On topic, whilst it's a fair point that Burnham not being an MP means he really shouldn't be favourite to succeed Starmer, the point that he was a weak candidate in 2015 isn't that persuasive.
Since 2015, Burnham has enormously strengthened his credibility. He's been seen to be an effective and energetic Mayor, vastly improving his reputation as a capable politician. He had a crushing victory against a poor national backdrop in May, boosting his status as a popular one. He's been a loud and vocal Johnson critic, which goes down well with Labour members. And he's been away from the Westminster Labour sh1tshow, so has avoided harm from that.
As an electable candidate (leaving aside the doubtless important "not an MP" point) Andy Burnham is a totally different proposition in 2021 than he was in 2015.
I suspect he is better at leading in a local government context where there is less political thinking to do and more basic competence, judgement and person leadership involved. The Labour leadership contest revealed a lack of vision, from which followed an inability to inspire, and I am not convinced that a spell at the coalface in the North will necessarily have resolved either of these.
It’s a shame, in that we could do with a bit more basic competence and good judgement at the top of politics. Such people could very well make good PMs, provided they avoid getting too mired in the minutiae and are willing to gather some other big hitters around them to deal with areas such as foreign policy.
The issue is that the skills needed to get the top job (both of your party and then the country) are different to those needed to actually do it well. As the current incumbent is amply proving.
I have to say if we are in a position where Thursday was the peak in terms of cases for the UK then there will be a lot of egg on a lot of faces across the world.
i think its more to do with schools breaking up mate. Cases will likely flatline the rest of the summer
Most schools break up this week rather than last week. Looks pretty clear there was a footy peak, and then schools closing give us a reasonable chance of now heading in to 20-30% rolling declines if we're lucky.
Cases were growing plenty fast before the 19th amongst 18-30 year olds so not remotely convinced they were all locked away and are suddenly socialising more as clubs are open. But we shall see. Personally expecting school closure impact to be several times bigger than any step 4 impact.
this is not good news from israel NEW - Pfizer shot — the vaccine given to nearly all Israelis — is now just 39% effective against infection, while being only 41% effective in preventing symptomatic #COVID19, according to new statistics of the Health Ministry (Times of Israel) 11:48 AM · Jul 23, 2021·Twitter Web App 4,672 Retweets 956 Quote Tweets 8,932 Likes
All their stats are very similar to PHE and Candian ones for things like hospitalisations, except totally skewed by the protection from getting it among those jabbed in Jan / Feb.
The tweet says it is because they are the most vulnerable, but there is something off, perhaps sample size. If it really was 16% among old / vulnerable, we wouldn't be seeing only 15% of cases among double vaxxed in the UK and we would have bug outbreaks in care homes etc, given how widespread it is among unvaxxed / partially vaxxed in the UK.
Further, it doesn't jibe with data from the UK and Canada, which are not wanting for millions of data points...
I have to say if we are in a position where Thursday was the peak in terms of cases for the UK then there will be a lot of egg on a lot of faces across the world.
i think its more to do with schools breaking up mate. Cases will likely flatline the rest of the summer
Most schools break up this week rather than last week. Looks pretty clear there was a footy peak, and then schools closing give us a reasonable chance of now heading in to 20-30% rolling declines if we're lucky.
Cases were growing plenty fast before the 19th amongst 18-30 year olds so not remotely convinced they were all locked away and are suddenly socialising more as clubs are open. But we shall see. Personally expecting school closure impact to be several times bigger than any step 4 impact.
So last year’s summer respite wasn’t the weather after all?
this is not good news from israel NEW - Pfizer shot — the vaccine given to nearly all Israelis — is now just 39% effective against infection, while being only 41% effective in preventing symptomatic #COVID19, according to new statistics of the Health Ministry (Times of Israel) 11:48 AM · Jul 23, 2021·Twitter Web App 4,672 Retweets 956 Quote Tweets 8,932 Likes
All their stats are very similar to PHE and Candian ones for things like hospitalisations, except totally skewed by the protection from getting it among those jabbed in Jan / Feb.
The tweet says it is because they are the most vulnerable, but there is something off, perhaps sample size. If it really was 16% among old / vulnerable, we wouldn't be seeing only 15% of cases among double vaxxed in the UK and we would have bug outbreaks in care homes etc, given how widespread it is among unvaxxed / partially vaxxed in the UK.
Further, it doesn't jibe with data from the UK and Canada, which are not wanting for millions of data points...
And even the US....again delta is there now and it is whipping through the unvaxxed.
I have to say if we are in a position where Thursday was the peak in terms of cases for the UK then there will be a lot of egg on a lot of faces across the world.
i think its more to do with schools breaking up mate. Cases will likely flatline the rest of the summer
Most schools break up this week rather than last week. Looks pretty clear there was a footy peak, and then schools closing give us a reasonable chance of now heading in to 20-30% rolling declines if we're lucky.
Cases were growing plenty fast before the 19th amongst 18-30 year olds so not remotely convinced they were all locked away and are suddenly socialising more as clubs are open. But we shall see. Personally expecting school closure impact to be several times bigger than any step 4 impact.
This is of course a different problem - to what extent did relaxations merely recognise a fait accompli?
According to CNN London corrspondent this morning, cases of the virus are soaring, when they have been falling for almost 5 days! Fake new as Trump used to say.
CNN is the flip side of Fox News.
No it isn’t. Not remotely.
The New York Times is the flip side of Fox News, in terms of impact and bias
One of the big "12 week interval" skeptics, it couldn't possibly be a good idea due to I guess Brexit or something like that.
I basically hard agree. A Starmer election defeat and Burnham replacement is entirely plausible in 2023/24, but he's far too short. So much can change, not lease (as you say) Starmer succeeding.
I am told on here that Johnson is unassailable and Starmer is too hopeless for 2024.
Then again I was told last night on PB that the UK's supermarket shelves were bulging with fresh produce. I have the photographs to prove that in Tesco, Bridgend at least, that was a great big fat hairy lie!
No one in Brigend ever buys "fresh produce" so that's probably why they don't bother to stock it
Lettuce not be dogmatic about such things. I’ve had friends from Bridgend who added salad to their burgers.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
this is not good news from israel NEW - Pfizer shot — the vaccine given to nearly all Israelis — is now just 39% effective against infection, while being only 41% effective in preventing symptomatic #COVID19, according to new statistics of the Health Ministry (Times of Israel) 11:48 AM · Jul 23, 2021·Twitter Web App 4,672 Retweets 956 Quote Tweets 8,932 Likes
Different dosing strategy than in the (trigger warning) UK. The longer interval seems to give greater protection.
I am not convinced. There isn't any evidence that those immunised here in Dec 20 on the original schedule are getting ill, nor there being a problem with vaccinated on the original schedule in America.
There is something different going on in Israel if those figures are correct.
I basically hard agree. A Starmer election defeat and Burnham replacement is entirely plausible in 2023/24, but he's far too short. So much can change, not lease (as you say) Starmer succeeding.
I am told on here that Johnson is unassailable and Starmer is too hopeless for 2024.
Then again I was told last night on PB that the UK's supermarket shelves were bulging with fresh produce. I have the photographs to prove that in Tesco, Bridgend at least, that was a great big fat hairy lie!
No one in Brigend ever buys "fresh produce" so that's probably why they don't bother to stock it
Lettuce not be dogmatic about such things. I’ve had friends from Bridgend who added salad to their burgers.
this is not good news from israel NEW - Pfizer shot — the vaccine given to nearly all Israelis — is now just 39% effective against infection, while being only 41% effective in preventing symptomatic #COVID19, according to new statistics of the Health Ministry (Times of Israel) 11:48 AM · Jul 23, 2021·Twitter Web App 4,672 Retweets 956 Quote Tweets 8,932 Likes
Different dosing strategy than in the (trigger warning) UK. The longer interval seems to give greater protection.
I am not convinced. There isn't any evidence that those immunised here in Dec 20 on the original schedule are getting ill, nor there being a problem with vaccinated on the original schedule in America.
There is something different going on in Israel if those figures are correct.
There is evidence that the longer dose gap gives greater protection:
I basically hard agree. A Starmer election defeat and Burnham replacement is entirely plausible in 2023/24, but he's far too short. So much can change, not lease (as you say) Starmer succeeding.
I am told on here that Johnson is unassailable and Starmer is too hopeless for 2024.
Then again I was told last night on PB that the UK's supermarket shelves were bulging with fresh produce. I have the photographs to prove that in Tesco, Bridgend at least, that was a great big fat hairy lie!
No one in Brigend ever buys "fresh produce" so that's probably why they don't bother to stock it
I basically hard agree. A Starmer election defeat and Burnham replacement is entirely plausible in 2023/24, but he's far too short. So much can change, not lease (as you say) Starmer succeeding.
I am told on here that Johnson is unassailable and Starmer is too hopeless for 2024.
Then again I was told last night on PB that the UK's supermarket shelves were bulging with fresh produce. I have the photographs to prove that in Tesco, Bridgend at least, that was a great big fat hairy lie!
No one in Brigend ever buys "fresh produce" so that's probably why they don't bother to stock it
Lettuce not be dogmatic about such things. I’ve had friends from Bridgend who added salad to their burgers.
Imran Tahir playing in the 100 this evening....he nust be about 150 years old now. i played against him in club cricket over 20 years ago!
I didn't know you played cricket at that sort of level. For me, it was village cricket only.
Yes as a youth i could play a bit, but not good enough to go beyond semi-pro club cricket. Facing "bigger boys" like Otis Gibson, Tahir, Mustaq Ahmed, I knew my place! Get a single and off strike.
I have to say if we are in a position where Thursday was the peak in terms of cases for the UK then there will be a lot of egg on a lot of faces across the world.
i think its more to do with schools breaking up mate. Cases will likely flatline the rest of the summer
Most schools break up this week rather than last week. Looks pretty clear there was a footy peak, and then schools closing give us a reasonable chance of now heading in to 20-30% rolling declines if we're lucky.
Cases were growing plenty fast before the 19th amongst 18-30 year olds so not remotely convinced they were all locked away and are suddenly socialising more as clubs are open. But we shall see. Personally expecting school closure impact to be several times bigger than any step 4 impact.
It does look like schools are one of the major sites of community transmission.
I basically hard agree. A Starmer election defeat and Burnham replacement is entirely plausible in 2023/24, but he's far too short. So much can change, not lease (as you say) Starmer succeeding.
I am told on here that Johnson is unassailable and Starmer is too hopeless for 2024.
Then again I was told last night on PB that the UK's supermarket shelves were bulging with fresh produce. I have the photographs to prove that in Tesco, Bridgend at least, that was a great big fat hairy lie!
No one in Brigend ever buys "fresh produce" so that's probably why they don't bother to stock it
Lettuce not be dogmatic about such things. I’ve had friends from Bridgend who added salad to their burgers.
Someone who was not even a Tory MP was at times favourite to be next Tory leader - and he became Tory leader eventually albeit Theresa May was the leader in the interim in arguably the biggest mistake the Tory Party has made since it was founded.
Burnham has a clear path to being next Labour leader. Return to Parliament at the next election, which Starmer loses, then win the leadership contest.
Burnham as next Labour leader seems as likely as Starmer as next PM.
Both essentially require no change in leadership before the next election. Starmer bet wins then if Labour wins the election (unlikely), while Burnham wins if Labour loses the election (likely) and he wins the leadership contest (likely).
I concur. I think the next GE is Johnson v Starmer. Neither will be replaced before then. This means my long of Starmer Next PM at 8 is a Smug City position. It'll be trading at under 4 quite soon. But if the Cons win another majority Starmer will go and Burnham looks well placed to succeed him. Yes, he needs a seat, and he's not by any stretch a woman - which is a negative - nevertheless I wouldn't be laying him at the current 4.2. In fact it appeals (as per your logic) as a buy vs the Starmer bet. If this falls on a Con GE win, you'll probably see Burnham very short as next Lab leader. However I won't be doing this. Reason being it's a way off and much can happen in the meantime - eg Burnham loses interest, or goes off the boil, or we in Labour decide to grasp the nettle and actually elect a female leader instead of just musing about how terrific it would be to finally have one.
It it hard to see why it is a negative for a candidate to be male here. Labour selectorate consistently prefer men despite women standing. It may even be a big help if its 1 man vs several women again as it was for Starmer (ignoring Lewis who withdrew early on).
Wasn't that the reason why all woman shortlists had to be created? As even when you offered a choice of 4 women and 1 man, the man had way more than a 20% chance of getting selected..
"Had to be" is strong language.
Other parties didn't have to create all woman shortlists. Getting rid of misogyny and ensuring there are good female candidates ought to be enough.
So perhaps it is fair to say that, in order to achieve a balance between the genders it was necessary for Labour to use all-women shortlists, because the Conservative approach clearly has not worked.
Depends if all you're trying to do is achieve token artificial balance, or if you're trying to get the best and brightest who want to be MPs regardless of gender to the fore - and then bring them to the fore of your party too.
Labour has gotten more female MPs through, but then never been able to have any of them elected to being leader of the party. The Tories have had two female Prime Ministers (as much as I regret one of them).
Its not just at leadership level either than Labour are behind, of the 49 female Cabinet Ministers there have been throughout time according to Wikipedia, 23 of them have been Labour, 26 of them Tory, so in all time a majority of female Cabinet Ministers have come from the Tory Party, not the Labour Party. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01250/SN01250.pdf
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
this is not good news from israel NEW - Pfizer shot — the vaccine given to nearly all Israelis — is now just 39% effective against infection, while being only 41% effective in preventing symptomatic #COVID19, according to new statistics of the Health Ministry (Times of Israel) 11:48 AM · Jul 23, 2021·Twitter Web App 4,672 Retweets 956 Quote Tweets 8,932 Likes
Different dosing strategy than in the (trigger warning) UK. The longer interval seems to give greater protection.
I am not convinced. There isn't any evidence that those immunised here in Dec 20 on the original schedule are getting ill, nor there being a problem with vaccinated on the original schedule in America.
There is something different going on in Israel if those figures are correct.
There is evidence that the longer dose gap gives greater protection:
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
With everything being much faster-paced today it's difficult to see a leader staying on after an election defeat in the way that Kinnock did in 1987.
this is not good news from israel NEW - Pfizer shot — the vaccine given to nearly all Israelis — is now just 39% effective against infection, while being only 41% effective in preventing symptomatic #COVID19, according to new statistics of the Health Ministry (Times of Israel) 11:48 AM · Jul 23, 2021·Twitter Web App 4,672 Retweets 956 Quote Tweets 8,932 Likes
Different dosing strategy than in the (trigger warning) UK. The longer interval seems to give greater protection.
I am not convinced. There isn't any evidence that those immunised here in Dec 20 on the original schedule are getting ill, nor there being a problem with vaccinated on the original schedule in America.
There is something different going on in Israel if those figures are correct.
There is evidence that the longer dose gap gives greater protection:
I am fully vaccinated and support and encourage anybody who can go get vaccinated.
I say that as a starter because I have a sad, very sad story to tell, A few weeks ago ago a relative of mine died the day after he was vaccinated, he is the brother in law of my sister in law, but on the other side of her family, if that makes since. it was a Saturday and he was looing after the 5 year old daughter, as his wife was working, when he stated to feel unwell, he called his parents who live near and asked if they could come and help look after the lintel one, as he was feeling bad. when they got to the house they could see her but not her dad, so they brock the door and got in, to be tolled, 'daddy's asleep in the kitchen and he wont wake up' he was a really nice chap, I did not know him well, just met him at my brother stage do and a few other family events. He was 35 ish.
I mention this because today, in the city where I work, a young ish lady had a bad reaction to the viruses I cant remember the name of the condition but her body continually shakes and she has to walk with crutches. all of the young people I work with seem to have it on there phones and seem to have all decided that they are not getting the jab and those who have had one jab are not getting the second.
I thought I would try to talk about it rationally and shared the experience above and noted that I recognised there consenes but hear are some numbers and facts, ...... lots more people die form the virus than the vaccine and even while the risk of death to people your age is small you could still get long Covid, vaccines work, and this one has now been tested on billions of people around the would, far moor than in any laboratory test, and we know there is a risk from the virus and we also know its very very small.
I completely failed to make an impact, I just got tolled to look again at the bloody video. maybe the thought of being permanently disabled is more freighting than death? or more likely a video is a powerful way of sharing a message.
this is not good news from israel NEW - Pfizer shot — the vaccine given to nearly all Israelis — is now just 39% effective against infection, while being only 41% effective in preventing symptomatic #COVID19, according to new statistics of the Health Ministry (Times of Israel) 11:48 AM · Jul 23, 2021·Twitter Web App 4,672 Retweets 956 Quote Tweets 8,932 Likes
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
Kinnock lost two, unless he was also posing as Michael Foot, which back in the day was plausible.
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
With everything being much faster-paced today it's difficult to see a leader staying on after an election defeat in the way that Kinnock did in 1987.
Plus Starmer is much less admired by the party membership than Corbyn was after 2017, and Labour kind of treated 2017 like they'd won the election rather than that they'd lost it.
According to CNN London corrspondent this morning, cases of the virus are soaring, when they have been falling for almost 5 days! Fake new as Trump used to say.
CNN is the flip side of Fox News.
No it isn’t. Not remotely.
The New York Times is the flip side of Fox News, in terms of impact and bias
Bias/slant is a thing. Lazy reporting and assumptions, particularly when reporting on abroad and dumbing down for a home audience is a thing.
But NY Times and CNN are still serious news organisations that aspire to accuracy and factual reporting. Doesn’t mean they always get it right (particularly for reasons given above), but they still aspire to it.
The NYT has no interest in "getting it right" when it comes to, say, reporting the UK. They lazily pump out the most fatuous bilge which they must KNOW is total bollocks
So, like Fox News then
As a subscriber to the Times, I'd say their coverage of the UK falls into mainly two slots. Broad articles that cover the top news of the day, written for an American audience. Color pieces and travel features (canals!) that are mildly interesting. Both you usually forget about five minutes after reading.
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
With everything being much faster-paced today it's difficult to see a leader staying on after an election defeat in the way that Kinnock did in 1987.
Plus Starmer is much less admired by the party membership than Corbyn was after 2017, and Labour kind of treated 2017 like they'd won the election rather than that they'd lost it.
No, Corbyn and his entourage thought they had won, and they still do. Anyone with any basic grasp of reality within the party understood that they had lost.
Daily 36,389 Last 7 days 309,742 up 31,747 (11.4%)
Not out of the woods yet....but not going deeper into them either.....so far....
By Monday we should be seeing week on week falls. Probably pretty slow and a tad erratic at first but the right direction.
Today is a week-on-week fall.
Today the last 7 days are 31,747 more than the previous 7 days which is an increase of 11% but that percentage is falling fast and will be negative early next week. That's what I meant.
Ah - I mean that today's number was lower than seven days ago, but reading the previous quote, you are clearly correct.
This wave has - I think - been very helpful to the UK. It's added a lot of new people with some degree of protection. When schools go back in September, we'll be in a position to start vaccinating 12-17 year olds, and for (most adult groups) herd immunity will be largely reached.
When he finally shuffles off this mortal coil - hopefully at a ripe old age, unlike many of the victims mistreated in Stafford - I hope that one name is put on his gravestone. The scandal ought to be following him around, a putrid Albatross around his neck.
I think the UK will eventually agree a semi-free movement deal for under 35s from most EU countries on a bilateral basis. Similar to what we've just agreed with Australia. It suits all parties.
Does not suit me and I suspect doesn't suit those youngsters who are finally getting off rock bottom minimum wages due to not having an essentially infinite labour pool to draw on to keep wages at the bottom. Hospitality workers for example
That argument only works if you have significant unemployment, which was certainly not the case before covid.
If you have virtually full employment, and then you send away most of those doing menial jobs, the net effect is that more indigenous people end up doing menial jobs instead of more fulfilling work, albeit for somewhat higher wages than those who they replace. And everything gets more expensive.
For a lot of indigenous people especially the young menial work like stacking shelves and waiting tables is all they can get for a few years. If you can afford to go out for a meal you can afford to pay a little more. Maybe then the staff waiting on you can also afford to go out for a meal occasionally.
If the pay rises high enough due to staff shortages people from abroad will be able to get visa's under the points system to come do it.
For example my son, got a top class MsC from UCL in biochemistry....spent 3 years doing such menial jobs till he managed to find a non menial one, also know a friend of his that got a first in marine biology...still working in costa's after 8 years because he cant find a not hospitality job
Marine Biology and Philosophy have always had the highest graduate unemployment rates.
There's an interesting issue here, that's not related to Brexit. In the old days (say the mid-1990s), lots of big firms took in massive quantities of graduates and trained them up. Arthur Anderson or PWC would take in 1,000+ graduates each year, and places like Unilever would also take on very large numbers.
These days, the number of graduate training jobs is well down. And that's because hiring graduates is usually an altruistic pursuit. A 22 year old with little experience of work is going to cost you more in training (even before salary) than he's going to produce.
Firms, therefore, ended up wanting to employ people with a few years work experience under their belt. They wanted to make sure that people could turn up to work every day at 7am, that they'd know how to take instruction, etc. And yes, even a year at Costa Coffee was better than coming straight out of Manchester or UCL or the Sorbonne.
When I left Goldman at the beginning of 2000, this meant the average (i.e. the mean) age of someone on the graduate training programme was 27! Now some of this was because Germans left university earlier, but mostly it was because they expected a couple of years of real world experience before you joined.
And I think that's continued. Simply, we have a combination of many more graduates that in even 1995, combined with the fact that in today's economy, employers want someone with a bit more maturity.
I've noticed a big change in trainee intakes at my (law) firm. When I started (roughly 10 years ago), a large majority of the trainees with a legal background were straight out of law school/gap years. Now most of the trainees I see coming in seem to have spent at least some time as a paralegal first. I think being forced into paralegalling before a training contract was almost an indicator that you were probably not quite up to it back then (I'm not saying it's correct, just what I felt a lot of people's perception was), while it's certainly not the case now.
I have had the odd fresh faced graduate in computer science under my wing throughout my working life, I can certainly say there is a decline not necessarily in them but what they are taught. Last guy I had in fact under my wing wasnt even a gradutate he was on work experience from school. First day I looked over his work and called him over and went why is every method returning a string array? His reply was "Oh well all the ones we write at school do so". End of his placement his teacher came in and I took her through what he had written in his 6 weeks with us. She was oh we don't teach any of that till degree level. FFS we are writing in an object oriented language he is being taught in one as a procedural language where all return values have to be string arrays
I'm surprised he didn't say:
"Well Grandpa, the chances are that this is going to end up part of a web service, so anything else would be a bit 1997."
this is not good news from israel NEW - Pfizer shot — the vaccine given to nearly all Israelis — is now just 39% effective against infection, while being only 41% effective in preventing symptomatic #COVID19, according to new statistics of the Health Ministry (Times of Israel) 11:48 AM · Jul 23, 2021·Twitter Web App 4,672 Retweets 956 Quote Tweets 8,932 Likes
Open the door to the room of pain...
Unleash the lawyer, in his wife's kimono, with the baseball bat!
Someone who was not even a Tory MP was at times favourite to be next Tory leader - and he became Tory leader eventually albeit Theresa May was the leader in the interim in arguably the biggest mistake the Tory Party has made since it was founded.
Burnham has a clear path to being next Labour leader. Return to Parliament at the next election, which Starmer loses, then win the leadership contest.
Burnham as next Labour leader seems as likely as Starmer as next PM.
Both essentially require no change in leadership before the next election. Starmer bet wins then if Labour wins the election (unlikely), while Burnham wins if Labour loses the election (likely) and he wins the leadership contest (likely).
I concur. I think the next GE is Johnson v Starmer. Neither will be replaced before then. This means my long of Starmer Next PM at 8 is a Smug City position. It'll be trading at under 4 quite soon. But if the Cons win another majority Starmer will go and Burnham looks well placed to succeed him. Yes, he needs a seat, and he's not by any stretch a woman - which is a negative - nevertheless I wouldn't be laying him at the current 4.2. In fact it appeals (as per your logic) as a buy vs the Starmer bet. If this falls on a Con GE win, you'll probably see Burnham very short as next Lab leader. However I won't be doing this. Reason being it's a way off and much can happen in the meantime - eg Burnham loses interest, or goes off the boil, or we in Labour decide to grasp the nettle and actually elect a female leader instead of just musing about how terrific it would be to finally have one.
It it hard to see why it is a negative for a candidate to be male here. Labour selectorate consistently prefer men despite women standing. It may even be a big help if its 1 man vs several women again as it was for Starmer (ignoring Lewis who withdrew early on).
Wasn't that the reason why all woman shortlists had to be created? As even when you offered a choice of 4 women and 1 man, the man had way more than a 20% chance of getting selected..
"Had to be" is strong language.
Other parties didn't have to create all woman shortlists. Getting rid of misogyny and ensuring there are good female candidates ought to be enough.
So perhaps it is fair to say that, in order to achieve a balance between the genders it was necessary for Labour to use all-women shortlists, because the Conservative approach clearly has not worked.
Depends if all you're trying to do is achieve token artificial balance, or if you're trying to get the best and brightest who want to be MPs regardless of gender to the fore - and then bring them to the fore of your party too.
Labour has gotten more female MPs through, but then never been able to have any of them elected to being leader of the party. The Tories have had two female Prime Ministers (as much as I regret one of them).
Its not just at leadership level either than Labour are behind, of the 49 female Cabinet Ministers there have been throughout time according to Wikipedia, 23 of them have been Labour, 26 of them Tory, so in all time a majority of female Cabinet Ministers have come from the Tory Party, not the Labour Party. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01250/SN01250.pdf
Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with statistics would know that smaller sample sizes are more prone to random variation, so responding to my point about the gender balance among MPs with a point about the gender balance among party leaders is meaningless, and as for your point about cabinet minsters, without saying how many cabinet ministers there had been in total on Tory or Labour cabinets as a whole it is also equally meaningless.
You questioned whether all-women shortlists were required. We can see that they are if you want to achieve gender balance.
I think it should be seriously concerning to you that the Conservative party still fails - in 2021 - to have an equal balance of genders in its MPs. That implies a very large bias against women, most likely at several different stages of the process, and it's not good enough to try to handwave it away.
According to CNN London corrspondent this morning, cases of the virus are soaring, when they have been falling for almost 5 days! Fake new as Trump used to say.
CNN is the flip side of Fox News.
No it isn’t. Not remotely.
The New York Times is the flip side of Fox News, in terms of impact and bias
Bias/slant is a thing. Lazy reporting and assumptions, particularly when reporting on abroad and dumbing down for a home audience is a thing.
But NY Times and CNN are still serious news organisations that aspire to accuracy and factual reporting. Doesn’t mean they always get it right (particularly for reasons given above), but they still aspire to it.
The NYT has no interest in "getting it right" when it comes to, say, reporting the UK. They lazily pump out the most fatuous bilge which they must KNOW is total bollocks
So, like Fox News then
As a subscriber to the Times, I'd say their coverage of the UK falls into mainly two slots. Broad articles that cover the main news of the day, written for an American audience. Color pieces and travel features (canals!) that are mildly interesting. Both you usually forget about five minutes after reading.
But the NYT's "broad" articles about the UK aren't just erratic, or "dumbed down" for Yanks, they are deliberately and obviously misleading, sometimes quite outrageously. It is impossible to believe their journalists are this thick, so one can only assume they are knowingly telling lies, for whatever reason
According to CNN London corrspondent this morning, cases of the virus are soaring, when they have been falling for almost 5 days! Fake new as Trump used to say.
CNN is the flip side of Fox News.
No it isn’t. Not remotely.
The New York Times is the flip side of Fox News, in terms of impact and bias
Bias/slant is a thing. Lazy reporting and assumptions, particularly when reporting on abroad and dumbing down for a home audience is a thing.
But NY Times and CNN are still serious news organisations that aspire to accuracy and factual reporting. Doesn’t mean they always get it right (particularly for reasons given above), but they still aspire to it.
The NYT has no interest in "getting it right" when it comes to, say, reporting the UK. They lazily pump out the most fatuous bilge which they must KNOW is total bollocks
So, like Fox News then
As a subscriber to the Times, I'd say their coverage of the UK falls into mainly two slots. Broad articles that cover the main news of the day, written for an American audience. Color pieces and travel features (canals!) that are mildly interesting. Both you usually forget about five minutes after reading.
But the NYT's "broad" articles about the UK aren't just erratic, or "dumbed down" for Yanks, they are deliberately and obviously misleading, sometimes quite outrageously. It is impossible to believe their journalists are this thick, so one can only assume they are knowingly telling lies, for whatever reason
Not to mention the interesting phenomenon of NYT reporters finding people who speak in American idiom when they need a local comment, in the UK.
When he finally shuffles off this mortal coil - hopefully at a ripe old age, unlike many of the victims mistreated in Stafford - I hope that one name is put on his gravestone. The scandal ought to be following him around, a putrid Albatross around his neck.
It was Mid Staffordshire, not just Stafford. Cannock Chase Hospital was affected too.
According to CNN London corrspondent this morning, cases of the virus are soaring, when they have been falling for almost 5 days! Fake new as Trump used to say.
CNN is the flip side of Fox News.
No it isn’t. Not remotely.
The New York Times is the flip side of Fox News, in terms of impact and bias
Bias/slant is a thing. Lazy reporting and assumptions, particularly when reporting on abroad and dumbing down for a home audience is a thing.
But NY Times and CNN are still serious news organisations that aspire to accuracy and factual reporting. Doesn’t mean they always get it right (particularly for reasons given above), but they still aspire to it.
The NYT has no interest in "getting it right" when it comes to, say, reporting the UK. They lazily pump out the most fatuous bilge which they must KNOW is total bollocks
So, like Fox News then
As a subscriber to the Times, I'd say their coverage of the UK falls into mainly two slots. Broad articles that cover the main news of the day, written for an American audience. Color pieces and travel features (canals!) that are mildly interesting. Both you usually forget about five minutes after reading.
But the NYT's "broad" articles about the UK aren't just erratic, or "dumbed down" for Yanks, they are deliberately and obviously misleading, sometimes quite outrageously. It is impossible to believe their journalists are this thick, so one can only assume they are knowingly telling lies, for whatever reason
Not to mention the interesting phenomenon of NYT reporters finding people who speak in American idiom when they need a local comment, in the UK.
I'd be surprised if their reporters had ever met a UK native, doubly so for one from outside London.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
I think the UK will eventually agree a semi-free movement deal for under 35s from most EU countries on a bilateral basis. Similar to what we've just agreed with Australia. It suits all parties.
Does not suit me and I suspect doesn't suit those youngsters who are finally getting off rock bottom minimum wages due to not having an essentially infinite labour pool to draw on to keep wages at the bottom. Hospitality workers for example
That argument only works if you have significant unemployment, which was certainly not the case before covid.
If you have virtually full employment, and then you send away most of those doing menial jobs, the net effect is that more indigenous people end up doing menial jobs instead of more fulfilling work, albeit for somewhat higher wages than those who they replace. And everything gets more expensive.
For a lot of indigenous people especially the young menial work like stacking shelves and waiting tables is all they can get for a few years. If you can afford to go out for a meal you can afford to pay a little more. Maybe then the staff waiting on you can also afford to go out for a meal occasionally.
If the pay rises high enough due to staff shortages people from abroad will be able to get visa's under the points system to come do it.
For example my son, got a top class MsC from UCL in biochemistry....spent 3 years doing such menial jobs till he managed to find a non menial one, also know a friend of his that got a first in marine biology...still working in costa's after 8 years because he cant find a not hospitality job
Marine Biology and Philosophy have always had the highest graduate unemployment rates.
There's an interesting issue here, that's not related to Brexit. In the old days (say the mid-1990s), lots of big firms took in massive quantities of graduates and trained them up. Arthur Anderson or PWC would take in 1,000+ graduates each year, and places like Unilever would also take on very large numbers.
These days, the number of graduate training jobs is well down. And that's because hiring graduates is usually an altruistic pursuit. A 22 year old with little experience of work is going to cost you more in training (even before salary) than he's going to produce.
Firms, therefore, ended up wanting to employ people with a few years work experience under their belt. They wanted to make sure that people could turn up to work every day at 7am, that they'd know how to take instruction, etc. And yes, even a year at Costa Coffee was better than coming straight out of Manchester or UCL or the Sorbonne.
When I left Goldman at the beginning of 2000, this meant the average (i.e. the mean) age of someone on the graduate training programme was 27! Now some of this was because Germans left university earlier, but mostly it was because they expected a couple of years of real world experience before you joined.
And I think that's continued. Simply, we have a combination of many more graduates that in even 1995, combined with the fact that in today's economy, employers want someone with a bit more maturity.
I think thats sort of the point I was trying to make
There are x jobs in the country Y% are good jobs Z% are menial jobs
If the people qualified to do y jobs in society are greater than the number of y jobs then some of them will end up in z jobs. Keeping the wages of z jobs artificially low by using an infinite labour pool does those only able to get Z jobs whether through lack of skills or lack of luck getting a y job does them no favours.
The place where you and I disagree is the "keeping wages artificially low". I am fully onboard that unlimited immigration increases demand on scarce resources like housing, schools, etc., and therefore creates negative externalities.
However, if wages were driving down the cost of labour across the board, you'd expect to see a number of things:
(1) UK export growth exceed peers, as we'd have lower wage rates (2) The profit share of GDP grow relative to countries where immigration was lower (3) Lower wage growth than countries where immigration was lower
But (1) is a definite "no", (2) is also "no", with the UK's dropping behind most other EU and developed world countries for profit share, and (3) is at best is mixed (albeit, you would expect that countries with higher wage growth would attract more immigration, so it is chicken and egg).
I struggle to see how - given an increasing proportion of jobs can be delivered remotely or across national borders - wages in the medium term exceed international norms. Now, that may not be true of Starbucks or your local hairdresser, but it's probably true of pretty much every graduate level job.
Ok for starters 1) is false. It would be true if lower wages in equal situations. However the uk has not invested in automation and has instead used low priced labour so the countries competing are in fact a lot more equal than you claim they merely had an upfront cost to automate which year by year gets cheaper
2) GDP per capita in the uk has declined over the last 20 years to the point we are now 29th
3) Wage growth in this country is misleading if you stripped out the uprating of minimum wage and the excesses of the top 10% wage growth is minimal
You've literally ignored all my points and responded to entirely different ones.
I think the UK will eventually agree a semi-free movement deal for under 35s from most EU countries on a bilateral basis. Similar to what we've just agreed with Australia. It suits all parties.
Does not suit me and I suspect doesn't suit those youngsters who are finally getting off rock bottom minimum wages due to not having an essentially infinite labour pool to draw on to keep wages at the bottom. Hospitality workers for example
That argument only works if you have significant unemployment, which was certainly not the case before covid.
If you have virtually full employment, and then you send away most of those doing menial jobs, the net effect is that more indigenous people end up doing menial jobs instead of more fulfilling work, albeit for somewhat higher wages than those who they replace. And everything gets more expensive.
For a lot of indigenous people especially the young menial work like stacking shelves and waiting tables is all they can get for a few years. If you can afford to go out for a meal you can afford to pay a little more. Maybe then the staff waiting on you can also afford to go out for a meal occasionally.
If the pay rises high enough due to staff shortages people from abroad will be able to get visa's under the points system to come do it.
For example my son, got a top class MsC from UCL in biochemistry....spent 3 years doing such menial jobs till he managed to find a non menial one, also know a friend of his that got a first in marine biology...still working in costa's after 8 years because he cant find a not hospitality job
Marine Biology and Philosophy have always had the highest graduate unemployment rates.
There's an interesting issue here, that's not related to Brexit. In the old days (say the mid-1990s), lots of big firms took in massive quantities of graduates and trained them up. Arthur Anderson or PWC would take in 1,000+ graduates each year, and places like Unilever would also take on very large numbers.
These days, the number of graduate training jobs is well down. And that's because hiring graduates is usually an altruistic pursuit. A 22 year old with little experience of work is going to cost you more in training (even before salary) than he's going to produce.
Firms, therefore, ended up wanting to employ people with a few years work experience under their belt. They wanted to make sure that people could turn up to work every day at 7am, that they'd know how to take instruction, etc. And yes, even a year at Costa Coffee was better than coming straight out of Manchester or UCL or the Sorbonne.
When I left Goldman at the beginning of 2000, this meant the average (i.e. the mean) age of someone on the graduate training programme was 27! Now some of this was because Germans left university earlier, but mostly it was because they expected a couple of years of real world experience before you joined.
And I think that's continued. Simply, we have a combination of many more graduates that in even 1995, combined with the fact that in today's economy, employers want someone with a bit more maturity.
I think thats sort of the point I was trying to make
There are x jobs in the country Y% are good jobs Z% are menial jobs
If the people qualified to do y jobs in society are greater than the number of y jobs then some of them will end up in z jobs. Keeping the wages of z jobs artificially low by using an infinite labour pool does those only able to get Z jobs whether through lack of skills or lack of luck getting a y job does them no favours.
The place where you and I disagree is the "keeping wages artificially low". I am fully onboard that unlimited immigration increases demand on scarce resources like housing, schools, etc., and therefore creates negative externalities.
However, if wages were driving down the cost of labour across the board, you'd expect to see a number of things:
(1) UK export growth exceed peers, as we'd have lower wage rates (2) The profit share of GDP grow relative to countries where immigration was lower (3) Lower wage growth than countries where immigration was lower
But (1) is a definite "no", (2) is also "no", with the UK's dropping behind most other EU and developed world countries for profit share, and (3) is at best is mixed (albeit, you would expect that countries with higher wage growth would attract more immigration, so it is chicken and egg).
I struggle to see how - given an increasing proportion of jobs can be delivered remotely or across national borders - wages in the medium term exceed international norms. Now, that may not be true of Starbucks or your local hairdresser, but it's probably true of pretty much every graduate level job.
Ok for starters 1) is false. It would be true if lower wages in equal situations. However the uk has not invested in automation and has instead used low priced labour so the countries competing are in fact a lot more equal than you claim they merely had an upfront cost to automate which year by year gets cheaper
2) GDP per capita in the uk has declined over the last 20 years to the point we are now 29th
3) Wage growth in this country is misleading if you stripped out the uprating of minimum wage and the excesses of the top 10% wage growth is minimal
You've literally ignored all my points and responded to entirely different ones.
What do you mean, that's not a valid debating strategy? Damn.
I think the UK will eventually agree a semi-free movement deal for under 35s from most EU countries on a bilateral basis. Similar to what we've just agreed with Australia. It suits all parties.
Does not suit me and I suspect doesn't suit those youngsters who are finally getting off rock bottom minimum wages due to not having an essentially infinite labour pool to draw on to keep wages at the bottom. Hospitality workers for example
That argument only works if you have significant unemployment, which was certainly not the case before covid.
If you have virtually full employment, and then you send away most of those doing menial jobs, the net effect is that more indigenous people end up doing menial jobs instead of more fulfilling work, albeit for somewhat higher wages than those who they replace. And everything gets more expensive.
For a lot of indigenous people especially the young menial work like stacking shelves and waiting tables is all they can get for a few years. If you can afford to go out for a meal you can afford to pay a little more. Maybe then the staff waiting on you can also afford to go out for a meal occasionally.
If the pay rises high enough due to staff shortages people from abroad will be able to get visa's under the points system to come do it.
For example my son, got a top class MsC from UCL in biochemistry....spent 3 years doing such menial jobs till he managed to find a non menial one, also know a friend of his that got a first in marine biology...still working in costa's after 8 years because he cant find a not hospitality job
Marine Biology and Philosophy have always had the highest graduate unemployment rates.
There's an interesting issue here, that's not related to Brexit. In the old days (say the mid-1990s), lots of big firms took in massive quantities of graduates and trained them up. Arthur Anderson or PWC would take in 1,000+ graduates each year, and places like Unilever would also take on very large numbers.
These days, the number of graduate training jobs is well down. And that's because hiring graduates is usually an altruistic pursuit. A 22 year old with little experience of work is going to cost you more in training (even before salary) than he's going to produce.
Firms, therefore, ended up wanting to employ people with a few years work experience under their belt. They wanted to make sure that people could turn up to work every day at 7am, that they'd know how to take instruction, etc. And yes, even a year at Costa Coffee was better than coming straight out of Manchester or UCL or the Sorbonne.
When I left Goldman at the beginning of 2000, this meant the average (i.e. the mean) age of someone on the graduate training programme was 27! Now some of this was because Germans left university earlier, but mostly it was because they expected a couple of years of real world experience before you joined.
And I think that's continued. Simply, we have a combination of many more graduates that in even 1995, combined with the fact that in today's economy, employers want someone with a bit more maturity.
I've noticed a big change in trainee intakes at my (law) firm. When I started (roughly 10 years ago), a large majority of the trainees with a legal background were straight out of law school/gap years. Now most of the trainees I see coming in seem to have spent at least some time as a paralegal first. I think being forced into paralegalling before a training contract was almost an indicator that you were probably not quite up to it back then (I'm not saying it's correct, just what I felt a lot of people's perception was), while it's certainly not the case now.
I have had the odd fresh faced graduate in computer science under my wing throughout my working life, I can certainly say there is a decline not necessarily in them but what they are taught. Last guy I had in fact under my wing wasnt even a gradutate he was on work experience from school. First day I looked over his work and called him over and went why is every method returning a string array? His reply was "Oh well all the ones we write at school do so". End of his placement his teacher came in and I took her through what he had written in his 6 weeks with us. She was oh we don't teach any of that till degree level. FFS we are writing in an object oriented language he is being taught in one as a procedural language where all return values have to be string arrays
I'm surprised he didn't say:
"Well Grandpa, the chances are that this is going to end up part of a web service, so anything else would be a bit 1997."
"Grasshopper - when you understand why return types are good, then you will have earned the title of Count Zero"
When he finally shuffles off this mortal coil - hopefully at a ripe old age, unlike many of the victims mistreated in Stafford - I hope that one name is put on his gravestone. The scandal ought to be following him around, a putrid Albatross around his neck.
It was Mid Staffordshire, not just Stafford. Cannock Chase Hospital was affected too.
Good point. The reason I am quite so forceful on this issue is that a member of my family had an 'interesting' experience there. Fortunately they left, and drove to a different hospital for treatment.
Although if I remember correctly, it was all a cat's fault ...
I basically hard agree. A Starmer election defeat and Burnham replacement is entirely plausible in 2023/24, but he's far too short. So much can change, not lease (as you say) Starmer succeeding.
I am told on here that Johnson is unassailable and Starmer is too hopeless for 2024.
Then again I was told last night on PB that the UK's supermarket shelves were bulging with fresh produce. I have the photographs to prove that in Tesco, Bridgend at least, that was a great big fat hairy lie!
No one in Brigend ever buys "fresh produce" so that's probably why they don't bother to stock it
Lettuce not be dogmatic about such things. I’ve had friends from Bridgend who added salad to their burgers.
When he finally shuffles off this mortal coil - hopefully at a ripe old age, unlike many of the victims mistreated in Stafford - I hope that one name is put on his gravestone. The scandal ought to be following him around, a putrid Albatross around his neck.
It was Mid Staffordshire, not just Stafford. Cannock Chase Hospital was affected too.
Good point. The reason I am quite so forceful on this issue is that a member of my family had an 'interesting' experience there. Fortunately they left, and drove to a different hospital for treatment.
Although if I remember correctly, it was all a cat's fault ...
In 2015, looking at the kind of people fed up with the coalition, the energy of the Labour candidate, the unfortunate clothing choices of Mr Burley and the complete lack of interest the Tories showed in the seat, I was convinced Labour would retake Cannock Chase.
In this I was wrong, and it may have been due to national factors.
But I still think Janos Toth was out of his fucking mind to make every leaflet about how we should vote Labour to save the NHS from those evil Tory bastards.
It was the equivalent of Count Dracula running on the need for better blood donation services.
You see that The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
The clue is the "and". The UK is a nation-state. Made up of Great Britain - a tri-national country - and Northern Ireland - the rump remnant of the Irish nation that didn't separate.
The UK is not a "country", nor does it cover all of the nations and territories with its obvious borders. We are a fascinating hodge-podge of a thing...
On topic, whilst it's a fair point that Burnham not being an MP means he really shouldn't be favourite to succeed Starmer, the point that he was a weak candidate in 2015 isn't that persuasive.
Since 2015, Burnham has enormously strengthened his credibility. He's been seen to be an effective and energetic Mayor, vastly improving his reputation as a capable politician. He had a crushing victory against a poor national backdrop in May, boosting his status as a popular one. He's been a loud and vocal Johnson critic, which goes down well with Labour members. And he's been away from the Westminster Labour sh1tshow, so has avoided harm from that.
As an electable candidate (leaving aside the doubtless important "not an MP" point) Andy Burnham is a totally different proposition in 2021 than he was in 2015.
He's also changed his image somewhat. In 2015 his 'not a Westminster politician's shtick was rather undermined by the fact that he was, er, a Westminster politician. No matter how he tried to portray himself he was seen as continuity New Labour. Now he's had a few years in which he has genuinely displayed a bit of independence, and he can genuinely appear to be his own man.
He's also gotten older, which has been to his advantage, as he looked like a pretty boy band member back then. Lightweight. Not any more. He seems grittier, more mature, I quite like him
Yes that's something I've noticed too. The club of men who look better at 50 than 35 is a select one and Andy Burnham is in it. It's hard to think of many others. Benjamin Netanyahu maybe?
Someone who was not even a Tory MP was at times favourite to be next Tory leader - and he became Tory leader eventually albeit Theresa May was the leader in the interim in arguably the biggest mistake the Tory Party has made since it was founded.
Burnham has a clear path to being next Labour leader. Return to Parliament at the next election, which Starmer loses, then win the leadership contest.
Burnham as next Labour leader seems as likely as Starmer as next PM.
Both essentially require no change in leadership before the next election. Starmer bet wins then if Labour wins the election (unlikely), while Burnham wins if Labour loses the election (likely) and he wins the leadership contest (likely).
I concur. I think the next GE is Johnson v Starmer. Neither will be replaced before then. This means my long of Starmer Next PM at 8 is a Smug City position. It'll be trading at under 4 quite soon. But if the Cons win another majority Starmer will go and Burnham looks well placed to succeed him. Yes, he needs a seat, and he's not by any stretch a woman - which is a negative - nevertheless I wouldn't be laying him at the current 4.2. In fact it appeals (as per your logic) as a buy vs the Starmer bet. If this falls on a Con GE win, you'll probably see Burnham very short as next Lab leader. However I won't be doing this. Reason being it's a way off and much can happen in the meantime - eg Burnham loses interest, or goes off the boil, or we in Labour decide to grasp the nettle and actually elect a female leader instead of just musing about how terrific it would be to finally have one.
It it hard to see why it is a negative for a candidate to be male here. Labour selectorate consistently prefer men despite women standing. It may even be a big help if its 1 man vs several women again as it was for Starmer (ignoring Lewis who withdrew early on).
Wasn't that the reason why all woman shortlists had to be created? As even when you offered a choice of 4 women and 1 man, the man had way more than a 20% chance of getting selected..
"Had to be" is strong language.
Other parties didn't have to create all woman shortlists. Getting rid of misogyny and ensuring there are good female candidates ought to be enough.
So perhaps it is fair to say that, in order to achieve a balance between the genders it was necessary for Labour to use all-women shortlists, because the Conservative approach clearly has not worked.
Depends if all you're trying to do is achieve token artificial balance, or if you're trying to get the best and brightest who want to be MPs regardless of gender to the fore - and then bring them to the fore of your party too.
Labour has gotten more female MPs through, but then never been able to have any of them elected to being leader of the party. The Tories have had two female Prime Ministers (as much as I regret one of them).
Its not just at leadership level either than Labour are behind, of the 49 female Cabinet Ministers there have been throughout time according to Wikipedia, 23 of them have been Labour, 26 of them Tory, so in all time a majority of female Cabinet Ministers have come from the Tory Party, not the Labour Party. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01250/SN01250.pdf
Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with statistics would know that smaller sample sizes are more prone to random variation, so responding to my point about the gender balance among MPs with a point about the gender balance among party leaders is meaningless, and as for your point about cabinet minsters, without saying how many cabinet ministers there had been in total on Tory or Labour cabinets as a whole it is also equally meaningless.
You questioned whether all-women shortlists were required. We can see that they are if you want to achieve gender balance.
I think it should be seriously concerning to you that the Conservative party still fails - in 2021 - to have an equal balance of genders in its MPs. That implies a very large bias against women, most likely at several different stages of the process, and it's not good enough to try to handwave it away.
I don't think we should be seeking to acquire artificial "balance". Not if that then harms the women as being a "token woman" rather than taken seriously on their own merits - nor if it means a better candidate who just happened to be male is denied.
There is no guarantee that the party being disproportionately male is biased against women, it could be that more men than women are interested in politics and interested in running for office. It could be that Labour are denying better candidates for token women who are then ignored the second they're on the backbenches.
That the Tories have had more female Cabinet ministers than Labour have should really put paid to any ridiculous notion that what Labour is doing is working.
I think the UK will eventually agree a semi-free movement deal for under 35s from most EU countries on a bilateral basis. Similar to what we've just agreed with Australia. It suits all parties.
Does not suit me and I suspect doesn't suit those youngsters who are finally getting off rock bottom minimum wages due to not having an essentially infinite labour pool to draw on to keep wages at the bottom. Hospitality workers for example
That argument only works if you have significant unemployment, which was certainly not the case before covid.
If you have virtually full employment, and then you send away most of those doing menial jobs, the net effect is that more indigenous people end up doing menial jobs instead of more fulfilling work, albeit for somewhat higher wages than those who they replace. And everything gets more expensive.
For a lot of indigenous people especially the young menial work like stacking shelves and waiting tables is all they can get for a few years. If you can afford to go out for a meal you can afford to pay a little more. Maybe then the staff waiting on you can also afford to go out for a meal occasionally.
If the pay rises high enough due to staff shortages people from abroad will be able to get visa's under the points system to come do it.
For example my son, got a top class MsC from UCL in biochemistry....spent 3 years doing such menial jobs till he managed to find a non menial one, also know a friend of his that got a first in marine biology...still working in costa's after 8 years because he cant find a not hospitality job
Marine Biology and Philosophy have always had the highest graduate unemployment rates.
There's an interesting issue here, that's not related to Brexit. In the old days (say the mid-1990s), lots of big firms took in massive quantities of graduates and trained them up. Arthur Anderson or PWC would take in 1,000+ graduates each year, and places like Unilever would also take on very large numbers.
These days, the number of graduate training jobs is well down. And that's because hiring graduates is usually an altruistic pursuit. A 22 year old with little experience of work is going to cost you more in training (even before salary) than he's going to produce.
Firms, therefore, ended up wanting to employ people with a few years work experience under their belt. They wanted to make sure that people could turn up to work every day at 7am, that they'd know how to take instruction, etc. And yes, even a year at Costa Coffee was better than coming straight out of Manchester or UCL or the Sorbonne.
When I left Goldman at the beginning of 2000, this meant the average (i.e. the mean) age of someone on the graduate training programme was 27! Now some of this was because Germans left university earlier, but mostly it was because they expected a couple of years of real world experience before you joined.
And I think that's continued. Simply, we have a combination of many more graduates that in even 1995, combined with the fact that in today's economy, employers want someone with a bit more maturity.
I've noticed a big change in trainee intakes at my (law) firm. When I started (roughly 10 years ago), a large majority of the trainees with a legal background were straight out of law school/gap years. Now most of the trainees I see coming in seem to have spent at least some time as a paralegal first. I think being forced into paralegalling before a training contract was almost an indicator that you were probably not quite up to it back then (I'm not saying it's correct, just what I felt a lot of people's perception was), while it's certainly not the case now.
The SQE will likely change that. 2 years of paralegalling and 2 passed exams and you're qualified as a solicitor - no training contract required.
I wonder if the 'trainee' role will eventually disappear altogether and paralegals will become what 'trainees' currently are.
According to CNN London corrspondent this morning, cases of the virus are soaring, when they have been falling for almost 5 days! Fake new as Trump used to say.
CNN is the flip side of Fox News.
No it isn’t. Not remotely.
The New York Times is the flip side of Fox News, in terms of impact and bias
Bias/slant is a thing. Lazy reporting and assumptions, particularly when reporting on abroad and dumbing down for a home audience is a thing.
But NY Times and CNN are still serious news organisations that aspire to accuracy and factual reporting. Doesn’t mean they always get it right (particularly for reasons given above), but they still aspire to it.
The NYT has no interest in "getting it right" when it comes to, say, reporting the UK. They lazily pump out the most fatuous bilge which they must KNOW is total bollocks
So, like Fox News then
As a subscriber to the Times, I'd say their coverage of the UK falls into mainly two slots. Broad articles that cover the top news of the day, written for an American audience. Color pieces and travel features (canals!) that are mildly interesting. Both you usually forget about five minutes after reading.
If the accusation is that Fox “News” and CNN/NY Times have similarities due to their reporting of the U.K. being often based on sweeping generalisations and assumptions designed more to satisfy the preconceived ideas of their audience than providing genuine insight or even challenge to these ideas then fair enough.
However to extend that to suggestions that Fox and CNN/NY times are just offering similar output from opposite ends of the political spectrum is just nonsense. If anything Fox coverage of the U.K. is about the most harmless thing it does these days.
Maybe 20 years ago things weren’t so clearcut. But these days...
Daily 36,389 Last 7 days 309,742 up 31,747 (11.4%)
Not out of the woods yet....but not going deeper into them either.....so far....
By Monday we should be seeing week on week falls. Probably pretty slow and a tad erratic at first but the right direction.
Today is a week-on-week fall.
Today the last 7 days are 31,747 more than the previous 7 days which is an increase of 11% but that percentage is falling fast and will be negative early next week. That's what I meant.
Ah - I mean that today's number was lower than seven days ago, but reading the previous quote, you are clearly correct.
This wave has - I think - been very helpful to the UK. It's added a lot of new people with some degree of protection. When schools go back in September, we'll be in a position to start vaccinating 12-17 year olds, and for (most adult groups) herd immunity will be largely reached.
With everything being much faster-paced today it's difficult to see a leader staying on after an election defeat in the way that Kinnock did in 1987.
Maybe but Labour are much more averse to changing defeated leaders than the Conservatives though back in the day Heath won one and lost three but as you say it was a different time.
I just think if Starmer got the Conservative majority down to 10-15 seats, he might argue there'd be a chance of the majority being lost over a 5-year period.
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
With everything being much faster-paced today it's difficult to see a leader staying on after an election defeat in the way that Kinnock did in 1987.
Plus Starmer is much less admired by the party membership than Corbyn was after 2017, and Labour kind of treated 2017 like they'd won the election rather than that they'd lost it.
No, Corbyn and his entourage thought they had won, and they still do. Anyone with any basic grasp of reality within the party understood that they had lost.
Why was Theresa May weeping then? Didn't look like tears of joy.
I think the UK will eventually agree a semi-free movement deal for under 35s from most EU countries on a bilateral basis. Similar to what we've just agreed with Australia. It suits all parties.
Does not suit me and I suspect doesn't suit those youngsters who are finally getting off rock bottom minimum wages due to not having an essentially infinite labour pool to draw on to keep wages at the bottom. Hospitality workers for example
That argument only works if you have significant unemployment, which was certainly not the case before covid.
If you have virtually full employment, and then you send away most of those doing menial jobs, the net effect is that more indigenous people end up doing menial jobs instead of more fulfilling work, albeit for somewhat higher wages than those who they replace. And everything gets more expensive.
For a lot of indigenous people especially the young menial work like stacking shelves and waiting tables is all they can get for a few years. If you can afford to go out for a meal you can afford to pay a little more. Maybe then the staff waiting on you can also afford to go out for a meal occasionally.
If the pay rises high enough due to staff shortages people from abroad will be able to get visa's under the points system to come do it.
For example my son, got a top class MsC from UCL in biochemistry....spent 3 years doing such menial jobs till he managed to find a non menial one, also know a friend of his that got a first in marine biology...still working in costa's after 8 years because he cant find a not hospitality job
Marine Biology and Philosophy have always had the highest graduate unemployment rates.
There's an interesting issue here, that's not related to Brexit. In the old days (say the mid-1990s), lots of big firms took in massive quantities of graduates and trained them up. Arthur Anderson or PWC would take in 1,000+ graduates each year, and places like Unilever would also take on very large numbers.
These days, the number of graduate training jobs is well down. And that's because hiring graduates is usually an altruistic pursuit. A 22 year old with little experience of work is going to cost you more in training (even before salary) than he's going to produce.
Firms, therefore, ended up wanting to employ people with a few years work experience under their belt. They wanted to make sure that people could turn up to work every day at 7am, that they'd know how to take instruction, etc. And yes, even a year at Costa Coffee was better than coming straight out of Manchester or UCL or the Sorbonne.
When I left Goldman at the beginning of 2000, this meant the average (i.e. the mean) age of someone on the graduate training programme was 27! Now some of this was because Germans left university earlier, but mostly it was because they expected a couple of years of real world experience before you joined.
And I think that's continued. Simply, we have a combination of many more graduates that in even 1995, combined with the fact that in today's economy, employers want someone with a bit more maturity.
I've noticed a big change in trainee intakes at my (law) firm. When I started (roughly 10 years ago), a large majority of the trainees with a legal background were straight out of law school/gap years. Now most of the trainees I see coming in seem to have spent at least some time as a paralegal first. I think being forced into paralegalling before a training contract was almost an indicator that you were probably not quite up to it back then (I'm not saying it's correct, just what I felt a lot of people's perception was), while it's certainly not the case now.
The SQE will likely change that. 2 years of paralegalling and 2 passed exams and you're qualified as a solicitor - no training contract required.
I wonder if the 'trainee' role will eventually disappear altogether and paralegals will become what 'trainees' currently are.
There are various examples of major parties in parliamentary democracies being led by someone who isn't an MP (Canada has provided quite a few of them), and indeed the Scottish Conservatives are led by Douglas Ross, who is an MP rather than an MSP.
It is the case (as far as I know) that the Labour Party's current rules state that the leader must be an MP. However, if there's enough clamour for Burnham then there's no reason why the rules can't be changed quite swiftly. Both the Fixed Term Parliaments Act and the Conservative Party's "one year rule" (it was rumoured that the 1922 Committee was in the process of changing that particular rule when May was being stubborn) have proven quite easy to get around.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
What’s the point of leaving to follow their rules?
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
With everything being much faster-paced today it's difficult to see a leader staying on after an election defeat in the way that Kinnock did in 1987.
Plus Starmer is much less admired by the party membership than Corbyn was after 2017, and Labour kind of treated 2017 like they'd won the election rather than that they'd lost it.
No, Corbyn and his entourage thought they had won, and they still do. Anyone with any basic grasp of reality within the party understood that they had lost.
Why was Theresa May weeping then? Didn't look like tears of joy.
Because she lost her majority and did much worse than expected, even though she won the election.
Doesn't mean Corbyn didn't lose the election.
A bit like the delayed end to the 2019-20 Premier League season. Liverpool lost or drew many of their last few games, ending the chance for an undefeated season and ending the chance for 100+ point season both of which had looked nailed on a couple of weeks earlier. Still won the League, just not by as much as hoped for, just as the Tories still won the election.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
No they're not. We've banned foie gras. That's at least one difference, where we now have higher standards and are looking at enforcing that with an import ban soon that wouldn't be possible in the EEA.
Where the two sets of rules are the same, why can't reciprocity be recognised?
Can someone explain how we've got ourselves into a situation where we're (virtually) all jabbed up but things are as bad they were at the the start of the pandemic with everyone under house arrest, empty shelves and the return of the dreaded bog roll panic buyers?
Someone who was not even a Tory MP was at times favourite to be next Tory leader - and he became Tory leader eventually albeit Theresa May was the leader in the interim in arguably the biggest mistake the Tory Party has made since it was founded.
Burnham has a clear path to being next Labour leader. Return to Parliament at the next election, which Starmer loses, then win the leadership contest.
Burnham as next Labour leader seems as likely as Starmer as next PM.
Both essentially require no change in leadership before the next election. Starmer bet wins then if Labour wins the election (unlikely), while Burnham wins if Labour loses the election (likely) and he wins the leadership contest (likely).
I concur. I think the next GE is Johnson v Starmer. Neither will be replaced before then. This means my long of Starmer Next PM at 8 is a Smug City position. It'll be trading at under 4 quite soon. But if the Cons win another majority Starmer will go and Burnham looks well placed to succeed him. Yes, he needs a seat, and he's not by any stretch a woman - which is a negative - nevertheless I wouldn't be laying him at the current 4.2. In fact it appeals (as per your logic) as a buy vs the Starmer bet. If this falls on a Con GE win, you'll probably see Burnham very short as next Lab leader. However I won't be doing this. Reason being it's a way off and much can happen in the meantime - eg Burnham loses interest, or goes off the boil, or we in Labour decide to grasp the nettle and actually elect a female leader instead of just musing about how terrific it would be to finally have one.
It it hard to see why it is a negative for a candidate to be male here. Labour selectorate consistently prefer men despite women standing. It may even be a big help if its 1 man vs several women again as it was for Starmer (ignoring Lewis who withdrew early on).
Wasn't that the reason why all woman shortlists had to be created? As even when you offered a choice of 4 women and 1 man, the man had way more than a 20% chance of getting selected..
"Had to be" is strong language.
Other parties didn't have to create all woman shortlists. Getting rid of misogyny and ensuring there are good female candidates ought to be enough.
So perhaps it is fair to say that, in order to achieve a balance between the genders it was necessary for Labour to use all-women shortlists, because the Conservative approach clearly has not worked.
Depends if all you're trying to do is achieve token artificial balance, or if you're trying to get the best and brightest who want to be MPs regardless of gender to the fore - and then bring them to the fore of your party too.
Labour has gotten more female MPs through, but then never been able to have any of them elected to being leader of the party. The Tories have had two female Prime Ministers (as much as I regret one of them).
Its not just at leadership level either than Labour are behind, of the 49 female Cabinet Ministers there have been throughout time according to Wikipedia, 23 of them have been Labour, 26 of them Tory, so in all time a majority of female Cabinet Ministers have come from the Tory Party, not the Labour Party. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01250/SN01250.pdf
Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with statistics would know that smaller sample sizes are more prone to random variation, so responding to my point about the gender balance among MPs with a point about the gender balance among party leaders is meaningless, and as for your point about cabinet minsters, without saying how many cabinet ministers there had been in total on Tory or Labour cabinets as a whole it is also equally meaningless.
You questioned whether all-women shortlists were required. We can see that they are if you want to achieve gender balance.
I think it should be seriously concerning to you that the Conservative party still fails - in 2021 - to have an equal balance of genders in its MPs. That implies a very large bias against women, most likely at several different stages of the process, and it's not good enough to try to handwave it away.
I don't think we should be seeking to acquire artificial "balance". Not if that then harms the women as being a "token woman" rather than taken seriously on their own merits - nor if it means a better candidate who just happened to be male is denied.
There is no guarantee that the party being disproportionately male is biased against women, it could be that more men than women are interested in politics and interested in running for office. It could be that Labour are denying better candidates for token women who are then ignored the second they're on the backbenches.
That the Tories have had more female Cabinet ministers than Labour have should really put paid to any ridiculous notion that what Labour is doing is working.
Don’t forget that AWS are only possible, because of a massive carve-out for political parties from the discrimation bills of Hattie Harperson. They made themselves, as politicians so often do, exempt from the laws they push on everyone else.
Can someone explain how we've got ourselves into a situation where we're all jabbed up but things are as bad they were at the the start of the pandemic with everyone under house arrest, empty shelves and the return of the dreaded bog roll panic buyers?
We're not. There are no legal restrictions applied to "everybody" 😕
Can someone explain how we've got ourselves into a situation where we're (virtually) all jabbed up but things are as bad they were at the the start of the pandemic with everyone under house arrest, empty shelves and the return of the dreaded bog roll panic buyers?
Can someone explain how we've got ourselves into a situation where we're all jabbed up but things are as bad they were at the the start of the pandemic with everyone under house arrest, empty shelves and the return of the dreaded bog roll panic buyers?
We're not. There are no legal restrictions applied to "everybody" 😕
Why are the shelves bare then?
I was in Tesco this morning and it was just like back in the "dark times" of April 2020!
According to CNN London corrspondent this morning, cases of the virus are soaring, when they have been falling for almost 5 days! Fake new as Trump used to say.
CNN is the flip side of Fox News.
No it isn’t. Not remotely.
The New York Times is the flip side of Fox News, in terms of impact and bias
I'm not sure there is an obvious "flip side" to Fox News, because Fox News itself is a very odd beast.
It's basic news reporting is pretty good. It's certainly no worse than CNN.
But it also has batshit crazy commentators: Hannity, Carlson and (maddest of the mad) Judge Jeanine Pirro.
The New York Times is basically good on all things except Brexit. They have decided the UK is an island in decline, and it colours their reporting. That being said, that's begun to change of late. They were notably more critical of the EU and Germany as far as vaccines, and today ran a piece on how poorly the German government had managed the floods.
But as far as US coverage goes, the NYTimes is great. And they're notably less Democratically loyal than - for example - the Washington Post.
So...I'm not sure I'd describe them as flipsides of each other at all.
Someone who was not even a Tory MP was at times favourite to be next Tory leader - and he became Tory leader eventually albeit Theresa May was the leader in the interim in arguably the biggest mistake the Tory Party has made since it was founded.
Burnham has a clear path to being next Labour leader. Return to Parliament at the next election, which Starmer loses, then win the leadership contest.
Burnham as next Labour leader seems as likely as Starmer as next PM.
Both essentially require no change in leadership before the next election. Starmer bet wins then if Labour wins the election (unlikely), while Burnham wins if Labour loses the election (likely) and he wins the leadership contest (likely).
I concur. I think the next GE is Johnson v Starmer. Neither will be replaced before then. This means my long of Starmer Next PM at 8 is a Smug City position. It'll be trading at under 4 quite soon. But if the Cons win another majority Starmer will go and Burnham looks well placed to succeed him. Yes, he needs a seat, and he's not by any stretch a woman - which is a negative - nevertheless I wouldn't be laying him at the current 4.2. In fact it appeals (as per your logic) as a buy vs the Starmer bet. If this falls on a Con GE win, you'll probably see Burnham very short as next Lab leader. However I won't be doing this. Reason being it's a way off and much can happen in the meantime - eg Burnham loses interest, or goes off the boil, or we in Labour decide to grasp the nettle and actually elect a female leader instead of just musing about how terrific it would be to finally have one.
It it hard to see why it is a negative for a candidate to be male here. Labour selectorate consistently prefer men despite women standing. It may even be a big help if its 1 man vs several women again as it was for Starmer (ignoring Lewis who withdrew early on).
Wasn't that the reason why all woman shortlists had to be created? As even when you offered a choice of 4 women and 1 man, the man had way more than a 20% chance of getting selected..
"Had to be" is strong language.
Other parties didn't have to create all woman shortlists. Getting rid of misogyny and ensuring there are good female candidates ought to be enough.
So perhaps it is fair to say that, in order to achieve a balance between the genders it was necessary for Labour to use all-women shortlists, because the Conservative approach clearly has not worked.
Depends if all you're trying to do is achieve token artificial balance, or if you're trying to get the best and brightest who want to be MPs regardless of gender to the fore - and then bring them to the fore of your party too.
Labour has gotten more female MPs through, but then never been able to have any of them elected to being leader of the party. The Tories have had two female Prime Ministers (as much as I regret one of them).
Its not just at leadership level either than Labour are behind, of the 49 female Cabinet Ministers there have been throughout time according to Wikipedia, 23 of them have been Labour, 26 of them Tory, so in all time a majority of female Cabinet Ministers have come from the Tory Party, not the Labour Party. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01250/SN01250.pdf
Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with statistics would know that smaller sample sizes are more prone to random variation, so responding to my point about the gender balance among MPs with a point about the gender balance among party leaders is meaningless, and as for your point about cabinet minsters, without saying how many cabinet ministers there had been in total on Tory or Labour cabinets as a whole it is also equally meaningless.
You questioned whether all-women shortlists were required. We can see that they are if you want to achieve gender balance.
I think it should be seriously concerning to you that the Conservative party still fails - in 2021 - to have an equal balance of genders in its MPs. That implies a very large bias against women, most likely at several different stages of the process, and it's not good enough to try to handwave it away.
I don't think we should be seeking to acquire artificial "balance". Not if that then harms the women as being a "token woman" rather than taken seriously on their own merits - nor if it means a better candidate who just happened to be male is denied.
There is no guarantee that the party being disproportionately male is biased against women, it could be that more men than women are interested in politics and interested in running for office. It could be that Labour are denying better candidates for token women who are then ignored the second they're on the backbenches.
That the Tories have had more female Cabinet ministers than Labour have should really put paid to any ridiculous notion that what Labour is doing is working.
Are you honestly still trying to run with the argument that women simply aren't interested in politics and don't want to be MPs? In 2021?
There may well be better ways of fixing the problem than all-women shortlists - I certainly hope so, because I'm not a big fan of them. But you're never going to find better ways of fixing the problem if you refuse to admit that you have one.
Can someone explain how we've got ourselves into a situation where we're (virtually) all jabbed up but things are as bad they were at the the start of the pandemic with everyone under house arrest, empty shelves and the return of the dreaded bog roll panic buyers?
...and a thousand people a day dying of Covid?
Well no thankfully as the vaccine has broken the link between infection and death... but by the state of the country you'd think it hadn't...
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
With everything being much faster-paced today it's difficult to see a leader staying on after an election defeat in the way that Kinnock did in 1987.
Plus Starmer is much less admired by the party membership than Corbyn was after 2017, and Labour kind of treated 2017 like they'd won the election rather than that they'd lost it.
No, Corbyn and his entourage thought they had won, and they still do. Anyone with any basic grasp of reality within the party understood that they had lost.
Why was Theresa May weeping then? Didn't look like tears of joy.
Because she lost her majority and did much worse than expected, even though she won the election.
Doesn't mean Corbyn didn't lose the election.
A bit like the delayed end to the 2019-20 Premier League season. Liverpool lost or drew many of their last few games, ending the chance for an undefeated season and ending the chance for 100+ point season both of which had looked nailed on a couple of weeks earlier. Still won the League, just not by as much as hoped for, just as the Tories still won the election.
You're right of course. But May didn't "win" the election. She had to rely on the DUP to do that for her. And here we are.
There are various examples of major parties in parliamentary democracies being led by someone who isn't an MP (Canada has provided quite a few of them), and indeed the Scottish Conservatives are led by Douglas Ross, who is an MP rather than an MSP.
It is the case (as far as I know) that the Labour Party's current rules state that the leader must be an MP. However, if there's enough clamour for Burnham then there's no reason why the rules can't be changed quite swiftly. Both the Fixed Term Parliaments Act and the Conservative Party's "one year rule" (it was rumoured that the 1922 Committee was in the process of changing that particular rule when May was being stubborn) have proven quite easy to get around.
Point of information: Douglas Ross, leader of the English Revolutionary Nationalist Party (Scotland creek) has three jobs:
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
With everything being much faster-paced today it's difficult to see a leader staying on after an election defeat in the way that Kinnock did in 1987.
Plus Starmer is much less admired by the party membership than Corbyn was after 2017, and Labour kind of treated 2017 like they'd won the election rather than that they'd lost it.
No, Corbyn and his entourage thought they had won, and they still do. Anyone with any basic grasp of reality within the party understood that they had lost.
Why was Theresa May weeping then? Didn't look like tears of joy.
Because she lost her majority and did much worse than expected, even though she won the election.
Doesn't mean Corbyn didn't lose the election.
A bit like the delayed end to the 2019-20 Premier League season. Liverpool lost or drew many of their last few games, ending the chance for an undefeated season and ending the chance for 100+ point season both of which had looked nailed on a couple of weeks earlier. Still won the League, just not by as much as hoped for, just as the Tories still won the election.
You're right of course. But May didn't "win" the election. She had to rely on the DUP to do that for her. And here we are.
In the Ranji Trophy they have the concept of a winning draw - that was the result in 2017.
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
Maybe not impossible (Kinnock lost 2 not 3 BTW). The lack of stellar candidates may force SKS to stay. Kinnock was followed by two outstanding leaders, Smith and Blair. It is not easy to see many parallels is the current crop.
Strange to think that if Smith had lived he would have been 59 at the 1997 election and could have done the Blair years as PM. Blair would be an interesting footnote, Smith still the revered face and Grand Old Man of a moderate Labour hegemony, Scotland a Labour fiefdom, Boris the editor of the Spectator.....
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
With everything being much faster-paced today it's difficult to see a leader staying on after an election defeat in the way that Kinnock did in 1987.
Plus Starmer is much less admired by the party membership than Corbyn was after 2017, and Labour kind of treated 2017 like they'd won the election rather than that they'd lost it.
No, Corbyn and his entourage thought they had won, and they still do. Anyone with any basic grasp of reality within the party understood that they had lost.
Why was Theresa May weeping then? Didn't look like tears of joy.
Because she lost her majority and did much worse than expected, even though she won the election.
Doesn't mean Corbyn didn't lose the election.
A bit like the delayed end to the 2019-20 Premier League season. Liverpool lost or drew many of their last few games, ending the chance for an undefeated season and ending the chance for 100+ point season both of which had looked nailed on a couple of weeks earlier. Still won the League, just not by as much as hoped for, just as the Tories still won the election.
Sure. But Labour’s performance at GE17 was strong on many key metrics and exceeded all expectations. GE19 was the opposite. Both were under Corbyn. You can't use the latter as proof a left wing leader spells electoral disaster and then ignore the former or downplay it just as a "loss" end of story. People who do that are as biased as the Corbynites who say GE17 proves that Left is definitely the way to go and ignore or use sophistry to explain away GE19. Same thing.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
What’s the point of leaving to follow their rules?
What is the point in arbitrarily changing our rules just to be different? Again, if we want to trade with them, our stuff has to be compliant, just as the toys made in China for the UK market have to be compliant with our rules.
We can do whatever we want with our standards. And the EU can do what they want and if that means we're no longer compliant they won't let us in. Sovereignty works both ways.
There are various examples of major parties in parliamentary democracies being led by someone who isn't an MP (Canada has provided quite a few of them), and indeed the Scottish Conservatives are led by Douglas Ross, who is an MP rather than an MSP.
It is the case (as far as I know) that the Labour Party's current rules state that the leader must be an MP. However, if there's enough clamour for Burnham then there's no reason why the rules can't be changed quite swiftly. Both the Fixed Term Parliaments Act and the Conservative Party's "one year rule" (it was rumoured that the 1922 Committee was in the process of changing that particular rule when May was being stubborn) have proven quite easy to get around.
Point of information: Douglas Ross, leader of the English Revolutionary Nationalist Party (Scotland creek) has three jobs:
- linesman - MP - MSP
And referee now too? Or am I miscounting?
PS This reminds me I never came across any update to this -
According to CNN London corrspondent this morning, cases of the virus are soaring, when they have been falling for almost 5 days! Fake new as Trump used to say.
CNN is the flip side of Fox News.
No it isn’t. Not remotely.
The New York Times is the flip side of Fox News, in terms of impact and bias
I'm not sure there is an obvious "flip side" to Fox News, because Fox News itself is a very odd beast.
It's basic news reporting is pretty good. It's certainly no worse than CNN.
But it also has batshit crazy commentators: Hannity, Carlson and (maddest of the mad) Judge Jeanine Pirro.
The New York Times is basically good on all things except Brexit. They have decided the UK is an island in decline, and it colours their reporting. That being said, that's begun to change of late. They were notably more critical of the EU and Germany as far as vaccines, and today ran a piece on how poorly the German government had managed the floods.
But as far as US coverage goes, the NYTimes is great. And they're notably less Democratically loyal than - for example - the Washington Post.
So...I'm not sure I'd describe them as flipsides of each other at all.
You are describing the Fox News of 20 years ago. They barely have a functional factual news gathering organisation any more.
'An Australian activewear firm has been fined £2.6m (5m Australian dollars) for claiming its clothing "eliminated" and stopped the spread of Covid.
Lorna Jane had advertised that its clothing used "a groundbreaking technology" called LJ Shield to prevent the "transferal of all pathogens". [...] The company maintained that it had been misled by its own supplier. "A trusted supplier sold us a product that did not perform as promised," said Lorna Jane chief executive Bill Clarkson.'
Presumably one is supposed to wear their Lycra troosers on the head ...?
According to CNN London corrspondent this morning, cases of the virus are soaring, when they have been falling for almost 5 days! Fake new as Trump used to say.
CNN is the flip side of Fox News.
No it isn’t. Not remotely.
The New York Times is the flip side of Fox News, in terms of impact and bias
I'm not sure there is an obvious "flip side" to Fox News, because Fox News itself is a very odd beast.
It's basic news reporting is pretty good. It's certainly no worse than CNN.
But it also has batshit crazy commentators: Hannity, Carlson and (maddest of the mad) Judge Jeanine Pirro.
The New York Times is basically good on all things except Brexit. They have decided the UK is an island in decline, and it colours their reporting. That being said, that's begun to change of late. They were notably more critical of the EU and Germany as far as vaccines, and today ran a piece on how poorly the German government had managed the floods.
But as far as US coverage goes, the NYTimes is great. And they're notably less Democratically loyal than - for example - the Washington Post.
So...I'm not sure I'd describe them as flipsides of each other at all.
CNN have their fake newer hosts...not in the same league as Hannity, but Don Lemon and Cuomo talk absolute bullshit. For left leaning batshit Carole Conspiracy stuff, you have to go to MSNBC for Rachel Maddow.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
No they're not. We've banned foie gras. That's at least one difference, where we now have higher standards and are looking at enforcing that with an import ban soon that wouldn't be possible in the EEA.
Where the two sets of rules are the same, why can't reciprocity be recognised?
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
What’s the point of leaving to follow their rules?
What is the point in arbitrarily changing our rules just to be different? Again, if we want to trade with them, our stuff has to be compliant, just as the toys made in China for the UK market have to be compliant with our rules.
We can do whatever we want with our standards. And the EU can do what they want and if that means we're no longer compliant they won't let us in. Sovereignty works both ways.
You’re contradicting yourself. Two markets don’t need to have the same rules in order to trade..
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
No they're not. We've banned foie gras. That's at least one difference, where we now have higher standards and are looking at enforcing that with an import ban soon that wouldn't be possible in the EEA.
Where the two sets of rules are the same, why can't reciprocity be recognised?
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
What’s the point of leaving to follow their rules?
What is the point in arbitrarily changing our rules just to be different? Again, if we want to trade with them, our stuff has to be compliant, just as the toys made in China for the UK market have to be compliant with our rules.
We can do whatever we want with our standards. And the EU can do what they want and if that means we're no longer compliant they won't let us in. Sovereignty works both ways.
You’re contradicting yourself. Two markets don’t need to have the same rules in order to trade..
I think the UK will eventually agree a semi-free movement deal for under 35s from most EU countries on a bilateral basis. Similar to what we've just agreed with Australia. It suits all parties.
Does not suit me and I suspect doesn't suit those youngsters who are finally getting off rock bottom minimum wages due to not having an essentially infinite labour pool to draw on to keep wages at the bottom. Hospitality workers for example
That argument only works if you have significant unemployment, which was certainly not the case before covid.
If you have virtually full employment, and then you send away most of those doing menial jobs, the net effect is that more indigenous people end up doing menial jobs instead of more fulfilling work, albeit for somewhat higher wages than those who they replace. And everything gets more expensive.
For a lot of indigenous people especially the young menial work like stacking shelves and waiting tables is all they can get for a few years. If you can afford to go out for a meal you can afford to pay a little more. Maybe then the staff waiting on you can also afford to go out for a meal occasionally.
If the pay rises high enough due to staff shortages people from abroad will be able to get visa's under the points system to come do it.
For example my son, got a top class MsC from UCL in biochemistry....spent 3 years doing such menial jobs till he managed to find a non menial one, also know a friend of his that got a first in marine biology...still working in costa's after 8 years because he cant find a not hospitality job
Marine Biology and Philosophy have always had the highest graduate unemployment rates.
There's an interesting issue here, that's not related to Brexit. In the old days (say the mid-1990s), lots of big firms took in massive quantities of graduates and trained them up. Arthur Anderson or PWC would take in 1,000+ graduates each year, and places like Unilever would also take on very large numbers.
These days, the number of graduate training jobs is well down. And that's because hiring graduates is usually an altruistic pursuit. A 22 year old with little experience of work is going to cost you more in training (even before salary) than he's going to produce.
Firms, therefore, ended up wanting to employ people with a few years work experience under their belt. They wanted to make sure that people could turn up to work every day at 7am, that they'd know how to take instruction, etc. And yes, even a year at Costa Coffee was better than coming straight out of Manchester or UCL or the Sorbonne.
When I left Goldman at the beginning of 2000, this meant the average (i.e. the mean) age of someone on the graduate training programme was 27! Now some of this was because Germans left university earlier, but mostly it was because they expected a couple of years of real world experience before you joined.
And I think that's continued. Simply, we have a combination of many more graduates that in even 1995, combined with the fact that in today's economy, employers want someone with a bit more maturity.
I think thats sort of the point I was trying to make
There are x jobs in the country Y% are good jobs Z% are menial jobs
If the people qualified to do y jobs in society are greater than the number of y jobs then some of them will end up in z jobs. Keeping the wages of z jobs artificially low by using an infinite labour pool does those only able to get Z jobs whether through lack of skills or lack of luck getting a y job does them no favours.
The place where you and I disagree is the "keeping wages artificially low". I am fully onboard that unlimited immigration increases demand on scarce resources like housing, schools, etc., and therefore creates negative externalities.
However, if wages were driving down the cost of labour across the board, you'd expect to see a number of things:
(1) UK export growth exceed peers, as we'd have lower wage rates (2) The profit share of GDP grow relative to countries where immigration was lower (3) Lower wage growth than countries where immigration was lower
But (1) is a definite "no", (2) is also "no", with the UK's dropping behind most other EU and developed world countries for profit share, and (3) is at best is mixed (albeit, you would expect that countries with higher wage growth would attract more immigration, so it is chicken and egg).
I struggle to see how - given an increasing proportion of jobs can be delivered remotely or across national borders - wages in the medium term exceed international norms. Now, that may not be true of Starbucks or your local hairdresser, but it's probably true of pretty much every graduate level job.
Ok for starters 1) is false. It would be true if lower wages in equal situations. However the uk has not invested in automation and has instead used low priced labour so the countries competing are in fact a lot more equal than you claim they merely had an upfront cost to automate which year by year gets cheaper
2) GDP per capita in the uk has declined over the last 20 years to the point we are now 29th
3) Wage growth in this country is misleading if you stripped out the uprating of minimum wage and the excesses of the top 10% wage growth is minimal
You've literally ignored all my points and responded to entirely different ones.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
No they're not. We've banned foie gras. That's at least one difference, where we now have higher standards and are looking at enforcing that with an import ban soon that wouldn't be possible in the EEA.
Where the two sets of rules are the same, why can't reciprocity be recognised?
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
No they're not. We've banned foie gras. That's at least one difference, where we now have higher standards and are looking at enforcing that with an import ban soon that wouldn't be possible in the EEA.
Where the two sets of rules are the same, why can't reciprocity be recognised?
Burnham was rubbish last time he stood. He was the Matt Hancock of the Labour Party. He opposed Corbyn until he didn't. He got a shadow cabinet position selling his allies down the river until the writing on the wall told him he was on a one way ticket to palookaville and he was off. Sir Keir with some coaching could be OK. When Johnson implodes -and I've never been more certain of anything-Starmer will be just what the country needs.
If we want to trade with any trading block whether it be sovereign state or supranational we have to follow the rules of that area. Jaguar have to build cars to American spec to sell them in America. The UK will have to supply products to EEA spec to sell them in the EEA. Why should we expect the other side to change or drop their rules because we say so? Does anyone do that?
Now if you apply that logic to the UK, you will see how silly it is to expect us to align with the EU just because they say so.
Silly, we are aligned because WE say so. The EEA rules are our rules!
What’s the point of leaving to follow their rules?
What is the point in arbitrarily changing our rules just to be different? Again, if we want to trade with them, our stuff has to be compliant, just as the toys made in China for the UK market have to be compliant with our rules.
We can do whatever we want with our standards. And the EU can do what they want and if that means we're no longer compliant they won't let us in. Sovereignty works both ways.
You’re contradicting yourself. Two markets don’t need to have the same rules in order to trade..
Indeed. When did I say that they did?
“If… we're no longer compliant they won't let us in”
Why do you think we need to adopt their rules domestically if you don’t believe this?
Although the BBC is hedging his bets, Prof Spector suggested a couple of weeks back that new symptoms reported on the Zoe App had already peaked, adding extra credibility to the suggestion we may be past the worst.
There are various examples of major parties in parliamentary democracies being led by someone who isn't an MP (Canada has provided quite a few of them), and indeed the Scottish Conservatives are led by Douglas Ross, who is an MP rather than an MSP.
It is the case (as far as I know) that the Labour Party's current rules state that the leader must be an MP. However, if there's enough clamour for Burnham then there's no reason why the rules can't be changed quite swiftly. Both the Fixed Term Parliaments Act and the Conservative Party's "one year rule" (it was rumoured that the 1922 Committee was in the process of changing that particular rule when May was being stubborn) have proven quite easy to get around.
Point of information: Douglas Ross, leader of the English Revolutionary Nationalist Party (Scotland creek) has three jobs:
- linesman - MP - MSP
And referee now too? Or am I miscounting?
PS This reminds me I never came across any update to this -
No, not according to Douglas himself. He was the guest on BBC Radio Scotland’s Off the Ball last week, and did a very good job in the circumstances. Certainly the most human Tory I’ve heard in a long time. There was more discussion of football than politics (thank goodness), and apparently the term “linesman” is no longer the official name of the job. Anyhoo, I think he tried for the referee exams but there was some problem. The episode is available on the usual podcast services for the curious.
Comments
It’s a shame, in that we could do with a bit more basic competence and good judgement at the top of politics. Such people could very well make good PMs, provided they avoid getting too mired in the minutiae and are willing to gather some other big hitters around them to deal with areas such as foreign policy.
The issue is that the skills needed to get the top job (both of your party and then the country) are different to those needed to actually do it well. As the current incumbent is amply proving.
Cases were growing plenty fast before the 19th amongst 18-30 year olds so not remotely convinced they were all locked away and are suddenly socialising more as clubs are open. But we shall see. Personally expecting school closure impact to be several times bigger than any step 4 impact.
There is something different going on in Israel if those figures are correct.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/23/pfizer-vaccine-second-dose-has-sweet-spot-after-eight-weeks-uk-scientists-say
But I have to say they always ate it with relish.
Labour has gotten more female MPs through, but then never been able to have any of them elected to being leader of the party. The Tories have had two female Prime Ministers (as much as I regret one of them).
Its not just at leadership level either than Labour are behind, of the 49 female Cabinet Ministers there have been throughout time according to Wikipedia, 23 of them have been Labour, 26 of them Tory, so in all time a majority of female Cabinet Ministers have come from the Tory Party, not the Labour Party. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01250/SN01250.pdf
Since Neil Kinnock presided over three Labour GE defeats and Jeremy Corbyn two, I just wonder whether Starmer would go if Labour failed to gain power next time.
Let's say the Conservative majority is cut from 80 to 20. That would, I'd argue, represent significant progress (less so if the LDs are the ones making the gains but to be charitable let's assume 25 CON losses to Labour and 5 to the LDs.)
After 1992, the Labour strategy was "one more heave" and the Smith/Beckett team barely acknowledged the LD progress in 1993 and early 1994 (ignoring the Labour disaster at Newbury for example).
In the 1994 London locals, the Conservative losses (211) were split almost equally between Labour (118) and LDs (96). Smith's death and Blair's rise marked the high water of LD prospects as Blair was able to persuade disillusioned Conservatives to switch directly to labour without stopping at the "halfway house" of the LDs.
The fact however is we are in nothing like the same electoral waters of 1993-94. The Conservatives remain dominant especially in the North and Midlands and while the Greens and LDs chip away at the fringes, I come back to the "Woking Scenario" to remind myself the LDs need much more than a few transient ambushes to make an impact.
You're doing the right thing.
To which I would reply: "Stafford"
When he finally shuffles off this mortal coil - hopefully at a ripe old age, unlike many of the victims mistreated in Stafford - I hope that one name is put on his gravestone. The scandal ought to be following him around, a putrid Albatross around his neck.
"Well Grandpa, the chances are that this is going to end up part of a web service, so anything else would be a bit 1997."
You questioned whether all-women shortlists were required. We can see that they are if you want to achieve gender balance.
I think it should be seriously concerning to you that the Conservative party still fails - in 2021 - to have an equal balance of genders in its MPs. That implies a very large bias against women, most likely at several different stages of the process, and it's not good enough to try to handwave it away.
Although if I remember correctly, it was all a cat's fault ...
In this I was wrong, and it may have been due to national factors.
But I still think Janos Toth was out of his fucking mind to make every leaflet about how we should vote Labour to save the NHS from those evil Tory bastards.
It was the equivalent of Count Dracula running on the need for better blood donation services.
The clue is the "and". The UK is a nation-state. Made up of Great Britain - a tri-national country - and Northern Ireland - the rump remnant of the Irish nation that didn't separate.
The UK is not a "country", nor does it cover all of the nations and territories with its obvious borders. We are a fascinating hodge-podge of a thing...
There is no guarantee that the party being disproportionately male is biased against women, it could be that more men than women are interested in politics and interested in running for office. It could be that Labour are denying better candidates for token women who are then ignored the second they're on the backbenches.
That the Tories have had more female Cabinet ministers than Labour have should really put paid to any ridiculous notion that what Labour is doing is working.
I wonder if the 'trainee' role will eventually disappear altogether and paralegals will become what 'trainees' currently are.
However to extend that to suggestions that Fox and CNN/NY times are just offering similar output from opposite ends of the political spectrum is just nonsense. If anything Fox coverage of the U.K. is about the most harmless thing it does these days.
Maybe 20 years ago things weren’t so clearcut. But these days...
BBC Scodland seems to have caught up belatedly. I'm sure we'll have loads of hysterical headlines about England being Europe's Covid central now..
I just think if Starmer got the Conservative majority down to 10-15 seats, he might argue there'd be a chance of the majority being lost over a 5-year period.
It is the case (as far as I know) that the Labour Party's current rules state that the leader must be an MP. However, if there's enough clamour for Burnham then there's no reason why the rules can't be changed quite swiftly. Both the Fixed Term Parliaments Act and the Conservative Party's "one year rule" (it was rumoured that the 1922 Committee was in the process of changing that particular rule when May was being stubborn) have proven quite easy to get around.
Doesn't mean Corbyn didn't lose the election.
A bit like the delayed end to the 2019-20 Premier League season. Liverpool lost or drew many of their last few games, ending the chance for an undefeated season and ending the chance for 100+ point season both of which had looked nailed on a couple of weeks earlier. Still won the League, just not by as much as hoped for, just as the Tories still won the election.
Where the two sets of rules are the same, why can't reciprocity be recognised?
I was in Tesco this morning and it was just like back in the "dark times" of April 2020!
It's basic news reporting is pretty good. It's certainly no worse than CNN.
But it also has batshit crazy commentators: Hannity, Carlson and (maddest of the mad) Judge Jeanine Pirro.
The New York Times is basically good on all things except Brexit. They have decided the UK is an island in decline, and it colours their reporting. That being said, that's begun to change of late. They were notably more critical of the EU and Germany as far as vaccines, and today ran a piece on how poorly the German government had managed the floods.
But as far as US coverage goes, the NYTimes is great. And they're notably less Democratically loyal than - for example - the Washington Post.
So...I'm not sure I'd describe them as flipsides of each other at all.
Tut, you'll be triggering the Brexiters on PB.
There may well be better ways of fixing the problem than all-women shortlists - I certainly hope so, because I'm not a big fan of them. But you're never going to find better ways of fixing the problem if you refuse to admit that you have one.
‘Stonehenge may be next UK site to lose world heritage status’
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/23/stonehenge-may-be-next-uk-site-to-lose-world-heritage-status
It's bizarre!
She had to rely on the DUP to do that for her.
And here we are.
- linesman
- MP
- MSP
Strange to think that if Smith had lived he would have been 59 at the 1997 election and could have done the Blair years as PM. Blair would be an interesting footnote, Smith still the revered face and Grand Old Man of a moderate Labour hegemony, Scotland a Labour fiefdom, Boris the editor of the Spectator.....
We can do whatever we want with our standards. And the EU can do what they want and if that means we're no longer compliant they won't let us in. Sovereignty works both ways.
PS This reminds me I never came across any update to this -
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18837977.fifa-asked-investigate-use-douglas-ross-linesman-photo-scottish-conservative-party-leaflet/
'An Australian activewear firm has been fined £2.6m (5m Australian dollars) for claiming its clothing "eliminated" and stopped the spread of Covid.
Lorna Jane had advertised that its clothing used "a groundbreaking technology" called LJ Shield to prevent the "transferal of all pathogens". [...] The company maintained that it had been misled by its own supplier. "A trusted supplier sold us a product that did not perform as promised," said Lorna Jane chief executive Bill Clarkson.'
Presumably one is supposed to wear their Lycra troosers on the head ...?
Why do you think we need to adopt their rules domestically if you don’t believe this?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57942217
Although the BBC is hedging his bets, Prof Spector suggested a couple of weeks back that new symptoms reported on the Zoe App had already peaked, adding extra credibility to the suggestion we may be past the worst.