politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Is Johnson really going to stick it out as PM till the next ge
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Is Johnson really going to stick it out as PM till the next general election?
In his column in the Times this morning about the rise of Rishi Sunak Times writer Iain Martin makes the following astute observation about Boris’s career plans:
Comments
-
No0
-
Second! And Maybe.
As mentioned (by yours truly) previous thread, there are some interesting similarities between Boris Johnson & Jeremy Corbyn
> both stormy petrels, loved by some sections of their party & public but loathed by others.
> both emerged as leader of their party due mostly to failings & shortcomings of others.
> each did much better at their first general election as party leader than forecast just months before.
> each began falling in the polls soon after their initial electoral success (relative in Corbyn's case, absolute for Johnson).
JC's trajectory we know - strait down & out into the dustbin of history. BJ's path is still before him, but at this stage, certainly does NOT look like the Yellow Brick Road.0 -
In the context of that question, there’s a paper out following up some of those hospitalise months ago in a Italy.
Johnson seems to show signs of dyspnea, one of the more prevalent continuing symptoms.
https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/12813338003127459860 -
Good morning, everyone.
He'll want to. He shouldn't.
F1: heavy rain still a possibility for qualifying. Something to bear in mind.0 -
It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall3 -
Morning all! Prospects of play look good at Southampton. Could;d well have recreational cricket back soon, too.
Although I'm by no means convinced that GB is 'safe'. Even though the number of cases locally doesn't seem high.0 -
We do seem to have failed to utilise enough of our resources effectively whether it is the 750k volunteers, 2m local govt staff or the thousands of empty buildings. Lack of imagination? Distrust of localism? Power to be held on to by the centre? Incompetence?IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall1 -
I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=191 -
Or laziness. It is always easier to start with a blank piece of paper and come up with your Master Plan than it is to put some effort into learning how the system already works and having to adapt to others.noneoftheabove said:
We do seem to have failed to utilise enough of our resources effectively whether it is the 750k volunteers, 2m local govt staff or the thousands of empty buildings. Lack of imagination? Distrust of localism? Power to be held on to by the centre? Incompetence?IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall
In my opinion, our current govt is incompetent. That is why we have so many dead, an economy going down the plughole and an international reputation that is in tatters.2 -
Yes.0
-
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?1 -
If that was his "dream" then he is an idiot. Why try to become someone else? You just get measured against them and so you can never succeed on your own terms. Oscar Wilde had it exactly right when he said "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken"IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?2 -
I'm having a depressing morning; just maybe PM Johnson thinks that Churchill had setbacks at first and eventually, rose above them, therefore so will he.IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?
What finally brought the US into the war was the incredibly ill-advised Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; I suspect that PM Johnson is expecting for the equivalent assistance.
What that can or will be I suspect that neither he nor I have the slightest idea. January 21's trade going smoothly perhaps?1 -
F1: another race may be on the calendar:
https://twitter.com/Motorsport/status/12811641987147161600 -
Probably because the people who work for councils are right duffers.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall0 -
Have a nice coffee with some chocolate, or some tea, toast and marmalade and curl up somewhere warm with a nice view or a good book and forget mini-Trump.OldKingCole said:
I'm having a depressing morning; just maybe PM Johnson thinks that Churchill had setbacks at first and eventually, rose above them, therefore so will he.IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?
What finally brought the US into the war was the incredibly ill-advised Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; I suspect that PM Johnson is expecting for the equivalent assistance.
What that can or will be I suspect that neither he nor I have the slightest idea. January 21's trade going smoothly perhaps?
Besides, the fan-boys will be getting up soon and will be here to assure us that disaster is success, failure is achievement and that all is peachy
0 -
@Alastair I did indeed as that was the percentage at the time I posted (not sure it was Wikipedia I used but can't remember). But you are right, it is a lot closer and that percentage wouldn't be great.Alistair said:I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19
One other point though. This special election took place because the NY-27 Rep had been sent to prison. I think one of the main reasons why people were saying CA-25 shouldn't be representative for the GOP is because the previous incumbent had resigned in a scandal and so that contributed to the Republican win. So, IF a previous Rep being tainted by a scandal impacts a special election result, it should apply in this case as well. What's sauce for the goose.....0 -
I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Which is a problem for the red team. FPT:
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.bigjohnowls said:On Topic.
I think Layla would be much the better choice.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
0 -
LOL! Thanks. However, as I look out of my window the clouds are gathering.Beibheirli_C said:
Have a nice coffee with some chocolate, or some tea, toast and marmalade and curl up somewhere warm with a nice view or a good book and forget mini-Trump.OldKingCole said:
I'm having a depressing morning; just maybe PM Johnson thinks that Churchill had setbacks at first and eventually, rose above them, therefore so will he.IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?
What finally brought the US into the war was the incredibly ill-advised Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; I suspect that PM Johnson is expecting for the equivalent assistance.
What that can or will be I suspect that neither he nor I have the slightest idea. January 21's trade going smoothly perhaps?
Besides, the fan-boys will be getting up soon and will be here to assure us that disaster is success, failure is achievement and that all is peachy1 -
I am a NHS responder volunteer. So far I have been on call for 1700 hours according to my app. I have had just one request for help and it was a false alarm.noneoftheabove said:
We do seem to have failed to utilise enough of our resources effectively whether it is the 750k volunteers, 2m local govt staff or the thousands of empty buildings. Lack of imagination? Distrust of localism? Power to be held on to by the centre? Incompetence?IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall0 -
Of course, special elections are special which is why you can't read too much into them.MrEd said:
@Alastair I did indeed as that was the percentage at the time I posted (not sure it was Wikipedia I used but can't remember). But you are right, it is a lot closer and that percentage wouldn't be great.Alistair said:I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19
One other point though. This special election took place because the NY-27 Rep had been sent to prison. I think one of the main reasons why people were saying CA-25 shouldn't be representative for the GOP is because the previous incumbent had resigned in a scandal and so that contributed to the Republican win. So, IF a previous Rep being tainted by a scandal impacts a special election result, it should apply in this case as well. What's sauce for the goose.....
The interesting thing from this one though is just how many Dems must have been postal voting to swing the on the night figure to the current total.
Dems will be voting by mail come November and hoo boy do the USA states have a lot of voting by mail problems (New York had a massive rejection rate)0 -
It's difficult to argue with conviction against OGH's suggested 3/2 tip (why don't people use the same odds of 6/4 any more?).
I just can't get overly excited about having to wait for up to 4 years to collect my winnings. Also, if he's going to leave No.10 before the next GE, I strongly suspect it will be sooner rather than later, in which event much more attractive odds are available.
Were I a betting man, *cough*, I'd be tempted to go for 2021 at 5/1. A full year is a long time in politics.
As ever, DYOR.1 -
As someone who genuinely likes Boris and wants him to do well I'm torn. On the one hand I want Johnson to confound expectations, on the other if he goes early to be replaced by Sunak I'd have 5000 reasons to be happy.0
-
Well, the very last thing we want or need right now is a load of yanks coming over here...OldKingCole said:
I'm having a depressing morning; just maybe PM Johnson thinks that Churchill had setbacks at first and eventually, rose above them, therefore so will he.IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?
What finally brought the US into the war was the incredibly ill-advised Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; I suspect that PM Johnson is expecting for the equivalent assistance.
What that can or will be I suspect that neither he nor I have the slightest idea. January 21's trade going smoothly perhaps?1 -
Wow! Thanks for volunteering by the way.kjh said:
I am a NHS responder volunteer. So far I have been on call for 1700 hours according to my app. I have had just one request for help and it was a false alarm.noneoftheabove said:
We do seem to have failed to utilise enough of our resources effectively whether it is the 750k volunteers, 2m local govt staff or the thousands of empty buildings. Lack of imagination? Distrust of localism? Power to be held on to by the centre? Incompetence?IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall1 -
Whereas the Cabinet are all brilliant geniuses????MaxPB said:Probably because the people who work for councils are right duffers.
1 -
Yes, that's true on all counts. I read that Joe Biden had hired 600 lawyers in most of the states and presumably that is because there will be a blizzard of lawsuits unleashed around eligible post-in votes. I think a few posters on here have said that there needs to be a clear win in this election otherwise there will be chaos and I think that is right.Alistair said:
Of course, special elections are special which is why you can't read too much into them.MrEd said:
@Alastair I did indeed as that was the percentage at the time I posted (not sure it was Wikipedia I used but can't remember). But you are right, it is a lot closer and that percentage wouldn't be great.Alistair said:I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19
One other point though. This special election took place because the NY-27 Rep had been sent to prison. I think one of the main reasons why people were saying CA-25 shouldn't be representative for the GOP is because the previous incumbent had resigned in a scandal and so that contributed to the Republican win. So, IF a previous Rep being tainted by a scandal impacts a special election result, it should apply in this case as well. What's sauce for the goose.....
The interesting thing from this one though is just how many Dems must have been postal voting to swing the on the night figure to the current total.
Dems will be voting by mail come November and hoo boy do the USA states have a lot of voting by mail problems (New York had a massive rejection rate)1 -
This is all a very long winded way of saying you're a traitor who is now out to prove that leaving the party was the best thing ever and setting aside the nagging doubt that it was a huge mistake and you should have waited it out.RochdalePioneers said:I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Which is a problem for the red team. FPT:
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.bigjohnowls said:On Topic.
I think Layla would be much the better choice.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors0 -
The one who has come is enough!IanB2 said:
Well, the very last thing we want or need right now is a load of yanks coming over here...OldKingCole said:
I'm having a depressing morning; just maybe PM Johnson thinks that Churchill had setbacks at first and eventually, rose above them, therefore so will he.IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?
What finally brought the US into the war was the incredibly ill-advised Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; I suspect that PM Johnson is expecting for the equivalent assistance.
What that can or will be I suspect that neither he nor I have the slightest idea. January 21's trade going smoothly perhaps?0 -
Yeah, the response to that Leigh piece is really telling.RochdalePioneers said:I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Which is a problem for the red team. FPT:
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.bigjohnowls said:On Topic.
I think Layla would be much the better choice.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
1-star reviews on TripAdvisor, that will show that ... err ... local independent businessman ...
right.0 -
similar tale here. just not been needed.kjh said:
I am a NHS responder volunteer. So far I have been on call for 1700 hours according to my app. I have had just one request for help and it was a false alarm.noneoftheabove said:
We do seem to have failed to utilise enough of our resources effectively whether it is the 750k volunteers, 2m local govt staff or the thousands of empty buildings. Lack of imagination? Distrust of localism? Power to be held on to by the centre? Incompetence?IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall0 -
A lovely warm and sunny morning here, and as I look out of the window there is already an early bird yachtsman (or woman) sailing by.OldKingCole said:
LOL! Thanks. However, as I look out of my window the clouds are gathering.Beibheirli_C said:
Have a nice coffee with some chocolate, or some tea, toast and marmalade and curl up somewhere warm with a nice view or a good book and forget mini-Trump.OldKingCole said:
I'm having a depressing morning; just maybe PM Johnson thinks that Churchill had setbacks at first and eventually, rose above them, therefore so will he.IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?
What finally brought the US into the war was the incredibly ill-advised Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; I suspect that PM Johnson is expecting for the equivalent assistance.
What that can or will be I suspect that neither he nor I have the slightest idea. January 21's trade going smoothly perhaps?
Besides, the fan-boys will be getting up soon and will be here to assure us that disaster is success, failure is achievement and that all is peachy1 -
The reason it is 7/2 is to avoid the awkward fractional of three and a half to one. The same consideration doesn’t apply to 6/4 and the mystery is how ever it came to be 6/4 rather than 3/2 in the first place?peter_from_putney said:It's difficult to argue with conviction against OGH's suggested 3/2 tip (why don't people use the same odds of 6/4 any more?).
I just can't get overly excited about having to wait for up to 4 years to collect my winnings. Also, if he's going to leave No.10 before the next GE, I strongly suspect it will be sooner rather than later, in which event much more attractive odds are available.
Were I a betting man, *cough*, I'd be tempted to go for 2021 at 5/1. A full year is a long time in politics.
As ever, DYOR.1 -
I think you prove my point. Anyone not supporting Labour any more is seen by some as a traitor. I heard some shocking conversations on the doorstep towards the end of my time from activists and worse reported from doorsteps last autumn.MaxPB said:
This is all a very long winded way of saying you're a traitor who is now out to prove that leaving the party was the best thing ever and setting aside the nagging doubt that it was a huge mistake and you should have waited it out.RochdalePioneers said:I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Which is a problem for the red team. FPT:
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.bigjohnowls said:On Topic.
I think Layla would be much the better choice.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
I am irrelevant. Ex Labour now Tory voters are relevant.1 -
I never understood why 6/4 was used instead of 3/2peter_from_putney said:It's difficult to argue with conviction against OGH's suggested 3/2 tip (why don't people use the same odds of 6/4 any more?).
I just can't get overly excited about having to wait for up to 4 years to collect my winnings. Also, if he's going to leave No.10 before the next GE, I strongly suspect it will be sooner rather than later, in which event much more attractive odds are available.
Were I a betting man, *cough*, I'd be tempted to go for 2021 at 5/1. A full year is a long time in politics.
As ever, DYOR.
You wouldn't call 5/1 10/2 or 20/40 -
What has Johnson got left for his "to do list"? Legacy! A BINO trade deal has to be the only answer. It will be EU membership in all but name and it will be sold as victory, and what is more the Conservative Party and whiteOldKingCole said:
I'm having a depressing morning; just maybe PM Johnson thinks that Churchill had setbacks at first and eventually, rose above them, therefore so will he.IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?
What finally brought the US into the war was the incredibly ill-advised Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; I suspect that PM Johnson is expecting for the equivalent assistance.
What that can or will be I suspect that neither he nor I have the slightest idea. January 21's trade going smoothly perhaps?
van man Brexiteers will buy it. Legacy preserved!
Farage will start a new party claiming a sell out, but no one will care, people will laugh at him, Brexit will be done, and so will we!0 -
I think Jenkins is bullshitting, wearing his Angry Man of Primrose Hill, or whatever it is, persona. Very easy stuff to say for lazy people with a column to fill.noneoftheabove said:
We do seem to have failed to utilise enough of our resources effectively whether it is the 750k volunteers, 2m local govt staff or the thousands of empty buildings. Lack of imagination? Distrust of localism? Power to be held on to by the centre? Incompetence?IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall
The job of the LA in these circs is to maintain services as necessarily modified, and to work to provide local support as needed - especially perhaps to care home, and to help out government as required (may be some genuine criticism there).
As somebody with Type I Diabetes, but no active comorbidities, so not quite on the 2.5m "list", my local authority (Ashfield DC) were the first to contact me of any public body and offer support. And they kept all the services i interface with running throughout, from bins to planning.
Jenkins needs to identify exactly what he means rather than make a random gibbering noise, or take a long walk off a short plank.
I appreciate that YMMV.0 -
Every single one of them, Max? You know that, do you?MaxPB said:
Probably because the people who work for councils are right duffers.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall0 -
In Ceredigion, a council employee took it upon himself to set up and run a local test, trace and contact service for the area. He realised the council might be best placed to run such a service, partly because through the council workers they had huge informal information about what was happening out in the community, so gathering data wasn't as onerous as first though.MattW said:
I think Jenkins is bullshitting, wearing his Angry Man of Primrose Hill, or whatever it is, persona. Very easy stuff to say for lazy people with a column to fill.noneoftheabove said:
We do seem to have failed to utilise enough of our resources effectively whether it is the 750k volunteers, 2m local govt staff or the thousands of empty buildings. Lack of imagination? Distrust of localism? Power to be held on to by the centre? Incompetence?IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall
The job of the LA in these circs is to maintain services as necessarily modified, and to work to provide local support as needed - especially perhaps to care home, and to help out government as required (may be some genuine criticism there).
As somebody with Type I Diabetes, but no active comorbidities, so not quite on the 2.5m "list", my local authority (Ashfield DC) were the first to contact me of any public body and offer support. And they kept all the services i interface with running throughout, from bins to planning.
Jenkins needs to identify exactly what he means rather than make a random gibbering noise, or take a long walk off a short plank.
I appreciate that YMMV.
It has been highly successful iirc.0 -
We’re back to traitors now ?MaxPB said:
This is all a very long winded way of saying you're a traitor who is now out to prove that leaving the party was the best thing ever and setting aside the nagging doubt that it was a huge mistake and you should have waited it out.RochdalePioneers said:I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Which is a problem for the red team. FPT:
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.bigjohnowls said:On Topic.
I think Layla would be much the better choice.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
You’re a curious mix of the eminently reasonable and the absurd, Max. This morning the latter seems to have the upper hand.2 -
Johnson still reaches parts other Conservatives cannot reach. Sunak's competence is no match for Johnson's bumbling bon hommie.RochdalePioneers said:
I think you prove my point. Anyone not supporting Labour any more is seen by some as a traitor. I heard some shocking conversations on the doorstep towards the end of my time from activists and worse reported from doorsteps last autumn.MaxPB said:
This is all a very long winded way of saying you're a traitor who is now out to prove that leaving the party was the best thing ever and setting aside the nagging doubt that it was a huge mistake and you should have waited it out.RochdalePioneers said:I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Which is a problem for the red team. FPT:
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.bigjohnowls said:On Topic.
I think Layla would be much the better choice.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
I am irrelevant. Ex Labour now Tory voters are relevant.
The fear for Labour shouldn't be, will the blue wall Tories remain loyal to their new party, which over time they won't, but what happens next. Will they stay at home, or will they be so angry they find new political friends in the vein of Tommy Robinson? Labour aren't even second on the list at the moment. Starmer has his work cut out.2 -
Is it because in the hand signals that bookies used to use it could be confused with something else? No ide just a guessPhilip_Thompson said:
I never understood why 6/4 was used instead of 3/2peter_from_putney said:It's difficult to argue with conviction against OGH's suggested 3/2 tip (why don't people use the same odds of 6/4 any more?).
I just can't get overly excited about having to wait for up to 4 years to collect my winnings. Also, if he's going to leave No.10 before the next GE, I strongly suspect it will be sooner rather than later, in which event much more attractive odds are available.
Were I a betting man, *cough*, I'd be tempted to go for 2021 at 5/1. A full year is a long time in politics.
As ever, DYOR.
You wouldn't call 5/1 10/2 or 20/40 -
Privatise the lot of them! I hear Carillion do a very good job of opted out services! Oh wait...Cyclefree said:
Every single one of them, Max? You know that, do you?MaxPB said:
Probably because the people who work for councils are right duffers.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall0 -
I know, I know, but "Six to Four the Field" just sounds so much more turf accountant-like!Philip_Thompson said:
I never understood why 6/4 was used instead of 3/2peter_from_putney said:It's difficult to argue with conviction against OGH's suggested 3/2 tip (why don't people use the same odds of 6/4 any more?).
I just can't get overly excited about having to wait for up to 4 years to collect my winnings. Also, if he's going to leave No.10 before the next GE, I strongly suspect it will be sooner rather than later, in which event much more attractive odds are available.
Were I a betting man, *cough*, I'd be tempted to go for 2021 at 5/1. A full year is a long time in politics.
As ever, DYOR.
You wouldn't call 5/1 10/2 or 20/40 -
Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs0 -
100% agree. Plus there is the extraordinary fact that, for example, the local governments that run Yorkshire (population 5.4 million) is treated as a collection of waste bin emptiers, the local government that runs Scotland (population 5.5 million) is treated as the Parliament of a major world power.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall
1 -
-
6/4 offered greater flexibility than 3/2. 100/30 is just there to avoid it sounding like 10 to 3.peter_from_putney said:
I know, I know, but "Six to Four the Field" just sounds so much more turf accountant-like!Philip_Thompson said:
I never understood why 6/4 was used instead of 3/2peter_from_putney said:It's difficult to argue with conviction against OGH's suggested 3/2 tip (why don't people use the same odds of 6/4 any more?).
I just can't get overly excited about having to wait for up to 4 years to collect my winnings. Also, if he's going to leave No.10 before the next GE, I strongly suspect it will be sooner rather than later, in which event much more attractive odds are available.
Were I a betting man, *cough*, I'd be tempted to go for 2021 at 5/1. A full year is a long time in politics.
As ever, DYOR.
You wouldn't call 5/1 10/2 or 20/40 -
It's the wheel of fortune. Chaucer would love it. Boris has had the most amazing good luck to get to the top job, and nothing but bad luck since.IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?0 -
It's absurd isn't it. So much ignorant bile. The trashing of local government in recent decades has been one of the true scandals of our age, allowed to happen thanks to the death of the local press and prejudice such as this, that infects Whitehall too. Local councils do a lot of complex thankless tasks well, and could do them a lot better if they had any money.Cyclefree said:
Every single one of them, Max? You know that, do you?MaxPB said:
Probably because the people who work for councils are right duffers.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall3 -
The job losses aren't the fault of the government. It is difficult to see that anything they try can mitigate the arriving storm. That is the drawback of incumbency. The incumbent takes the blame!Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs2 -
Yesterday's job losses are Boots, John Lewis and Burger King closing stores that were never really that profitable.Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs1 -
That is just ridiculous commentScott_xP said:
The nawsayers need to understand the pandemic has changed so much that most things will be very different for a long time and most people appreciate that and will adapt to the new new1 -
BoZo also has to hope we find a vaccine, better or quicker than the EU0
-
Keep buggering on ... ?IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?
1 -
Is this just Covid, or is it something else ?
That the news is out of Kazakhstan, via China, throws a cloud of doubt over it.
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/12814757766139330570 -
I did initially sympathise with you over you being prevented from rejoining. However, upon the news that your response was to rejoin the LDs having coincidentally experienced an immediate Damascene conversion such that never again would you buy anything coloured even the pinkest shade of red, I'm afraid that that sympathy disappeared.RochdalePioneers said:I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Which is a problem for the red team. FPT:
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.bigjohnowls said:On Topic.
I think Layla would be much the better choice.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
I too left Labour in 2019 having had longer period of membership than you (35 years), but unlike you I didn't spend my time openly and visibly campaigning for another party against them at a local level before I rejoined immediately after the GE. Not only did you do that, but you also then had no qualms about immediately joining the LDs (again?) on being rejected by your local CLP. Had you waited a bit and then reapplied after a decent interval in a year or so I suspect you would have been accepted. So it's hard not to reach a conclusion that your local CLP were vindicated by your subsequent actions, and even the members who encouraged you to come back will surely be feeling the same.
It's worth bearing in mind that your case is also wholly exceptional. I'm not aware of any membership applications having been rejected here and there have been well over 100 joiners into the CLP since December. There have been over 100,000 new members joining nationally, and according to YouGov only 11% of those were intending to vote for Long-Bailey.0 -
+1 - all the Government can do is stand up, say we tried to do our best and demonstrate what they did..Mexicanpete said:
The job losses aren't the fault of the government. It is difficult to see that anything they try can mitigate the arriving storm. That is the drawback of incumbency. The incumbent takes the blame!Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
And some of these stories are not profitable - up to now John Lewis Birmingham was rent free (they only paid rates) and even that wasn't enough for them to make a profit.1 -
There were reports from Kazakhstan last week about a resurgence of the black death.Nigelb said:Is this just Covid, or is it something else ?
That the news is out of Kazakhstan, via China, throws a cloud of doubt over it.
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1281475776613933057
My understanding if it is that is the black death is quite treatable now with modern medicine. But something definitely seems to be happening there.1 -
Now is the right time for businesses to make tough decisions on rightsizing.eek said:
+1 - all the Government can do is stand up, say we tried to do our best and demonstrate what they did..Mexicanpete said:
The job losses aren't the fault of the government. It is difficult to see that anything they try can mitigate the arriving storm. That is the drawback of incumbency. The incumbent takes the blame!Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
And some of these stories are not profitable - up to now John Lewis Birmingham was rent free (they only paid rates) and even that wasn't enough for them to make a profit.0 -
I don't know? Being waited on hand, foot and finger at Chevening and Chequers seems to float his boat, and if he sees that as good fortune he's had plenty of that in the last twelve months.algarkirk said:
It's the wheel of fortune. Chaucer would love it. Boris has had the most amazing good luck to get to the top job, and nothing but bad luck since.IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?0 -
A much fairer assessment than Max's - but I'm personally I'm inclined to give credit for sincerity over tribal loyalty.Wulfrun_Phil said:
I did initially sympathise with you over you being prevented from rejoining. However, upon the news that your response was to rejoin the LDs having coincidentally experienced an immediate Damascene conversion such that never again would you buy anything coloured even the pinkest shade of red, I'm afraid that that sympathy disappeared.RochdalePioneers said:I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Which is a problem for the red team. FPT:
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.bigjohnowls said:On Topic.
I think Layla would be much the better choice.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
I too left Labour in 2019 having had longer period of membership than you (35 years), but unlike you I didn't spend my time openly and visibly campaigning for another party against them at a local level before I rejoined immediately after the GE. Not only did you do that, but you also then had no qualms about immediately joining the LDs (again?) on being rejected by your local CLP. Had you waited a bit and then reapplied after a decent interval in a year or so I suspect you would have been accepted. So it's hard not to reach a conclusion that your local CLP were vindicated by your subsequent actions, and even the members who encouraged you to come back will surely be feeling the same.
It's worth bearing in mind that your case is also wholly exceptional. I'm not aware of any membership applications having been rejected here and there have been well over 100 joiners into the CLP since December. There have been over 100,000 new members joining nationally, and according to YouGov only 11% of those were intending to vote for Long-Bailey.2 -
We haven't seen Rishi when he isn't spraying other people's money around yet. He could be the next Portillo (who he?). His pleased look could easily turn into hubris when it's winter, snow, 4 m unemployed discovering how the benefit system works after furlough. All this has the capacity to destroy landmark industries and activities wholesale. He needs to avoid a 'Who Dares Wins' moment and look a bit humble.Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
2 -
Telegraph has update from countries that seem to be starting second waves. Not cheerful reading.
Prof Francois Balloux, an epidemiologist and director of the UCL Genetics Institute in London tells them: “To me, the most likely scenario for the Covid-19 epidemic is that there will be a winter wave in the northern hemisphere..."
I hadn't picked up on what was happening in Israel on the virus.
"On Sunday Israel’s head of public health, Dr Siegal Sadetzki, said the country was experiencing a second wave of Covid-19 after more than 977 cases were registered.
On Tuesday she resigned and was scathing of the government's response, saying it had opened up too early, against her advice."0 -
Not really surprising:
"Health official: Trump rally ‘likely’ source of virus surge"
https://apnews.com/ad96548245e186382225818d8dc416eb0 -
I took the comment about "un-fun" to refer to "being in a gym", not the cubicle thing...Big_G_NorthWales said:
That is just ridiculous commentScott_xP said:
The nawsayers need to understand the pandemic has changed so much that most things will be very different for a long time and most people appreciate that and will adapt to the new new0 -
This is what a zoo will look like once the Woke run things.Big_G_NorthWales said:
That is just ridiculous commentScott_xP said:
The nawsayers need to understand the pandemic has changed so much that most things will be very different for a long time and most people appreciate that and will adapt to the new new0 -
This is supposedly an unidentified virus, though.Philip_Thompson said:
There were reports from Kazakhstan last week about a resurgence of the black death.Nigelb said:Is this just Covid, or is it something else ?
That the news is out of Kazakhstan, via China, throws a cloud of doubt over it.
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1281475776613933057
My understanding if it is that is the black death is quite treatable now with modern medicine. But something definitely seems to be happening there.
Which is quite a different thing than the bacterium yersinia pestis.0 -
The blob likes to keep full control.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall
Which is why the government had to force it to use outside testing.0 -
'Professor Francois Balloux.' Not quite believable. Maybe it was a certain Tory MP's nickname at school.rottenborough said:Telegraph has update from countries that seem to be starting second waves. Not cheerful reading.
Prof Francois Balloux, an epidemiologist and director of the UCL Genetics Institute in London tells them: “To me, the most likely scenario for the Covid-19 epidemic is that there will be a winter wave in the northern hemisphere..."
I hadn't picked up on what was happening in Israel on the virus.
"On Sunday Israel’s head of public health, Dr Siegal Sadetzki, said the country was experiencing a second wave of Covid-19 after more than 977 cases were registered.
On Tuesday she resigned and was scathing of the government's response, saying it had opened up too early, against her advice."0 -
He never wanted to be Churchill, but he wanted the narrative. I think he absolutely wants to be his own man, but he wants to be able to switch on 'Churchill mode' every now and again to get the Brexiteers (and Francois et al) frothed up, salivating and keeping Brexit (a.k.a. "Victory") on track...Beibheirli_C said:
If that was his "dream" then he is an idiot. Why try to become someone else? You just get measured against them and so you can never succeed on your own terms. Oscar Wilde had it exactly right when he said "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken"IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?0 -
What a totally incompetent disaster with the votes not being counted for weeks as they continue to dribble in and everyone becoming increasingly distrusting of the result? Probably.Alistair said:I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19
#istheUSAreallyafunctioniingdemocracy?2 -
He may not make it to the next GE - 4-5 years in post is not that unusual as PMs go, but I'd think like May he'd fight tooth and nail to get to at least three years, and he'll want to last longer than her. Health permitting that shoujdnt be a problem, the majority is so comfortable even a big drop in popular support will not provoke a challenge. His GE win means his party would give him the chance to turn things round.0
-
The demise of local newspapers is responsible for a lot of the decline in local cohesion reaching beyond local government. If There is nothing to provide focus for local community action, local TV is poor ,free sheets just advertising. The replacement websites try but not sure what traffic they get. It will be up to local councilors themselves to communicate better with their electorates. But at least you don’t need to worry about your misdemeanors being reported in the courts column any longer.OnlyLivingBoy said:
It's absurd isn't it. So much ignorant bile. The trashing of local government in recent decades has been one of the true scandals of our age, allowed to happen thanks to the death of the local press and prejudice such as this, that infects Whitehall too. Local councils do a lot of complex thankless tasks well, and could do them a lot better if they had any money.Cyclefree said:
Every single one of them, Max? You know that, do you?MaxPB said:
Probably because the people who work for councils are right duffers.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall3 -
From now on, this is the chap to use for quotes that cannot be otherwise attributed...algarkirk said:
'Professor Francois Balloux.' Not quite believable. Maybe it was a certain Tory MP's nickname at school.rottenborough said:Telegraph has update from countries that seem to be starting second waves. Not cheerful reading.
Prof Francois Balloux, an epidemiologist and director of the UCL Genetics Institute in London tells them: “To me, the most likely scenario for the Covid-19 epidemic is that there will be a winter wave in the northern hemisphere..."
I hadn't picked up on what was happening in Israel on the virus.
"On Sunday Israel’s head of public health, Dr Siegal Sadetzki, said the country was experiencing a second wave of Covid-19 after more than 977 cases were registered.
On Tuesday she resigned and was scathing of the government's response, saying it had opened up too early, against her advice."0 -
Are you wearing your "Mr Cynical" tee shirt today?Philip_Thompson said:
Now is the right time for businesses to make tough decisions on rightsizing.eek said:
+1 - all the Government can do is stand up, say we tried to do our best and demonstrate what they did..Mexicanpete said:
The job losses aren't the fault of the government. It is difficult to see that anything they try can mitigate the arriving storm. That is the drawback of incumbency. The incumbent takes the blame!Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
And some of these stories are not profitable - up to now John Lewis Birmingham was rent free (they only paid rates) and even that wasn't enough for them to make a profit.0 -
The outsourcers and consultants the government likes to hand our money over to are just as much of a blob, just a much better paid and less accountable one.another_richard said:
The blob likes to keep full control.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall
Which is why the government had to force it to use outside testing.1 -
Quite so. Tough times are coming. They'll try their best and even if they do a good job things will be bad and they'll take a hit.Mexicanpete said:
The job losses aren't the fault of the government. It is difficult to see that anything they try can mitigate the arriving storm. That is the drawback of incumbency. The incumbent takes the blame!Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs0 -
Johnson is a leader for good times and has difficulty striking the right note in a period of lengthy and intractable difficulty. But to be fair, many people aren't sure what they want from him. If he's ebullient they say he's being frivolous at a time of crisis. If he's not ebullient they say he's not himself, perhaps he's still sick.
Personally I think he'll stay for a good long while. He's always wanted to be PM, and you don't give up a life dream easily.3 -
That's a very good point. During my many years as a councillor I saw the transition in the local papers, from the early days when they would send reporters to most committee meetings and actively investigate and follow up stories, to more recent years when they would mostly just reprint whatever the council sent them and you were lucky if they sent a reporter to the bi-monthly full council meeting. And, as circulation and readership declined, residents no longer relied upon the local paper for their local news.nichomar said:
The demise of local newspapers is responsible for a lot of the decline in local cohesion reaching beyond local government. If There is nothing to provide focus for local community action, local TV is poor ,free sheets just advertising. The replacement websites try but not sure what traffic they get. It will be up to local councilors themselves to communicate better with their electorates. But at least you don’t need to worry about your misdemeanors being reported in the courts column any longer.OnlyLivingBoy said:
It's absurd isn't it. So much ignorant bile. The trashing of local government in recent decades has been one of the true scandals of our age, allowed to happen thanks to the death of the local press and prejudice such as this, that infects Whitehall too. Local councils do a lot of complex thankless tasks well, and could do them a lot better if they had any money.Cyclefree said:
Every single one of them, Max? You know that, do you?MaxPB said:
Probably because the people who work for councils are right duffers.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall
0 -
I don't think bye elections tell us very much - otherwise the libdems would have won some general elections, but I think it was you arguing that they are evidence that Trump will outperform his polling.MrEd said:
@Alastair I did indeed as that was the percentage at the time I posted (not sure it was Wikipedia I used but can't remember). But you are right, it is a lot closer and that percentage wouldn't be great.Alistair said:I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19
One other point though. This special election took place because the NY-27 Rep had been sent to prison. I think one of the main reasons why people were saying CA-25 shouldn't be representative for the GOP is because the previous incumbent had resigned in a scandal and so that contributed to the Republican win. So, IF a previous Rep being tainted by a scandal impacts a special election result, it should apply in this case as well. What's sauce for the goose.....
I would also ignore anyone arguing that this bye election is evidence that Biden will outperform his polling.0 -
Re PMQs -- I missed it but on the written page in Hansard things look less clear-cut. The same issue (blaming care homes) extends over several questions and it depends whether you take the view Boris gave a convicing answer to the first question which SKS ignored, or that Boris was gaslighting MPs and the nation in denying the thrust of his original remarks. Perhaps it was different live.Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-07-08/debates/993D9320-BD23-448B-ACAE-A93F0F6EDF21/Engagements
0 -
Sunak's statement yesterday was interesting. He has seen the storm clouds brewing and he knows the rain will be brown as well as wet. Those on PB still confident of another Tory landslide in 2024 don't understand this yet.kle4 said:
Quite so. Tough times are coming. They'll try their best and even if they do a good job things will be bad and they'll take a hit.Mexicanpete said:
The job losses aren't the fault of the government. It is difficult to see that anything they try can mitigate the arriving storm. That is the drawback of incumbency. The incumbent takes the blame!Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs1 -
Both Pensylvania and Michigan went from comfortable but close Trump wins to absolute knife edges once all the votes were counted.DavidL said:
What a totally incompetent disaster with the votes not being counted for weeks as they continue to dribble in and everyone becoming increasingly distrusting of the result? Probably.Alistair said:I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19
#istheUSAreallyafunctioniingdemocracy?
We could absolutely be looking at idiot American News Networks "calling" multiple states for Trump only to see the postal votes flip them weeks later.0 -
The geography is interesting, though.eek said:
Yesterday's job losses are Boots, John Lewis and Burger King closing stores that were never really that profitable.Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
The wider point is that the line above which businesses are profitable has shifted dramatically, certainly temporarily, and possibly for a longer time.0 -
Ridiculous. The vast amount of cuts local government has faced in the last 10 years has stripped away most of the dead wood (there clearly was scope to be more efficient) and local authority staff have been working hard and as innovatively as Whitehall allows and doing so with very little idea of future support or acknowledgement.MaxPB said:
Probably because the people who work for councils are right duffers.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall
I'd also say local council politicians get a bad rap. Some are useless time servers who you wonder why they even stand for election, but many are deeply impressive people doing great community work, and I find they work cross party a lot better than Westminster to boot.
There are horror stories out there, but local government work is truly under appreciated.5 -
It was an unpleasant and unwarranted post, hot on the heels of another condemning the millions of people who work in local government. Someone seems to have fallen out of bed this morning.Nigelb said:
We’re back to traitors now ?MaxPB said:
This is all a very long winded way of saying you're a traitor who is now out to prove that leaving the party was the best thing ever and setting aside the nagging doubt that it was a huge mistake and you should have waited it out.RochdalePioneers said:I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Which is a problem for the red team. FPT:
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.bigjohnowls said:On Topic.
I think Layla would be much the better choice.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
You’re a curious mix of the eminently reasonable and the absurd, Max. This morning the latter seems to have the upper hand.0 -
It's one step down from Jim Hacker switching on churchillian mode.bookseller said:
He never wanted to be Churchill, but he wanted the narrative. I think he absolutely wants to be his own man, but he wants to be able to switch on 'Churchill mode' every now and again to get the Brexiteers (and Francois et al) frothed up, salivating and keeping Brexit (a.k.a. "Victory") on track...Beibheirli_C said:
If that was his "dream" then he is an idiot. Why try to become someone else? You just get measured against them and so you can never succeed on your own terms. Oscar Wilde had it exactly right when he said "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken"IanB2 said:
His whole life, he wondered whether he could become Churchill reborn.StuartDickson said:Yes.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?1 -
Its all part of the same blob.OnlyLivingBoy said:
The outsourcers and consultants the government likes to hand our money over to are just as much of a blob, just a much better paid and less accountable one.another_richard said:
The blob likes to keep full control.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall
Which is why the government had to force it to use outside testing.
And you can add the big charities and pressure groups as well.0 -
Preposterous it takes so long. There are so many basic elements to elections that the US seems to make more difficult than it needs to.Alistair said:
Both Pensylvania and Michigan went from comfortable but close Trump wins to absolute knife edges once all the votes were counted.DavidL said:
What a totally incompetent disaster with the votes not being counted for weeks as they continue to dribble in and everyone becoming increasingly distrusting of the result? Probably.Alistair said:I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19
#istheUSAreallyafunctioniingdemocracy?
We could absolutely be looking at idiot American News Networks "calling" multiple states for Trump only to see the postal votes flip them weeks later.1 -
Which part of the admission from Rishi that "he can't save every job, but is trying his best" did you miss yesterdayalgarkirk said:
We haven't seen Rishi when he isn't spraying other people's money around yet. He could be the next Portillo (who he?). His pleased look could easily turn into hubris when it's winter, snow, 4 m unemployed discovering how the benefit system works after furlough. All this has the capacity to destroy landmark industries and activities wholesale. He needs to avoid a 'Who Dares Wins' moment and look a bit humble.Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs1 -
My local group of papers had a post paid for by government scheme so someone attended nearly all council meetings and produced multiple stories on each. It was a very good initiative, but either the scheme ended or thryve not taken it up in the last yearIanB2 said:
That's a very good point. During my many years as a councillor I saw the transition in the local papers, from the early days when they would send reporters to most committee meetings and actively investigate and follow up stories, to more recent years when they would mostly just reprint whatever the council sent them and you were lucky if they sent a reporter to the bi-monthly full council meeting. And, as circulation and readership declined, residents no longer relied upon the local paper for their local news.nichomar said:
The demise of local newspapers is responsible for a lot of the decline in local cohesion reaching beyond local government. If There is nothing to provide focus for local community action, local TV is poor ,free sheets just advertising. The replacement websites try but not sure what traffic they get. It will be up to local councilors themselves to communicate better with their electorates. But at least you don’t need to worry about your misdemeanors being reported in the courts column any longer.OnlyLivingBoy said:
It's absurd isn't it. So much ignorant bile. The trashing of local government in recent decades has been one of the true scandals of our age, allowed to happen thanks to the death of the local press and prejudice such as this, that infects Whitehall too. Local councils do a lot of complex thankless tasks well, and could do them a lot better if they had any money.Cyclefree said:
Every single one of them, Max? You know that, do you?MaxPB said:
Probably because the people who work for councils are right duffers.IanB2 said:It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall0 -
Starmer's performance was mediocre/poor by earlier standards. He missed open goals and was haunted a little by the spectre of Corbyn, ploughing on irrespective of the waffly answers Johnson gave.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Re PMQs -- I missed it but on the written page in Hansard things look less clear-cut. The same issue (blaming care homes) extends over several questions and it depends whether you take the view Boris gave a convicing answer to the first question which SKS ignored, or that Boris was gaslighting MPs and the nation in denying the thrust of his original remarks. Perhaps it was different live.Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-07-08/debates/993D9320-BD23-448B-ACAE-A93F0F6EDF21/Engagements
One can detect it wasn't Starmer's finest hour as two days later, and the Tories here are still dining out on it. Don't be fooled, the biggest take away was Johnson refusing to retract his earlier care homes comments.0 -
Starmer's performance was mediocre/poor by earlier standards. He missed open goals and was haunted a little by the spectre of Corbyn, ploughing on irrespective of the waffly answers Johnson gave.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Re PMQs -- I missed it but on the written page in Hansard things look less clear-cut. The same issue (blaming care homes) extends over several questions and it depends whether you take the view Boris gave a convicing answer to the first question which SKS ignored, or that Boris was gaslighting MPs and the nation in denying the thrust of his original remarks. Perhaps it was different live.Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-07-08/debates/993D9320-BD23-448B-ACAE-A93F0F6EDF21/Engagements
One can detect it wasn't Starmer's finest hour as two days later, and the Tories here are still dining out on it. Don't be fooled, the biggest take away was Johnson refusing to retract his earlier care homes comments.0 -
On topic, I think that this very much depends upon his health. At the moment he is clearly still suffering the after effects of a severe bout of Covid. This includes dyspnoea but may also include lassitude and an inability to concentrate.
This virus is a bugger and the savings that might have come from the deaths of 50k old folk with expensive co-morbidities are very likely to prove illusionary going forward. For me there has been too much, if understandable, focus on the deaths and not enough on the sequelae of a severe illness that has probably affected between 300k and 3m people in the UK.
How long are these effects going to be, both in general and in Boris's case? Despite @Nigelb's valiant efforts I am really not sure.1 -
The lockdown has massively shifted the level of online purchasing. For food it has forced people back into the kitchen.IanB2 said:
The geography is interesting, though.eek said:
Yesterday's job losses are Boots, John Lewis and Burger King closing stores that were never really that profitable.Big_G_NorthWales said:Good morning
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
The wider point is that the line above which businesses are profitable has shifted dramatically, certainly temporarily, and possibly for a longer time.
I do not think that it will not go back to where it was. Which in turn, means that another tranch of the high street is no longer viable.
I would also say that this has accelerated a process already in train.0 -
Postal votes tend to go Republican e.g. it was the mail in military votes that won Florida for Bush in 2000Alistair said:
Both Pensylvania and Michigan went from comfortable but close Trump wins to absolute knife edges once all the votes were counted.DavidL said:
What a totally incompetent disaster with the votes not being counted for weeks as they continue to dribble in and everyone becoming increasingly distrusting of the result? Probably.Alistair said:I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19
#istheUSAreallyafunctioniingdemocracy?
We could absolutely be looking at idiot American News Networks "calling" multiple states for Trump only to see the postal votes flip them weeks later.0 -
Shy Trumpians?kamski said:
I don't think bye elections tell us very much - otherwise the libdems would have won some general elections, but I think it was you arguing that they are evidence that Trump will outperform his polling.MrEd said:
@Alastair I did indeed as that was the percentage at the time I posted (not sure it was Wikipedia I used but can't remember). But you are right, it is a lot closer and that percentage wouldn't be great.Alistair said:I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19
One other point though. This special election took place because the NY-27 Rep had been sent to prison. I think one of the main reasons why people were saying CA-25 shouldn't be representative for the GOP is because the previous incumbent had resigned in a scandal and so that contributed to the Republican win. So, IF a previous Rep being tainted by a scandal impacts a special election result, it should apply in this case as well. What's sauce for the goose.....
I would also ignore anyone arguing that this bye election is evidence that Biden will outperform his polling.0 -
Nah, Johnson is not over taxing himself during his recovery. Cummings is doing all the heavy lifting so all is good for a few more years.DavidL said:On topic, I think that this very much depends upon his health. At the moment he is clearly still suffering the after effects of a severe bout of Covid. This includes dyspnoea but may also include lassitude and an inability to concentrate.
This virus is a bugger and the savings that might have come from the deaths of 50k old folk with expensive co-morbidities are very likely to prove illusionary going forward. For me there has been too much, if understandable, focus on the deaths and not enough on the sequelae of a severe illness that has probably affected between 300k and 3m people in the UK.
How long are these effects going to be, both in general and in Boris's case? Despite @Nigelb's valiant efforts I am really not sure.0
