the young. They are forced to be dull, it's not their choice. But they ARE rather dull
And now I am definitely walking. A bientot
Yeah I definitely get that their dullness is partly because of the situation they're in wrt the future being so much more difficult for them than even my generation who are now all finally getting on the property ladder (at least my friends are).
I was in the final yea own way and as I said, very good looking.
Very good looking people are frequently boring, for obvious reasons. Also, she may be getting creepy older guy vibes off you and looking at her phone to make you go away!
She's very interesting once she's put her phone away. On the latter I can only give you a virtual eyeroll, but would do it in person if I could.
Why is misbehavitories?
Am I misunderstanding or are you saying you were so drunk you got in your car and drove it straight through a vineyard? Call me a stodgy young person but driving while that drunk, if I haven't misunderstood, is not at all funny.
Kids today
To explain what happened, for various reasons - some quite startling, but too elaborate to detail - I was five hours late for the appointed wine tasting.
By the time I got to this Spanish finca it was tapas hour and everyone was actually guzzling the wine not just tasting. It was really great wine, and food, and everyone was jolly and then I realised, Fuck, I am completely drunk, how do I get my car and bags and self to my hotel over the hill, I can't drive I'm sozzled
But the friendly Spanish hosts said Oh don't worry it's a short little drive you can't hurt anyone, it's one minute
I stumbled out into the sweet warm evening, and looked around, quite confused, as there was no obvious "one minute shortcut" to my hotel
But there was a sort of "parting" in the vineyards. So I decided that must be it and I made a bee line for that in my car, and by the time vines were snapping underneath me it was too late so I bravely soldiered on, drove over a hedge, pushed through a few olive groves and approached my hotel across the garden
Then I immediately fell asleep
Next day I felt quite sheepish. And left early. After scraping the grapes off the car
I was waiting for a stinging email but when it arrived it said We had a very nice time, hope you did - and did not mention me driving through their vineyard at night. Either they did not notice, or they did notice and they are incredibly polite, or they get people doing this all the time? But if that's the case they should build a road, frankly
Perhaps they rely on the tourists to keep the shortcut through the vineyard reasonably well trampled...
Interestingly, when I first told this story, quite recently (this only happened a few weeks back) I told it just as a peculiar anecdote, a Whoah What Happened There thing
But it got a big laugh, and I realised people found it funny
Which is kinda my point: we find bad behaviour amusing. Why? One key thing is that you have to get away with it. If a story of roguish idiocy ends with you being carted off to jail, then no one laughs. But if you escape any repercussions, that can be funny
It's like movies and dramas that glorify criminals - you want to see them get away with it, sticking it to The Man
eg I bet Dick Turpin was in reality a foul-mouthed, violent hoodlum, but we love his story because he evades capture and gets away with it (at first)
To bring this back to politics, this is surely part of Boris' debatable "charm". He drives across the vineyard of normal behaviour, and reverses into the olive grove of public opinion. Some find this amusing and ilkeable. Not all, by any means, but enough to sustain his popularity and polling
Lmao.
Johnson incessantly tries to invite us to compare himself to Churchill, despite even many of his supporters being able to see that he isn’t even in the same league.
So now you’re inviting us to compare yourself with Johnson….
A really excellent interview by Laura Kuennsberg. I wasn’t expecting it to be this good . I think we should all breathe a sigh of relief that Cummings is no longer at no 10 so thanks Carrie . The bumbling fool remains there but at least isn’t now the puppet of Cummings who is a deeply dangerous individual .
Cummings' hatred for Carrie is perhaps the most visceral thing at play in domestic politics today.
A really excellent interview by Laura Kuennsberg. I wasn’t expecting it to be this good . I think we should all breathe a sigh of relief that Cummings is no longer at no 10 so thanks Carrie . The bumbling fool remains there but at least isn’t now the puppet of Cummings who is a deeply dangerous individual .
Cummings' hatred for Carrie is perhaps the most visceral thing at play in domestic politics today.
A lover spurned?
There's no such rage as love to hatred turned
Well, Johnson did bugger everything else, why not Cummings?
A really excellent interview by Laura Kuennsberg. I wasn’t expecting it to be this good . I think we should all breathe a sigh of relief that Cummings is no longer at no 10 so thanks Carrie . The bumbling fool remains there but at least isn’t now the puppet of Cummings who is a deeply dangerous individual .
Less dangerous than Johnson. The likable buffoon has the power to blow us all up. Cummings hasn't
Everything moving away from Bozo and the Tories. Good.
You realise all the other recent polls show movement in the other direction.....
All?
I wouldn't put too much weight on summer polling, normal folk aren't paying much attention. Let's see how it looks in October after the conferences and summer are memories.
Interesting labour and lib dems managing better numbers. Normally it is one or the other.
The detailed figures suggest a drastic fall in government/Johnson ratings rather than any particular increase in anyone else, so I guess disiilusioned Tories are scattering.
I am now able to report from the Covid Freedom Day Front Line AKA the gastropubs of Highgate
Verdict: a disappointing lack of jubilation, or, indeed, Freedom. You weren't allowed to order at the bar, you had to check in at the door, the staff were mostly wearing masks, it was table service only
Almost nothing has changed
Indeed I've just been out shopping in Camden and if anything there seem to be MORE masks, people look even more nervous. for the first time ever I saw someone wearing the full Covid monty: mask, visor and disposable blue nitrile gloves WHILE WALKING DOWN THE STREET
Have we terrified humanity - or at least the British part of it - into some ridiculous, unnecessary dystopia?
Maybe you could do another report from a working-class area to see if there any differences. Basildon or Harlow for example.
Camden - down by the Tube - really isn't posh in any sense. It is all of humankind, rich, poor, middling, homeless, trustafarian, Muslim, atheist, Goth, emo, Gen X Gen Z Gen Lambda, 50-something flint knappers buying laksa ingredients
This is a big reason I am attached to it, I like the grittiness and the melee (tho I am glad I live at the slightly posher end, we are all human)
So Camden is probably quite representative - at least of London as a whole (and Highgate felt very similar). Dunno about the UK
I used to agree about Camden. Then the Monarch closed down, just the latest "gritty" late night bar to close and be replaced with yet another wanky cocktail bar. It's become as sterile as the places it used to mock. Sadly there aren't many places left in London that capture the essence of what the city used to be, maybe the Queen's Crescent area of Kentish Town and a few bits of Archway still have some of the magic but London is over.
On bad days I agree with you. I wonder if London can recover from Covid (and everything else)
But then you get a sunny day and the parks fill up and the beer gardens sing and there is, still, a distinct and glorious energy, perhaps made bubblier by the toughness of the times. And it is a very contemporary London energy, not like Paris or NYC or LA
When I am not fretting about all the closed restaurants and bars (and they are worrying) I've also noticed that London literally seems younger, after Covid. The average age on the street and in the shops is down about 5 years. The kidz have taken over. I can see why - the old have fled or are hiding, the middle aged are working from home - and hiding - it will be fascinating to see where it goes from here.
Is London Rome in 440AD? Or Paris in 1944?
I think part of the issue is that the next generation coming up is so much more sterile than mine was. I was talking to a guy selling us some mandy pre-lockdown and he said that his walk ups are predominantly over 30 and he struggles to get under 30s to buy any kind of party drugs because they're all too concerned with health and other such inanities. I expect after COVID it will just get worse.
Who in the next generation is going to do a line of charlie and become a complete c*** to their mates and everyone around them? Those experiences just won't happen now but it's part of growing up and the next generation is just completely missing out because they've become conditioned by social media and influencers that being anything than 100% straight up will be a disaster.
Even outside of that stuff I just think London is becoming a shadow of it's former self and I say that as someone who has just spent a 7 figure number buying a house here.
Some truth in that
The Boris-hating waitress in my Highgate pub said she hated Boris because "my Mum does". I put it to her that she should be rebellious, at her age, not just following her Mum's opinions and she looked utterly bewildered at this concept and she said "oh, No, my Mum would kill me"
The under 30s are a notably conformative and censorious bunch, especially by the standards of my generation, which was outrageously misbehaved. And still is, at times. Ahem
But then, my cohort had it so much easier. Student GRANTS, cheaper property, lad magazines, sex everywhere, exciting new drugs, a permissive society, no apocalyptic worries about climate change and all that, and, maybe most importantly, no social media to cancel us (and Jeez, we would have been cancelled a thousand times a year for some of the shit we did)
So I also have sympathies for the young. They are forced to be dull, it's not their choice. But they ARE rather dull
And now I am definitely walking. A bientot
Yeah I definitely get that their dullness is partly because of the situation they're in wrt the future being so much more difficult for them than even my generation who are now all finally getting on the property ladder (at least my friends are).
I was in the final yea own way and as I said, very good looking.
Very good looking people are frequently boring, for obvious reasons. Also, she may be getting creepy older guy vibes off you and looking at her phone to make you go away!
She's very interesting once she's put her phone away. On the latter I can only give you a virtual eyeroll, but would do it in person if I could.
Why is misbehavitories?
Am I misunderstanding or are you saying you were so drunk you got in your car and drove it straight through a vineyard? Call me a stodgy young person but driving while that drunk, if I haven't misunderstood, is not at all funny.
Kids today
To explain what happened, for various reasons - some quite startling, but too elaborate to detail - I was five hours late for the appointed wine tasting.
By the time I got to this Spanish finca it was tapas hour and everyone was actually guzzling the wine not just tasting. It was really great wine, and food, and everyone was jolly and then I realised, Fuck, I am completely drunk, how do I get my car and bags and self to my hotel over the hill, I can't drive I'm sozzled
But the friendly Spanish hosts said Oh don't worry it's a short little drive you can't hurt anyone, it's one minute
I stumbled out into the sweet warm evening, and looked around, quite confused, as there was no obvious "one minute shortcut" to my hotel
But there was a sort of "parting" in the vineyards. So I decided that must be it and I made a bee line for that in my car, and by the time vines were snapping underneath me it was too late so I bravely soldiered on, drove over a hedge, pushed through a few olive groves and approached my hotel across the garden
Then I immediately fell asleep
Next day I felt quite sheepish. And left early. After scraping the grapes off the car
I was waiting for a stinging email but when it arrived it said We had a very nice time, hope you did - and did not mention me driving through their vineyard at night. Either they did not notice, or they did notice and they are incredibly polite, or they get people doing this all the time? But if that's the case they should build a road, frankly
Perhaps they rely on the tourists to keep the shortcut through the vineyard reasonably well trampled...
Interestingly, when I first told this story, quite recently (this only happened a few weeks back) I told it just as a peculiar anecdote, a Whoah What Happened There thing
But it got a big laugh, and I realised people found it funny
Which is kinda my point: we find bad behaviour amusing. Why? One key thing is that you have to get away with it. If a story of roguish idiocy ends with you being carted off to jail, then no one laughs. But if you escape any repercussions, that can be funny
It's like movies and dramas that glorify criminals - you want to see them get away with it, sticking it to The Man
eg I bet Dick Turpin was in reality a foul-mouthed, violent hoodlum, but we love his story because he evades capture and gets away with it (at first)
To bring this back to politics, this is surely part of Boris' debatable "charm". He drives across the vineyard of normal behaviour, and reverses into the olive grove of public opinion. Some find this amusing and ilkeable. Not all, by any means, but enough to sustain his popularity and polling
Lmao.
Johnson incessantly tries to invite us to compare himself to Churchill, despite even many of his supporters being able to see that he isn’t even in the same league.
So now you’re inviting us to compare yourself with Johnson….
PB without @Leon is like eating pizza without the pineapple!
Interesting labour and lib dems managing better numbers. Normally it is one or the other.
The detailed figures suggest a drastic fall in government/Johnson ratings rather than any particular increase in anyone else, so I guess disiilusioned Tories are scattering.
Or, of course, it's an outlier.
Johnson still preferred PM, 41% to 33% for Starmer but voters opposed the lifting of restrictions yesterday by 44% to 38%
What kind of a clown can answer Cummings by saying "What We Intend To Do Is Build Back Better"!
'Moron' flatters him
Roger. I completely agree. A cringe inducing response from Boris' team.
I thought it was a good interview. I like Laura Kuenssberg and have done for a while. I've not been brave enough to admit this before! She is regularly accused of being Boris' puppet, I think, but the Cummings interview hardly fits that characterisation.
I've also watched the odd Brexitcast and Newscast programme and, maybe I'm naive, but I've found all the journalists on there quite engaging and surprisingly open and relaxed. OK, they don't tell us what they can't or won't tell us.
What kind of a clown can answer Cummings by saying "What We Intend To Do Is Build Back Better"!
'Moron' flatters him
Roger. I completely agree. A cringe inducing response from Boris' team.
I thought it was a good interview. I like Laura Kuenssberg and have done for a while. I've not been brave enough to admit this before! She is regularly accused of being Boris' puppet, I think, but the Cummings interview hardly fits that characterisation.
I've also watched the odd Brexitcast and Newscast programme and, maybe I'm naive, but I've found all the journalists on there quite engaging and surprisingly open and relaxed. OK, they don't tell us what they can't or won't tell us.
No, she was regularly accused of being Dom's puppet, something this interview has done nothing to dispel.
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Interestingly, when I first told this story, quite recently (this only happened a few weeks back) I told it just as a peculiar anecdote, a Whoah What Happened There thing
But it got a big laugh, and I realised people found it funny
Which is kinda my point: we find bad behaviour amusing. Why? One key thing is that you have to get away with it. If a story of roguish idiocy ends with you being carted off to jail, then no one laughs. But if you escape any repercussions, that can be funny
It's like movies and dramas that glorify criminals - you want to see them get away with it, sticking it to The Man
eg I bet Dick Turpin was in reality a foul-mouthed, violent hoodlum, but we love his story because he evades capture and gets away with it (at first)
To bring this back to politics, this is surely part of Boris' debatable "charm". He drives across the vineyard of normal behaviour, and reverses into the olive grove of public opinion. Some find this amusing and ilkeable. Not all, by any means, but enough to sustain his popularity and polling
It depends partly how close you are to someone, doesn't it? I have an ancestor called Black Douglas who executed a peace emissary and sent a message back to the originator saying he could have him back - "He doth but lack his head." Some people are deeply shocked, but most think it's funny, because it was hundreds of years ago. But if it had been my father, I suspect everyone would be appalled.
Similarly (less drastically!) I'd guess your mates experience you as good fun, never predictable and great company. But maybe if they were close relatives, they'd be a bit uneasy?
Leading that back to Johnson, as long as people see him as a clown on stage, they're amused, and think "What a rogue!" But if they're directly affected in some way - e.g. by a perceived bad mistake on Covid - then he suddenly becomes a personal threat, and no longer funny. So it's a perilous performance.
What kind of a clown can answer Cummings by saying "What We Intend To Do Is Build Back Better"!
'Moron' flatters him
Roger. I completely agree. A cringe inducing response from Boris' team.
I thought it was a good interview. I like Laura Kuenssberg and have done for a while. I've not been brave enough to admit this before! She is regularly accused of being Boris' puppet, I think, but the Cummings interview hardly fits that characterisation.
I've also watched the odd Brexitcast and Newscast programme and, maybe I'm naive, but I've found all the journalists on there quite engaging and surprisingly open and relaxed. OK, they don't tell us what they can't or won't tell us.
She was accused of being "Boris' puppet" because until late last year she spent all her time parroting the no10 line via her sole source. And then she lost her,...er, source.
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
What kind of a clown can answer Cummings by saying "What We Intend To Do Is Build Back Better"!
'Moron' flatters him
Roger. I completely agree. A cringe inducing response from Boris' team.
I thought it was a good interview. I like Laura Kuenssberg and have done for a while. I've not been brave enough to admit this before! She is regularly accused of being Boris' puppet, I think, but the Cummings interview hardly fits that characterisation.
I've also watched the odd Brexitcast and Newscast programme and, maybe I'm naive, but I've found all the journalists on there quite engaging and surprisingly open and relaxed. OK, they don't tell us what they can't or won't tell us.
No, she was regularly accused of being Dom's puppet, something this interview has done nothing to dispel.
Disagree. She did the interview skillfully and undermined Cummings - who was good value - in a subtle but effective way. I enjoyed the show. Hope it gets a decent audience.
A number of positive cases in the squad has disrupted manager Mikel Arteta's preparations for the new Premier League season, which gets underway at Brentford on August 13; Arsenal were set to participate in the Florida Cup, alongside Everton, Inter Milan, and Colombian side Millonarios.
Interestingly, when I first told this story, quite recently (this only happened a few weeks back) I told it just as a peculiar anecdote, a Whoah What Happened There thing
But it got a big laugh, and I realised people found it funny
Which is kinda my point: we find bad behaviour amusing. Why? One key thing is that you have to get away with it. If a story of roguish idiocy ends with you being carted off to jail, then no one laughs. But if you escape any repercussions, that can be funny
It's like movies and dramas that glorify criminals - you want to see them get away with it, sticking it to The Man
eg I bet Dick Turpin was in reality a foul-mouthed, violent hoodlum, but we love his story because he evades capture and gets away with it (at first)
To bring this back to politics, this is surely part of Boris' debatable "charm". He drives across the vineyard of normal behaviour, and reverses into the olive grove of public opinion. Some find this amusing and ilkeable. Not all, by any means, but enough to sustain his popularity and polling
It depends partly how close you are to someone, doesn't it? I have an ancestor called Black Douglas who executed a peace emissary and sent a message back to the originator saying he could have him back - "He doth but lack his head." Some people are deeply shocked, but most think it's funny, because it was hundreds of years ago. But if it had been my father, I suspect everyone would be appalled.
Similarly (less drastically!) I'd guess your mates experience you as good fun, never predictable and great company. But maybe if they were close relatives, they'd be a bit uneasy?
Leading that back to Johnson, as long as people see him as a clown on stage, they're amused, and think "What a rogue!" But if they're directly affected in some way - e.g. by a perceived bad mistake on Covid - then he suddenly becomes a personal threat, and no longer funny. So it's a perilous performance.
Yes, it is
The vituperation Boris receives from his foes is at least equal to the indulgence he gets from his fans. Brexit seriously distressed many people and they can never forgive Boris. They hate him for it, with a passion I find quite perplexing, but it is real - just as real as my Mum's attitude, which is Oh Boris makes me laugh - and she ignores all the bad stuff because of that
The comparisons between Boris and Berlusconi get closer and closer, by the day, which, as someone that voted for Brexit and the Tories, makes me evermore uncomfortable
(As for me, I try not to be the idiot these days because, yes, relatives and kids. But the odd moment sneaks through)
At the end of May, after Hartlepool, the Conservative ratings were in the range 42 - 46 %, with an average about 44 %. Before tonight, the average is about 42 %, and the individual readings before tonight were in the range 40 - 44%. There are still some very chunky Conservative leads coming out, but the Giga Leads of late May/early June have stopped. A 39 score is probably at bottom of the swarm at the moment, but within the direction the swarm is moving.
The interesting thing is the momentum aspect. Part of the reason for Johnson's high ratings has been that he's seen as a winner. How do we know he's still a winner? He has high ratings. Part of Starmer's polling problem has been the perception that he's not a winner. And we know he's not a winner because he does badly in the polls.
Those sort of feedback loops are normally really hard to break out of.
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
But the Brits and Germans have been mixing freely in Spain for weeks (I witnessed it in Majorca)
A number of positive cases in the squad has disrupted manager Mikel Arteta's preparations for the new Premier League season, which gets underway at Brentford on August 13; Arsenal were set to participate in the Florida Cup, alongside Everton, Inter Milan, and Colombian side Millonarios.
What kind of a clown can answer Cummings by saying "What We Intend To Do Is Build Back Better"!
'Moron' flatters him
Roger. I completely agree. A cringe inducing response from Boris' team.
I thought it was a good interview. I like Laura Kuenssberg and have done for a while. I've not been brave enough to admit this before! She is regularly accused of being Boris' puppet, I think, but the Cummings interview hardly fits that characterisation.
I've also watched the odd Brexitcast and Newscast programme and, maybe I'm naive, but I've found all the journalists on there quite engaging and surprisingly open and relaxed. OK, they don't tell us what they can't or won't tell us.
No, she was regularly accused of being Dom's puppet, something this interview has done nothing to dispel.
Re; the Lib Dem poll boost, stories like this one aren't helping the government with that support, and Starmer is beginning to be identified by some as a Blair-like figure who's quiet on civil liberties, in the hope of triangulating.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
A number of positive cases in the squad has disrupted manager Mikel Arteta's preparations for the new Premier League season, which gets underway at Brentford on August 13; Arsenal were set to participate in the Florida Cup, alongside Everton, Inter Milan, and Colombian side Millonarios.
After last summers covid shit show, you would thought they had herd immunity by now....
Re; the Lib Dem poll boost, stories like this one aren't helping the government with that support, and Starmer is beginning to be identified by some as a Blair-like figure who's quiet on civil liberties, in the hope of triangulating.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
Leaked secrets that embarrass the government: Matt Hancock; expenses; the PM's a shopping trolley.
Does the phrase, "have no defence in law" actually mean anything any more after that Xtinction Rebellion case? The judge told the jury the defendants had no defence in law, and they acquitted them anyway?
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
But the Brits and Germans have been mixing freely in Spain for weeks (I witnessed it in Majorca)
The German numbers do not make sense
Perhaps prudent if you avoid commenting on Germans?
What kind of a clown can answer Cummings by saying "What We Intend To Do Is Build Back Better"!
'Moron' flatters him
Roger. I completely agree. A cringe inducing response from Boris' team.
I thought it was a good interview. I like Laura Kuenssberg and have done for a while. I've not been brave enough to admit this before! She is regularly accused of being Boris' puppet, I think, but the Cummings interview hardly fits that characterisation.
I've also watched the odd Brexitcast and Newscast programme and, maybe I'm naive, but I've found all the journalists on there quite engaging and surprisingly open and relaxed. OK, they don't tell us what they can't or won't tell us.
No, she was regularly accused of being Dom's puppet, something this interview has done nothing to dispel.
I thought the Cummings interview disappointing. I wanted to know more about how Cummings saw the government dynamics of dealing with Brexit and Covid. Laura Kuenssberg seemed more interested in challenging Cummings' own actions at various points like Castle Barnard. At the end of the hour, I did not feel I'd learned anything.
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
Re; the Lib Dem poll boost, stories like this one aren't helping the government with that support, and Starmer is beginning to be identified by some as a Blair-like figure who's quiet on civil liberties, in the hope of triangulating.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
Leaked secrets that embarrass the government: Matt Hancock; expenses; the PM's a shopping trolley.
Does the phrase, "have no defence in law" actually mean anything any more after that Xtinction Rebellion case? The judge told the jury the defendants had no defence in law, and they acquitted them anyway?
Jury can acquit even if the defendant is obviously guilty. It’s called jury nullification.
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
But the Brits and Germans have been mixing freely in Spain for weeks (I witnessed it in Majorca)
The German numbers do not make sense
Sure they do.
Like everything in this pandemic, it just takes some time for things to be reflected in the numbers. Let's say 100 Germans come back from Spain having caught Covid from Brits. Most of them probably will be young and won't have had positive tests before travelling back. If they have only mild symptoms, then it almost certainly won't show up in the figures.
But three weeks later, that 100 has become 500, and there has been some more seeding, and numbers are rising fast.
A month later, and there are 20,000 cases in Germany.
Re-Cyclefree's excellent thread. I am very late to the discussion but do wish to point out something which appears to have been pretty well ignored by all contributors here - namely that for the last quarter of 2020 Labour was more often than not in the lead! That occurred within a year of the 2019 election - that did not happen so early in the Parliaments of both 1959 and 1987.The vaccine bounce restored Johnson's position - at least in part - but to suggest that Labour gaining the lead under Starmer is unlikely, is contradicted by the facts - in that it has already happened!
Re; the Lib Dem poll boost, stories like this one aren't helping the government with that support, and Starmer is beginning to be identified by some as a Blair-like figure who's quiet on civil liberties, in the hope of triangulating.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
Leaked secrets that embarrass the government: Matt Hancock; expenses; the PM's a shopping trolley.
Does the phrase, "have no defence in law" actually mean anything any more after that Xtinction Rebellion case? The judge told the jury the defendants had no defence in law, and they acquitted them anyway?
We gave them Peppa Pig; they gave us jury nullification. Thanks to Hollywood, we've all heard of jury nullification, where juries acquit because they feel it is the right thing to do, despite technical guilt on a bad law. (Having said that, I can't think of any such films.)
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
Dead easy to do, unfortunately. All you need is a phone with the date and time manually altered.
But proving something like that to be a forgery is less easy. You would have to show they couldn’t have been sent.
Anyone who trusts Cummings is a fool, I am afraid. He’s repeatedly proven he would make Goebbels look positively honest. At least Goebbels didn’t falsify his own backstory.*
*I’m not going bail for Hitler or Himmler there.
Cummings is an absolute charlatan, and I say that as a disappointed former Remainer whose future has been directly affected by Cummings's foolish 1950s fantasy. Nonetheless the target of his current ire is also an absolute charlatan whose naked ambition, facilitated by someone else's 1950s fantasy has ruined my future plans.
What kind of a clown can answer Cummings by saying "What We Intend To Do Is Build Back Better"!
'Moron' flatters him
Roger. I completely agree. A cringe inducing response from Boris' team.
I thought it was a good interview. I like Laura Kuenssberg and have done for a while. I've not been brave enough to admit this before! She is regularly accused of being Boris' puppet, I think, but the Cummings interview hardly fits that characterisation.
I've also watched the odd Brexitcast and Newscast programme and, maybe I'm naive, but I've found all the journalists on there quite engaging and surprisingly open and relaxed. OK, they don't tell us what they can't or won't tell us.
Hi Stjohn. I heard a more startling piece of gossip about Laura K.than being Boris's puppet. But I like her too and she's certainly got energy. It's tiring just watching her and hardly ever the same outfit twice
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
But the Brits and Germans have been mixing freely in Spain for weeks (I witnessed it in Majorca)
The German numbers do not make sense
Sure they do.
Like everything in this pandemic, it just takes some time for things to be reflected in the numbers. Let's say 100 Germans come back from Spain having caught Covid from Brits. Most of them probably will be young and won't have had positive tests before travelling back. If they have only mild symptoms, then it almost certainly won't show up in the figures.
But three weeks later, that 100 has become 500, and there has been some more seeding, and numbers are rising fast.
A month later, and there are 20,000 cases in Germany.
But they don't make sense because Germany's near neighbours all have big figures
eg Netherlands. Culturally very similar to Germany, shares a long open border with Germany, should not be any different to Germany, yet the Netherlands has been reporting big daily cases for a while - today it's 6,700, recently it's been over 10,000 a day
Germany, which is five times bigger than Holland, is experiencing ten times fewer cases?
That's an enormous discrepancy. I don't believe it. There is Something Going On
Re; the Lib Dem poll boost, stories like this one aren't helping the government with that support, and Starmer is beginning to be identified by some as a Blair-like figure who's quiet on civil liberties, in the hope of triangulating.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
Leaked secrets that embarrass the government: Matt Hancock; expenses; the PM's a shopping trolley.
Does the phrase, "have no defence in law" actually mean anything any more after that Xtinction Rebellion case? The judge told the jury the defendants had no defence in law, and they acquitted them anyway?
Jury can acquit even if the defendant is obviously guilty. It’s called jury nullification.
If the judge had told me the defendants had no defence in law and I was on the jury, I wouldn't agree to a not guilty verdict tbh. Well not for xtinction rebellion. The public 12 have been a right bunch of yoghurt knitters
The point about Cummings is that if he pulls the evidence out to back up the fruitier claims - and so far he has - you can call him whatever names you like. It isn't going to be Cummings word hanging the Clown, it will be his own
The problem is you can’t trust his evidence, because he’s a well-known forger as well as a liar.
Hes forged the WhatsApp and texts? So why haven't Number 10 destroyed them and him...?
Everything he says about Johnson, Mancock et al is true and he has the evidence to prove it.
Dead easy to do, unfortunately. All you need is a phone with the date and time manually altered.
But proving something like that to be a forgery is less easy. You would have to show they couldn’t have been sent.
Anyone who trusts Cummings is a fool, I am afraid. He’s repeatedly proven he would make Goebbels look positively honest. At least Goebbels didn’t falsify his own backstory.*
*I’m not going bail for Hitler or Himmler there.
Cummings is an absolute charlatan, and I say that as a disappointed former Remainer whose future has been directly affected by Cummings's foolish 1950s fantasy. Nonetheless the target of his current ire is also an absolute charlatan whose naked ambition, facilitated by someone else's 1950s fantasy has ruined my future plans.
Both are unreliable b***ards,. Who to believe?
P.S. Clue: it's not Johnson
I’m quite happy to disbelieve both of them, actually.
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
Spanish Flu killed 17-18 million in India.
"In his memoirs the Hindi poet, Suryakant Tripathi, wrote "Ganga was swollen with dead bodies." The sanitary commissioner's report for 1918 also noted that all rivers across India were clogged up with bodies,[12] because of a shortage of firewood for cremation.[15]"
Re; the Lib Dem poll boost, stories like this one aren't helping the government with that support, and Starmer is beginning to be identified by some as a Blair-like figure who's quiet on civil liberties, in the hope of triangulating.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
Leaked secrets that embarrass the government: Matt Hancock; expenses; the PM's a shopping trolley.
Does the phrase, "have no defence in law" actually mean anything any more after that Xtinction Rebellion case? The judge told the jury the defendants had no defence in law, and they acquitted them anyway?
Jury can acquit even if the defendant is obviously guilty. It’s called jury nullification.
If the judge had told me the defendants had no defence in law and I was on the jury, I wouldn't agree to a not guilty verdict tbh. Well not for xtinction rebellion. The public 12 have been a right bunch of yoghurt knitters
Whoever the defendents I don't think would agree to that given that direction. I know they are able to, but I don't think I have it in me even if I liked the defendents or thought a law was crazy, I'm too much of a rule follower.
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
But the Brits and Germans have been mixing freely in Spain for weeks (I witnessed it in Majorca)
The German numbers do not make sense
Sure they do.
Like everything in this pandemic, it just takes some time for things to be reflected in the numbers. Let's say 100 Germans come back from Spain having caught Covid from Brits. Most of them probably will be young and won't have had positive tests before travelling back. If they have only mild symptoms, then it almost certainly won't show up in the figures.
But three weeks later, that 100 has become 500, and there has been some more seeding, and numbers are rising fast.
A month later, and there are 20,000 cases in Germany.
But they don't make sense because Germany's near neighbours all have big figures
eg Netherlands. Culturally very similar to Germany, shares a long open border with Germany, should not be any different to Germany, yet the Netherlands has been reporting big daily cases for a while - today it's 6,700, recently it's been over 10,000 a day
Germany, which is five times bigger than Holland, is experiencing ten times fewer cases?
That's an enormous discrepancy. I don't believe it. There is Something Going On
But that happens in the US too. Or in Europe before Christmas when Belgium was Covid central and it's neighbours were (temporarily) smugly superior.
Now the same broad trends that happened in the Netherlands, Spain, etc. will apply to Germany - just a little while later - so in six weeks time, Germany will have 20,000 cases a day.
Throughout this pandemic, people have had a tendency to imagine luck (or bad luck) is a sign of something mysterious. It's not. It's just luck.
Interestingly, when I first told this story, quite recently (this only happened a few weeks back) I told it just as a peculiar anecdote, a Whoah What Happened There thing
But it got a big laugh, and I realised people found it funny
Which is kinda my point: we find bad behaviour amusing. Why? One key thing is that you have to get away with it. If a story of roguish idiocy ends with you being carted off to jail, then no one laughs. But if you escape any repercussions, that can be funny
It's like movies and dramas that glorify criminals - you want to see them get away with it, sticking it to The Man
eg I bet Dick Turpin was in reality a foul-mouthed, violent hoodlum, but we love his story because he evades capture and gets away with it (at first)
To bring this back to politics, this is surely part of Boris' debatable "charm". He drives across the vineyard of normal behaviour, and reverses into the olive grove of public opinion. Some find this amusing and ilkeable. Not all, by any means, but enough to sustain his popularity and polling
It depends partly how close you are to someone, doesn't it? I have an ancestor called Black Douglas who executed a peace emissary and sent a message back to the originator saying he could have him back - "He doth but lack his head." Some people are deeply shocked, but most think it's funny, because it was hundreds of years ago. But if it had been my father, I suspect everyone would be appalled.
Similarly (less drastically!) I'd guess your mates experience you as good fun, never predictable and great company. But maybe if they were close relatives, they'd be a bit uneasy?
Leading that back to Johnson, as long as people see him as a clown on stage, they're amused, and think "What a rogue!" But if they're directly affected in some way - e.g. by a perceived bad mistake on Covid - then he suddenly becomes a personal threat, and no longer funny. So it's a perilous performance.
Ah yes, one of the liberators of Scotland beside the Bruce. But given his original treatment at the hands of Edward Longshanks (no charmer he), it's not entirely surprising. Justifiability is another matter entirely.
Re; the Lib Dem poll boost, stories like this one aren't helping the government with that support, and Starmer is beginning to be identified by some as a Blair-like figure who's quiet on civil liberties, in the hope of triangulating.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
Leaked secrets that embarrass the government: Matt Hancock; expenses; the PM's a shopping trolley.
Does the phrase, "have no defence in law" actually mean anything any more after that Xtinction Rebellion case? The judge told the jury the defendants had no defence in law, and they acquitted them anyway?
Jury can acquit even if the defendant is obviously guilty. It’s called jury nullification.
If the judge had told me the defendants had no defence in law and I was on the jury, I wouldn't agree to a not guilty verdict tbh. Well not for xtinction rebellion. The public 12 have been a right bunch of yoghurt knitters
If you don't think they should be acquitted, it's your call. You're on the jury.
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
Spanish Flu killed 17-18 million in India.
"In his memoirs the Hindi poet, Suryakant Tripathi, wrote "Ganga was swollen with dead bodies." The sanitary commissioner's report for 1918 also noted that all rivers across India were clogged up with bodies,[12] because of a shortage of firewood for cremation.[15]"
Re; the Lib Dem poll boost, stories like this one aren't helping the government with that support, and Starmer is beginning to be identified by some as a Blair-like figure who's quiet on civil liberties, in the hope of triangulating.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
Leaked secrets that embarrass the government: Matt Hancock; expenses; the PM's a shopping trolley.
Does the phrase, "have no defence in law" actually mean anything any more after that Xtinction Rebellion case? The judge told the jury the defendants had no defence in law, and they acquitted them anyway?
We gave them Peppa Pig; they gave us jury nullification. Thanks to Hollywood, we've all heard of jury nullification, where juries acquit because they feel it is the right thing to do, despite technical guilt on a bad law. (Having said that, I can't think of any such films.)
I think it a much older principle, going back to the Penn case in the late 17th Century. Penn (of Pennsylvania fame later on) was arrested with a fellow Quaker for preaching unlawfully. He quite obviously had been, and the Judge directed the Jury to convict. They refused to do so, so the Judge locked the jury up too. After a time the judge relented and both the preachers were released along with the Jury. I think Penn was found guilty of the lesser offence of not removing his hat.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Toryism has always been about protecting your inheritance and family estates in large part, it was the Tories of course who were originally the party of the landed gentry, the Whigs then Liberals the party of the merchant class and then the Labour Party until recently the party of the working class (now the party of the public sector and the youngest voters)
Yes, I think that correct. Toryism has always been about protecting privilege, financial, status and generational. Usually it has done this by buying off enough aspirational middle class.
It is why the redistributive pork barrelling of its newly acquired working class vote may well run into problems.
It's not about that actually, it's about scepticism towards change.
There's a critical role for that in our political system because otherwise progressives would have no counterweight; they'd try to blow up everything with radical change rooted in the latest ideologies, some of which would be mad, and society would splinter and be at each others' throats.
Conservatives recognise that gradual change is preferable, so bad ideas can be filtered out and complex ones mitigated, as society can then remain stable and thus the economy can safely grow.
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
But the Brits and Germans have been mixing freely in Spain for weeks (I witnessed it in Majorca)
The German numbers do not make sense
Perhaps prudent if you avoid commenting on Germans?
This is consistent with the slowish increase of the last couple of weeks. Probably the increase is a bit higher, bit with everyone on holiday there's a bit less testing. Why delta is slower to take off in Germany I don't know, but I wouldn't say the German numbers do not make sense.
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
But the Brits and Germans have been mixing freely in Spain for weeks (I witnessed it in Majorca)
The German numbers do not make sense
Sure they do.
Like everything in this pandemic, it just takes some time for things to be reflected in the numbers. Let's say 100 Germans come back from Spain having caught Covid from Brits. Most of them probably will be young and won't have had positive tests before travelling back. If they have only mild symptoms, then it almost certainly won't show up in the figures.
But three weeks later, that 100 has become 500, and there has been some more seeding, and numbers are rising fast.
A month later, and there are 20,000 cases in Germany.
But they don't make sense because Germany's near neighbours all have big figures
eg Netherlands. Culturally very similar to Germany, shares a long open border with Germany, should not be any different to Germany, yet the Netherlands has been reporting big daily cases for a while - today it's 6,700, recently it's been over 10,000 a day
Germany, which is five times bigger than Holland, is experiencing ten times fewer cases?
That's an enormous discrepancy. I don't believe it. There is Something Going On
But that happens in the US too. Or in Europe before Christmas when Belgium was Covid central and it's neighbours were (temporarily) smugly superior.
Now the same broad trends that happened in the Netherlands, Spain, etc. will apply to Germany - just a little while later - so in six weeks time, Germany will have 20,000 cases a day.
Throughout this pandemic, people have had a tendency to imagine luck (or bad luck) is a sign of something mysterious. It's not. It's just luck.
Perhaps it is a bit of both
If Worldometer is right, Germany does surprisingly few tests. It is waaaaaay down the list on tests per M - behind UK, USA, France, Spain, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden etc etc etc - it does fewer tests than any advanced western nation (except NZ)
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Toryism has always been about protecting your inheritance and family estates in large part, it was the Tories of course who were originally the party of the landed gentry, the Whigs then Liberals the party of the merchant class and then the Labour Party until recently the party of the working class (now the party of the public sector and the youngest voters)
Yes, I think that correct. Toryism has always been about protecting privilege, financial, status and generational. Usually it has done this by buying off enough aspirational middle class.
It is why the redistributive pork barrelling of its newly acquired working class vote may well run into problems.
It's not about that actually, it's about scepticism towards change.
There's a critical role for that in our political system because otherwise progressives would have no counterweight; they'd try to blow up everything with radical change rooted in the latest ideologies, some of which would be mad, and society would splinter and be at each others' throats.
Conservatives recognise that gradual change is preferable, so bad ideas can be filtered out and complex ones mitigated, as society can then remain stable and thus the economy can safely grow.
I think that much the same. Conservatives like the established privileges and don't want to see them changed.
Re; the Lib Dem poll boost, stories like this one aren't helping the government with that support, and Starmer is beginning to be identified by some as a Blair-like figure who's quiet on civil liberties, in the hope of triangulating.
Journalists could face prison sentences of up to 14 years for stories that embarrass the Government under plans to reform the Official Secrets Act
Leaked secrets that embarrass the government: Matt Hancock; expenses; the PM's a shopping trolley.
Does the phrase, "have no defence in law" actually mean anything any more after that Xtinction Rebellion case? The judge told the jury the defendants had no defence in law, and they acquitted them anyway?
Sure, but that's always been the case, when juries have been swayed by a particular argument from a defendant, right back to the 17th century - and you might throw in the conflict between John Wilkes and the law into the mix too.
So is the Bezos story better than the Branson story?
Well, they were both somewhat disappointing as both appear to have returned to Earth rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to return head off to another planet.
What was it about Bezos that put him in the bellend of a giant phallus? 🤔
Hmmm...that’s a hard one.
At least he came to a happy ending.
They should have landed in the same place as Yuri Gargarin.
Then it would be seamen at the end of the penis’ lift off.
Point of order: it was peasants at the end of Yuri Gagarin's flight. It was the Yank astronauts who had the joy of a matelots' welcome (after the chimps before them, admittedly).
Bollocks. That ruins that joke.
Where would we be without PB pedants?
On that front, I was too busy on the shed today to comment on the Richard Murphy omission of an ellipsis, which isn't far off peak pedantry. Did anyone comment on the Tory politician who deleted whole swathes of Wealth of a Nation in his 1980s (IIRC) edition of the book? Including, IIRC, Smith's famous comments on the defects of a pure free market. Was that Keith Joseph? I remember being astounded to discover this, but then I was young and green at the time.
My other favourtie ellipsis politics story is the Scottish Parliament and the wider Scottish political and journalistic community having to waste hours a few years back on a story issued by Slab who had spotted a dodgy quotation in a Scottish Governemnt (then prop: SNP) [edit] document which DELETED WORDS THAT WERE IN THE ORIGINAL. The slab politico fronting this sure thing of an assault could not be made to understand that that little square bracket, a few dots, and another squarew bracket meant anything ...
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
But the Brits and Germans have been mixing freely in Spain for weeks (I witnessed it in Majorca)
The German numbers do not make sense
Perhaps prudent if you avoid commenting on Germans?
This is consistent with the slowish increase of the last couple of weeks. Probably the increase is a bit higher, bit with everyone on holiday there's a bit less testing. Why delta is slower to take off in Germany I don't know, but I wouldn't say the German numbers do not make sense.
Worldometer
I am very happy to be corrected as this is genuinely mystifying me
Actually, digging deeper it looks like Worldometer is confused: it says "633" German cases in the main table, but in the footnotes it records "1,626 new cases"
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Toryism has always been about protecting your inheritance and family estates in large part, it was the Tories of course who were originally the party of the landed gentry, the Whigs then Liberals the party of the merchant class and then the Labour Party until recently the party of the working class (now the party of the public sector and the youngest voters)
Yes, I think that correct. Toryism has always been about protecting privilege, financial, status and generational. Usually it has done this by buying off enough aspirational middle class.
It is why the redistributive pork barrelling of its newly acquired working class vote may well run into problems.
It's not about that actually, it's about scepticism towards change.
There's a critical role for that in our political system because otherwise progressives would have no counterweight; they'd try to blow up everything with radical change rooted in the latest ideologies, some of which would be mad, and society would splinter and be at each others' throats.
Conservatives recognise that gradual change is preferable, so bad ideas can be filtered out and complex ones mitigated, as society can then remain stable and thus the economy can safely grow.
I think that much the same. Conservatives like the established privileges and don't want to see them changed.
I'd put it differently: change in order to conserve.
If the Conservatives were truly like you say they'd have gone the way of the Bourbons a long time ago.
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
But the Brits and Germans have been mixing freely in Spain for weeks (I witnessed it in Majorca)
The German numbers do not make sense
Sure they do.
Like everything in this pandemic, it just takes some time for things to be reflected in the numbers. Let's say 100 Germans come back from Spain having caught Covid from Brits. Most of them probably will be young and won't have had positive tests before travelling back. If they have only mild symptoms, then it almost certainly won't show up in the figures.
But three weeks later, that 100 has become 500, and there has been some more seeding, and numbers are rising fast.
A month later, and there are 20,000 cases in Germany.
But they don't make sense because Germany's near neighbours all have big figures
eg Netherlands. Culturally very similar to Germany, shares a long open border with Germany, should not be any different to Germany, yet the Netherlands has been reporting big daily cases for a while - today it's 6,700, recently it's been over 10,000 a day
Germany, which is five times bigger than Holland, is experiencing ten times fewer cases?
That's an enormous discrepancy. I don't believe it. There is Something Going On
But that happens in the US too. Or in Europe before Christmas when Belgium was Covid central and it's neighbours were (temporarily) smugly superior.
Now the same broad trends that happened in the Netherlands, Spain, etc. will apply to Germany - just a little while later - so in six weeks time, Germany will have 20,000 cases a day.
Throughout this pandemic, people have had a tendency to imagine luck (or bad luck) is a sign of something mysterious. It's not. It's just luck.
Perhaps it is a bit of both
If Worldometer is right, Germany does surprisingly few tests. It is waaaaaay down the list on tests per M - behind UK, USA, France, Spain, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden etc etc etc - it does fewer tests than any advanced western nation (except NZ)
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
So is the Bezos story better than the Branson story?
Well, they were both somewhat disappointing as both appear to have returned to Earth rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to return head off to another planet.
What was it about Bezos that put him in the bellend of a giant phallus? 🤔
Hmmm...that’s a hard one.
At least he came to a happy ending.
They should have landed in the same place as Yuri Gargarin.
Then it would be seamen at the end of the penis’ lift off.
Point of order: it was peasants at the end of Yuri Gagarin's flight. It was the Yank astronauts who had the joy of a matelots' welcome (after the chimps before them, admittedly).
Bollocks. That ruins that joke.
PS One of the disappointments of Mr Bezos's atmosphere craft is the lack thereof.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
As you are more of a liberal than a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
What an extraordinary attitude from an elected public official. You do realise how much damage you do the Conservative brand don’t you?
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
The Telegraph says up to 5 million.
The UK's death toll would be 2.6 million if it was the same population as India.
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
Or there are no English people travelling to Germany (remember they have (/had?) a quarantine in place. So the pace of spread is currently very slow. Whether it will rapidly pick up via Spain and France in a few weeks...
But the Brits and Germans have been mixing freely in Spain for weeks (I witnessed it in Majorca)
The German numbers do not make sense
Perhaps prudent if you avoid commenting on Germans?
This is consistent with the slowish increase of the last couple of weeks. Probably the increase is a bit higher, bit with everyone on holiday there's a bit less testing. Why delta is slower to take off in Germany I don't know, but I wouldn't say the German numbers do not make sense.
Worldometer
I am very happy to be corrected as this is genuinely mystifying me
Actually, digging deeper it looks like Worldometer is confused: it says "633" German cases in the main table, but in the footnotes it records "1,626 new cases"
Germany doesn't have a single daily update. It has multiple updates every day.
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
The Telegraph says up to 5 million.
Bloody hell
I recall reading the claim, weeks back, that the Indian death toll was understated "ten to fifteen times" judging by the amount of cremations taking place compared with normality
Something in me rebelled against this, and pigeon holed it as "alarmism"
Now it seems it is true. Grim
I wonder if we will ever know the true death toll in China. It beggars belief that 1.4 billion Indians can suffer 5 million dead, with more to come, and neighbouring China, with a similarly vast population, has just.... 4,600 dead?
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
I believe in preserving capital from excess tax as a Tory yes not just income, I am not a liberal like you who favours taxing capital over income and nor am I a socialist who favours heavily taxing both.
Plus NI was set up originally to partly fund healthcare anyway.
As you are a liberal not a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
I never said tax capital, did I? People paying for their own requirements with their own capital isn't a tax.
Besides what I said is I think it is unacceptable to have a tax that is levied on some people's income but not others, that is then used to bribe the voters who don't pay the tax on their incomes. If you want to see this tax raised to bribe voters then make sure the bribed voters have to pay for the tax themselves.
Remove the age-related exemption to NI so NI is paid in full by over 65s and see if they still want to see NI raised. If they do, fair enough, increase it to 13% and charge 13% on pension etc income too just like work-related incomes pay. If they don't, then levying the tax on the workers is not OK to provide more benefits to pensioners.
It is a tax, it is forcing your family to sell the family home on your death and give the proceeds of sale to the government to fund the care you received in your own home.
In any case it is not pensioners who would benefit from inheriting their family home, it is their middle aged children and ultimately their grandchildren over time, so it is right they should pay most of the NI therefore for their parents social care
Lol. Toryism is apparently having the state pay for your social care. “Tax” my arse.
Its having the state pay for your social care in order to protect his inheritance.
Toryism has always been about protecting your inheritance and family estates in large part, it was the Tories of course who were originally the party of the landed gentry, the Whigs then Liberals the party of the merchant class and then the Labour Party until recently the party of the working class (now the party of the public sector and the youngest voters)
Yes, I think that correct. Toryism has always been about protecting privilege, financial, status and generational. Usually it has done this by buying off enough aspirational middle class.
It is why the redistributive pork barrelling of its newly acquired working class vote may well run into problems.
It's not about that actually, it's about scepticism towards change.
There's a critical role for that in our political system because otherwise progressives would have no counterweight; they'd try to blow up everything with radical change rooted in the latest ideologies, some of which would be mad, and society would splinter and be at each others' throats.
Conservatives recognise that gradual change is preferable, so bad ideas can be filtered out and complex ones mitigated, as society can then remain stable and thus the economy can safely grow.
I think that much the same. Conservatives like the established privileges and don't want to see them changed.
I'd put it differently: change in order to conserve.
If the Conservatives were truly like you say they'd have gone the way of the Bourbons a long time ago.
They scatter just enough crumbs to create sufficient false consciousness to keep them in office.
Previously it was Smithers-Jones and The Man in the Corner Shop who were taken in. Now it is Billy Hunt.
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
The Telegraph says up to 5 million.
The UK's death toll would be 2.6 million if it was the same population as India.
Wait, are you saying 3% of the population of India have died of Covid?
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
The Telegraph says up to 5 million.
The UK's death toll would be 2.6 million if it was the same population as India.
Yes, it's about twice as high as the UK pro-rata. But of course we have an older population the other way too.
It's what an overwhelmed NHS would have looked like here with collapse, I guess. An extra 150k dead or so. Probably pushing 300k overall.
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
The Telegraph says up to 5 million.
Bloody hell
I recall reading the claim, weeks back, that the Indian death toll was understated "ten to fifteen times" judging by the amount of cremations taking place compared with normality
Something in me rebelled against this, and pigeon holed it as "alarmism"
Now it seems it is true. Grim
I wonder if we will ever know the true death toll in China. It beggars belief that 1.4 billion Indians can suffer 5 million dead, with more to come, and neighbouring China, with a similarly vast population, has just.... 4,600 dead?
A thousand times fewer. Really? How?
It’s the great mystery of our age how covid didn’t ravage every corner of China, given the millions of people that travelled from or passed through Wuhan the week before their Chinese New Year lockdown.
No one serious seems to want to talk about it because it raises quite uncomfortable possibilities. Better to just ignore it.
If India has truly suffered 5 million dead, with more to come - relentlessly, it comes - then it looks like Covid will probably kill 25-30 million humans in its first two or three years, maybe a lot more
That makes it likely the third worst pandemic in history, in sheer numbers, behind only the Flu of 1918 and the Black Death
We are, unfortunately, living through interesting times
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
The Telegraph says up to 5 million.
The UK's death toll would be 2.6 million if it was the same population as India.
Yes, it's about twice as high as the UK pro-rata. But of course we have an older population the other way too.
It's what an overwhelmed NHS would have looked like here with collapse, I guess. An extra 150k dead or so. Probably pushing 300k overall.
82% of over-65s support a tax increase that is only paid by under-65s, in order to provide more funding to over 65s?
Well blow me down with a feather!
There is no greater love than this: that a person would rob his grandchildren for the sake of himself.
The grandchildren will still inherit the house ultimately if no dementia tax
So the grandchildren should be facing even more taxes while struggling to raise a deposit to pay for their own home, or to pay to put food on the table for their own children, in the hopes that in a few decades their own parents die and can have an inheritance? 🤔
You're perverted if you think that's right.
Grandparents and parents can help with a deposit too and of course the NI the young and middle aged pay will fund the social care many of them will get when they get to old age.
I am a Tory and a conservative and not a liberal like you as I believe in family and preserving assets in the family
You believe in robbing the working in order to preserve assets for those who could pay for their own care but would rather not.
If punishing people who work in order to protect the wealth of the elite is your version of "conservativism" then I want nothing to do with it.
As you are more of a liberal than a conservative you are quite welcome to go to the LDs, would not bother me at all if you did
What an extraordinary attitude from an elected public official. You do realise how much damage you do the Conservative brand don’t you?
The opposite, it was Philip Thompson pushing a second dementia tax, a policy which almost lost May the 2017 election.
He has himself said he is a liberal not a conservative
These UK-French spats/disagreements are like groundhog day. Ultimately they always end up asking for the same things (UK ask French to control their border, French ask the UK to pay for it) and end in the same outcome.
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
The Telegraph says up to 5 million.
Bloody hell
I recall reading the claim, weeks back, that the Indian death toll was understated "ten to fifteen times" judging by the amount of cremations taking place compared with normality
Something in me rebelled against this, and pigeon holed it as "alarmism"
Now it seems it is true. Grim
I wonder if we will ever know the true death toll in China. It beggars belief that 1.4 billion Indians can suffer 5 million dead, with more to come, and neighbouring China, with a similarly vast population, has just.... 4,600 dead?
A thousand times fewer. Really? How?
China's stats are implausible.
But they have a strong track and trace system, and welding ensures compliance with isolation.
If India has truly suffered 5 million dead, with more to come - relentlessly, it comes - then it looks like Covid will probably kill 25-30 million humans in its first two or three years, maybe a lot more
That makes it likely the third worst pandemic in history, in sheer numbers, behind only the Flu of 1918 and the Black Death
We are, unfortunately, living through interesting times
Yes but in 1918 they had just come off millions of dead in WW1 too and the Black Death was the same time as the Hundred Years War
Comments
There's no such rage as love to hatred turned
Johnson incessantly tries to invite us to compare himself to Churchill, despite even many of his supporters being able to see that he isn’t even in the same league.
So now you’re inviting us to compare yourself with Johnson….
At least that's what our own EU loving mentalists were saying a couple of months ago anyway.
Survation's final poll of 2019 had an 11% Tory lead which again was almost spot on
Or, of course, it's an outlier.
https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1417559512538550278?s=20
https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1417559517093634049?s=20
I thought it was a good interview. I like Laura Kuenssberg and have done for a while. I've not been brave enough to admit this before! She is regularly accused of being Boris' puppet, I think, but the Cummings interview hardly fits that characterisation.
I've also watched the odd Brexitcast and Newscast programme and, maybe I'm naive, but I've found all the journalists on there quite engaging and surprisingly open and relaxed. OK, they don't tell us what they can't or won't tell us.
France: 18,000 cases
Spain: 27,000 cases
Germany: er, 633 cases
Either they have rebuilt the Maginot line in reverse, and done it so well they can keep out microbes, or the Germans are seriously under-testing... or something else?
https://twitter.com/RitaBai/status/1417500299669868544?s=19
Similarly (less drastically!) I'd guess your mates experience you as good fun, never predictable and great company. But maybe if they were close relatives, they'd be a bit uneasy?
Leading that back to Johnson, as long as people see him as a clown on stage, they're amused, and think "What a rogue!" But if they're directly affected in some way - e.g. by a perceived bad mistake on Covid - then he suddenly becomes a personal threat, and no longer funny. So it's a perilous performance.
A number of positive cases in the squad has disrupted manager Mikel Arteta's preparations for the new Premier League season, which gets underway at Brentford on August 13; Arsenal were set to participate in the Florida Cup, alongside Everton, Inter Milan, and Colombian side Millonarios.
The vituperation Boris receives from his foes is at least equal to the indulgence he gets from his fans. Brexit seriously distressed many people and they can never forgive Boris. They hate him for it, with a passion I find quite perplexing, but it is real - just as real as my Mum's attitude, which is Oh Boris makes me laugh - and she ignores all the bad stuff because of that
The comparisons between Boris and Berlusconi get closer and closer, by the day, which, as someone that voted for Brexit and the Tories, makes me evermore uncomfortable
(As for me, I try not to be the idiot these days because, yes, relatives and kids. But the odd moment sneaks through)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
At the end of May, after Hartlepool, the Conservative ratings were in the range 42 - 46 %, with an average about 44 %. Before tonight, the average is about 42 %, and the individual readings before tonight were in the range 40 - 44%. There are still some very chunky Conservative leads coming out, but the Giga Leads of late May/early June have stopped. A 39 score is probably at bottom of the swarm at the moment, but within the direction the swarm is moving.
The interesting thing is the momentum aspect. Part of the reason for Johnson's high ratings has been that he's seen as a winner. How do we know he's still a winner? He has high ratings. Part of Starmer's polling problem has been the perception that he's not a winner. And we know he's not a winner because he does badly in the polls.
Those sort of feedback loops are normally really hard to break out of.
The German numbers do not make sense
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, all heading into big new waves. Indonesia reporting 1,200 dead today. Feck
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the real death toll in India is 4 MILLION - ie ten times the official death toll, which confirms the most appalling estimates, which were sometimes dismissed as scare-mongering
If India alone has actually suffered 4 million dead so far, then what is the true global total? 15 million? 20 million? And how high might it go?
Covid is already one of the worst pandemics in all human history
Like everything in this pandemic, it just takes some time for things to be reflected in the numbers. Let's say 100 Germans come back from Spain having caught Covid from Brits. Most of them probably will be young and won't have had positive tests before travelling back. If they have only mild symptoms, then it almost certainly won't show up in the figures.
But three weeks later, that 100 has become 500, and there has been some more seeding, and numbers are rising fast.
A month later, and there are 20,000 cases in Germany.
Both are unreliable b***ards,. Who to believe?
P.S. Clue: it's not Johnson
eg Netherlands. Culturally very similar to Germany, shares a long open border with Germany, should not be any different to Germany, yet the Netherlands has been reporting big daily cases for a while - today it's 6,700, recently it's been over 10,000 a day
Germany, which is five times bigger than Holland, is experiencing ten times fewer cases?
That's an enormous discrepancy. I don't believe it. There is Something Going On
"In his memoirs the Hindi poet, Suryakant Tripathi, wrote "Ganga was swollen with dead bodies." The sanitary commissioner's report for 1918 also noted that all rivers across India were clogged up with bodies,[12] because of a shortage of firewood for cremation.[15]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic_in_India
Now the same broad trends that happened in the Netherlands, Spain, etc. will apply to Germany - just a little while later - so in six weeks time, Germany will have 20,000 cases a day.
Throughout this pandemic, people have had a tendency to imagine luck (or bad luck) is a sign of something mysterious. It's not. It's just luck.
An echo of Alistair Campbell, who clearly hates himself
Perhaps this is a grisly fate common to all high profile aides to powerful leaders, cf Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII
He wanted the credit, not the blame.
There's a critical role for that in our political system because otherwise progressives would have no counterweight; they'd try to blow up everything with radical change rooted in the latest ideologies, some of which would be mad, and society would splinter and be at each others' throats.
Conservatives recognise that gradual change is preferable, so bad ideas can be filtered out and complex ones mitigated, as society can then remain stable and thus the economy can safely grow.
Yesterday's figure is 1183
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/478220a4c454480e823b17327b2bf1d4/page/page_1/
This is consistent with the slowish increase of the last couple of weeks. Probably the increase is a bit higher, bit with everyone on holiday there's a bit less testing.
Why delta is slower to take off in Germany I don't know, but I wouldn't say the German numbers do not make sense.
If Worldometer is right, Germany does surprisingly few tests. It is waaaaaay down the list on tests per M - behind UK, USA, France, Spain, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden etc etc etc - it does fewer tests than any advanced western nation (except NZ)
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
On that front, I was too busy on the shed today to comment on the Richard Murphy omission of an ellipsis, which isn't far off peak pedantry. Did anyone comment on the Tory politician who deleted whole swathes of Wealth of a Nation in his 1980s (IIRC) edition of the book? Including, IIRC, Smith's famous comments on the defects of a pure free market. Was that Keith Joseph? I remember being astounded to discover this, but then I was young and green at the time.
My other favourtie ellipsis politics story is the Scottish Parliament and the wider Scottish political and journalistic community having to waste hours a few years back on a story issued by Slab who had spotted a dodgy quotation in a Scottish Governemnt (then prop: SNP) [edit] document which DELETED WORDS THAT WERE IN THE ORIGINAL. The slab politico fronting this sure thing of an assault could not be made to understand that that little square bracket, a few dots, and another squarew bracket meant anything ...
I am very happy to be corrected as this is genuinely mystifying me
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Actually, digging deeper it looks like Worldometer is confused: it says "633" German cases in the main table, but in the footnotes it records "1,626 new cases"
If the Conservatives were truly like you say they'd have gone the way of the Bourbons a long time ago.
(This was my first Private Eye)
I recall reading the claim, weeks back, that the Indian death toll was understated "ten to fifteen times" judging by the amount of cremations taking place compared with normality
Something in me rebelled against this, and pigeon holed it as "alarmism"
Now it seems it is true. Grim
I wonder if we will ever know the true death toll in China. It beggars belief that 1.4 billion Indians can suffer 5 million dead, with more to come, and neighbouring China, with a similarly vast population, has just.... 4,600 dead?
A thousand times fewer. Really? How?
Previously it was Smithers-Jones and The Man in the Corner Shop who were taken in. Now it is Billy Hunt.
It's what an overwhelmed NHS would have looked like here with collapse, I guess. An extra 150k dead or so. Probably pushing 300k overall.
Brexit is done...UK sets collision course with EU under plans to redraw Brexit deal https://on.ft.com/3eE1n4t
No one serious seems to want to talk about it because it raises quite uncomfortable possibilities. Better to just ignore it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57909188
That makes it likely the third worst pandemic in history, in sheer numbers, behind only the Flu of 1918 and the Black Death
We are, unfortunately, living through interesting times
2.6 million UK dead is 3% of the population.
3% of 1.4 billion is 42 million. And I don't think 42 million Indians have died of Covid. Maybe 4.2million.
He has himself said he is a liberal not a conservative
But they have a strong track and trace system, and welding ensures compliance with isolation.