The seven day average for deaths is still creeping upwards, but - whisper it quietly - the hospital patient total is showing signs of levelling off...
And beyond that, reported cases are well into decline - the start of the dip coinciding, quite unexpectedly, with the return of schools in most of the country - and cases per capita in England stubbornly refuse to get as bad as they are in Scotland, NI and Wales. For now, anyway.
With vaccination rates and antibody prevalence now so high, you have to wonder if Covid is transitioning from its pandemic to its endemic phase - with the disease simply "filling in the gaps" in the three devolved nations where, crudely speaking, restrictions have been a little more onerous and previous waves of the disease a little less bad?
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Cameron offered the hunting vote but it didn't happen - became pointless when the SNP said they would vote on it.
Yeah I really don't think that any politician would trust Johnson to form a pact with him. He s&&t the bed with his border in the Irish Sea which no British PM could ever agree to and standing staring business people in the eye saying there will be no checks between NI and GB.
You would have to be a special type of stupid to believe anything he said when offering a pact with the political party you lead.
I think that if Johnson lost his majority, there would be a new leader to negotiate with.
That said, there is no way that the Lib Dems would support the party of Brexit. We want closer economic, social and cultural links with the EU. EEA or similar.
Yes absolutely but look at the Cons now - flying high why would there be a new leader? Sure the Cons/BJ's numbers are slipping but this is mid-term they should be shocking instead they are bobbing around parity with Lab and still generally 5pts ahead.
I just don't see a new leader. And I backed Boris to be out by, er, Sep 2021 god help me.
My point is that if Johnson were needing to negotiate a coalition or C and S, he would be doing so because he lost more seats than his current majority. There would be a new Con leader, sure as eggs is eggs. Probably not quickly enough to negotiate though possibly that would be done by an acting leader.
Didn't the LibDems make clear in 2010 that while they might go into coalition with Labour, the price would be replacing Brown? (Not that the maths would have worked).
Yes, I don't think it tenable to support a PM who has just been rejected. Only the DUP make that mistake!
May wasnt rejected, she led the most popularly supported UK wide party.
It was a failure for her as she went backwards but it gets a but overegged.
There's an old saying that Success = Performance - Expectations
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit from 24 to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
Boris will easily switch from pro choice social liberal to evangelical pro lifer if it keeps him in power as PM
Another statement that has no substance and will not happen
What does that mean? I mean I know it's something to do with the Tavvy but what are the implications?
The previous ruling blocked puberty delaying medication without parents' consent (as it ruled that under 16s were not competent to give their own consent). Therefore it effectively gave parents a veto on puberty blocking (as, by 16, it is generally a bit late).
It's a tricky area, as 'delaying' puberty can also have long term effects - it's not as simple as stop the medication, puberty happens and you end up physically (let alone mentally) the same as if no medication was given. But it still could be preferable to having to choose whether to do more invasive treatment early on.
The overturning brings this back into line with all other medical issues, following Gillick, as Foxy said.
Interestingly, the original argument in this case seems to be that there was poor information and not fully informed consent, which is more an issue in the particuar case than the principle - Tavistock might have made the judgement wrongly on the young person's competence to choose; it doesn't mean that all under 16s would not be competent to choose.
Thanks v much. A super tricky area.
There's an ongoing independent review into services for these young people that will (hopefully) provide some better evidence and answers on best practice https://cass.independent-review.uk/ (I've mentioned this before - I have some colleagues engaged in a research that will form part of this review, research just starting. Unlike most previous studies, the team doesn't come from a gender research background, more psychology and epidemiology and mental health, so doesn't have pre-formed views, so should be more neutral in assessing the evidence. I still expect them to get a lot of stick about it, from all sides.)
Looking good so far from the return of the super spreading rug rats.
Indeed. Although iSAGE are this afternoon fretting that the Leicestershire school figures are not too good and they started back two weeks earlier than rest of England.
Clutching at any passing straw?
Probably. Although their great hope for locking everyone back up now isn't Covid, it's flu.
Part of my view on this comes form a slightly different angle; one which might be non-obvious, or even wrong.
It starts with a statement: we are far too precious about life.
Now that's a crass thing to say, so let me elaborate: there are thousands of people who are suffering terribly, and we keep them alive when many do not want to be alive.
Take the case of French footballer Jean-Pierre Adams. He was in a coma for 39 years before he sadly - but perhaps thankfully - died this month. 39 years, perhaps of torture for him, but also for his friends and family. He had very significant damage to his brain, so even if he had miraculously awoken from his coma, what would his quality of live have been like?
We should also remember the case of Terri Schiavo, a young woman with PVS, over whose life a series of court cases were fought. After she was eventually left to die - seven years after the first court case - an autopsy showed that her brain weighed half that of an equivalent woman of her age.
A few lucky people do awaken from multi-year comas. But such occurrences are rare, and the amount of suffering of patients, relatives and friends is immense.
We need to talk about this, personally, as a society, and as a nation. I am not fond of Dignitas, but part of the issue is that Dignitas has to exist because of the laws in other states.
Personally, I am willing to say that if I am in a long-term coma, or if I am in a state where I have a persistently very low quality of life, am in pain, and cannot do many of the things I love - either through illness, accident, or old age - I would rather reach a happy end that continue the suffering of myself, my family, and friends. even if there is a 1% chance of recovering, I think an end would be best. I wish there was a way I could legally say it without outsiders, religious bigots and others interfering.
How does this connect to abortion? Put simply, many of the people who are pro-life would baulk at any assisted suicide or dignity in death laws. And I think a compassionate, humane society really needs such laws. I do not want to give these people such power over my death if I was in such an unfortunate position.
I agree; I think we should take doctors out of the equation and maybe allow that once all a person's children are adults then if there is unanimity, a parent can be euthanised.
This would have a number of other advantages too. It would allow us to get rid of all the child cruelty laws. No parent would dare abuse their kid, knowing that when they reached 21 (18 is too young), then they would have the power of life or death. It would also encourage parents to be generous with the inheritance early, which would help with the housing crisis in the UK. Finally, of course, it would begin to solve the demopgraphic issues that have so plagued the country.
I realise that there are a small number of downsides to this plan - notably the idea that it might disincentivize becoming a parent, but I'm sure we can come up with solutions to that.
Would it? Parents would ensure they always had at least one kid under 18/21.
Easier for men than for women.
My female work colleague is hopefully going to manage this particular trick for 32/35 years.
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Part of my view on this comes form a slightly different angle; one which might be non-obvious, or even wrong.
It starts with a statement: we are far too precious about life.
Now that's a crass thing to say, so let me elaborate: there are thousands of people who are suffering terribly, and we keep them alive when many do not want to be alive.
Take the case of French footballer Jean-Pierre Adams. He was in a coma for 39 years before he sadly - but perhaps thankfully - died this month. 39 years, perhaps of torture for him, but also for his friends and family. He had very significant damage to his brain, so even if he had miraculously awoken from his coma, what would his quality of live have been like?
We should also remember the case of Terri Schiavo, a young woman with PVS, over whose life a series of court cases were fought. After she was eventually left to die - seven years after the first court case - an autopsy showed that her brain weighed half that of an equivalent woman of her age.
A few lucky people do awaken from multi-year comas. But such occurrences are rare, and the amount of suffering of patients, relatives and friends is immense.
We need to talk about this, personally, as a society, and as a nation. I am not fond of Dignitas, but part of the issue is that Dignitas has to exist because of the laws in other states.
Personally, I am willing to say that if I am in a long-term coma, or if I am in a state where I have a persistently very low quality of life, am in pain, and cannot do many of the things I love - either through illness, accident, or old age - I would rather reach a happy end that continue the suffering of myself, my family, and friends. even if there is a 1% chance of recovering, I think an end would be best. I wish there was a way I could legally say it without outsiders, religious bigots and others interfering.
How does this connect to abortion? Put simply, many of the people who are pro-life would baulk at any assisted suicide or dignity in death laws. And I think a compassionate, humane society really needs such laws. I do not want to give these people such power over my death if I was in such an unfortunate position.
I agree; I think we should take doctors out of the equation and maybe allow that once all a person's children are adults then if there is unanimity, a parent can be euthanised.
This would have a number of other advantages too. It would allow us to get rid of all the child cruelty laws. No parent would dare abuse their kid, knowing that when they reached 21 (18 is too young), then they would have the power of life or death. It would also encourage parents to be generous with the inheritance early, which would help with the housing crisis in the UK. Finally, of course, it would begin to solve the demopgraphic issues that have so plagued the country.
I realise that there are a small number of downsides to this plan - notably the idea that it might disincentivize becoming a parent, but I'm sure we can come up with solutions to that.
That has to come pretty close to the top of the prize for most nut-job post ever placed on PB. And there have been a few good contenders!
One of the most troubling things for those of us that believe in universal suffrage and free speech is that all nutters have a vote and that they also have the right to demonstrate that it might be best if they were not allowed.
I think RCS is being ironic ... vide Swift A Modest Proposal.
Yeah I really don't think that any politician would trust Johnson to form a pact with him. He s&&t the bed with his border in the Irish Sea which no British PM could ever agree to and standing staring business people in the eye saying there will be no checks between NI and GB.
You would have to be a special type of stupid to believe anything he said when offering a pact with the political party you lead.
I think that if Johnson lost his majority, there would be a new leader to negotiate with.
That said, there is no way that the Lib Dems would support the party of Brexit. We want closer economic, social and cultural links with the EU. EEA or similar.
Yes absolutely but look at the Cons now - flying high why would there be a new leader? Sure the Cons/BJ's numbers are slipping but this is mid-term they should be shocking instead they are bobbing around parity with Lab and still generally 5pts ahead.
I just don't see a new leader. And I backed Boris to be out by, er, Sep 2021 god help me.
My point is that if Johnson were needing to negotiate a coalition or C and S, he would be doing so because he lost more seats than his current majority. There would be a new Con leader, sure as eggs is eggs. Probably not quickly enough to negotiate though possibly that would be done by an acting leader.
Didn't the LibDems make clear in 2010 that while they might go into coalition with Labour, the price would be replacing Brown? (Not that the maths would have worked).
Yes, I don't think it tenable to support a PM who has just been rejected. Only the DUP make that mistake!
May wasnt rejected, she led the most popularly supported UK wide party.
It was a failure for her as she went backwards but it gets a but overegged.
There's an old saying that Success = Performance - Expectations
Yep. May won, was seen as failing. Corbyn lost, was seen as success.
Nothing like as strong as the new measures announced in Italy where, from October 15th, anyone in employment in any organisation will be suspended without pay for failing to be vaccinated.
They have elected to take radical measures to apply a boot to the necks of most refusers. People of working age who won't get jabbed are going to be deprived of their wages, on top of existing regulations that exclude all anti-vaxxers from many venues including gyms and restaurants.
If, as a consequence, they manage to get through the Winter without yet another lockdown disaster and we do not then the Government will have a great deal of explaining to do.
I don't think that's quite right. Italians have to show the "Green Pass" which can be vaccinated or tested or recovered, as I understand it from friends in Italy.
Yeah I really don't think that any politician would trust Johnson to form a pact with him. He s&&t the bed with his border in the Irish Sea which no British PM could ever agree to and standing staring business people in the eye saying there will be no checks between NI and GB.
You would have to be a special type of stupid to believe anything he said when offering a pact with the political party you lead.
I think that if Johnson lost his majority, there would be a new leader to negotiate with.
That said, there is no way that the Lib Dems would support the party of Brexit. We want closer economic, social and cultural links with the EU. EEA or similar.
Yes absolutely but look at the Cons now - flying high why would there be a new leader? Sure the Cons/BJ's numbers are slipping but this is mid-term they should be shocking instead they are bobbing around parity with Lab and still generally 5pts ahead.
I just don't see a new leader. And I backed Boris to be out by, er, Sep 2021 god help me.
My point is that if Johnson were needing to negotiate a coalition or C and S, he would be doing so because he lost more seats than his current majority. There would be a new Con leader, sure as eggs is eggs. Probably not quickly enough to negotiate though possibly that would be done by an acting leader.
Didn't the LibDems make clear in 2010 that while they might go into coalition with Labour, the price would be replacing Brown? (Not that the maths would have worked).
Yes, I don't think it tenable to support a PM who has just been rejected. Only the DUP make that mistake!
May wasnt rejected, she led the most popularly supported UK wide party.
It was a failure for her as she went backwards but it gets a but overegged.
There's an old saying that Success = Performance - Expectations
If Labour come out with this 0.5% levy idea to replace council tax in their manifesto my X will be in the Labour box quicker than @HYUFD can make a u-turn on abortion policy.
It does seem a good idea and at a quick calculation I would pay about the same as I do now
Isn't that devolved to Wales?
(Excellent idea, and Stamp Duty gets abolished too. But our PB one percenters will be squealing like live piglets being turned into pork scratchings with a rusty cut throat razor. I make it that my costs for my home would go up a little, which I would more than recover when I buy the next place.)
Lol do you have the solitary house in Nottinghamshire that would be adversely affected by this ?
It's more that that. These are the Council tax bands where I am. In my area of 55k of properties I make it roughly 10-12% that would be modestly worse off.
For people who live alone such as myself it kicks in at a somewhat lower level as I get a 25% discount on Council Tax. Mine is Band D worth around 300-325k.
The % will be somewhat higher in more expensive areas of Notts, which is parts of the S of the county and probably Nottingham, and places where the nobs live such as part of Revenshead.
Overall I think it is a very fair deal, and a good way of very gradual strategic levelling up, which will inflate very low house prices somewhat (& justify investment), and put a bit of downward pressure on expensive ones by increasing the costs modestly.
Having run the numbers, my Council Tax bill would change upwards by about 25%, depending on how extra precepts for County, Police etc are handled.
That's a price I'm quite happy to pay for a switch to a fair, rather than regressive, tax, and to get shot of Stamp Duty.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
I agree - but that wasn't my point.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
You talk about "the 8 DUP MPs" as though they were a given.
With the DUP currently fourth in the Northern Ireland polls, is it a given that there will be any DUP MPs?
Nothing like as strong as the new measures announced in Italy where, from October 15th, anyone in employment in any organisation will be suspended without pay for failing to be vaccinated.
They have elected to take radical measures to apply a boot to the necks of most refusers. People of working age who won't get jabbed are going to be deprived of their wages, on top of existing regulations that exclude all anti-vaxxers from many venues including gyms and restaurants.
If, as a consequence, they manage to get through the Winter without yet another lockdown disaster and we do not then the Government will have a great deal of explaining to do.
I don't think that's quite right. Italians have to show the "Green Pass" which can be vaccinated or tested or recovered, as I understand it from friends in Italy.
You're correct. Seems I've got the wrong end of the stick on some of the details. Apologies.
What does that mean? I mean I know it's something to do with the Tavvy but what are the implications?
It's about giving puberty blocking drugs to minors who wish to use them in their gender transition. The first judgment ruled that if under 16 the child could not give consent whatever their doctors thought, and if 16 to 18 they could but doctors should in any case seek a court ruling before proceeding. It pretty much killed off this treatment path.
This has today been quashed. Rationale being: Gillick competence should (the Court Of Appeal says) be applied in these cases as it is in other cases, ie there is insufficient reason to treat this as a special area requiring something different to the general rule and usual medical practice. This therefore puts the decision as to whether each patient is competent to choose these treatments back with the doctors.
Part of my view on this comes form a slightly different angle; one which might be non-obvious, or even wrong.
It starts with a statement: we are far too precious about life.
Now that's a crass thing to say, so let me elaborate: there are thousands of people who are suffering terribly, and we keep them alive when many do not want to be alive.
Take the case of French footballer Jean-Pierre Adams. He was in a coma for 39 years before he sadly - but perhaps thankfully - died this month. 39 years, perhaps of torture for him, but also for his friends and family. He had very significant damage to his brain, so even if he had miraculously awoken from his coma, what would his quality of live have been like?
We should also remember the case of Terri Schiavo, a young woman with PVS, over whose life a series of court cases were fought. After she was eventually left to die - seven years after the first court case - an autopsy showed that her brain weighed half that of an equivalent woman of her age.
A few lucky people do awaken from multi-year comas. But such occurrences are rare, and the amount of suffering of patients, relatives and friends is immense.
We need to talk about this, personally, as a society, and as a nation. I am not fond of Dignitas, but part of the issue is that Dignitas has to exist because of the laws in other states.
Personally, I am willing to say that if I am in a long-term coma, or if I am in a state where I have a persistently very low quality of life, am in pain, and cannot do many of the things I love - either through illness, accident, or old age - I would rather reach a happy end that continue the suffering of myself, my family, and friends. even if there is a 1% chance of recovering, I think an end would be best. I wish there was a way I could legally say it without outsiders, religious bigots and others interfering.
How does this connect to abortion? Put simply, many of the people who are pro-life would baulk at any assisted suicide or dignity in death laws. And I think a compassionate, humane society really needs such laws. I do not want to give these people such power over my death if I was in such an unfortunate position.
I agree; I think we should take doctors out of the equation and maybe allow that once all a person's children are adults then if there is unanimity, a parent can be euthanised.
This would have a number of other advantages too. It would allow us to get rid of all the child cruelty laws. No parent would dare abuse their kid, knowing that when they reached 21 (18 is too young), then they would have the power of life or death. It would also encourage parents to be generous with the inheritance early, which would help with the housing crisis in the UK. Finally, of course, it would begin to solve the demopgraphic issues that have so plagued the country.
I realise that there are a small number of downsides to this plan - notably the idea that it might disincentivize becoming a parent, but I'm sure we can come up with solutions to that.
That has to come pretty close to the top of the prize for most nut-job post ever placed on PB. And there have been a few good contenders!
One of the most troubling things for those of us that believe in universal suffrage and free speech is that all nutters have a vote and that they also have the right to demonstrate that it might be best if they were not allowed.
I think RCS is being ironic ... vide Swift A Modest Proposal.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
I agree - but that wasn't my point.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
If the DUP do not get serious concessions from the Conservatives they will threaten to abstain until they do, guaranteed.
As seen from 2017-19 the DUP are notoriously stubborn
If Labour come out with this 0.5% levy idea to replace council tax in their manifesto my X will be in the Labour box quicker than @HYUFD can make a u-turn on abortion policy.
It does seem a good idea and at a quick calculation I would pay about the same as I do now
Isn't that devolved to Wales?
(Excellent idea, and Stamp Duty gets abolished too. But our PB one percenters will be squealing like live piglets being turned into pork scratchings with a rusty cut throat razor. I make it that my costs for my home would go up a little, which I would more than recover when I buy the next place.)
Lol do you have the solitary house in Nottinghamshire that would be adversely affected by this ?
It's more that that. These are the Council tax bands where I am. In my area of 55k of properties I make it roughly 10-12% that would be modestly worse off.
For people who live alone such as myself it kicks in at a somewhat lower level as I get a 25% discount on Council Tax. Mine is Band D worth around 300-325k.
The % will be somewhat higher in more expensive areas of Notts, which is parts of the S of the county and probably Nottingham, and places where the nobs live such as part of Revenshead.
Overall I think it is a very fair deal, and a good way of very gradual strategic levelling up, which will inflate very low house prices somewhat (& justify investment), and put a bit of downward pressure on expensive ones by increasing the costs modestly.
Having run the numbers, my Council Tax bill would change upwards by about 25%, depending on how extra precepts for County, Police etc are handled.
That's a price I'm quite happy to pay for a switch to a fair, rather than regressive, tax, and to get shot of Stamp Duty.
Sounds like a very sensible proposal. Very sensible.
And of course residents could deflate their taxes by becoming YIMBYs.
I really hope there's a higher bar for defamation than that you are 'incorrectly portrayed' in a work of fiction. Feels like a waste of time for lawyers (if that's not an oxymoron). Georgian chess icon Nona Gaprindashvili has filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix, saying she was incorrectly portrayed in the hit series The Queen's Gambit.
The case refers to a sequence in the drama's final episode which says Gaprindashvili, now 80, had never played competitive chess with men.
The document says that by 1968, the year in which the episode is set, she had faced at least 59 male players.
Part of my view on this comes form a slightly different angle; one which might be non-obvious, or even wrong.
It starts with a statement: we are far too precious about life.
Now that's a crass thing to say, so let me elaborate: there are thousands of people who are suffering terribly, and we keep them alive when many do not want to be alive.
Take the case of French footballer Jean-Pierre Adams. He was in a coma for 39 years before he sadly - but perhaps thankfully - died this month. 39 years, perhaps of torture for him, but also for his friends and family. He had very significant damage to his brain, so even if he had miraculously awoken from his coma, what would his quality of live have been like?
We should also remember the case of Terri Schiavo, a young woman with PVS, over whose life a series of court cases were fought. After she was eventually left to die - seven years after the first court case - an autopsy showed that her brain weighed half that of an equivalent woman of her age.
A few lucky people do awaken from multi-year comas. But such occurrences are rare, and the amount of suffering of patients, relatives and friends is immense.
We need to talk about this, personally, as a society, and as a nation. I am not fond of Dignitas, but part of the issue is that Dignitas has to exist because of the laws in other states.
Personally, I am willing to say that if I am in a long-term coma, or if I am in a state where I have a persistently very low quality of life, am in pain, and cannot do many of the things I love - either through illness, accident, or old age - I would rather reach a happy end that continue the suffering of myself, my family, and friends. even if there is a 1% chance of recovering, I think an end would be best. I wish there was a way I could legally say it without outsiders, religious bigots and others interfering.
How does this connect to abortion? Put simply, many of the people who are pro-life would baulk at any assisted suicide or dignity in death laws. And I think a compassionate, humane society really needs such laws. I do not want to give these people such power over my death if I was in such an unfortunate position.
I agree; I think we should take doctors out of the equation and maybe allow that once all a person's children are adults then if there is unanimity, a parent can be euthanised.
This would have a number of other advantages too. It would allow us to get rid of all the child cruelty laws. No parent would dare abuse their kid, knowing that when they reached 21 (18 is too young), then they would have the power of life or death. It would also encourage parents to be generous with the inheritance early, which would help with the housing crisis in the UK. Finally, of course, it would begin to solve the demopgraphic issues that have so plagued the country.
I realise that there are a small number of downsides to this plan - notably the idea that it might disincentivize becoming a parent, but I'm sure we can come up with solutions to that.
Would it? Parents would ensure they always had at least one kid under 18/21.
Easier for men than for women.
My female work colleague is hopefully going to manage this particular trick for 32/35 years.
Mine too.* More common than we think? Or do we work together?
*Well, she actually resigned, but still working out notice for another week or two.
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
But the DUP let themselves be sold down the river and into a different state by Mr Johnson. Not exactly a mark of a super-negotiator.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
You talk about "the 8 DUP MPs" as though they were a given.
With the DUP currently fourth in the Northern Ireland polls, is it a given that there will be any DUP MPs?
The main movement has been almost entirely from DUP to TUV and only at Stormont which has PR, they will likely return to DUP at FPTP Westminster elections.
Though if the TUV won most of the DUP seats then the TUV are even more hardline than the DUP are of course
Looking good so far from the return of the super spreading rug rats.
Indeed. Although iSAGE are this afternoon fretting that the Leicestershire school figures are not too good and they started back two weeks earlier than rest of England.
Clutching at any passing straw?
Probably. Although their great hope for locking everyone back up now isn't Covid, it's flu.
Although iSAGE seem drawn to restrictions and control I suspect that their main aim is to get lucky with a prediction so they can embarrass the government. Any failed predictions will have a veil drawn over them.
Looking good so far from the return of the super spreading rug rats.
Indeed. Although iSAGE are this afternoon fretting that the Leicestershire school figures are not too good and they started back two weeks earlier than rest of England.
Clutching at any passing straw?
Probably. Although their great hope for locking everyone back up now isn't Covid, it's flu.
Although iSAGE seem drawn to restrictions and control I suspect that their main aim is to get lucky with a prediction so they can embarrass the government. Any failed predictions will have a veil drawn over them.
You surely not suggesting they might be politically motivated are you.....
Earlier this year, Australia approached the UK about switching to a nuclear powered subs. The UK then approached the United States. The Biden administration asked the Australians to cancel the deal with France and then negotiate with them but the Australians did not want to go that route for reasons I can only guess at. Canberra believed France had gotten the message and wouldn’t be surprised. For this reason, the US underestimated the degree of French anger & assessed that it was not shared by the rest of the EU (still unclear).
There was a Tory LD government in 2014 not a Tory majority government and it was supposed to be once in a generation
"Once in a generation" is HYUFD chanting "I believe in fairies"
Was the referendum legislated as once in a generation Was the referendum referred to as once in a generation when the laws creating it were debated Was the referendum promoted as once in a generation aside from an off the cuff interview comment
Quite simply the referendum was not in any way once in a generation. You either know this and are endlessly lying. Or you are now believing in fairies.
Either way, it is embarrassing for you to keep chanting it with this kind of impotent non-authority.
However regardless the future of the union is reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 and as long as we continue to have a Tory government it will say no.
Until they say yes
Which is how long the SNP will be demanding referendums for......
That is true but an optimum time to win indyref2 for the union may present itself and anyway I expect the union to win comfortably post Brexit and covid
It is foolish to rule out all options
Which is why May (and now Johnson's "Now is not the time" is a perfectly reasonable holding position.
And Malc's delusional "it will take years to sort out" is for the birds - does he seriously think Westminster will want to put up with a posturing and grandstanding Holyrood for a millisecond longer than absolutely necessary?
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
But the DUP let themselves be sold down the river and into a different state by Mr Johnson. Not exactly a mark of a super-negotiator.
Got too big for their boots and thought themselves indispensible. No sympathy here.
What does that mean? I mean I know it's something to do with the Tavvy but what are the implications?
It's about giving puberty blocking drugs to minors who wish to use them in their gender transition. The first judgment ruled that if under 16 the child could not give consent whatever their doctors thought, and if 16 to 18 they could but doctors should in any case seek a court ruling before proceeding. It pretty much killed off this treatment path.
This has today been quashed. Rationale being: Gillick competence should (the Court Of Appeal says) be applied in these cases as it is in other cases, ie there is insufficient reason to treat this as a special area requiring something different to the general rule and usual medical practice. This therefore puts the decision as to whether each patient is competent to choose these treatments back with the doctors.
I’m broadly pro-choice on abortion and anti-assisted dying.
I get the sense my position is rather unusual.
I think my morality is strongly influenced by having a younger brother with severe disabilities and thinking through such moral issues in relation to him over a long period of time.
I am, broadly, of the same view as you. Generally pro-choice and generally anti-assisted dying.
It seems that a woman should have full control of her body but at the same time goodness only knows who gets to play god by deeming when a foetus is a person (with rights - the vast majority of foeti [?] would unhindered grow to become people).
Likewise assisted dying. I get that people, say, with MND have chosen this option but the dangers of enshrining it in law to me are many and real.
Bit of an oxymoron there Topping , Women must have control of her body for childbirth but neither women or men should have control for assisted dying. You seem to want your cake and also eat it. Piss or get off the pot.
Should be much higher, IMO, but if 0.5% is on the ballot, I’ll vote for it.
We can argue to raise it once it’s been established.
Personally I’d go 5% and make it revenue neutral, taking it off income tax. Perhaps bollox a load of other stupid transaction taxes at the same time. Id get less angry about IHT, too, if we had a reasonable level of property tax. Id happily compromise with raising the IHT threshold.
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
But the DUP let themselves be sold down the river and into a different state by Mr Johnson. Not exactly a mark of a super-negotiator.
The DUP voted against Boris' deal at every stage and partly forced the 2019 general election.
Only when he won a majority at that election could Boris govern without needing DUP support
Yeah I really don't think that any politician would trust Johnson to form a pact with him. He s&&t the bed with his border in the Irish Sea which no British PM could ever agree to and standing staring business people in the eye saying there will be no checks between NI and GB.
You would have to be a special type of stupid to believe anything he said when offering a pact with the political party you lead.
I think that if Johnson lost his majority, there would be a new leader to negotiate with.
That said, there is no way that the Lib Dems would support the party of Brexit. We want closer economic, social and cultural links with the EU. EEA or similar.
Yes absolutely but look at the Cons now - flying high why would there be a new leader? Sure the Cons/BJ's numbers are slipping but this is mid-term they should be shocking instead they are bobbing around parity with Lab and still generally 5pts ahead.
I just don't see a new leader. And I backed Boris to be out by, er, Sep 2021 god help me.
My point is that if Johnson were needing to negotiate a coalition or C and S, he would be doing so because he lost more seats than his current majority. There would be a new Con leader, sure as eggs is eggs. Probably not quickly enough to negotiate though possibly that would be done by an acting leader.
Didn't the LibDems make clear in 2010 that while they might go into coalition with Labour, the price would be replacing Brown? (Not that the maths would have worked).
Yes, I don't think it tenable to support a PM who has just been rejected. Only the DUP make that mistake!
May wasnt rejected, she led the most popularly supported UK wide party.
It was a failure for her as she went backwards but it gets a but overegged.
There's an old saying that Success = Performance - Expectations
Yep. May won, was seen as failing. Corbyn lost, was seen as success.
I’ve been wandering the Alps now for three weeks, yet there is no sign nor word of Mr & Mrs May anyway to be found.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
Does this projection take into account the new boundaries that are likely to give the Tories an extra 10 seats?
There was a Tory LD government in 2014 not a Tory majority government and it was supposed to be once in a generation
"Once in a generation" is HYUFD chanting "I believe in fairies"
Was the referendum legislated as once in a generation Was the referendum referred to as once in a generation when the laws creating it were debated Was the referendum promoted as once in a generation aside from an off the cuff interview comment
Quite simply the referendum was not in any way once in a generation. You either know this and are endlessly lying. Or you are now believing in fairies.
Either way, it is embarrassing for you to keep chanting it with this kind of impotent non-authority.
However regardless the future of the union is reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 and as long as we continue to have a Tory government it will say no.
Until they say yes
Which is how long the SNP will be demanding referendums for......
That is true but an optimum time to win indyref2 for the union may present itself and anyway I expect the union to win comfortably post Brexit and covid
It is foolish to rule out all options
Which is why May (and now Johnson's "Now is not the time" is a perfectly reasonable holding position.
I agree but it could change though I think the SNP will be the ones who are reluctant to push, though they will continue to make lots of noise
I really hope there's a higher bar for defamation than that you are 'incorrectly portrayed' in a work of fiction. Feels like a waste of time for lawyers (if that's not an oxymoron). Georgian chess icon Nona Gaprindashvili has filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix, saying she was incorrectly portrayed in the hit series The Queen's Gambit.
The case refers to a sequence in the drama's final episode which says Gaprindashvili, now 80, had never played competitive chess with men.
The document says that by 1968, the year in which the episode is set, she had faced at least 59 male players.
'In the final episode, a commentator mentions Gaprindashvili when describing Harmon: "The only unusual thing about her, really, is her sex. And even that's not unique in Russia. There's Nona Gaprindashvili, but she's the female world champion and has never faced men."'
That is a statement about a real world person - not even a fictional character based in part on that person. It seems pretty clear to me. Unless there was some subtle point about the fictional commentator being wrong, on a par with some character in a novel talking about Queen Mary III banning her eldest son from Windsor Castle for having pineapple pizzas delivered. But that seems unlikely, not least because most readers wouldn't spot it.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
I agree - but that wasn't my point.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
I agree but would put the threshold just a tad lower, perhaps 310 in which the Tories could just about stagger on as a deflated minority government surviv
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
You have now not only crashed into the buffers but catapulted the train to the road outside the station. Utterly absurd. There is no way that Conservative MPs will be dragooned into voting for something so contentious and that wasn’t even in the manifesto on which they’d campaigned only a couple of weeks earlier. If Johnson tried, which he wouldn’t, the proposal would be overwhelmingly defeated in the Commons and the Tories further weakened.
The DUP will have more important fish to fry if negotiations take place.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
Does this projection take into account the new boundaries that are likely to give the Tories an extra 10 seats?
Debatable, most of the extra seats are in Remain heavy London and the South East
If Labour come out with this 0.5% levy idea to replace council tax in their manifesto my X will be in the Labour box quicker than @HYUFD can make a u-turn on abortion policy.
It does seem a good idea and at a quick calculation I would pay about the same as I do now
Isn't that devolved to Wales?
(Excellent idea, and Stamp Duty gets abolished too. But our PB one percenters will be squealing like live piglets being turned into pork scratchings with a rusty cut throat razor. I make it that my costs for my home would go up a little, which I would more than recover when I buy the next place.)
Lol do you have the solitary house in Nottinghamshire that would be adversely affected by this ?
It's more that that. These are the Council tax bands where I am. In my area of 55k of properties I make it roughly 10-12% that would be modestly worse off.
For people who live alone such as myself it kicks in at a somewhat lower level as I get a 25% discount on Council Tax. Mine is Band D worth around 300-325k.
The % will be somewhat higher in more expensive areas of Notts, which is parts of the S of the county and probably Nottingham, and places where the nobs live such as part of Revenshead.
Overall I think it is a very fair deal, and a good way of very gradual strategic levelling up, which will inflate very low house prices somewhat (& justify investment), and put a bit of downward pressure on expensive ones by increasing the costs modestly.
Having run the numbers, my Council Tax bill would change upwards by about 25%, depending on how extra precepts for County, Police etc are handled.
That's a price I'm quite happy to pay for a switch to a fair, rather than regressive, tax, and to get shot of Stamp Duty.
Sounds like a very sensible proposal. Very sensible.
And of course residents could deflate their taxes by becoming YIMBYs.
Nothing like as strong as the new measures announced in Italy where, from October 15th, anyone in employment in any organisation will be suspended without pay for failing to be vaccinated.
They have elected to take radical measures to apply a boot to the necks of most refusers. People of working age who won't get jabbed are going to be deprived of their wages, on top of existing regulations that exclude all anti-vaxxers from many venues including gyms and restaurants.
If, as a consequence, they manage to get through the Winter without yet another lockdown disaster and we do not then the Government will have a great deal of explaining to do.
I don't think that's quite right. Italians have to show the "Green Pass" which can be vaccinated or tested or recovered, as I understand it from friends in Italy.
You're correct. Seems I've got the wrong end of the stick on some of the details. Apologies.
According to Reuters, Turkmenistan is making vaccination mandatory for all residents over 18.
Biden is making vaccination mandatory for "most federal employees", but I've no idea how many people thus covers, I'd guess maybe not that many - is it even as many as the 2.7 million subject to the French mandate?
Brutal - the ONS upper estimate (they estimate a range) of COVID infection in Scotland w/e Sept 11 was nearly 3% of the population, with the lower estimate 2%:
Selective crap on Scotland from you as ever , luckily England is Utopia and you never need to post negatively about it ever. What a saddo.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
I agree - but that wasn't my point.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
I agree but would put the threshold just a tad lower, perhaps 310 in which the Tories could just about stagger on as a deflated minority government surviv
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
You have now not only crashed into the buffers but catapulted the train to the road outside the station. Utterly absurd. There is no way that Conservative MPs will be dragooned into voting for something so contentious and that wasn’t even in the manifesto on which they’d campaigned only a couple of weeks earlier. If Johnson tried, which he wouldn’t, the proposal would be overwhelmingly defeated in the Commons and the Tories further weakened.
The DUP will have more important fish to fry if negotiations take place.
OK then, Starmer becomes PM.
Given the Irish Sea border is not going to be removed anytime soon the DUP will refuse to keep Boris and the Tories in power in the meantime unless they not only get vast sums of extra cash for NI but a reduction in the abortion timeframe for the whole UK to partly make up for the legalisation of abortion in NI Westminster imposed on them.
Most Conservative MPs would also support the abortion reduction anyway and especially if it is the only way to keep a Tory government in power so you are wrong
If Labour come out with this 0.5% levy idea to replace council tax in their manifesto my X will be in the Labour box quicker than @HYUFD can make a u-turn on abortion policy.
House valuation: by whom and how? Finger in the air?
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
You talk about "the 8 DUP MPs" as though they were a given.
With the DUP currently fourth in the Northern Ireland polls, is it a given that there will be any DUP MPs?
The main movement has been almost entirely from DUP to TUV and only at Stormont which has PR, they will likely return to DUP at FPTP Westminster elections.
Though if the TUV won most of the DUP seats then the TUV are even more hardline than the DUP are of course
Should be much higher, IMO, but if 0.5% is on the ballot, I’ll vote for it.
We can argue to raise it once it’s been established.
Personally I’d go 5% and make it revenue neutral, taking it off income tax. Perhaps bollox a load of other stupid transaction taxes at the same time. Id get less angry about IHT, too, if we had a reasonable level of property tax. Id happily compromise with raising the IHT threshold.
Not a bad idea.
But you'd also need to ensure the owner is liable not tenants.
Perhaps we could do the trick used for NI were wages are taxed on both sides. Say start with 0.5% of full price for the owner of the property and a further 0.5% of full price for the owner of the freehold. In the event that someone owns both then they pay both but we say until blue in the face it's only 0.5%.
Then the Treasury could increase the tax by 0.5 - which is really 0.5% on both.
Nothing like as strong as the new measures announced in Italy where, from October 15th, anyone in employment in any organisation will be suspended without pay for failing to be vaccinated.
They have elected to take radical measures to apply a boot to the necks of most refusers. People of working age who won't get jabbed are going to be deprived of their wages, on top of existing regulations that exclude all anti-vaxxers from many venues including gyms and restaurants.
If, as a consequence, they manage to get through the Winter without yet another lockdown disaster and we do not then the Government will have a great deal of explaining to do.
I don't think that's quite right. Italians have to show the "Green Pass" which can be vaccinated or tested or recovered, as I understand it from friends in Italy.
You're correct. Seems I've got the wrong end of the stick on some of the details. Apologies.
Reading round, the testing requirement is 'in the last 48 hours' - pharmacy verified rapid tests. The reference for the work suspension (without pay after 5 days) looks to be 'in private or public places' - I'm not clear if the meaning here is simply private and public sector or whether this bans an employee from working from home as well, which would seem harsh.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
I agree - but that wasn't my point.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
I agree but would put the threshold just a tad lower, perhaps 310 in which the Tories could just about stagger on as a deflated minority government surviv
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
You have now not only crashed into the buffers but catapulted the train to the road outside the station. Utterly absurd. There is no way that Conservative MPs will be dragooned into voting for something so contentious and that wasn’t even in the manifesto on which they’d campaigned only a couple of weeks earlier. If Johnson tried, which he wouldn’t, the proposal would be overwhelmingly defeated in the Commons and the Tories further weakened.
The DUP will have more important fish to fry if negotiations take place.
OK then, Starmer becomes PM.
Given the Irish Sea border is not going to be removed anytime soon the DUP will refuse to keep Boris and the Tories in power in the meantime unless they not only get vast sums of extra cash for NI but a reduction in the abortion timeframe for the whole UK to partly make up for the legalisation of abortion in NI Westminster imposed on them.
Most Conservative MPs would also support the abortion reduction anyway and especially if it is the only way to keep a Tory government in power so you are wrong
Should be much higher, IMO, but if 0.5% is on the ballot, I’ll vote for it.
We can argue to raise it once it’s been established.
Personally I’d go 5% and make it revenue neutral, taking it off income tax. Perhaps bollox a load of other stupid transaction taxes at the same time. Id get less angry about IHT, too, if we had a reasonable level of property tax. Id happily compromise with raising the IHT threshold.
0.5% would go down well in the red wall; 5% err .. less so
Brutal - the ONS upper estimate (they estimate a range) of COVID infection in Scotland w/e Sept 11 was nearly 3% of the population, with the lower estimate 2%:
For Lady Haw Haw and her super biased opinion ......................
With only 5 529 cases in the last 48 hours, the 7 day average infection level has fallen to 3 174 from a peak of 6 391 on the 7th. BBC Scotland AND CARLOTTA clearly don’t like the look of this trend and have gone for the ONS estimates for the week before last.
Thread on the challenges Australia faces in building a nuclear sub:
Either way they have an enormous journey ahead of them, which will be fraught with the challenges that keep most states out of the nuclear-powered submarine game.
As for the positives, they could not have done better than having both the US and UK on side in this endeavor.
TRAVEL UPDATE: we’re making testing easier for travel From Mon 4 Oct, if you’re fully vax you won’t need a pre-departure test before arrival into England from a non-red country and from later in Oct, will be able to replace the day 2 PCR test with a cheaper lateral flow.
Should be much higher, IMO, but if 0.5% is on the ballot, I’ll vote for it.
We can argue to raise it once it’s been established.
Personally I’d go 5% and make it revenue neutral, taking it off income tax. Perhaps bollox a load of other stupid transaction taxes at the same time. Id get less angry about IHT, too, if we had a reasonable level of property tax. Id happily compromise with raising the IHT threshold.
Not a bad idea.
But you'd also need to ensure the owner is liable not tenants.
Perhaps we could do the trick used for NI were wages are taxed on both sides. Say start with 0.5% of full price for the owner of the property and a further 0.5% of full price for the owner of the freehold. In the event that someone owns both then they pay both but we say until blue in the face it's only 0.5%.
Then the Treasury could increase the tax by 0.5 - which is really 0.5% on both.
If Labour come out with this 0.5% levy idea to replace council tax in their manifesto my X will be in the Labour box quicker than @HYUFD can make a u-turn on abortion policy.
House valuation: by whom and how? Finger in the air?
I believe the French solution is to have self declarations but the government has the right to purchase your property at a percentage above your declared value.
So if you declare your house is worth £100k when it's really £300k the government exercises it's option to purchase based on the price you self declared.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
You talk about "the 8 DUP MPs" as though they were a given.
With the DUP currently fourth in the Northern Ireland polls, is it a given that there will be any DUP MPs?
The main movement has been almost entirely from DUP to TUV and only at Stormont which has PR, they will likely return to DUP at FPTP Westminster elections.
Though if the TUV won most of the DUP seats then the TUV are even more hardline than the DUP are of course
Was that a "yes" or a "no"?
A No, even if most DUP votes went TUV then the TUV would win most of the DUP seats and the Tories would need TUV support instead.
The TUV leader is even more hardline, saying of abortion 'There is, however, another deadly threat to the lives of the youngest, most innocent and venerable which shamefully is not receiving anything like the same attention.”
I’m broadly pro-choice on abortion and anti-assisted dying.
I get the sense my position is rather unusual.
I think my morality is strongly influenced by having a younger brother with severe disabilities and thinking through such moral issues in relation to him over a long period of time.
I am, broadly, of the same view as you. Generally pro-choice and generally anti-assisted dying.
It seems that a woman should have full control of her body but at the same time goodness only knows who gets to play god by deeming when a foetus is a person (with rights - the vast majority of foeti [?] would unhindered grow to become people).
Likewise assisted dying. I get that people, say, with MND have chosen this option but the dangers of enshrining it in law to me are many and real.
Bit of an oxymoron there Topping , Women must have control of her body for childbirth but neither women or men should have control for assisted dying. You seem to want your cake and also eat it. Piss or get off the pot.
Malc was it a heavy hand pouring your Friday tankard of eggnog?
It's chalk and apples.
Abortion: woman decides over her own body and the as yet non-person Assisted dying: grasping children/full care homes/exasperated nurses/mass murderers aid aged parents over the top for any number of nefarious reasons.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
I agree - but that wasn't my point.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
I agree but would put the threshold just a tad lower, perhaps 310 in which the Tories could just about stagger on as a deflated minority government surviv
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
You have now not only crashed into the buffers but catapulted the train to the road outside the station. Utterly absurd. There is no way that Conservative MPs will be dragooned into voting for something so contentious and that wasn’t even in the manifesto on which they’d campaigned only a couple of weeks earlier. If Johnson tried, which he wouldn’t, the proposal would be overwhelmingly defeated in the Commons and the Tories further weakened.
The DUP will have more important fish to fry if negotiations take place.
OK then, Starmer becomes PM.
Given the Irish Sea border is not going to be removed anytime soon the DUP will refuse to keep Boris and the Tories in power in the meantime unless they not only get vast sums of extra cash for NI but a reduction in the abortion timeframe for the whole UK to partly make up for the legalisation of abortion in NI Westminster imposed on them.
Most Conservative MPs would also support the abortion reduction anyway and especially if it is the only way to keep a Tory government in power so you are wrong
Many Tory MPs might support a reduction but a significant number would not and of those who do, a lot would be horrified that it would be a whipped vote. The proposal would crash and burn (majority against probably 80?) in the Commons and the DUP know that too.
Furthermore, you completely ignore the likely political context. The Tories would have surrendered a majority of 80, a disaster even more profound than 2017. The party would be shattered and I suspect there would be a clamour to accept defeat and go into opposition, rather than staggering on deflated and dejected and at the mercy of the DUP.
I’m afraid you are totally off the wall on this one.
The LDs can't prop up these Johnson Tories, this is obvious, so they may as well be clear about it. The election is going to be a binary battle between the 2 sides of England; modern v trad, metro v town & country, young v old, graduates v not, etc, ie like the EU referendum and the 2 GEs since. LDs, Lab, Greens make up the 1st block and their mission is to win enough seats (together with the nationalist parties of the other nations) to make Keir Starmer the PM of a minority Labour government. I think they're in with a decent shout but it's going to require some smart tactical voting.
I thought the same. The LDs wouldn't consider propping up a Johnson government surely. I'd argue differently if it were, say, Sunak or Hunt led.
Brutal - the ONS upper estimate (they estimate a range) of COVID infection in Scotland w/e Sept 11 was nearly 3% of the population, with the lower estimate 2%:
For Lady Haw Haw and her super biased opinion ......................
With only 5 529 cases in the last 48 hours, the 7 day average infection level has fallen to 3 174 from a peak of 6 391 on the 7th. BBC Scotland AND CARLOTTA clearly don’t like the look of this trend and have gone for the ONS estimates for the week before last.
If you'd bothered to read my earlier post on your spittle flecked screen you'd have noted that I commented that this was a lagging indicator and that recent cases in Scotland were well down, but hey, ho, haters gotta hate....
If Labour come out with this 0.5% levy idea to replace council tax in their manifesto my X will be in the Labour box quicker than @HYUFD can make a u-turn on abortion policy.
House valuation: by whom and how? Finger in the air?
I believe the French solution is to have self declarations but the government has the right to purchase your property at a percentage above your declared value.
So if you declare your house is worth £100k when it's really £300k the government exercises it's option to purchase based on the price you self declared.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
You talk about "the 8 DUP MPs" as though they were a given.
With the DUP currently fourth in the Northern Ireland polls, is it a given that there will be any DUP MPs?
The main movement has been almost entirely from DUP to TUV and only at Stormont which has PR, they will likely return to DUP at FPTP Westminster elections.
Though if the TUV won most of the DUP seats then the TUV are even more hardline than the DUP are of course
Was that a "yes" or a "no"?
A No, even if most DUP votes went TUV then the TUV would win most of the DUP seats and the Tories would need TUV support instead.
The TUV leader is even more hardline, saying of abortion 'There is, however, another deadly threat to the lives of the youngest, most innocent and venerable which shamefully is not receiving anything like the same attention.”
If Labour come out with this 0.5% levy idea to replace council tax in their manifesto my X will be in the Labour box quicker than @HYUFD can make a u-turn on abortion policy.
House valuation: by whom and how? Finger in the air?
I believe the French solution is to have self declarations but the government has the right to purchase your property at a percentage above your declared value.
So if you declare your house is worth £100k when it's really £300k the government exercises it's option to purchase based on the price you self declared.
If Labour come out with this 0.5% levy idea to replace council tax in their manifesto my X will be in the Labour box quicker than @HYUFD can make a u-turn on abortion policy.
House valuation: by whom and how? Finger in the air?
I believe the French solution is to have self declarations but the government has the right to purchase your property at a percentage above your declared value.
So if you declare your house is worth £100k when it's really £300k the government exercises it's option to purchase based on the price you self declared.
Don't even need that - there are already decent commercial AI systems that do a great job of identifying current valuations and I'm sure the valuations service have similar
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
I agree - but that wasn't my point.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
I agree but would put the threshold just a tad lower, perhaps 310 in which the Tories could just about stagger on as a deflated minority government surviv
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
You have now not only crashed into the buffers but catapulted the train to the road outside the station. Utterly absurd. There is no way that Conservative MPs will be dragooned into voting for something so contentious and that wasn’t even in the manifesto on which they’d campaigned only a couple of weeks earlier. If Johnson tried, which he wouldn’t, the proposal would be overwhelmingly defeated in the Commons and the Tories further weakened.
The DUP will have more important fish to fry if negotiations take place.
OK then, Starmer becomes PM.
Given the Irish Sea border is not going to be removed anytime soon the DUP will refuse to keep Boris and the Tories in power in the meantime unless they not only get vast sums of extra cash for NI but a reduction in the abortion timeframe for the whole UK to partly make up for the legalisation of abortion in NI Westminster imposed on them.
Most Conservative MPs would also support the abortion reduction anyway and especially if it is the only way to keep a Tory government in power so you are wrong
Many Tory MPs might support a reduction but a significant number would not and of those who do, a lot would be horrified that it would be a whipped vote. The proposal would crash and burn (majority against probably 80?) in the Commons and the DUP know that too.
Furthermore, you completely ignore the likely political context. The Tories would have surrendered a majority of 80, a disaster even more profound than 2017. The party would be shattered and I suspect there would be a clamour to accept defeat and go into opposition, rather than staggering on deflated and dejected and at the mercy of the DUP.
I’m afraid you are totally off the wall on this one.
No, a tiny minority might not, mainly social liberals from wealthy commuter Remain areas like yours which are heading LD and may well elect LD MPs anyway.
Social liberals are in decline in the party from a decade ago, social conservatives from the North and Midlands and small town and rural areas are becoming increasingly prominent. The new Tory base and most of the new Tory Parliamentary Party will happily deal with the DUP and happily cut the abortion time limit to 22 weeks to stay in power.
No, we would not accept opposition, especially if largest party, though if social liberals prefer to join the LDs and Starmer in opposition to a Tory-DUP or Tory-TUV alliance fine, bye then
Yeah I really don't think that any politician would trust Johnson to form a pact with him. He s&&t the bed with his border in the Irish Sea which no British PM could ever agree to and standing staring business people in the eye saying there will be no checks between NI and GB.
You would have to be a special type of stupid to believe anything he said when offering a pact with the political party you lead.
I think that if Johnson lost his majority, there would be a new leader to negotiate with.
That said, there is no way that the Lib Dems would support the party of Brexit. We want closer economic, social and cultural links with the EU. EEA or similar.
Yes absolutely but look at the Cons now - flying high why would there be a new leader? Sure the Cons/BJ's numbers are slipping but this is mid-term they should be shocking instead they are bobbing around parity with Lab and still generally 5pts ahead.
I just don't see a new leader. And I backed Boris to be out by, er, Sep 2021 god help me.
My point is that if Johnson were needing to negotiate a coalition or C and S, he would be doing so because he lost more seats than his current majority. There would be a new Con leader, sure as eggs is eggs. Probably not quickly enough to negotiate though possibly that would be done by an acting leader.
Didn't the LibDems make clear in 2010 that while they might go into coalition with Labour, the price would be replacing Brown? (Not that the maths would have worked).
Yes, I don't think it tenable to support a PM who has just been rejected. Only the DUP make that mistake!
May wasnt rejected, she led the most popularly supported UK wide party.
It was a failure for her as she went backwards but it gets a but overegged.
There's an old saying that Success = Performance - Expectations
There is. And it's the very saying that you reject whenever I try to explain to you why GE17 was a success for Jeremy Corbyn.
Should be much higher, IMO, but if 0.5% is on the ballot, I’ll vote for it.
We can argue to raise it once it’s been established.
Personally I’d go 5% and make it revenue neutral, taking it off income tax. Perhaps bollox a load of other stupid transaction taxes at the same time. Id get less angry about IHT, too, if we had a reasonable level of property tax. Id happily compromise with raising the IHT threshold.
Not a bad idea.
But you'd also need to ensure the owner is liable not tenants.
Perhaps we could do the trick used for NI were wages are taxed on both sides. Say start with 0.5% of full price for the owner of the property and a further 0.5% of full price for the owner of the freehold. In the event that someone owns both then they pay both but we say until blue in the face it's only 0.5%.
Then the Treasury could increase the tax by 0.5 - which is really 0.5% on both.
There was a Tory LD government in 2014 not a Tory majority government and it was supposed to be once in a generation
"Once in a generation" is HYUFD chanting "I believe in fairies"
Was the referendum legislated as once in a generation Was the referendum referred to as once in a generation when the laws creating it were debated Was the referendum promoted as once in a generation aside from an off the cuff interview comment
Quite simply the referendum was not in any way once in a generation. You either know this and are endlessly lying. Or you are now believing in fairies.
Either way, it is embarrassing for you to keep chanting it with this kind of impotent non-authority.
However regardless the future of the union is reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 and as long as we continue to have a Tory government it will say no.
Until they say yes
Which is how long the SNP will be demanding referendums for......
That is true but an optimum time to win indyref2 for the union may present itself and anyway I expect the union to win comfortably post Brexit and covid
It is foolish to rule out all options
Which is why May (and now Johnson's "Now is not the time" is a perfectly reasonable holding position.
I agree but it could change though I think the SNP will be the ones who are reluctant to push, though they will continue to make lots of noise
There would appear to be a significant bloc of Scottish voters who, while not in principle against a second ref, do not believe "the time is right". The thing is: they never feel the time is right. As they march towards the horizon, guess what, the horizon recedes. The holding position will hold for a very long time.
Some really bold leaks coming from State Department. In one France was not informed because “we knew they would go ballistic.” In another France was not informed “because we thought it was no big deal.” In a third the whole idea came from Australia
The LDs can't prop up these Johnson Tories, this is obvious, so they may as well be clear about it. The election is going to be a binary battle between the 2 sides of England; modern v trad, metro v town & country, young v old, graduates v not, etc, ie like the EU referendum and the 2 GEs since. LDs, Lab, Greens make up the 1st block and their mission is to win enough seats (together with the nationalist parties of the other nations) to make Keir Starmer the PM of a minority Labour government. I think they're in with a decent shout but it's going to require some smart tactical voting.
I thought the same. The LDs wouldn't consider propping up a Johnson government surely. I'd argue differently if it were, say, Sunak or Hunt led.
I think it'd be difficult in any case (with the 2015 massacre post coalition still raw) but, yes, that could make a difference. Johnson is going to be fighting the election, though, I think that's becoming clear to all now.
I really hope there's a higher bar for defamation than that you are 'incorrectly portrayed' in a work of fiction. Feels like a waste of time for lawyers (if that's not an oxymoron). Georgian chess icon Nona Gaprindashvili has filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix, saying she was incorrectly portrayed in the hit series The Queen's Gambit.
The case refers to a sequence in the drama's final episode which says Gaprindashvili, now 80, had never played competitive chess with men.
The document says that by 1968, the year in which the episode is set, she had faced at least 59 male players.
'In the final episode, a commentator mentions Gaprindashvili when describing Harmon: "The only unusual thing about her, really, is her sex. And even that's not unique in Russia. There's Nona Gaprindashvili, but she's the female world champion and has never faced men."'
That is a statement about a real world person - not even a fictional character based in part on that person. It seems pretty clear to me. Unless there was some subtle point about the fictional commentator being wrong, on a par with some character in a novel talking about Queen Mary III banning her eldest son from Windsor Castle for having pineapple pizzas delivered. But that seems unlikely, not least because most readers wouldn't spot it.
They got a fact wrong, who gives a crap? Is every statement about a real world person going to need to be rigorously fact checked? Does it really equal defamation to get that point wrong, without some personal attack to make it more serious?
Yeah I really don't think that any politician would trust Johnson to form a pact with him. He s&&t the bed with his border in the Irish Sea which no British PM could ever agree to and standing staring business people in the eye saying there will be no checks between NI and GB.
You would have to be a special type of stupid to believe anything he said when offering a pact with the political party you lead.
I think that if Johnson lost his majority, there would be a new leader to negotiate with.
That said, there is no way that the Lib Dems would support the party of Brexit. We want closer economic, social and cultural links with the EU. EEA or similar.
Yes absolutely but look at the Cons now - flying high why would there be a new leader? Sure the Cons/BJ's numbers are slipping but this is mid-term they should be shocking instead they are bobbing around parity with Lab and still generally 5pts ahead.
I just don't see a new leader. And I backed Boris to be out by, er, Sep 2021 god help me.
My point is that if Johnson were needing to negotiate a coalition or C and S, he would be doing so because he lost more seats than his current majority. There would be a new Con leader, sure as eggs is eggs. Probably not quickly enough to negotiate though possibly that would be done by an acting leader.
Didn't the LibDems make clear in 2010 that while they might go into coalition with Labour, the price would be replacing Brown? (Not that the maths would have worked).
Yes, I don't think it tenable to support a PM who has just been rejected. Only the DUP make that mistake!
May wasnt rejected, she led the most popularly supported UK wide party.
It was a failure for her as she went backwards but it gets a but overegged.
There's an old saying that Success = Performance - Expectations
There is. And it's the very saying that you reject whenever I try to explain to you why GE17 was a success for Jeremy Corbyn.
It was a relative success but he still lost.
If Accrington Stanley hold Liverpool to a draw, earn a replay at Anfield where they again hold them to a draw, it's still a draw after stoppage time and they only get knocked out via penalties then that would be a great relative success for Accrington Stanley. But they'd still be knocked out and Liverpool would still progress to the next round.
I’m broadly pro-choice on abortion and anti-assisted dying.
I get the sense my position is rather unusual.
I think my morality is strongly influenced by having a younger brother with severe disabilities and thinking through such moral issues in relation to him over a long period of time.
It's a view I understand, and have a great deal of sympathy for.
It is fairly easy to point to fairly solid (IMO) cases, such as Terri Schiavo - and say her suffering should end. Or Paul Lamb (1), who was of sound mind, and wrote eloquently about why he wanted the right to die, when the time came, without having to recourse to starve himself to death. (Incidentally, I see he died in June this year. RIP.)
But these are the 'easy' cases, and there are more difficult ones. What happens when someone is in evident pain, but is not of sound mind to make such a decision? IMV assisted dying should not apply to such a person. Yet I also believe someone should not be forced to suffer with no hope of an end to the suffering, as in the Schiavo case. Balancing these is incredibly tricky.
But IMO this is not a reason not do anything. Assisted dying should be possible, but it should not be routine. And we should not 'farm it out' to other countries.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
I agree - but that wasn't my point.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
I agree but would put the threshold just a tad lower, perhaps 310 in which the Tories could just about stagger on as a deflated minority government surviv
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
You have now not only crashed into the buffers but catapulted the train to the road outside the station. Utterly absurd. There is no way that Conservative MPs will be dragooned into voting for something so contentious and that wasn’t even in the manifesto on which they’d campaigned only a couple of weeks earlier. If Johnson tried, which he wouldn’t, the proposal would be overwhelmingly defeated in the Commons and the Tories further weakened.
The DUP will have more important fish to fry if negotiations take place.
OK then, Starmer becomes PM.
Given the Irish Sea border is not going to be removed anytime soon the DUP will refuse to keep Boris and the Tories in power in the meantime unless they not only get vast sums of extra cash for NI but a reduction in the abortion timeframe for the whole UK to partly make up for the legalisation of abortion in NI Westminster imposed on them.
Most Conservative MPs would also support the abortion reduction anyway and especially if it is the only way to keep a Tory government in power so you are wrong
Many Tory MPs might support a reduction but a significant number would not and of those who do, a lot would be horrified that it would be a whipped vote. The proposal would crash and burn (majority against probably 80?) in the Commons and the DUP know that too.
Furthermore, you completely ignore the likely political context. The Tories would have surrendered a majority of 80, a disaster even more profound than 2017. The party would be shattered and I suspect there would be a clamour to accept defeat and go into opposition, rather than staggering on deflated and dejected and at the mercy of the DUP.
I’m afraid you are totally off the wall on this one.
No, a tiny minority might not, mainly social liberals from wealthy commuter Remain areas like yours which are heading LD and may well elect LD MPs anyway.
Social liberals are in decline in the party from a decade ago, social conservatives from the North and Midlands and small town and rural areas are becoming increasingly prominent. The new Tory base and most of the new Tory Parliamentary Party will happily deal with the DUP and happily cut the abortion time limit to 22 weeks to stay in power.
No, we would not accept opposition, especially if largest party, though if social liberals prefer to join the LDs and Starmer in opposition to a Tory-DUP alliance fine, bye then
Just who on earth do you think you are
That last sentence from an elected representative of the party is shocking, just shocking
The streaming platform DAZN is stepping up efforts to buy BT Sport, therefore taking over the pay-TV channel’s rights to show Premier League and Gallagher Premiership rugby matches, according to broadcasting industry sources.
The takeover may have to be approved by the Premier League, however. BT Sport is a major rights holder and such contracts would usually include a change of ownership clause, but it is understood that the Premier League has yet to be asked for its approval.
DAZN’s interest is believed to be two-fold — it would give the platform access to domestic Premier League rights in the UK as it seeks to boost its position in the British market. Buying BT Sport would also give it a ready-made production centre.
The first signs of a concerted effort by DAZN to target the UK came in July when it signed a five-year deal with the promoter Matchroom to cover boxing.
The possible takeover has not stopped BT Sport from pursuing sports rights. It is expected to seal a deal to show England’s Ashes tour to Australia this autumn.
DAZN’s chairman Kevin Mayer hinted at a takeover this week at the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention, replying “possibly” when asked whether it could buy BT Sport, adding that DAZN “would love to have the EPL”.
Some really bold leaks coming from State Department. In one France was not informed because “we knew they would go ballistic.” In another France was not informed “because we thought it was no big deal.” In a third the whole idea came from Australia
The Australians have been absolutely livid about the cost overruns at Thales for some time. And there has been a non trivial chance that the contract would have been cancelled, even without the UK-US-AU defence agreement.
Yeah I really don't think that any politician would trust Johnson to form a pact with him. He s&&t the bed with his border in the Irish Sea which no British PM could ever agree to and standing staring business people in the eye saying there will be no checks between NI and GB.
You would have to be a special type of stupid to believe anything he said when offering a pact with the political party you lead.
All politicians break their word. Yes Minister made a distinction between a political promise and a real promise.
Cameron broke his word just as much as Johnson did, for example saying he wouldn't resign if he lost the EU referendum, then resigning a few hours after the result. And Clegg apparently felt, wrongly I think, that Cameron stitched him up over the AV referendum.
But the reason to be in a coalition with somebody, even if you don't trust him, is that it's in his interests to be in a coalition with you. He needs your MPs, and you can always withdraw them if he does anything completely beyond the pale. So I think the question of personal trust is much less important in coalitions than it is on individual election pledges, for example.
Yes I see that. I have many times said why I believe Cameron's fell short of lying so I won't repeat it and yes absolutely if it is a numbers game and you have the numbers you get to decide case by case.
Just that one would surely get the feeling that Boris would walk away from his meeting with you and almost before he was out of earshot would be planning on how to betray you and go back on his word to you. I have no doubt he would find a way.
Yes, Boris seems to have a sociopath's lack of trustworthiness (and sexual promiscuity). Unfortunately I think that kind of ruthlessness is sometimes what is needed at the top - certainly it's difficult to see how we would have implemented the referendum result without it, especially given the tactics the other side were using to keep us in.
On topic, I agree with the subsequent tweet from Alastair.
Anyway, it's largely academic. The prospect of the Lib Dems getting more than 25 seats next time is remote and for them credibly to have options even in a hung Parliament would be like threading the eye of a needle.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
I agree - but that wasn't my point.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
I agree but would put the threshold just a tad lower, perhaps 310 in which the Tories could just about stagger on as a deflated minority government surviv
Anyway, there’s not the slightest chance of the next Conservative manifesto containing a commitment to restrict abortions to 22 weeks or any other level. It might conceivably pledge to have another vote on the matter (like Cameron did over hunting…did that ever happen?) but it will be a free vote as it has always been.
But even that is lower than 5%: I doubt the Prime Minister will want to be reminded on the campaign trail of his relationship with Petronnella Wyatt and his encouraging her….
Given the latest polling average gives a hung parliament with the Tories needing DUP support to stay in power, offering the DUP the carrot of a reduction in the abortion limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as well as lots of dosh for NI while Lord Frost works on trying to remove the Irish Sea border with the EU may be the only way Boris stays in No 10.
In those circumstances, sure, they could offer a vote but no Tory MP will be whipped to support it.
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
Then the DUP would likely not give C and S then and Starmer becomes PM.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
You have now not only crashed into the buffers but catapulted the train to the road outside the station. Utterly absurd. There is no way that Conservative MPs will be dragooned into voting for something so contentious and that wasn’t even in the manifesto on which they’d campaigned only a couple of weeks earlier. If Johnson tried, which he wouldn’t, the proposal would be overwhelmingly defeated in the Commons and the Tories further weakened.
The DUP will have more important fish to fry if negotiations take place.
OK then, Starmer becomes PM.
Given the Irish Sea border is not going to be removed anytime soon the DUP will refuse to keep Boris and the Tories in power in the meantime unless they not only get vast sums of extra cash for NI but a reduction in the abortion timeframe for the whole UK to partly make up for the legalisation of abortion in NI Westminster imposed on them.
Most Conservative MPs would also support the abortion reduction anyway and especially if it is the only way to keep a Tory government in power so you are wrong
Many Tory MPs might support a reduction but a significant number would not and of those who do, a lot would be horrified that it would be a whipped vote. The proposal would crash and burn (majority against probably 80?) in the Commons and the DUP know that too.
Furthermore, you completely ignore the likely political context. The Tories would have surrendered a majority of 80, a disaster even more profound than 2017. The party would be shattered and I suspect there would be a clamour to accept defeat and go into opposition, rather than staggering on deflated and dejected and at the mercy of the DUP.
I’m afraid you are totally off the wall on this one.
No, a tiny minority might not, mainly social liberals from wealthy commuter Remain areas like yours which are heading LD and may well elect LD MPs anyway.
Social liberals are in decline in the party from a decade ago, social conservatives from the North and Midlands and small town and rural areas are becoming increasingly prominent. The new Tory base and most of the new Tory Parliamentary Party will happily deal with the DUP and happily cut the abortion time limit to 22 weeks to stay in power.
No, we would not accept opposition, though if social liberals prefer to join the LDs in opposition to a Tory-DUP alliance fine, bye then
Where is the slightest shred of evidence among current Conservative MPs, or even the Prime Minister himself, that they would support manifesto commitment that would bind them all to supporting a specified time limit. None whatsoever and it would be the first time ever that the party would do that. Even votes on hanging in the 1950s were free.
You are spouting nonsense and pernicious nonsense at that with all the ugly hallmarks of intolerance and sectarianism that fortunately still has no place whatever in the broad political church that is the Conservative Party. And Boris is with me!
By the way, it is distressing in the extreme that you seem to be gloating at the prospect of Mr Raab’s political demise.
The streaming platform DAZN is stepping up efforts to buy BT Sport, therefore taking over the pay-TV channel’s rights to show Premier League and Gallagher Premiership rugby matches, according to broadcasting industry sources.
The takeover may have to be approved by the Premier League, however. BT Sport is a major rights holder and such contracts would usually include a change of ownership clause, but it is understood that the Premier League has yet to be asked for its approval.
DAZN’s interest is believed to be two-fold — it would give the platform access to domestic Premier League rights in the UK as it seeks to boost its position in the British market. Buying BT Sport would also give it a ready-made production centre.
The first signs of a concerted effort by DAZN to target the UK came in July when it signed a five-year deal with the promoter Matchroom to cover boxing.
The possible takeover has not stopped BT Sport from pursuing sports rights. It is expected to seal a deal to show England’s Ashes tour to Australia this autumn.
DAZN’s chairman Kevin Mayer hinted at a takeover this week at the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention, replying “possibly” when asked whether it could buy BT Sport, adding that DAZN “would love to have the EPL”.
However it could stay in power with the 8 DUP MPs if they back the Tories again, assuming SF do not take their seats.
What better way to win over our DUP friends than promising to reduce the abortion time limit to 22 weeks for the whole UK as a bonus while Lord Frost continues to work to remove the Irish Sea border?
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, then they will remain in Government. No government without them is really possible.
Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance comes to 318 seats on the new poll average, so the Conservatives would still need the 8 DUP MPs to get to 324 and stay in power
I agree - but that wasn't my point.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
If the DUP do not get serious concessions from the Conservatives they will threaten to abstain until they do, guaranteed.
As seen from 2017-19 the DUP are notoriously stubborn
Again, you're answering a different point to the one I made.
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, and the DUP 8, it is not possible that there will be a Starmer led government.
That's it. It's not a complex point. You can agree with it or disagree with it. But I cannot see a situation where the DUP does not vote against a government with SDLP and Alliance support.
Some really bold leaks coming from State Department. In one France was not informed because “we knew they would go ballistic.” In another France was not informed “because we thought it was no big deal.” In a third the whole idea came from Australia
About the issue of LD and coalition. Ed Davey has only one issue: how to maximise his seats at the next election. At this moment he would lose ground if he declared willingness to jump into bed with Boris. Those who love Boris vote for him. Those who don't would think about the LDs and want either a different Tory leader (Hunt comes to mind), or a Lab/LD government.
Davey has plenty of time to change his position, and I suspect he will, but for now it may well be that excluding a Tory deal is the best way of maximising seats next time.
If Boris turned into Trump (I don't think he will, bit lots think he already is) a SKS/Davey alliance looks nicely like voting for Joe Biden in 2020.
And if Boris stopped being Tory leader before the next election nothing anyone has said about UK politics since 2019 would be of any importance.
The streaming platform DAZN is stepping up efforts to buy BT Sport, therefore taking over the pay-TV channel’s rights to show Premier League and Gallagher Premiership rugby matches, according to broadcasting industry sources.
The takeover may have to be approved by the Premier League, however. BT Sport is a major rights holder and such contracts would usually include a change of ownership clause, but it is understood that the Premier League has yet to be asked for its approval.
DAZN’s interest is believed to be two-fold — it would give the platform access to domestic Premier League rights in the UK as it seeks to boost its position in the British market. Buying BT Sport would also give it a ready-made production centre.
The first signs of a concerted effort by DAZN to target the UK came in July when it signed a five-year deal with the promoter Matchroom to cover boxing.
The possible takeover has not stopped BT Sport from pursuing sports rights. It is expected to seal a deal to show England’s Ashes tour to Australia this autumn.
DAZN’s chairman Kevin Mayer hinted at a takeover this week at the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention, replying “possibly” when asked whether it could buy BT Sport, adding that DAZN “would love to have the EPL”.
I thought the DAZN were short of reddies? Didn't they have to sell some things in the past year or so, because they were running out of cash.
Yes and no.
They have spent lots, the attraction of buying BT Sport is you've already got an established customer base, you don't need to spend much on that nor spending lots of money overpaying for rights.
Comments
And beyond that, reported cases are well into decline - the start of the dip coinciding, quite unexpectedly, with the return of schools in most of the country - and cases per capita in England stubbornly refuse to get as bad as they are in Scotland, NI and Wales. For now, anyway.
With vaccination rates and antibody prevalence now so high, you have to wonder if Covid is transitioning from its pandemic to its endemic phase - with the disease simply "filling in the gaps" in the three devolved nations where, crudely speaking, restrictions have been a little more onerous and previous waves of the disease a little less bad?
https://cass.independent-review.uk/
(I've mentioned this before - I have some colleagues engaged in a research that will form part of this review, research just starting. Unlike most previous studies, the team doesn't come from a gender research background, more psychology and epidemiology and mental health, so doesn't have pre-formed views, so should be more neutral in assessing the evidence. I still expect them to get a lot of stick about it, from all sides.)
And you were talking about the manifesto which patently is published before the election. That will emphatically not contain any commitment to 22 weeks or any figure. Can you see Boris Johnson even giving it half a second’s thought bearing in mind his past? Be serious.
That's a price I'm quite happy to pay for a switch to a fair, rather than regressive, tax, and to get shot of Stamp Duty.
The DUP are not going to abstain on a Labour + SNP + LD + SDLP + Green + PC + Alliance confidence motion. Therefore, it is not possible to have a government that did not include the Conservatives.
If the Conservative total was a few seats less (say 312), then a coalition like the one above would be possible, albeit not particularly stable.
Donaldson and the DUP are extremely hard and tough negotiators, they will not make the same mistake Clegg did with AV getting a vote out of Cameron but with no promise of support to get it passed.
If there is no Tory majority then the manifesto will not have received a full mandate and have to be adapted, Boris will do so and whatever necessary to stay in power including a whipped vote to get the 22 weeks through and DUP C and S
With the DUP currently fourth in the Northern Ireland polls, is it a given that there will be any DUP MPs?
This has today been quashed. Rationale being: Gillick competence should (the Court Of Appeal says) be applied in these cases as it is in other cases, ie there is insufficient reason to treat this as a special area requiring something different to the general rule and usual medical practice. This therefore puts the decision as to whether each patient is competent to choose these treatments back with the doctors.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/consent-to-treatment/capacity/
As seen from 2017-19 the DUP are notoriously stubborn
And of course residents could deflate their taxes by becoming YIMBYs.
Georgian chess icon Nona Gaprindashvili has filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix, saying she was incorrectly portrayed in the hit series The Queen's Gambit.
The case refers to a sequence in the drama's final episode which says Gaprindashvili, now 80, had never played competitive chess with men.
The document says that by 1968, the year in which the episode is set, she had faced at least 59 male players.
Netflix said the claim had "no merit".
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58600453
*Well, she actually resigned, but still working out notice for another week or two.
Though if the TUV won most of the DUP seats then the TUV are even more hardline than the DUP are of course
Earlier this year, Australia approached the UK about switching to a nuclear powered subs. The UK then approached the United States. The Biden administration asked the Australians to cancel the deal with France and then negotiate with them but the Australians did not want to go that route for reasons I can only guess at. Canberra believed France had gotten the message and wouldn’t be surprised. For this reason, the US underestimated the degree of French anger & assessed that it was not shared by the rest of the EU (still unclear).
And Malc's delusional "it will take years to sort out" is for the birds - does he seriously think Westminster will want to put up with a posturing and grandstanding Holyrood for a millisecond longer than absolutely necessary?
Should be much higher, IMO, but if 0.5% is on the ballot, I’ll vote for it.
We can argue to raise it once it’s been established.
Personally I’d go 5% and make it revenue neutral, taking it off income tax. Perhaps bollox a load of other stupid transaction taxes at the same time. Id get less angry about IHT, too, if we had a reasonable level of property tax. Id happily compromise with raising the IHT threshold.
Only when he won a majority at that election could Boris govern without needing DUP support
That is a statement about a real world person - not even a fictional character based in part on that person. It seems pretty clear to me. Unless there was some subtle point about the fictional commentator being wrong, on a par with some character in a novel talking about Queen Mary III banning her eldest son from Windsor Castle for having pineapple pizzas delivered. But that seems unlikely, not least because most readers wouldn't spot it.
The DUP will have more important fish to fry if negotiations take place.
Traffic light system scrapped and replaced with a red list and rest of the world from 4th October
Biden is making vaccination mandatory for "most federal employees", but I've no idea how many people thus covers, I'd guess maybe not that many - is it even as many as the 2.7 million subject to the French mandate?
Given the Irish Sea border is not going to be removed anytime soon the DUP will refuse to keep Boris and the Tories in power in the meantime unless they not only get vast sums of extra cash for NI but a reduction in the abortion timeframe for the whole UK to partly make up for the legalisation of abortion in NI Westminster imposed on them.
Most Conservative MPs would also support the abortion reduction anyway and especially if it is the only way to keep a Tory government in power so you are wrong
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/17/uk-scientist-warns-relaxation-covid-travel-rules-genome-surveillance
HMG making it more difficult if you are not vaccinated
But you'd also need to ensure the owner is liable not tenants.
Perhaps we could do the trick used for NI were wages are taxed on both sides. Say start with 0.5% of full price for the owner of the property and a further 0.5% of full price for the owner of the freehold. In the event that someone owns both then they pay both but we say until blue in the face it's only 0.5%.
Then the Treasury could increase the tax by 0.5 - which is really 0.5% on both.
With only 5 529 cases in the last 48 hours, the 7 day average infection level has fallen to 3 174 from a peak of 6 391 on the 7th. BBC Scotland AND CARLOTTA clearly don’t like the look of this trend and have gone for the ONS estimates for the week before last.
Either way they have an enormous journey ahead of them, which will be fraught with the challenges that keep most states out of the nuclear-powered submarine game.
As for the positives, they could not have done better than having both the US and UK on side in this endeavor.
https://twitter.com/EngageStrategy1/status/1438727211704520708?s=20
https://twitter.com/grantshapps/status/1438890006437847043?s=20
So if you declare your house is worth £100k when it's really £300k the government exercises it's option to purchase based on the price you self declared.
The TUV leader is even more hardline, saying of abortion 'There is, however, another deadly threat to the lives of the youngest, most innocent and venerable which shamefully is not receiving anything like the same attention.”
These 719 abortions represent “lives snuffed out deliberately” he said, adding: “What a contrast – medical professionals strive desperately to save lives, while others abort lives!” He is also vehemently anti the Irish Sea border too.
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/crime/jim-allister-there-shameful-lack-abortion-publicity-terminations-nearly-equal-covid-19-deaths-3022877
Off to Portugal next week.
It's chalk and apples.
Abortion: woman decides over her own body and the as yet non-person
Assisted dying: grasping children/full care homes/exasperated nurses/mass murderers aid aged parents over the top for any number of nefarious reasons.
Furthermore, you completely ignore the likely political context. The Tories would have surrendered a majority of 80, a disaster even more profound than 2017. The party would be shattered and I suspect there would be a clamour to accept defeat and go into opposition, rather than staggering on deflated and dejected and at the mercy of the DUP.
I’m afraid you are totally off the wall on this one.
Social liberals are in decline in the party from a decade ago, social conservatives from the North and Midlands and small town and rural areas are becoming increasingly prominent. The new Tory base and most of the new Tory Parliamentary Party will happily deal with the DUP and happily cut the abortion time limit to 22 weeks to stay in power.
No, we would not accept opposition, especially if largest party, though if social liberals prefer to join the LDs and Starmer in opposition to a Tory-DUP or Tory-TUV alliance fine, bye then
https://twitter.com/MacaesBruno/status/1438894070596874244?s=20
If Accrington Stanley hold Liverpool to a draw, earn a replay at Anfield where they again hold them to a draw, it's still a draw after stoppage time and they only get knocked out via penalties then that would be a great relative success for Accrington Stanley. But they'd still be knocked out and Liverpool would still progress to the next round.
CON 40% (+1)
LAB 36% (-1)
LD 9% (-1)
GRN 5% (-)
SNP 4% (-)
OTH 5% (-)
https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1438896821544362000
It is fairly easy to point to fairly solid (IMO) cases, such as Terri Schiavo - and say her suffering should end. Or Paul Lamb (1), who was of sound mind, and wrote eloquently about why he wanted the right to die, when the time came, without having to recourse to starve himself to death. (Incidentally, I see he died in June this year. RIP.)
But these are the 'easy' cases, and there are more difficult ones. What happens when someone is in evident pain, but is not of sound mind to make such a decision? IMV assisted dying should not apply to such a person. Yet I also believe someone should not be forced to suffer with no hope of an end to the suffering, as in the Schiavo case. Balancing these is incredibly tricky.
But IMO this is not a reason not do anything. Assisted dying should be possible, but it should not be routine. And we should not 'farm it out' to other countries.
(1): https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/02/09/if-the-courts-wont-act-parliament-must-reconsider-the-case-for-assisted-dying/
That last sentence from an elected representative of the party is shocking, just shocking
From The Times
The streaming platform DAZN is stepping up efforts to buy BT Sport, therefore taking over the pay-TV channel’s rights to show Premier League and Gallagher Premiership rugby matches, according to broadcasting industry sources.
The takeover may have to be approved by the Premier League, however. BT Sport is a major rights holder and such contracts would usually include a change of ownership clause, but it is understood that the Premier League has yet to be asked for its approval.
DAZN’s interest is believed to be two-fold — it would give the platform access to domestic Premier League rights in the UK as it seeks to boost its position in the British market. Buying BT Sport would also give it a ready-made production centre.
The first signs of a concerted effort by DAZN to target the UK came in July when it signed a five-year deal with the promoter Matchroom to cover boxing.
The possible takeover has not stopped BT Sport from pursuing sports rights. It is expected to seal a deal to show England’s Ashes tour to Australia this autumn.
DAZN’s chairman Kevin Mayer hinted at a takeover this week at the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention, replying “possibly” when asked whether it could buy BT Sport, adding that DAZN “would love to have the EPL”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dazn-set-sights-on-buying-bt-sport-and-its-premier-league-rights-gv3kz9sc7
CON 40% (+1)
LAB 36% (-1)
LD 9% (-1)
GRN 5% (-)
SNP 4% (-)
OTH 5% (-)
2164, online, UK adults aged 18+, 10-14 Sept 21. Changes w/ 23 July 21
https://www.survation.com/political-polling-17-september-2021/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1438896821544362000/photo/1
The Australians have been absolutely livid about the cost overruns at Thales for some time. And there has been a non trivial chance that the contract would have been cancelled, even without the UK-US-AU defence agreement.
Anyway, it's largely academic. The prospect of the Lib Dems getting more than 25 seats next time is remote and for them credibly to have options even in a hung Parliament would be like threading the eye of a needle.
You are spouting nonsense and pernicious nonsense at that with all the ugly hallmarks of intolerance and sectarianism that fortunately still has no place whatever in the broad political church that is the Conservative Party. And Boris is with me!
By the way, it is distressing in the extreme that you seem to be gloating at the prospect of Mr Raab’s political demise.
If the Conservatives have 316 seats, and the DUP 8, it is not possible that there will be a Starmer led government.
That's it. It's not a complex point. You can agree with it or disagree with it. But I cannot see a situation where the DUP does not vote against a government with SDLP and Alliance support.
This stuff has really impressed me.
Davey has plenty of time to change his position, and I suspect he will, but for now it may well be that excluding a Tory deal is the best way of maximising seats next time.
If Boris turned into Trump (I don't think he will, bit lots think he already is) a SKS/Davey alliance looks nicely like voting for Joe Biden in 2020.
And if Boris stopped being Tory leader before the next election nothing anyone has said about UK politics since 2019 would be of any importance.
They have spent lots, the attraction of buying BT Sport is you've already got an established customer base, you don't need to spend much on that nor spending lots of money overpaying for rights.