Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
Probably because the politics of ending it early will hurt more than the cost for September?
We need to talk about cases... UK latest 31,914. Up 13.4% on the week, BUT England 24,158, last week 23,171 - pretty flat. Wales dumped another 3247 today, Scotland 3189.
Not sure what's going on with Wales - assuming Scotland is linked to schools, but some dispute that. Is Wales seeing a holiday bounce, like Boardmasters in Cornwall?
In a tremendous GE for Anas* I could see him taking a 5% swing from the SNP. That would net them four seats (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, East Lothian, Glasgow North East and Rutherglen and Hamilton West). That shortfall means he needs to take an extra thirteen seats in England or Wales.
(*very hard to see happening on his current form)
Is he still in office, totally missing for at least a month.
We need to talk about cases... UK latest 31,914. Up 13.4% on the week, BUT England 24,158, last week 23,171 - pretty flat. Wales dumped another 3247 today, Scotland 3189.
Not sure what's going on with Wales - assuming Scotland is linked to schools, but some dispute that. Is Wales seeing a holiday bounce, like Boardmasters in Cornwall?
Wales cases are going up but the 3247 is a misleading figure as they aren't reporting sundays now so there's more specimen backlog in today's figure than previous.
Incidentally, I wonder if we will see any changes in traffic numbers, congestion, pollution etc from the 50% reduction of "land bridge" commercial traffic from the ROI which has allegedly now been diverted through southern ports in Ireland.
I think reducing traffic is in general a more sensible way of dealing with congestion than building more roads willy-nilly.
I kinda want to see Labour win a majority if only to see the insane turn of events which makes it possible.
And then the picture of 116 Jim Hackers making their way to their offices, utterly unprepared for Government!
Somewhat unfair on Jim Hacker. He was totally green in terms of government, but he'd been an MP for a couple of decades and a member of the Shadow Cabinet for about 7 years. When Yes Minister was written, that probably did count as a convincing CV for a naive new minister, now it would make him massively experienced. Over the hill, if anything.
On Topic- the SNP have got so many Scottish seats that it would take a miracle for Labour to get a majority. It's one of those things that nobody will admit, but that has to be part of the calculation of what happens next.
And it would be interesting to know where the Clarke-Stewart Conservatives have gone. Labour? Lib Dem? Very reluctantly voting Conservative? Staying at home? Some of them have clearly gone somewhere, since the Conservatives have assimilated the old Brexit Party vote and are still slightly down overall.
Where Clarkeite/Stewartite Tories go is a truly interesting question in a number of ways. How many are there, where are they located, what do they think of SKS, and crucially, what do they think of the Tories as they are now?
I hope there is some research into this, but I haven't seen it. My guess is like this:
Not many stay at home. Clarkeites are not quitters. Very few would vote for a Labour party that contains or might come to contain and tolerate anti-semitism or Jezza politics generally. Many would go the an LD party which was principled, centrist, liberal and Orange bookish. But it isn't. Few will vote for independents, small parties, mavericks however principled.
Most will notice that Clarke, Heseltine and Hunt are still in the party and that Boris, Brexit aside which is a done deal, is centrist but populist and stick with the Tories for now.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
I wonder how many people at the footie over the weekend (what a joy to see packed stands) are on furlough.
The only time the swing in Ealing Central and Acton was above 10% was in 2017 to Labour but Labour already gained the seat in 2015 on a 2% swing
This is the most brilliant non-sequitur in weeks. Actually a parody of a pb poster who can responds to all conversations with polling minutiae. I lolled.
And yes I'm sure HYUFD simply pressed quote erroneously. But I lolled anyway.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
We need to talk about cases... UK latest 31,914. Up 13.4% on the week, BUT England 24,158, last week 23,171 - pretty flat. Wales dumped another 3247 today, Scotland 3189.
Not sure what's going on with Wales - assuming Scotland is linked to schools, but some dispute that. Is Wales seeing a holiday bounce, like Boardmasters in Cornwall?
We need to talk about cases... UK latest 31,914. Up 13.4% on the week, BUT England 24,158, last week 23,171 - pretty flat. Wales dumped another 3247 today, Scotland 3189.
Not sure what's going on with Wales - assuming Scotland is linked to schools, but some dispute that. Is Wales seeing a holiday bounce, like Boardmasters in Cornwall?
Wales cases are going up but the 3247 is a misleading figure as they aren't reporting sundays now so there's more specimen backlog in today's figure than previous.
We need to talk about cases... UK latest 31,914. Up 13.4% on the week, BUT England 24,158, last week 23,171 - pretty flat. Wales dumped another 3247 today, Scotland 3189.
Not sure what's going on with Wales - assuming Scotland is linked to schools, but some dispute that. Is Wales seeing a holiday bounce, like Boardmasters in Cornwall?
England's rise is only 4% from last week.
I recall you thinking we should be near the peak soon - certainly not seeing cases explode (England at least).
The latest UK order count for each vaccine from the very start of the pandemic is:
Pfizer-BioNTech 135m Oxford Astra-Zeneca 100m Valneva 100m GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur 60m Novavax 60m CureVac 50m Janssen 20m Moderna 17m
The CureVac we've ordered is actually CureVac/GSK as it's the Gen 2 version only. We declined the Gen 1 vaccine.
/pedant
Have we given away our Janssen vaccines?
Not given away, just reduced the order size from 52m to 20m. I do think it will end up being a giveaway vaccine since we don't really need it. AZ as well. If Novavax ever get their act together I think that becomes our workhorse vaccine. The efficacy modelling places it on the same level as Moderna and it's fairly easy to adjust. The manufacturing process looks difficult to crack though so who know's whether they'll every be able to make it in significant quantities.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
I wonder when my street will get an opinion on this? And who interprets what the various roads believe?
Perhaps it would be better re-written as "Boris Johnson does not care whether he broke the rules or not and no-one else can do anything about it anyway".
We need to talk about cases... UK latest 31,914. Up 13.4% on the week, BUT England 24,158, last week 23,171 - pretty flat. Wales dumped another 3247 today, Scotland 3189.
Not sure what's going on with Wales - assuming Scotland is linked to schools, but some dispute that. Is Wales seeing a holiday bounce, like Boardmasters in Cornwall?
England's rise is only 4% from last week.
I recall you thinking we should be near the peak soon - certainly not seeing cases explode (England at least).
Don't think that was me (unless you're thinking back to mid July). My view is that either (a) cases explode when schools go back and we get some sort of peak late September or (b) they keep gradually rising until later in the year so we get a gentle but wide hillock rather than the precipitous alpine peaks of past waves.
The latest UK order count for each vaccine from the very start of the pandemic is:
Pfizer-BioNTech 135m Oxford Astra-Zeneca 100m Valneva 100m GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur 60m Novavax 60m CureVac 50m Janssen 20m Moderna 17m
The CureVac we've ordered is actually CureVac/GSK as it's the Gen 2 version only. We declined the Gen 1 vaccine.
/pedant
Have we given away our Janssen vaccines?
Not given away, just reduced the order size from 52m to 20m. I do think it will end up being a giveaway vaccine since we don't really need it. AZ as well. If Novavax ever get their act together I think that becomes our workhorse vaccine. The efficacy modelling places it on the same level as Moderna and it's fairly easy to adjust. The manufacturing process looks difficult to crack though so who know's whether they'll every be able to make it in significant quantities.
“If” doing a lot of work there…
😂
Lol, we've heard that they are filing with the MHRA in 2-3 weeks, submission being finalised. Approval expected in October but we've got no use case for it at the moment so who knows what it will be used for or if it will be given away.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
I wonder how many people at the footie over the weekend (what a joy to see packed stands) are on furlough.
The only time the swing in Ealing Central and Acton was above 10% was in 2017 to Labour but Labour already gained the seat in 2015 on a 2% swing
This is the most brilliant non-sequitur in weeks. Actually a parody of a pb poster who can responds to all conversations with polling minutiae. I lolled.
And yes I'm sure HYUFD simply pressed quote erroneously. But I lolled anyway.
I did that yesterday. Replied to a post about a BBC hiring controversy with a detailed review of Nigel Farage's "Talking Pints" show that wasn't relevant and which nobody had asked for. You feel a dick when it happens, you really do, but you just have to put it behind you and move on.
FPT - I think Greta thinks the most effective way to drive change is act as a model of 'purity' herself, and then berate adults on top.
It's quite common when you're young, as you've just left your parents care - and it works with them - but you're yet to work out that listening and tact are the key to achieving influence in the real world as a grown adult.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
I wonder when my street will get an opinion on this? And who interprets what the various roads believe?
Perhaps it would be better re-written as "Boris Johnson does not care whether he broke the rules or not and no-one else can do anything about it anyway".
The tweet is misleading.
Johnson flew to Middlesbrough on his official plane for government business which he then concluded.
He was then driven to Hartlepool.
Labour say that is "joint" public/party business. However CCHQ will tell you - and I think they are right - that the fact that he went on to Hartlepool does not change the character or need for this flight. They are two separate occurances.
There is a small asterisk as to how CCHQ could have spent literally nothing on transport for the campaign - but the plane is what Labour want to focus on.
FPT - I think Greta thinks the most effective way to drive change is act as a model of 'purity' herself, and then berate adults on top.
It's quite common when you're young, as you've just left your parents care - and it works with them - but you're yet to work out that listening and tact are the key to achieving influence in the real world as a grown adult.
As you say young people will be young people. It is entirely the old peoples' fault if she is given the platform to espouse such views. Not her fault at all. There must be plenty of teenagers with all kinds of good, bad, and ugly views that the media (ie the consumers of media, ie us) don't give a damn about.
The pedant in me objects to the amateurish errors in that chart. Correct names:
Dunfermline and West Fife West Dunbartonshire
The media has always put compass points at the end of constituency names. Not sure why. Maybe because it's more consistent. The various boundary commissions have an odd practice of putting them at the end for urban areas and the beginning for non-urban areas.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
I wonder when my street will get an opinion on this? And who interprets what the various roads believe?
Perhaps it would be better re-written as "Boris Johnson does not care whether he broke the rules or not and no-one else can do anything about it anyway".
The tweet is misleading.
Johnson flew to Middlesbrough on his official plane for government business which he then concluded.
He was then driven to Hartlepool.
Labour say that is "joint" public/party business. However CCHQ will tell you - and I think they are right - that the fact that he went on to Hartlepool does not change the character or need for this flight. They are two separate occurances.
There is a small asterisk as to how CCHQ could have spent literally nothing on transport for the campaign - but the plane is what Labour want to focus on.
I know Labour are not great at winning elections but are CCHQ and Downing Street now interchangeable? Even then could we have the person at CCHQ who has investigated the claim and made a decision named, otherwise there can be no accountability.
And the idea that anyone at Downing Street is objectively scrutinising the PMs adherence to the ministerial code is laughable. Downing St = Boris Johnson. Ministerial code = irrelevant relic of the past.
My commentary is independent of the merits of this specific instance.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
I know someone who is furloughed two days out of five but is doing five days worth of work on the other three. They work for a travel firm.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
Because the people running the country aren't very bright.
The pedant in me objects to the amateurish errors in that chart. Correct names:
Dunfermline and West Fife West Dunbartonshire
The media has always put compass points at the end of constituency names. Not sure why. Maybe because it's more consistent. The various boundary commissions have an odd practice of putting them at the end for urban areas and the beginning for non-urban areas.
It depends on whether they are borough constituencies or county constituencies. So you have constituency names like 'Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland'. I don't know why, nor why it is important to continue to differentiate between the two.
We need to talk about cases... UK latest 31,914. Up 13.4% on the week, BUT England 24,158, last week 23,171 - pretty flat. Wales dumped another 3247 today, Scotland 3189.
Not sure what's going on with Wales - assuming Scotland is linked to schools, but some dispute that. Is Wales seeing a holiday bounce, like Boardmasters in Cornwall?
England's rise is only 4% from last week.
I recall you thinking we should be near the peak soon - certainly not seeing cases explode (England at least).
Don't think that was me (unless you're thinking back to mid July). My view is that either (a) cases explode when schools go back and we get some sort of peak late September or (b) they keep gradually rising until later in the year so we get a gentle but wide hillock rather than the precipitous alpine peaks of past waves.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
The latest UK order count for each vaccine from the very start of the pandemic is:
Pfizer-BioNTech 135m Oxford Astra-Zeneca 100m Valneva 100m GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur 60m Novavax 60m CureVac 50m Janssen 20m Moderna 17m
The CureVac we've ordered is actually CureVac/GSK as it's the Gen 2 version only. We declined the Gen 1 vaccine.
/pedant
Have we given away our Janssen vaccines?
Not given away, just reduced the order size from 52m to 20m. I do think it will end up being a giveaway vaccine since we don't really need it. AZ as well. If Novavax ever get their act together I think that becomes our workhorse vaccine. The efficacy modelling places it on the same level as Moderna and it's fairly easy to adjust. The manufacturing process looks difficult to crack though so who know's whether they'll every be able to make it in significant quantities.
“If” doing a lot of work there…
😂
Lol, we've heard that they are filing with the MHRA in 2-3 weeks, submission being finalised. Approval expected in October but we've got no use case for it at the moment so who knows what it will be used for or if it will be given away.
The latest UK order count for each vaccine from the very start of the pandemic is:
Pfizer-BioNTech 135m Oxford Astra-Zeneca 100m Valneva 100m GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur 60m Novavax 60m CureVac 50m Janssen 20m Moderna 17m
The CureVac we've ordered is actually CureVac/GSK as it's the Gen 2 version only. We declined the Gen 1 vaccine.
/pedant
Have we given away our Janssen vaccines?
Not given away, just reduced the order size from 52m to 20m. I do think it will end up being a giveaway vaccine since we don't really need it. AZ as well. If Novavax ever get their act together I think that becomes our workhorse vaccine. The efficacy modelling places it on the same level as Moderna and it's fairly easy to adjust. The manufacturing process looks difficult to crack though so who know's whether they'll every be able to make it in significant quantities.
AZ is furthest along in trials for a nasally administered vaccine, so it’s possible we’ll be able to use them for that.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
There used to be a showroom in Kensington when I first moved to London. Holland Road is what the inter web thingy is telling me, although for some reason I remember it as being on Piccadilly.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
I wonder when my street will get an opinion on this? And who interprets what the various roads believe?
Perhaps it would be better re-written as "Boris Johnson does not care whether he broke the rules or not and no-one else can do anything about it anyway".
The tweet is misleading.
Johnson flew to Middlesbrough on his official plane for government business which he then concluded.
He was then driven to Hartlepool.
Labour say that is "joint" public/party business. However CCHQ will tell you - and I think they are right - that the fact that he went on to Hartlepool does not change the character or need for this flight. They are two separate occurances.
There is a small asterisk as to how CCHQ could have spent literally nothing on transport for the campaign - but the plane is what Labour want to focus on.
I know Labour are not great at winning elections but are CCHQ and Downing Street now interchangeable? Even then could we have the person at CCHQ who has investigated the claim and made a decision named, otherwise there can be no accountability.
And the idea that anyone at Downing Street is objectively scrutinising the PMs adherence to the ministerial code is laughable. Downing St = Boris Johnson. Ministerial code = irrelevant relic of the past.
My commentary is independent of the merits of this specific instance.
From a philosophical perspective it’s concerning to have an appointed committee/individual who can censure the PM though. He’s the most senior elected representative in the country and he’s accountable to the electorate.
Have Mr Civil Servant fining him or suspending him or whatever seems inappropriate.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
I know restaurant and hotel owners who can't get their furloughed staff back, because the staff took the furlough money and went to work for other people on the sly, and the staff have found they prefer the new job
The latest UK order count for each vaccine from the very start of the pandemic is:
Pfizer-BioNTech 135m Oxford Astra-Zeneca 100m Valneva 100m GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur 60m Novavax 60m CureVac 50m Janssen 20m Moderna 17m
The CureVac we've ordered is actually CureVac/GSK as it's the Gen 2 version only. We declined the Gen 1 vaccine.
/pedant
Have we given away our Janssen vaccines?
Not given away, just reduced the order size from 52m to 20m. I do think it will end up being a giveaway vaccine since we don't really need it. AZ as well. If Novavax ever get their act together I think that becomes our workhorse vaccine. The efficacy modelling places it on the same level as Moderna and it's fairly easy to adjust. The manufacturing process looks difficult to crack though so who know's whether they'll every be able to make it in significant quantities.
“If” doing a lot of work there…
😂
Lol, we've heard that they are filing with the MHRA in 2-3 weeks, submission being finalised. Approval expected in October but we've got no use case for it at the moment so who knows what it will be used for or if it will be given away.
The latest UK order count for each vaccine from the very start of the pandemic is:
Pfizer-BioNTech 135m Oxford Astra-Zeneca 100m Valneva 100m GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur 60m Novavax 60m CureVac 50m Janssen 20m Moderna 17m
The CureVac we've ordered is actually CureVac/GSK as it's the Gen 2 version only. We declined the Gen 1 vaccine.
/pedant
Have we given away our Janssen vaccines?
Not given away, just reduced the order size from 52m to 20m. I do think it will end up being a giveaway vaccine since we don't really need it. AZ as well. If Novavax ever get their act together I think that becomes our workhorse vaccine. The efficacy modelling places it on the same level as Moderna and it's fairly easy to adjust. The manufacturing process looks difficult to crack though so who know's whether they'll every be able to make it in significant quantities.
AZ is furthest along in trials for a nasally administered vaccine, so it’s possible we’ll be able to use them for that.
I think the rare side effects will preclude it becoming the workhorse vaccine for the UK.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
I wonder when my street will get an opinion on this? And who interprets what the various roads believe?
Perhaps it would be better re-written as "Boris Johnson does not care whether he broke the rules or not and no-one else can do anything about it anyway".
The tweet is misleading.
Johnson flew to Middlesbrough on his official plane for government business which he then concluded.
He was then driven to Hartlepool.
Labour say that is "joint" public/party business. However CCHQ will tell you - and I think they are right - that the fact that he went on to Hartlepool does not change the character or need for this flight. They are two separate occurances.
There is a small asterisk as to how CCHQ could have spent literally nothing on transport for the campaign - but the plane is what Labour want to focus on.
I know Labour are not great at winning elections but are CCHQ and Downing Street now interchangeable? Even then could we have the person at CCHQ who has investigated the claim and made a decision named, otherwise there can be no accountability.
And the idea that anyone at Downing Street is objectively scrutinising the PMs adherence to the ministerial code is laughable. Downing St = Boris Johnson. Ministerial code = irrelevant relic of the past.
My commentary is independent of the merits of this specific instance.
From a philosophical perspective it’s concerning to have an appointed committee/individual who can censure the PM though. He’s the most senior elected representative in the country and he’s accountable to the electorate.
Have Mr Civil Servant fining him or suspending him or whatever seems inappropriate.
If thats what the PM wants to do, he should say that and own it.
Not put out a press release saying "Downing St" has cleared him.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
I know restaurant and hotel owners who can't get their furloughed staff back, because the staff took the furlough money and went to work for other people on the sly, and the staff have found they prefer the new job
We have probably wasted many billions in fraud
Reminds me of the way that whenever there's a tube strike a lot of people discover the route they've been using for years isn't the best one.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
There used to be a showroom in Kensington when I first moved to London. Holland Road is what the inter web thingy is telling me, although for some reason I remember it as being on Piccadilly.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
I know restaurant and hotel owners who can't get their furloughed staff back, because the staff took the furlough money and went to work for other people on the sly, and the staff have found they prefer the new job
We have probably wasted many billions in fraud
That wasn’t fraud - it was explicitly allowed to do other work while on furlough. You just couldn’t work for your primary employer.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
There used to be a showroom in Kensington when I first moved to London. Holland Road is what the inter web thingy is telling me, although for some reason I remember it as being on Piccadilly.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
I know restaurant and hotel owners who can't get their furloughed staff back, because the staff took the furlough money and went to work for other people on the sly, and the staff have found they prefer the new job
We have probably wasted many billions in fraud
The above scenario is not fraud. Rightly or wrongly it was within the intent and letter of the furlough rules to do a different job in addition to furlough.
The latest UK order count for each vaccine from the very start of the pandemic is:
Pfizer-BioNTech 135m Oxford Astra-Zeneca 100m Valneva 100m GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur 60m Novavax 60m CureVac 50m Janssen 20m Moderna 17m
The CureVac we've ordered is actually CureVac/GSK as it's the Gen 2 version only. We declined the Gen 1 vaccine.
/pedant
Have we given away our Janssen vaccines?
Not given away, just reduced the order size from 52m to 20m. I do think it will end up being a giveaway vaccine since we don't really need it. AZ as well. If Novavax ever get their act together I think that becomes our workhorse vaccine. The efficacy modelling places it on the same level as Moderna and it's fairly easy to adjust. The manufacturing process looks difficult to crack though so who know's whether they'll every be able to make it in significant quantities.
“If” doing a lot of work there…
😂
Lol, we've heard that they are filing with the MHRA in 2-3 weeks, submission being finalised. Approval expected in October but we've got no use case for it at the moment so who knows what it will be used for or if it will be given away.
The latest UK order count for each vaccine from the very start of the pandemic is:
Pfizer-BioNTech 135m Oxford Astra-Zeneca 100m Valneva 100m GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur 60m Novavax 60m CureVac 50m Janssen 20m Moderna 17m
The CureVac we've ordered is actually CureVac/GSK as it's the Gen 2 version only. We declined the Gen 1 vaccine.
/pedant
Have we given away our Janssen vaccines?
Not given away, just reduced the order size from 52m to 20m. I do think it will end up being a giveaway vaccine since we don't really need it. AZ as well. If Novavax ever get their act together I think that becomes our workhorse vaccine. The efficacy modelling places it on the same level as Moderna and it's fairly easy to adjust. The manufacturing process looks difficult to crack though so who know's whether they'll every be able to make it in significant quantities.
“If” doing a lot of work there…
😂
Lol, we've heard that they are filing with the MHRA in 2-3 weeks, submission being finalised. Approval expected in October but we've got no use case for it at the moment so who knows what it will be used for or if it will be given away.
Have you checked the year on that press release…
Hopefully it won't be that bad!
Their vaccine relies on a chemical from the bark of a rare Chilean tree, or some such. I wonder it that is part of their problem - I know there were shortages at some point. I also suspect that their manufacturing technology is harder to master than other vaccines'.
This is getting to the point where I have to ask what the **** is going on with the polling.
1) Noise, but most important, 2) It really doesn't matter much unless it panics one of the parties into doing something...
In the meantime it provides harmless entertainment and no end of egg-on-face for the punditocracy who routinely predict that the polls will move in their favoured direction because of "something" that's important to them...
The latest UK order count for each vaccine from the very start of the pandemic is:
Pfizer-BioNTech 135m Oxford Astra-Zeneca 100m Valneva 100m GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur 60m Novavax 60m CureVac 50m Janssen 20m Moderna 17m
The CureVac we've ordered is actually CureVac/GSK as it's the Gen 2 version only. We declined the Gen 1 vaccine.
/pedant
Have we given away our Janssen vaccines?
Not given away, just reduced the order size from 52m to 20m. I do think it will end up being a giveaway vaccine since we don't really need it. AZ as well. If Novavax ever get their act together I think that becomes our workhorse vaccine. The efficacy modelling places it on the same level as Moderna and it's fairly easy to adjust. The manufacturing process looks difficult to crack though so who know's whether they'll every be able to make it in significant quantities.
AZ is furthest along in trials for a nasally administered vaccine, so it’s possible we’ll be able to use them for that.
I think the rare side effects will preclude it becoming the workhorse vaccine for the UK.
I thought that the side effects were due to leakage into the bloodstream from the injection?
So would a nasally administered vaccine not be safer?
Very poor decision making from this government if they cancel the northern part of HS2. The London to Birmingham bit is the least useful part. We should have started the other way around from Sheffield and Manchester down to Birmingham and then done the Birmingham to London bit afterwards.
I still think it's a gigantic waste of money that would be better spent elsewhere or not at all. Without the northern half of it we're not only at gigantic waste of money, we're back to "cutting 10 mins off the current journey time" again. Fuck those idiots who keep banging on about this mythical capacity issue, it's not worth £50bn.
It's just the Leeds bit that's being ditched/put on indefinite hold. The Manchester bit is happening.
It's still a stupid decision.
I don't think so. I'm not sure about the merits of London-Birmingham-Manchester/Liverpool, but there's certainly a much stronger case for that than Birmingham-Toton-Sheffield-Leeds. What the government ought to do is say that they'll electrify the MML. I'd look at reopening Nuneaton-Burton and Northampton-Market Harborough as a way to cascade capacity from the WCML to the East Midlands, which would also increase journey options (e.g. Milton Keynes to the East Mids).
No that's just a lack of ambition. We should be planning that branch to go all the way up to Edinburgh at some point. If we're going to spend £100bn on this bullshit then we should at least do it properly.
Wow. Agree with Max on a public spending issue
HS2 is about a 21C transport system, and the further benefits of HS2 are getting people out of aeroplanes, and creating capacity to move freight off roads. Which puts it at the heart of the core green agenda of this Govt.
@theProle earlier has the wrong end of the stick. People in the North travel in cars because the public transport is shitty, not ubiquitous, and there are too many 4th hand cattle-trucks from 1970/80s London forced on them.
Where PT has been invested in - perhaps mainly metropolitan area systems and light rail / trams - it is used.
If it is true that the EM and NE are being knifed in the back on levelling up, after multiple billions have been p*ssed away on unnecessary tunnels and similar to placate Nimbys, then there should be hell to pay.
They are also washing away some of the foundations of their appeal.
Where public transport has been invested in it is indeed used. By a teeny tiny fraction of northerners.
The overwhelming majority of northerners (like the overwhelming majority of the country full stop) drive - and the climate excuse to be anti-car has been eliminated by Tesla etc
£100bn invested into the road network would do far more for the country than £100bn on a train set.
Not as shiny and pretty for people who make these decisions though. But the roads actually work and are actually what is used by the overwhelming majority of the country. £100bn of new motorways (and by-passes and other road upgrades etc) would do massively more than a new train set to play with.
Picking this up from earlier - had a chance briefly to check some numbers for light-rail in England.
The "teeny tiny" thing is only where the investment is teeny tiny. Our small number of small light rail systems carry just under 270m journeys a year, 150m if we ignore DLR. That is only Manchester / Nottingham / Tyne and Wear / Croydon-Beckenham / Midland Metro / Blackpool.
Checking Nottingham, the trams do 60 journeys per year per resident in the region, and the system does not even cover the whole city. Not teeny-tiny.
Tesla etc have made some progress on emissions, though it depends on supply mix, and they are strangely reticent about their own environmental credentials, unless it has changed recently. The elephant in the room is congestion.
On the £100bn on roads - some investment, yes. The one that gets my goat is greenies demanding that places where road accidents put cars in gardens or front rooms get no investment on a universal principle.
A few more or bigger roads as a complete alternative to a proper rail network? That's for the birds imo.
What's for the birds is a rail network to get HGVs off the road, when HGVs carry billions of tonnes of goods while rails carry millions.
The roads as an alternative to rail is already what the market overwhelmingly chooses despite rail getting so much investment and roads getting so much tax instead.
When the roads are moving billions of tonnes of goods, and having billions of passenger journeys, then is a hundred billion for rail really the best option out there? What could be done with £100bn for roads instead?
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
I know restaurant and hotel owners who can't get their furloughed staff back, because the staff took the furlough money and went to work for other people on the sly, and the staff have found they prefer the new job
We have probably wasted many billions in fraud
Nothing whatsoever fraudulent about that. It was expressly allowed from the start of the scheme that you could work for someone else but not the employer that put you on furlough. If the employer didn’t like that then the employer should have just made them redundant. Which would have cost more money.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
I know restaurant and hotel owners who can't get their furloughed staff back, because the staff took the furlough money and went to work for other people on the sly, and the staff have found they prefer the new job
We have probably wasted many billions in fraud
Nothing whatsoever fraudulent about that. It was expressly allowed from the start of the scheme that you could work for someone else but not the employer that put you on furlough. If the employer didn’t like that then the employer should have just made them redundant. Which would have cost more money.
I mean they went off to work for jobs cash in hand: no tax, black economy.
I thought you would win until a couple of weeks ago. People have now accepted unlockdown in full and the scepticism is going away. Initially it looked as though Labour may have been able to paint Boris and Rishi as taking too many risks but now it seems like that won't happen.
The next big misstep could be not having a large booster shot programme and then seeing the hospitalisation/death rate spike to 3-4x today requiring restrictions to be reintroduced around Christmas time all while we have 40-50m Pfizer doses sitting in freezers. That's probably the only way Labour take a polling lead this year and even then I'm not sure Keir will do it, he will "back the scientists" and support whatever decision the government takes on the booster programme if the JCVI says no boosters for 50+ and limits them to 70+. I don't see this happening as I think Javid will simply overrule them and do it anyway from mid-September. He's been absolutely itching to announce a programme and he's much smarter than Hancock and will just ignore bad advice from the JCVI if they say don't do booster shots.
This is getting to the point where I have to ask what the **** is going on with the polling.
Its fairly straightforward isnt it? Tories are stuck on 40-44 range, which is the bulk of the Brexit vote. Labour vs minor parties a bit more unpredictable but still fairly steady. Until about a quarter or more Brexiteers think Brexit is either a failure or in the past, the Tories are in a very healthy polling scenario, regardless of their performance on anything else.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
I wonder when my street will get an opinion on this? And who interprets what the various roads believe?
Perhaps it would be better re-written as "Boris Johnson does not care whether he broke the rules or not and no-one else can do anything about it anyway".
The tweet is misleading.
Johnson flew to Middlesbrough on his official plane for government business which he then concluded.
He was then driven to Hartlepool.
Labour say that is "joint" public/party business. However CCHQ will tell you - and I think they are right - that the fact that he went on to Hartlepool does not change the character or need for this flight. They are two separate occurances.
There is a small asterisk as to how CCHQ could have spent literally nothing on transport for the campaign - but the plane is what Labour want to focus on.
I know Labour are not great at winning elections but are CCHQ and Downing Street now interchangeable? Even then could we have the person at CCHQ who has investigated the claim and made a decision named, otherwise there can be no accountability.
And the idea that anyone at Downing Street is objectively scrutinising the PMs adherence to the ministerial code is laughable. Downing St = Boris Johnson. Ministerial code = irrelevant relic of the past.
My commentary is independent of the merits of this specific instance.
From a philosophical perspective it’s concerning to have an appointed committee/individual who can censure the PM though. He’s the most senior elected representative in the country and he’s accountable to the electorate.
Have Mr Civil Servant fining him or suspending him or whatever seems inappropriate.
If thats what the PM wants to do, he should say that and own it.
Not put out a press release saying "Downing St" has cleared him.
That’s a different point. I’m arguing that applying the “ministerial code” to the PM is pointless because it has to be the PM who has the final say.
In this case though - based on someone’s post earlier about Middlesbrough - it seems that the Tories were cute but within the rules
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
I know restaurant and hotel owners who can't get their furloughed staff back, because the staff took the furlough money and went to work for other people on the sly, and the staff have found they prefer the new job
We have probably wasted many billions in fraud
The above scenario is not fraud. Rightly or wrongly it was within the intent and letter of the furlough rules to do a different job in addition to furlough.
See my prior comment. They went off to work for jobs cash in hand. Undeclared income
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
There used to be a showroom in Kensington when I first moved to London. Holland Road is what the inter web thingy is telling me, although for some reason I remember it as being on Piccadilly.
Keir Starmer’s net approval rating stands at -18%, a 4% decrease from last week and the lowest net approval rating for Starmer to date. 41% disapprove of Keir Starmer’s job performance (up 3%), while 23% approve (down 1%). Meanwhile, 30% neither approve nor disapprove of Starmer’s job performance (down 1%).
French presidents lookalike team: The De Gaulle Blacks
The iSAGE charity football team: The All Quacks.
Ladies and Gentlemen*: we have a winner
* plus any other posters who don’t fall into those categories. I remember going to the wedding of a good friend who’s father was a prominent cabinet minister. He started his speech “Ladies, Gentlemen, and friends of my father”
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
I know restaurant and hotel owners who can't get their furloughed staff back, because the staff took the furlough money and went to work for other people on the sly, and the staff have found they prefer the new job
We have probably wasted many billions in fraud
Reminds me of the way that whenever there's a tube strike a lot of people discover the route they've been using for years isn't the best one.
I expect Mr Dickson will be all over that subsample like a cheap suit....
So Boris has got a meaty Afghan bounce? I'd never have predicted that. Surely that's Sir Keir's leadership done for. Labour supporters must be feeling like Morrisey tonight:
And I know it's over - still I cling I don't know where else I can go Over and over and over and over Over and over, la... … I know it's over And it never really began But in my heart it was so real
The latest UK order count for each vaccine from the very start of the pandemic is:
Pfizer-BioNTech 135m Oxford Astra-Zeneca 100m Valneva 100m GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur 60m Novavax 60m CureVac 50m Janssen 20m Moderna 17m
The CureVac we've ordered is actually CureVac/GSK as it's the Gen 2 version only. We declined the Gen 1 vaccine.
/pedant
Have we given away our Janssen vaccines?
Not given away, just reduced the order size from 52m to 20m. I do think it will end up being a giveaway vaccine since we don't really need it. AZ as well. If Novavax ever get their act together I think that becomes our workhorse vaccine. The efficacy modelling places it on the same level as Moderna and it's fairly easy to adjust. The manufacturing process looks difficult to crack though so who know's whether they'll every be able to make it in significant quantities.
AZ is furthest along in trials for a nasally administered vaccine, so it’s possible we’ll be able to use them for that.
I think the rare side effects will preclude it becoming the workhorse vaccine for the UK.
I thought that the side effects were due to leakage into the bloodstream from the injection?
So would a nasally administered vaccine not be safer?
I don't think that was ever proved conclusively. Hopefully the nasally administered trial will show no signs of it. I think if the side effect had shown up in the trial data then neither AZ no J&J would have got approval.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
I wonder when my street will get an opinion on this? And who interprets what the various roads believe?
Perhaps it would be better re-written as "Boris Johnson does not care whether he broke the rules or not and no-one else can do anything about it anyway".
The tweet is misleading.
Johnson flew to Middlesbrough on his official plane for government business which he then concluded.
He was then driven to Hartlepool.
Labour say that is "joint" public/party business. However CCHQ will tell you - and I think they are right - that the fact that he went on to Hartlepool does not change the character or need for this flight. They are two separate occurances.
There is a small asterisk as to how CCHQ could have spent literally nothing on transport for the campaign - but the plane is what Labour want to focus on.
I know Labour are not great at winning elections but are CCHQ and Downing Street now interchangeable? Even then could we have the person at CCHQ who has investigated the claim and made a decision named, otherwise there can be no accountability.
And the idea that anyone at Downing Street is objectively scrutinising the PMs adherence to the ministerial code is laughable. Downing St = Boris Johnson. Ministerial code = irrelevant relic of the past.
My commentary is independent of the merits of this specific instance.
From a philosophical perspective it’s concerning to have an appointed committee/individual who can censure the PM though. He’s the most senior elected representative in the country and he’s accountable to the electorate.
Have Mr Civil Servant fining him or suspending him or whatever seems inappropriate.
If thats what the PM wants to do, he should say that and own it.
Not put out a press release saying "Downing St" has cleared him.
That’s a different point. I’m arguing that applying the “ministerial code” to the PM is pointless because it has to be the PM who has the final say.
In this case though - based on someone’s post earlier about Middlesbrough - it seems that the Tories were cute but within the rules
That is not a different point, that was pretty much the main point of my first post!
The difference seems to be that I am saying it is wrong for the PM to pretend he has been cleared of breaking the ministerial code when the judge, "Downing St", is presumably himself. He does not care, because he is above the rules and knows it. He does not want the public to understand that though.
@PoliticsForAlI NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
There used to be a showroom in Kensington when I first moved to London. Holland Road is what the inter web thingy is telling me, although for some reason I remember it as being on Piccadilly.
This is getting to the point where I have to ask what the **** is going on with the polling.
Maybe the public are not on twitter nor may I suggest this excellent forum
And maybe Labour overplayed the Raab story
The Raab story was always puffed up nonsense. MINISTER DOES NOT MAKE PHONE CALL WHILE ON HOLIDAY
No one gives a fuck, apart from frantic Remoaners and the Daily Mail. Also it was entirely overshadowed by the horror of Kabul - which IS an enormous story - I've had non-political friends mention it unprompted. They are angry at Biden
The Afghani story has cut through like few others, but it's probably neutral in UK terms
Very poor decision making from this government if they cancel the northern part of HS2. The London to Birmingham bit is the least useful part. We should have started the other way around from Sheffield and Manchester down to Birmingham and then done the Birmingham to London bit afterwards.
I still think it's a gigantic waste of money that would be better spent elsewhere or not at all. Without the northern half of it we're not only at gigantic waste of money, we're back to "cutting 10 mins off the current journey time" again. Fuck those idiots who keep banging on about this mythical capacity issue, it's not worth £50bn.
It's just the Leeds bit that's being ditched/put on indefinite hold. The Manchester bit is happening.
It's still a stupid decision.
I don't think so. I'm not sure about the merits of London-Birmingham-Manchester/Liverpool, but there's certainly a much stronger case for that than Birmingham-Toton-Sheffield-Leeds. What the government ought to do is say that they'll electrify the MML. I'd look at reopening Nuneaton-Burton and Northampton-Market Harborough as a way to cascade capacity from the WCML to the East Midlands, which would also increase journey options (e.g. Milton Keynes to the East Mids).
No that's just a lack of ambition. We should be planning that branch to go all the way up to Edinburgh at some point. If we're going to spend £100bn on this bullshit then we should at least do it properly.
Wow. Agree with Max on a public spending issue
HS2 is about a 21C transport system, and the further benefits of HS2 are getting people out of aeroplanes, and creating capacity to move freight off roads. Which puts it at the heart of the core green agenda of this Govt.
@theProle earlier has the wrong end of the stick. People in the North travel in cars because the public transport is shitty, not ubiquitous, and there are too many 4th hand cattle-trucks from 1970/80s London forced on them.
Where PT has been invested in - perhaps mainly metropolitan area systems and light rail / trams - it is used.
If it is true that the EM and NE are being knifed in the back on levelling up, after multiple billions have been p*ssed away on unnecessary tunnels and similar to placate Nimbys, then there should be hell to pay.
They are also washing away some of the foundations of their appeal.
Where public transport has been invested in it is indeed used. By a teeny tiny fraction of northerners.
The overwhelming majority of northerners (like the overwhelming majority of the country full stop) drive - and the climate excuse to be anti-car has been eliminated by Tesla etc
£100bn invested into the road network would do far more for the country than £100bn on a train set.
Not as shiny and pretty for people who make these decisions though. But the roads actually work and are actually what is used by the overwhelming majority of the country. £100bn of new motorways (and by-passes and other road upgrades etc) would do massively more than a new train set to play with.
Picking this up from earlier - had a chance briefly to check some numbers for light-rail in England.
The "teeny tiny" thing is only where the investment is teeny tiny. Our small number of small light rail systems carry just under 270m journeys a year, 150m if we ignore DLR. That is only Manchester / Nottingham / Tyne and Wear / Croydon-Beckenham / Midland Metro / Blackpool.
Checking Nottingham, the trams do 60 journeys per year per resident in the region, and the system does not even cover the whole city. Not teeny-tiny.
Tesla etc have made some progress on emissions, though it depends on supply mix, and they are strangely reticent about their own environmental credentials, unless it has changed recently. The elephant in the room is congestion.
On the £100bn on roads - some investment, yes. The one that gets my goat is greenies demanding that places where road accidents put cars in gardens or front rooms get no investment on a universal principle.
A few more or bigger roads as a complete alternative to a proper rail network? That's for the birds imo.
What's for the birds is a rail network to get HGVs off the road, when HGVs carry billions of tonnes of goods while rails carry millions.
The roads as an alternative to rail is already what the market overwhelmingly chooses despite rail getting so much investment and roads getting so much tax instead.
When the roads are moving billions of tonnes of goods, and having billions of passenger journeys, then is a hundred billion for rail really the best option out there? What could be done with £100bn for roads instead?
Every HGV they get off the road is a benefit. They won't get every HGV off the road, but we should aim to get every one off the road we can - and that's great for large, frequent point-to-point loads.
One issue is that railfreight got addicted on trainload coal. Routes were designed to take coal from Merthyr to Swansea, or Kellingly to Willington. We're now in a world where the point-to-point endpoints are very different. This problem is typified by the Shaftholme Flyover near Doncaster, which was designed to mainly take coal trains off the route. Except it opened in 2014, after most of that traffic had disappeared ...
And the point-to-point routes for other railfreight tends to be longer distance than the old pit-to-power routes.
Can someone explain why, when we have a chronic labour shortage, the government is still paying a couple of million people to sit on their arses with the furlough scheme?
The people still on furlough can't realistically still have a job if they still aren't needed when everything is open and things like hospitality are under manned she-personned.
I know restaurant and hotel owners who can't get their furloughed staff back, because the staff took the furlough money and went to work for other people on the sly, and the staff have found they prefer the new job
We have probably wasted many billions in fraud
Reminds me of the way that whenever there's a tube strike a lot of people discover the route they've been using for years isn't the best one.
They find walking is better?
Sometimes, but usually they find a different combination of tube line journeys is better than the one they've been using.
Comments
BUT England 24,158, last week 23,171 - pretty flat. Wales dumped another 3247 today, Scotland 3189.
Not sure what's going on with Wales - assuming Scotland is linked to schools, but some dispute that. Is Wales seeing a holiday bounce, like Boardmasters in Cornwall?
No, ok, truly sorry.
I think reducing traffic is in general a more sensible way of dealing with congestion than building more roads willy-nilly.
I hope there is some research into this, but I haven't seen it. My guess is like this:
Not many stay at home. Clarkeites are not quitters.
Very few would vote for a Labour party that contains or might come to contain and tolerate anti-semitism or Jezza politics generally.
Many would go the an LD party which was principled, centrist, liberal and Orange bookish. But it isn't.
Few will vote for independents, small parties, mavericks however principled.
Most will notice that Clarke, Heseltine and Hunt are still in the party and that Boris, Brexit aside which is a done deal, is centrist but populist and stick with the Tories for now.
And yes I'm sure HYUFD simply pressed quote erroneously. But I lolled anyway.
NEW: Downing Street do not believe Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by using taxpayers money to jet to Hartlepool to campaign for the Tories, as they say the PM can use his official cars for whatever, despite a car not being a plane
Via
@BusinessInsider
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1429824009911349253
Tug of War: Haul Blacks
😂
Perhaps it would be better re-written as "Boris Johnson does not care whether he broke the rules or not and no-one else can do anything about it anyway".
It's quite common when you're young, as you've just left your parents care - and it works with them - but you're yet to work out that listening and tact are the key to achieving influence in the real world as a grown adult.
Johnson flew to Middlesbrough on his official plane for government business which he then concluded.
He was then driven to Hartlepool.
Labour say that is "joint" public/party business. However CCHQ will tell you - and I think they are right - that the fact that he went on to Hartlepool does not change the character or need for this flight. They are two separate occurances.
There is a small asterisk as to how CCHQ could have spent literally nothing on transport for the campaign - but the plane is what Labour want to focus on.
And the idea that anyone at Downing Street is objectively scrutinising the PMs adherence to the ministerial code is laughable. Downing St = Boris Johnson. Ministerial code = irrelevant relic of the past.
My commentary is independent of the merits of this specific instance.
mannedshe-personned.https://twitter.com/MailOnline/status/1429832072282181639
I don't know why, nor why it is important to continue to differentiate between the two.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bristol_Cars_showroom_Kensington_High_Street.jpg
Have Mr Civil Servant fining him or suspending him or whatever seems inappropriate.
We have probably wasted many billions in fraud
https://twitter.com/Alan_Cochrane/status/1429818912166789129?s=20
Sleazy Tories on the slide....
Westminster Voting Intention (23 Aug):Conservative 43% (+3)
Labour 33% (-3)
Liberal Democrat 10% (–)
Green 6% (+1)
Scottish National Party 3% (-2)
Reform UK 3% (–)
Other 1% (-1)
Changes +/- 16 Aug
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1429835827379589129?s=20
I expect Mr Dickson will be all over that subsample like a cheap suit....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_412
I was referring to the Bristol Beaufighter…
Not put out a press release saying "Downing St" has cleared him.
Is the deal with the Green a SNP mistake
(Scruffy student)
2) It really doesn't matter much unless it panics one of the parties into doing something...
In the meantime it provides harmless entertainment and no end of egg-on-face for the punditocracy who routinely predict that the polls will move in their favoured direction because of "something" that's important to them...
So would a nasally administered vaccine not be safer?
The roads as an alternative to rail is already what the market overwhelmingly chooses despite rail getting so much investment and roads getting so much tax instead.
When the roads are moving billions of tonnes of goods, and having billions of passenger journeys, then is a hundred billion for rail really the best option out there? What could be done with £100bn for roads instead?
The next big misstep could be not having a large booster shot programme and then seeing the hospitalisation/death rate spike to 3-4x today requiring restrictions to be reintroduced around Christmas time all while we have 40-50m Pfizer doses sitting in freezers. That's probably the only way Labour take a polling lead this year and even then I'm not sure Keir will do it, he will "back the scientists" and support whatever decision the government takes on the booster programme if the JCVI says no boosters for 50+ and limits them to 70+. I don't see this happening as I think Javid will simply overrule them and do it anyway from mid-September. He's been absolutely itching to announce a programme and he's much smarter than Hancock and will just ignore bad advice from the JCVI if they say don't do booster shots.
In this case though - based on someone’s post earlier about Middlesbrough - it seems that the Tories were cute but within the rules
And maybe Labour overplayed the Raab story
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voting-intention-23-august-2021/
These ramped polls are never interesting.
* plus any other posters who don’t fall into those categories. I remember going to the wedding of a good friend who’s father was a prominent cabinet minister. He started his speech “Ladies, Gentlemen, and friends of my father”
And I know it's over - still I cling
I don't know where else I can go
Over and over and over and over
Over and over, la...
… I know it's over
And it never really began
But in my heart it was so real
The difference seems to be that I am saying it is wrong for the PM to pretend he has been cleared of breaking the ministerial code when the judge, "Downing St", is presumably himself. He does not care, because he is above the rules and knows it. He does not want the public to understand that though.
No one gives a fuck, apart from frantic Remoaners and the Daily Mail. Also it was entirely overshadowed by the horror of Kabul - which IS an enormous story - I've had non-political friends mention it unprompted. They are angry at Biden
The Afghani story has cut through like few others, but it's probably neutral in UK terms
One issue is that railfreight got addicted on trainload coal. Routes were designed to take coal from Merthyr to Swansea, or Kellingly to Willington. We're now in a world where the point-to-point endpoints are very different. This problem is typified by the Shaftholme Flyover near Doncaster, which was designed to mainly take coal trains off the route. Except it opened in 2014, after most of that traffic had disappeared ...
And the point-to-point routes for other railfreight tends to be longer distance than the old pit-to-power routes.