Speaking at today's anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown rally in London's Trafalgar Square, former nurse Kate Shemirani - who was struck off in June - says Covid vaccines are "Satanic", citing "the pattern 060606". The graphine oxide single-molecule sheet "is a conductor", she adds.
One does wonder, with all these declining internals, how poor the opposition must be not to be able to shift the overall voting intention....
Apart from the gibberish geek-speak of your 'declining internals' (argh that is one of the worst I've read in an age) this is such a ridiculous post. You've just seen two big lead declines (YouGov and Survation) to 4%. If Opinium is on 8% that's not out of kilter.
And your same poll has just posted up big declines for Johnson's favourability. A 10% drop in support for the Government, the sharpest decline since May.
I know this has historically been discussed a lot, and occasionally raised since Covid, but is anyone doing anything other than internet polling at the moment. I feel sure that internet polling will be overstating pro restriction/lockdown opinion recently unless finding a way to moderate for it. Obviously not to the same extent when everyone was confined to their homes for long periods.
Almost by definition, risk averse individuals are far more likely to be at home completing internet polls at the moment. And if Covid risk averseness doesn't obviously mirror other weighting factors then this could represent a serious issue for polling.
Through Daughter as her restaurant has access to a good fish supplier. Sea bass is usually on the menu.
But it's a treat. Reminds me of home and would really like to eat it in Naples.
I thought home was south Asia for some reason. Or West Hampstead? It is Naples?
Can't explain South Asia. My brother lived there. I have only ever travelled round India
I am half-Neapolitan. (Other half is Irish). Spent a large part of my childhood there. Italian is my first language. All my early memories are of Naples so, yes, at a visceral level it is home.
Lived in Hampstead & West Hampstead for very many years. Also Brixton.
Now living in the Lakes where, despite being thousands of miles away, next to the North Sea, in a region known for its rain, which sometimes comes in horizontally, and occasionally fierce winds, I am obstinately growing oranges, lemons, clementines, figs and a vine on my terrace. So far the summer weather has been kind.
I can see the sea from my window so it is not so unlike Naples where seeing the sea, going down to it, playing in the park next to it, staring at the fishermen drawing their nets in and at the small motoscafi bringing in contraband cigarettes was a constant.
There is something liberating and tempting about being able to see the sea.
I love Naples, for all its many many flaws. Magnificent food.
I even like the inner city slums - the Spanish Quarters are so atmospheric
The outer slums where the Camorra reign are less appealing
@Cyclefree is there an Italian pasta dish with an anchovy mayonnaise kind of sauce? If not there should be. Very cheap and easy to make.
Spaghetti con olive e capperi. Pasta with olives and capers - a staple of my childhood. Spaghetti with olive oil, olives (stoned) obviously and capers and seasoning to taste.
Puttanesca sauce has tomatoes, olives and anchovies.
In summer my two favourites are lemon sauce (Amalfi lemons) or courgettes and mint. Cut up the courgettes very finely into something resembling matchsticks. Lightly and quickly stir fry with some olive oil then mix with pasta and lots of fresh mint from your garden. Delicious!
I'm growing three kinds of courgette and two kinds of mint!
Whatever you do don't grow the mint in the ground. It's a thug, will take over and you'll never get rid of it. Always grow in a pot.
Courgettes flowers in batter - oh my!
We once thought we were being clever by growing mint in a drawer from an otherwise abandoned chest of drawers, but the mint escaped into the neighbouring lawn to do battle with the wild raspberry canes we'd recklessly rescued from a Bracknell park. Still, at least the person who bought the house from us had a thriving plum tree to enjoy.
Sajid Javid @sajidjavid Full recovery from Covid a week after testing positive. Symptoms were very mild, thanks to amazing vaccines. Please - if you haven’t yet - get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus.
He was an absolutely core component of the Leave campaign, and without him, maybe the vote would have gone a different way.
Indeed, but from the same article
Cummings is obsessed with winning. Or rather beating the clowns or idiots on the other side. He defeated the northeast assembly. He defeated the Alternative Vote. Brexit is no different. He wasn’t FOR Brexit, he was just against the people who were against it.
The entire Nation was screwed, not because the chief architects thought Brexit was a good idea, they both thought it was merely a good way to fuck over somebody else.
Quite some spin from Devi in response to Javid's tweet:
This must be painful to read for those who were severely ill & for those who lost loved ones to COVID. It wasn’t because they were weak- just unnecessarily exposed to a virus. And wanting to avoid getting COVID isn’t ‘cowering’- it’s being sensible & looking out for others.
One does wonder, with all these declining internals, how poor the opposition must be not to be able to shift the overall voting intention....
Apart from the gibberish geek-speak of your 'declining internals' (argh that is one of the worst I've read in an age) this is such a ridiculous post. You've just seen two big lead declines (YouGov and Survation) to 4%. If Opinium is on 8% that's not out of kilter.
And your same poll has just posted up big declines for Johnson's favourability. A 10% drop in support for the Government, the sharpest decline since May.
I know this has historically been discussed a lot, and occasionally raised since Covid, but is anyone doing anything other than internet polling at the moment. I feel sure that internet polling will be overstating pro restriction/lockdown opinion recently unless finding a way to moderate for it. Obviously not to the same extent when everyone was confined to their homes for long periods.
Almost by definition, risk averse individuals are far more likely to be at home completing internet polls at the moment. And if Covid risk averseness doesn't obviously mirror other weighting factors then this could represent a serious issue for polling.
Ipsos MORI definitely and some Survation polls have been phone polls.
This is utterly terrifying? I am all for tackling the obesity epidemic but this kind of approach seems totally unjustifiable. What happened to Johnson the liberal?
Two possibilities for starters-
First, the plan has been leaked to destroy it, a bit like the NI for Social Care scheme.
Second, Carrie has put Boris back on a diet and he doesn't see why anyone else should have a nice time eating unhealthy food if he can't.
But ultimately... Liberal BoJo was just another costume to wear when it seemed convenient and discard when it wasn't.
Talking of which, Dom Cummings's latest Twitter outpourings are fascinating to students of human misery. (Especially his "I'm Not Posh" denials.) He's not quite acknowledged that he's been exploited and outsmarted by the Bozza, but it's clearly coming...)
I absolutely detest people who pretend they are not posh, those people are nearly as bad as middle class people saying they are working class.
Terrible, terrible people.
It depends on how you define class. I'm painfully middle class but have worked like a dog to get where I am. When you're carrying everyone's jobs on your shoulders you are working are you not?
Its like the frankly overblown faux outrage aimed at @StuartDickson earlier. Are we saying that there are only certain jobs that count as working class? Perhaps if you work in a factory and show aptitude for people and processes and end up as management you have to hand in your WC badge?
What annoys me is that people screaming out against "London" don't seem to think that there are working class people in London. Some of the poverty in London is the worst anywhere in Europe, I utterly despise this idea some people are more deserving than others.
I vote Labour to give a better life to all people, I don't like the Tory approach of putting communities against each other. New Labour levelled up the country all over, that's the right approach
Yup - that's why the 'Red wall' never happened........
Sajid Javid @sajidjavid Full recovery from Covid a week after testing positive. Symptoms were very mild, thanks to amazing vaccines. Please - if you haven’t yet - get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus.
What an absolutely bizarre reading. Did you mean to post some other tweet of his to support that comic re-interpretation? Mere use of the word cower hardly does it.
Taken them a while to crank up the outrage bus.....original tweet 6 hours old....
Being cautious & protecting oneself & others isn't 'cowering'? Many want to protect themselves & loved ones, including CEV & those who're unvaccinated, who are even greater risk. Those who are vaccinated can get infected, transmit & get long COVID. What sort of messaging is this?
One does wonder, with all these declining internals, how poor the opposition must be not to be able to shift the overall voting intention....
Apart from the gibberish geek-speak of your 'declining internals' (argh that is one of the worst I've read in an age) this is such a ridiculous post. You've just seen two big lead declines (YouGov and Survation) to 4%. If Opinium is on 8% that's not out of kilter.
And your same poll has just posted up big declines for Johnson's favourability. A 10% drop in support for the Government, the sharpest decline since May.
I know this has historically been discussed a lot, and occasionally raised since Covid, but is anyone doing anything other than internet polling at the moment. I feel sure that internet polling will be overstating pro restriction/lockdown opinion recently unless finding a way to moderate for it. Obviously not to the same extent when everyone was confined to their homes for long periods.
Almost by definition, risk averse individuals are far more likely to be at home completing internet polls at the moment. And if Covid risk averseness doesn't obviously mirror other weighting factors then this could represent a serious issue for polling.
Ipsos MORI definitely and some Survation polls have been phone polls.
But are even phone polls going to be able to pick up anti lockdown sentiment?
Speaking at today's anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown rally in London's Trafalgar Square, former nurse Kate Shemirani - who was struck off in June - says Covid vaccines are "Satanic", citing "the pattern 060606". The graphine oxide single-molecule sheet "is a conductor", she adds.
Through Daughter as her restaurant has access to a good fish supplier. Sea bass is usually on the menu.
But it's a treat. Reminds me of home and would really like to eat it in Naples.
I thought home was south Asia for some reason. Or West Hampstead? It is Naples?
Can't explain South Asia. My brother lived there. I have only ever travelled round India
I am half-Neapolitan. (Other half is Irish). Spent a large part of my childhood there. Italian is my first language. All my early memories are of Naples so, yes, at a visceral level it is home.
Lived in Hampstead & West Hampstead for very many years. Also Brixton.
Now living in the Lakes where, despite being thousands of miles away, next to the North Sea, in a region known for its rain, which sometimes comes in horizontally, and occasionally fierce winds, I am obstinately growing oranges, lemons, clementines, figs and a vine on my terrace. So far the summer weather has been kind.
I can see the sea from my window so it is not so unlike Naples where seeing the sea, going down to it, playing in the park next to it, staring at the fishermen drawing their nets in and at the small motoscafi bringing in contraband cigarettes was a constant.
There is something liberating and tempting about being able to see the sea.
I love Naples, for all its many many flaws. Magnificent food.
I even like the inner city slums - the Spanish Quarters are so atmospheric
The outer slums where the Camorra reign are less appealing
Agreed. It is a fascinating city. Its history is a microcosm of European history - the Greeks, Romans, Normans, French, Spanish Bourbons, the English and, finally, the Germans and and Americans have all tried to take the place over, some with more success than others.
My family arrived there in the 16th century from Spain at about the same time as the Spanish quarter got named after all the Spanish soldiers who arrived. The family name - and many of the family's Christian names - are Spanish to this day.
He was an absolutely core component of the Leave campaign, and without him, maybe the vote would have gone a different way.
Indeed, but from the same article
Cummings is obsessed with winning. Or rather beating the clowns or idiots on the other side. He defeated the northeast assembly. He defeated the Alternative Vote. Brexit is no different. He wasn’t FOR Brexit, he was just against the people who were against it.
The entire Nation was screwed, not because the chief architects thought Brexit was a good idea, they both thought it was merely a good way to fuck over somebody else.
And still some people here are cheering for it...
This just isn't true, Scott, and until you learn why you are wrong, you will never heal your Brexit psychosis
I'll spell it out for you one more time. Cummings is a kind of revolutionary. He believes the British state was locked into permanent stagnation, favouring one class over all the others - the London Remainer class, essentially. He felt that this was wrong, and that the UK was never going to reform in the radical way needed until it was released from the anti-democratic structures of the EU. To succeed in this reform, Brexit was not necessary - but not sufficient. Hence his later frustration with Boris - not radical enough.
You can disagree with this, but this is what he sincerely believed - and believes. He didn't do Brexit to "fuck over people" - tho he surely enjoyed winning as an underdog - who wouldn't? He thinks Brexit is a good idea, still. As he said in his Laura K interview.
Monty not perhaps being the best strategist himself, of course...
Ssh. You'll trigger the Brexiteers.
My grandfather would have been a Brexiteer, had he lived, but he would have been far more cutting about Monty than any Remainer.
What always annoyed me about Monty is that he never really acknowledged how lucky he was compared to his predecessors in North Africa.
He had a German army denuded of fuel and essential supplies, plus all the enigma decrypts. And he just did "ok".
He admitted he had a tired, knackered British army, still suffering, psychologically, from World War 1. And he was probably right
My point was more comparing him to Wavell and the Auck in North Africa. Both of them faced the Germans when they were massively better supplied, and without the benefits of knowing almost exactly when and where Rommel would strike.
I think a lot of PBers miss the point about the footie.
It was the BBC saying ad infinitum "Our victory in 1966", rinse and repeat for half a century.
That really drove home, in a very easily understood way, the fact that for the BBC England = UK and Scotland was not considered. And as the BBNC was the UK State Broadcaster, so ...
It was simply that football was much more widely followed - ergo more mentions - and understood than almost anything else that could have been picked.
The thing is, in 1966, the whole of the UK was cheering the England team, so the victory really was "our" collective victory. Look at the footage of the time - all Union Jacks.
And it wasn't just the UK cheering, the Republic of Ireland was fascinated and awed, the England team actually toured Ireland in the wake of the victory and were met with loads of enthusiastic fans. And then Jack Charlton became the Irish national team coach who managed to get them to qualify for the 1990 World Cup, which made him an adopted Irish hero.
This business of "1966 was a purely English victory that is being shoved down our throats" is a revision of history that started about a decade ago.
Sajid Javid @sajidjavid Full recovery from Covid a week after testing positive. Symptoms were very mild, thanks to amazing vaccines. Please - if you haven’t yet - get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus.
What an absolutely bizarre reading. Did you mean to post some other tweet of his to support that comic re-interpretation? Mere use of the word cower hardly does it.
Ok, stop crouching down in fear any better for ye?
cower /ˈkaʊə/ verb gerund or present participle: cowering crouch down in fear. "children cowered in terror as the shoot-out erupted"
Taken them a while to crank up the outrage bus.....original tweet 6 hours old....
Being cautious & protecting oneself & others isn't 'cowering'? Many want to protect themselves & loved ones, including CEV & those who're unvaccinated, who are even greater risk. Those who are vaccinated can get infected, transmit & get long COVID. What sort of messaging is this?
I'm not outraged by his tweet, if I got outraged at every sanctimonious utterance from a politician I'd go mad. I do think the word cowering is stupid. Saj's symptoms were thankfully mild but if that were me I'd look at other people who have caught COVID and think there but for the grace of God. Trying to avoid catching the virus isn't cowering. I caught the bus into Cambridge today for a bite to eat and some shopping but I wore my face mask, sanitised my hands and tried to keep my distance from other people.
Speaking at today's anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown rally in London's Trafalgar Square, former nurse Kate Shemirani - who was struck off in June - says Covid vaccines are "Satanic", citing "the pattern 060606". The graphine oxide single-molecule sheet "is a conductor", she adds.
Taken them a while to crank up the outrage bus.....original tweet 6 hours old....
Being cautious & protecting oneself & others isn't 'cowering'? Many want to protect themselves & loved ones, including CEV & those who're unvaccinated, who are even greater risk. Those who are vaccinated can get infected, transmit & get long COVID. What sort of messaging is this?
I'm not outraged by his tweet, if I got outraged at every sanctimonious utterance from a politician I'd go mad. I do think the word cowering is stupid. Saj's symptoms were thankfully mild but if that were me I'd look at other people who have caught COVID and think there but for the grace of God. Trying to avoid catching the virus isn't cowering. I caught the bus into Cambridge today for a bite to eat and some shopping but I wore my face mask, sanitised my hands and tried to keep my distance from other people.
I think he (or whoever wrote it) probably meant to say "be cowed by it" rather than "cower from it"...
Sajid Javid @sajidjavid Full recovery from Covid a week after testing positive. Symptoms were very mild, thanks to amazing vaccines. Please - if you haven’t yet - get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus.
What an absolutely bizarre reading. Did you mean to post some other tweet of his to support that comic re-interpretation? Mere use of the word cower hardly does it.
I suspect some commentators are disappointed that their predictions of soaring cases have not (yet) come to pass - so they have to complain about something- one word in a tweet will do.
Speaking at today's anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown rally in London's Trafalgar Square, former nurse Kate Shemirani - who was struck off in June - says Covid vaccines are "Satanic", citing "the pattern 060606". The graphine oxide single-molecule sheet "is a conductor", she adds.
Helena Wilkinson @BBCHelena · 18m Sunday Mirror: Jab passports for footie matches #tomorrowspaperstoday
One thing i wonder about all these floated plans for vaccine passports is where it's going to end. I mean, for one thing, isn't it all going to get undermined if they start booster programmes for certain categories of people? Booster programmes potentially send a message that existing vaccine protection isn't sufficient. But then that implies that those who haven't had a booster are more at risk and/or more of a risk. So does this lead to them having to offer boosters to everyone? And then extending passports to only those having had boosters... etc etc?
Vaxports for (open air) sporting events with 20k plus. But not to travel with millions of people on eg. the London Underground.
The question becomes - are the passports being used as a public health measure. Or actually as a form of coercion, that doesn't actually have a direct public health purpose?
I wonder if we might potentially get to a point where the courts might be interested in getting involved (having been studiously determined to stay out of the discussion thus far).
Through Daughter as her restaurant has access to a good fish supplier. Sea bass is usually on the menu.
But it's a treat. Reminds me of home and would really like to eat it in Naples.
I thought home was south Asia for some reason. Or West Hampstead? It is Naples?
Can't explain South Asia. My brother lived there. I have only ever travelled round India
I am half-Neapolitan. (Other half is Irish). Spent a large part of my childhood there. Italian is my first language. All my early memories are of Naples so, yes, at a visceral level it is home.
Lived in Hampstead & West Hampstead for very many years. Also Brixton.
Now living in the Lakes where, despite being thousands of miles away, next to the North Sea, in a region known for its rain, which sometimes comes in horizontally, and occasionally fierce winds, I am obstinately growing oranges, lemons, clementines, figs and a vine on my terrace. So far the summer weather has been kind.
I can see the sea from my window so it is not so unlike Naples where seeing the sea, going down to it, playing in the park next to it, staring at the fishermen drawing their nets in and at the small motoscafi bringing in contraband cigarettes was a constant.
There is something liberating and tempting about being able to see the sea.
A pedant notes: Irish Sea, not North Sea.
I was talking to my parents yesterday about these weird bits of Britain which face south west into the sea where the vegetation is tropical. They had just visited something similar on the Lleyn Peninsula. There are similar locales in West Scotland and South Cornwall.
Vaxports for (open air) sporting events with 20k plus. But not to travel with millions of people on eg. the London Underground.
The question becomes - are the passports being used as a public health measure. Or actually as a form of coercion, that doesn't actually have a direct public health purpose?
I wonder if we might potentially get to a point where the courts might be interested in getting involved (having been studiously determined to stay out of the discussion thus far).
It is both surely.
Besides a nudge to get people vaccinated does have a direct public health benefit.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
On the subject of vaccinations: I was at a County show type event today (lots of tractors on display, cattle and sheep being judged by obscure criteria, hundreds of stalls selling everything a farmer could want or need, etc) and there was a pop-up vaccination centre where anyone who wanted could apparently go in and get a jab. Have people encountered anything similar (the vaccination centres, not the tractors)?
He was an absolutely core component of the Leave campaign, and without him, maybe the vote would have gone a different way.
Indeed, but from the same article
Cummings is obsessed with winning. Or rather beating the clowns or idiots on the other side. He defeated the northeast assembly. He defeated the Alternative Vote. Brexit is no different. He wasn’t FOR Brexit, he was just against the people who were against it.
The entire Nation was screwed, not because the chief architects thought Brexit was a good idea, they both thought it was merely a good way to fuck over somebody else.
And still some people here are cheering for it...
This just isn't true, Scott, and until you learn why you are wrong, you will never heal your Brexit psychosis
I'll spell it out for you one more time. Cummings is a kind of revolutionary. He believes the British state was locked into permanent stagnation, favouring one class over all the others - the London Remainer class, essentially. He felt that this was wrong, and that the UK was never going to reform in the radical way needed until it was released from the anti-democratic structures of the EU. To succeed in this reform, Brexit was not necessary - but not sufficient. Hence his later frustration with Boris - not radical enough.
You can disagree with this, but this is what he sincerely believed - and believes. He didn't do Brexit to "fuck over people" - tho he surely enjoyed winning as an underdog - who wouldn't? He thinks Brexit is a good idea, still. As he said in his Laura K interview.
The thing is that, whilst Cummings is clearly sincere in his "Britain is in a hole and needs a great man to blow up that hole and liberate us to greatness", it's really not obvious that he's right. Like everywhere else, it's flawed, and some people get a particularly rubbish end of the stick, but British society now is doing a better job of providing a decent life to lots of people than most other times and places. It's not heroic, and that's what smarts for some belivers in the Great Man theory of history, but Switzerland isn't heroic, and who wouldn't rather be like Switzerland? There are no ninjas, no magic levers, no huge reservoir of Untapped National Potential.
And the killer punchline from Matt Chorley's article?
Johnson is, in Cummings’s well-tested eyes, a buffoon. Imagine being outfoxed by that. That’s got to hurt. Because you might not have noticed, and Cummings clearly hasn’t, but in the battle between the great political strategist of our (or indeed any) age and the horny scarecrow who ate a thesaurus, only one of them still wields power.
Vaxports for (open air) sporting events with 20k plus. But not to travel with millions of people on eg. the London Underground.
The question becomes - are the passports being used as a public health measure. Or actually as a form of coercion, that doesn't actually have a direct public health purpose?
I wonder if we might potentially get to a point where the courts might be interested in getting involved (having been studiously determined to stay out of the discussion thus far).
It is both surely.
Besides a nudge to get people vaccinated does have a direct public health benefit.
But it's targeted co-ercion which is why i think the courts might get involved. Put it another way - and i'm deliberately using an unlikely example. Suppose they said you had to prove vaccination to attend a 20k+ football match. But not to attend a 20k+ rugby match. I don't think the courts would stand for that.
One might also add that the Government have been running "trials" of large scale events which haven't involved compulsory vaccination, the results of which haven't largely been published in detail. If it turned out that things like football matches (being outdoors etc) were not particularly notable "spreader events", then this would be a problem for the govt trying to assert a "public health benefit" defence.
If they think it's essential that everyone gets vaccinated then maybe they should just legislate for it...
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
On the subject of vaccinations: I was at a County show type event today (lots of tractors on display, cattle and sheep being judged by obscure criteria, hundreds of stalls selling everything a farmer could want or need, etc) and there was a pop-up vaccination centre where anyone who wanted could apparently go in and get a jab. Have people encountered anything similar (the vaccination centres, not the tractors)?
We have a pop up one in the town centre which seems to be take a seat wait your turn
He was an absolutely core component of the Leave campaign, and without him, maybe the vote would have gone a different way.
Indeed, but from the same article
Cummings is obsessed with winning. Or rather beating the clowns or idiots on the other side. He defeated the northeast assembly. He defeated the Alternative Vote. Brexit is no different. He wasn’t FOR Brexit, he was just against the people who were against it.
The entire Nation was screwed, not because the chief architects thought Brexit was a good idea, they both thought it was merely a good way to fuck over somebody else.
And still some people here are cheering for it...
This just isn't true, Scott, and until you learn why you are wrong, you will never heal your Brexit psychosis
I'll spell it out for you one more time. Cummings is a kind of revolutionary. He believes the British state was locked into permanent stagnation, favouring one class over all the others - the London Remainer class, essentially. He felt that this was wrong, and that the UK was never going to reform in the radical way needed until it was released from the anti-democratic structures of the EU. To succeed in this reform, Brexit was not necessary - but not sufficient. Hence his later frustration with Boris - not radical enough.
You can disagree with this, but this is what he sincerely believed - and believes. He didn't do Brexit to "fuck over people" - tho he surely enjoyed winning as an underdog - who wouldn't? He thinks Brexit is a good idea, still. As he said in his Laura K interview.
The thing is that, whilst Cummings is clearly sincere in his "Britain is in a hole and needs a great man to blow up that hole and liberate us to greatness", it's really not obvious that he's right. Like everywhere else, it's flawed, and some people get a particularly rubbish end of the stick, but British society now is doing a better job of providing a decent life to lots of people than most other times and places. It's not heroic, and that's what smarts for some belivers in the Great Man theory of history, but Switzerland isn't heroic, and who wouldn't rather be like Switzerland? There are no ninjas, no magic levers, no huge reservoir of Untapped National Potential.
And the killer punchline from Matt Chorley's article?
Johnson is, in Cummings’s well-tested eyes, a buffoon. Imagine being outfoxed by that. That’s got to hurt. Because you might not have noticed, and Cummings clearly hasn’t, but in the battle between the great political strategist of our (or indeed any) age and the horny scarecrow who ate a thesaurus, only one of them still wields power.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
I thought you were going to try to stop thinking about schools for a couple of weeks?
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
I thought you were going to try to stop thinking about schools for a couple of weeks?
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
Vaxports for (open air) sporting events with 20k plus. But not to travel with millions of people on eg. the London Underground.
The question becomes - are the passports being used as a public health measure. Or actually as a form of coercion, that doesn't actually have a direct public health purpose?
I wonder if we might potentially get to a point where the courts might be interested in getting involved (having been studiously determined to stay out of the discussion thus far).
It is both surely.
Besides a nudge to get people vaccinated does have a direct public health benefit.
But it's targeted co-ercion which is why i think the courts might get involved. Put it another way - and i'm deliberately using an unlikely example. Suppose they said you had to prove vaccination to attend a 20k+ football match. But not to attend a 20k+ rugby match. I don't think the courts would stand for that.
The courts haven't gotten involved through the pandemic because there has to be a line drawn somewhere, but is it targetted coersion?
Plus anyway you can't compare mass transit to mass events, since for the entire pandemic mass events have had different rules to mass transit.
If there's to be restrictions then I'd rather they be on the unvaccinated than everyone else. Screw them, they should get their jab rather than put the rest of us back into lockdown.
Helena Wilkinson @BBCHelena · 18m Sunday Mirror: Jab passports for footie matches #tomorrowspaperstoday
One thing i wonder about all these floated plans for vaccine passports is where it's going to end. I mean, for one thing, isn't it all going to get undermined if they start booster programmes for certain categories of people? Booster programmes potentially send a message that existing vaccine protection isn't sufficient. But then that implies that those who haven't had a booster are more at risk and/or more of a risk. So does this lead to them having to offer boosters to everyone? And then extending passports to only those having had boosters... etc etc?
You think this lot have thought it through to that level?
What seems like five minutes ago the vaccine minister was telling us categorically there would not be vaxports.
On the subject of vaccinations: I was at a County show type event today (lots of tractors on display, cattle and sheep being judged by obscure criteria, hundreds of stalls selling everything a farmer could want or need, etc) and there was a pop-up vaccination centre where anyone who wanted could apparently go in and get a jab. Have people encountered anything similar (the vaccination centres, not the tractors)?
Yes, Hove lawns last weekend - in a bus - seemed to be doing steady business.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
Vaxports for (open air) sporting events with 20k plus. But not to travel with millions of people on eg. the London Underground.
The question becomes - are the passports being used as a public health measure. Or actually as a form of coercion, that doesn't actually have a direct public health purpose?
I wonder if we might potentially get to a point where the courts might be interested in getting involved (having been studiously determined to stay out of the discussion thus far).
It is both surely.
Besides a nudge to get people vaccinated does have a direct public health benefit.
But it's targeted co-ercion which is why i think the courts might get involved. Put it another way - and i'm deliberately using an unlikely example. Suppose they said you had to prove vaccination to attend a 20k+ football match. But not to attend a 20k+ rugby match. I don't think the courts would stand for that.
The courts haven't gotten involved through the pandemic because there has to be a line drawn somewhere, but is it targetted coersion?
Plus anyway you can't compare mass transit to mass events, since for the entire pandemic mass events have had different rules to mass transit.
If there's to be restrictions then I'd rather they be on the unvaccinated than everyone else. Screw them, they should get their jab rather than put the rest of us back into lockdown.
You have previously expressed the view that it wouldn't be necessary to lockdown again. This smacks a bit of the Government not implementing measures to prevent lockdown, but to accommodate public opinion.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
Helena Wilkinson @BBCHelena · 18m Sunday Mirror: Jab passports for footie matches #tomorrowspaperstoday
One thing i wonder about all these floated plans for vaccine passports is where it's going to end. I mean, for one thing, isn't it all going to get undermined if they start booster programmes for certain categories of people? Booster programmes potentially send a message that existing vaccine protection isn't sufficient. But then that implies that those who haven't had a booster are more at risk and/or more of a risk. So does this lead to them having to offer boosters to everyone? And then extending passports to only those having had boosters... etc etc?
You think this lot have thought it through to that level?
What seems like five minutes ago the vaccine minister was telling us categorically there would not be vaxports.
Well we know they can't think through the impacts on next week, let alone several months hence. More than enough evidence of that. Doesn't stop the rest of us speculating on the future...
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
I'll start:-
Dido Harding Cressida Dick Theresa May
Andrew Neil
Ooh, that's good for an organisation that's about preservation.
Had anything been preserved as badly as Brillo's reputation?
Vaxports for (open air) sporting events with 20k plus. But not to travel with millions of people on eg. the London Underground.
The question becomes - are the passports being used as a public health measure. Or actually as a form of coercion, that doesn't actually have a direct public health purpose?
I wonder if we might potentially get to a point where the courts might be interested in getting involved (having been studiously determined to stay out of the discussion thus far).
It is both surely.
Besides a nudge to get people vaccinated does have a direct public health benefit.
But it's targeted co-ercion which is why i think the courts might get involved. Put it another way - and i'm deliberately using an unlikely example. Suppose they said you had to prove vaccination to attend a 20k+ football match. But not to attend a 20k+ rugby match. I don't think the courts would stand for that.
The courts haven't gotten involved through the pandemic because there has to be a line drawn somewhere, but is it targetted coersion?
Plus anyway you can't compare mass transit to mass events, since for the entire pandemic mass events have had different rules to mass transit.
If there's to be restrictions then I'd rather they be on the unvaccinated than everyone else. Screw them, they should get their jab rather than put the rest of us back into lockdown.
Some might reasonably speculate that the biggest Covid risk associated to mass (sporting) events is the transit to the ground not the event itself.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
I'll start:-
Dido Harding Cressida Dick Theresa May
Andrew Neil
Jeremy Clarkson.
I nominate @Cyclefree. (And I'm a life member, so surely I get a vote?)
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
I'll start:-
Dido Harding Cressida Dick Theresa May
Andrew Neil
Jeremy Clarkson.
Clarkson would probably be pretty damn good. And he could turn it into an amazon show, as he runs it for a year and burns down Uppark (again), builds flats on Stourhead, but makes a weird fortune out of a protected Cornish cliff
Trusting Clarkson
However, as I predicted, Clarkson's Farm was renewed about 12 hours after he tweeted "OMG we haven't been renewed!", there was no way amazon would forego all the guaranteed profit and viewers of season 2
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
I thought you were going to try to stop thinking about schools for a couple of weeks?
I haven’t thought about them for years…
I was...but it’s not going very well.
I find trying to do something new that is a little bit harder than I can actually cope with is a good way to forget about something for a while: for me it is trying to get to grips with tensor calculus, but I’m sure there is a historical problem of similar complexity: how about the Schleswig-Holstein Question?
So Moron thinks he got covid at the football and blames the poor security and government covid safe environment scheme...
Other than he got symptoms 2 days after the final which is very quick (not impossible) and obviously can't be sure unless he lived like a total hermit for the week before the final (wasn't he also at the semi final)....
But allows him to blame the government again, despite totally abandoning his mask and social distancing, happy to do selfies with loads of randoms.
Off topic: Can anyone explain to me why Stonehenge with the A303 alongside it merits World Heritage Status but Stonehenge without the A303 in sight doesn't?
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
I'll start:-
Dido Harding Cressida Dick Theresa May
Andrew Neil
Jeremy Clarkson.
Richard Burgon
Jeez. You really hate going around old country houses don't you?
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
I'll start:-
Dido Harding Cressida Dick Theresa May
Chris Grayling?
Christ! That's a real risk - he's a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.
George Osborne could probably add it to his 6879 other jobs.
Off topic: Can anyone explain to me why Stonehenge with the A303 alongside it merits World Heritage Status but Stonehenge without the A303 in sight doesn't?
Taken them a while to crank up the outrage bus.....original tweet 6 hours old....
Being cautious & protecting oneself & others isn't 'cowering'? Many want to protect themselves & loved ones, including CEV & those who're unvaccinated, who are even greater risk. Those who are vaccinated can get infected, transmit & get long COVID. What sort of messaging is this?
I'm not outraged by his tweet, if I got outraged at every sanctimonious utterance from a politician I'd go mad. I do think the word cowering is stupid. Saj's symptoms were thankfully mild but if that were me I'd look at other people who have caught COVID and think there but for the grace of God. Trying to avoid catching the virus isn't cowering. I caught the bus into Cambridge today for a bite to eat and some shopping but I wore my face mask, sanitised my hands and tried to keep my distance from other people.
I think he (or whoever wrote it) probably meant to say "be cowed by it" rather than "cower from it"...
You're quite right that would have sounded better and I was forgetting for a minute that he probably had nothing to do with the tweet.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
I thought you were going to try to stop thinking about schools for a couple of weeks?
I haven’t thought about them for years…
I was...but it’s not going very well.
I find trying to do something new that is a little bit harder than I can actually cope with is a good way to forget about something for a while: for me it is trying to get to grips with tensor calculus, but I’m sure there is a historical problem of similar complexity: how about the Schleswig-Holstein Question?
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
I'll start:-
Dido Harding Cressida Dick Theresa May
Andrew Neil
Jeremy Clarkson.
Richard Burgon
Jeez. You really hate going around old country houses don't you?
Since you ask...
I think the NT should focus on natural heritage and dump all of the big old houses.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
I'll start:-
Dido Harding Cressida Dick Theresa May
Andrew Neil
Jeremy Clarkson.
Richard Burgon
Jeez. You really hate going around old country houses don't you?
Since you ask...
I think the NT should focus on natural heritage and dump all of the big old houses.
Would rather undermine their founding purpose, and would i imagine break legal covenants...
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
I'll start:-
Dido Harding Cressida Dick Theresa May
There must be some chaps from the Bullington photo who Johnson hasn't found space at the trough for yet.
Anyway, the National Trust is looking for a new Chair. You can write in and suggest names.
Chair McChairface?
Is that the idea?
You are all being very silly!
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Could they give it to Amanda Spielman?
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
Go on, I dare you. Write in and suggest her, in precisely those terms.
We could start a competition: suggesting the most inappropriate and uselessly incompetent person to chair the NT and see whether any of them are appointed.
I'll start:-
Dido Harding Cressida Dick Theresa May
Chris Grayling?
Christ! That's a real risk - he's a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.
George Osborne could probably add it to his 6879 other jobs.
I was under the impression that Osborne had junked his sidelines to concentrate on making huge sums of money at some bank catering to the fantastically wealthy?
I didn't know about Grayling's existing gig. Yes, I think he'd do very well.
Off topic: Can anyone explain to me why Stonehenge with the A303 alongside it merits World Heritage Status but Stonehenge without the A303 in sight doesn't?
Other archaelogical aspects in the surrounding countryside, or presumed archaelogical aspects underground, I would assume. I don't think the tunnel opposers have done a great job of explaining that, though I imagine they still have majority support.
But I must say the opening seems to suggest a somewhat irrational approach to judging Heritage Status, since I don't see why other sites would have a harsher spotlight thrown on them because of the Liverpool decision. Surely such decisions should be based on the individual situations of each site, the whole point being they are of unique heritage interest. So they should be viewed just as softly or harshly as they were before.
Comments
Speaking at today's anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown rally in London's Trafalgar Square, former nurse Kate Shemirani - who was struck off in June - says Covid vaccines are "Satanic", citing "the pattern 060606". The graphine oxide single-molecule sheet "is a conductor", she adds.
https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1418915810416934915
Almost by definition, risk averse individuals are far more likely to be at home completing internet polls at the moment. And if Covid risk averseness doesn't obviously mirror other weighting factors then this could represent a serious issue for polling.
I even like the inner city slums - the Spanish Quarters are so atmospheric
The outer slums where the Camorra reign are less appealing
Sajid Javid
@sajidjavid
Full recovery from Covid a week after testing positive.
Symptoms were very mild, thanks to amazing vaccines.
Please - if you haven’t yet - get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus.
Cummings is obsessed with winning. Or rather beating the clowns or idiots on the other side. He defeated the northeast assembly. He defeated the Alternative Vote. Brexit is no different. He wasn’t FOR Brexit, he was just against the people who were against it.
The entire Nation was screwed, not because the chief architects thought Brexit was a good idea, they both thought it was merely a good way to fuck over somebody else.
And still some people here are cheering for it...
This must be painful to read for those who were severely ill & for those who lost loved ones to COVID. It wasn’t because they were weak- just unnecessarily exposed to a virus. And wanting to avoid getting COVID isn’t ‘cowering’- it’s being sensible & looking out for others.
https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1419028469514752003?s=20
She appears to be objecting to this: "Please - if you haven’t yet - get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus."
Is her objection to people getting vaccinated?
Or that we will have to live with COVID?
She was a Zero COVID fan, then argued "zero didn't mean zero".....
Let's see what happens at the GE. 👍👍👍👍
Taken them a while to crank up the outrage bus.....original tweet 6 hours old....
Being cautious & protecting oneself & others isn't 'cowering'? Many want to protect themselves & loved ones, including CEV & those who're unvaccinated, who are even greater risk. Those who are vaccinated can get infected, transmit & get long COVID. What sort of messaging is this?
https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1419031354268917760?s=20
I think the way the thought process goes is like this: people I don't like are in favour of the vaccine, and I should therefore not like the vaccines.
Of course, how can anyone dislike the vaccines when they come up with songs like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VI3q4T-1Jc&ab_channel=TheVaccinesVEVO
My family arrived there in the 16th century from Spain at about the same time as the Spanish quarter got named after all the Spanish soldiers who arrived. The family name - and many of the family's Christian names - are Spanish to this day.
I'll spell it out for you one more time. Cummings is a kind of revolutionary. He believes the British state was locked into permanent stagnation, favouring one class over all the others - the London Remainer class, essentially. He felt that this was wrong, and that the UK was never going to reform in the radical way needed until it was released from the anti-democratic structures of the EU. To succeed in this reform, Brexit was not necessary - but not sufficient. Hence his later frustration with Boris - not radical enough.
You can disagree with this, but this is what he sincerely believed - and believes. He didn't do Brexit to "fuck over people" - tho he surely enjoyed winning as an underdog - who wouldn't? He thinks Brexit is a good idea, still. As he said in his Laura K interview.
Hmmm
And it wasn't just the UK cheering, the Republic of Ireland was fascinated and awed, the England team actually toured Ireland in the wake of the victory and were met with loads of enthusiastic fans. And then Jack Charlton became the Irish national team coach who managed to get them to qualify for the 1990 World Cup, which made him an adopted Irish hero.
This business of "1966 was a purely English victory that is being shoved down our throats" is a revision of history that started about a decade ago.
cower
/ˈkaʊə/
verb
gerund or present participle: cowering
crouch down in fear.
"children cowered in terror as the shoot-out erupted"
Is that the idea?
https://twitter.com/bmay/status/1418965391003508736
@BBCHelena
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18m
Sunday Mirror: Jab passports for footie matches #tomorrowspaperstoday
I've advised everyone attending that to avoid being identified by the authorities they should cover their faces.
I'm surprised you can put your pants on right first time...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57952521
So that's Germany, Benelux, China and India with shitloads of rain in recent weeks.
The question becomes - are the passports being used as a public health measure. Or actually as a form of coercion, that doesn't actually have a direct public health purpose?
I wonder if we might potentially get to a point where the courts might be interested in getting involved (having been studiously determined to stay out of the discussion thus far).
I was talking to my parents yesterday about these weird bits of Britain which face south west into the sea where the vegetation is tropical. They had just visited something similar on the Lleyn Peninsula. There are similar locales in West Scotland and South Cornwall.
Besides a nudge to get people vaccinated does have a direct public health benefit.
They want names of PEOPLE. Presumably before they give the job to Dido Harding or Cressida Dick or some other useless woman.
Perhaps they'll just pick someone with an apposite surname, like the RHS, whose President is called Keith Weed.
Not because she’d be any good, but because it would mean she would finally fuck off out of education and stop making the lives of children much more unpleasant and less safe.
It's not heroic, and that's what smarts for some belivers in the Great Man theory of history, but Switzerland isn't heroic, and who wouldn't rather be like Switzerland? There are no ninjas, no magic levers, no huge reservoir of Untapped National Potential.
And the killer punchline from Matt Chorley's article?
Johnson is, in Cummings’s well-tested eyes, a buffoon. Imagine being outfoxed by that. That’s got to hurt. Because you might not have noticed, and Cummings clearly hasn’t, but in the battle between the great political strategist of our (or indeed any) age and the horny scarecrow who ate a thesaurus, only one of them still wields power.
One might also add that the Government have been running "trials" of large scale events which haven't involved compulsory vaccination, the results of which haven't largely been published in detail. If it turned out that things like football matches (being outdoors etc) were not particularly notable "spreader events", then this would be a problem for the govt trying to assert a "public health benefit" defence.
If they think it's essential that everyone gets vaccinated then maybe they should just legislate for it...
I haven’t thought about them for years…
I'll start:-
Dido Harding
Cressida Dick
Theresa May
Plus anyway you can't compare mass transit to mass events, since for the entire pandemic mass events have had different rules to mass transit.
If there's to be restrictions then I'd rather they be on the unvaccinated than everyone else. Screw them, they should get their jab rather than put the rest of us back into lockdown.
What seems like five minutes ago the vaccine minister was telling us categorically there would not be vaxports.
@hughosmond
Nightclub bosses ready to take Government to court over Covid vaccine passports
@EssexPR
Julia Hartley Brewer
I’ve had 2 of them in the last 20 years (the posh metal ones for 5.99) and they’ve worked fine
Had anything been preserved as badly as Brillo's reputation?
Trusting Clarkson
However, as I predicted, Clarkson's Farm was renewed about 12 hours after he tweeted "OMG we haven't been renewed!", there was no way amazon would forego all the guaranteed profit and viewers of season 2
Other than he got symptoms 2 days after the final which is very quick (not impossible) and obviously can't be sure unless he lived like a total hermit for the week before the final (wasn't he also at the semi final)....
But allows him to blame the government again, despite totally abandoning his mask and social distancing, happy to do selfies with loads of randoms.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/23/stonehenge-may-be-next-uk-site-to-lose-world-heritage-status
George Osborne could probably add it to his 6879 other jobs.
I think the NT should focus on natural heritage and dump all of the big old houses.
https://www.fresh-cornish-fish.co.uk/fresh-cornish-fish/
My staple supplies come via fish van from Grimsby though. But I buy every month or so and freeze after first dibs.
Difficult for me, as I am about as inland as it is possible to get in the UK.
I didn't know about Grayling's existing gig. Yes, I think he'd do very well.
Chairmanship plus a life peerage incoming...
But I must say the opening seems to suggest a somewhat irrational approach to judging Heritage Status, since I don't see why other sites would have a harsher spotlight thrown on them because of the Liverpool decision. Surely such decisions should be based on the individual situations of each site, the whole point being they are of unique heritage interest. So they should be viewed just as softly or harshly as they were before.