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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Johnson can’t go on being as dire at PMQs as he was yesterday

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited September 2020 in General
imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Johnson can’t go on being as dire at PMQs as he was yesterday

I first began reporting professionally as a journalist on PMQs in 1972 when I was part of the small team that produced the “Today in Parliament” programme for BBC Radio 4. Three years later I was one of the editors that handled the parliamentary broadcasting experiment that was the forerunner of the proceedings of the House being broadcast on radio and then later television.

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Comments

  • First ... yet again!
  • Second - there are certain Tories who have never forgiven BJ for his knifing of TM (he only carried a small majority of Parliamentary party in Summer'19) I already have money on him stepping down next year so watch this with interest...
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    edited September 2020
    The Govt don’t seem to care. They have no ambition to competence and real outcomes are an irrelevance to them. Just like with Trump in the US they believe that voters will continue to support them in sufficient numbers (because they are not the “remain elite”) and any criticism can be rebuffed as somebody else’s fault and glossed over when presenting a choice to the voters of “us vs them”.

    I am struck by the headlines on the BBC this morning about the Govt “overseeing the demise of U.K. aviation”. Which they quite clearly are. But they don’t care. Because they have a line to parrot, that they have “offered unprecedented support to the sector”. It’s just tin eared to the point of irrelevance. If at the end of it there is actually no U.K. aviation industry the so what? Not their responsibility guv.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,738
    Maybe the wrong person is at the despatch box


  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    Trump seemingly encourages North Carolina residents to try to vote twice
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/trump-vote-twice-voter-fraud-408007
    President Donald Trump encouraged North Carolina residents to attempt to vote both via the mail and in person, seemingly urging them to commit voter fraud as a test of mail-in voting systems in a trip to the state on Wednesday.

    “They are going to have to check their vote by going to the poll and voting that way because if it tabulates, then they won’t be able to do that,” he said in an interview with the Wilmington, N.C.-based WECT. “So let them send it in, and let them go vote. And if their system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they will be able to vote. So that’s the way it is, and that’s what they should do.”..

    .... Under North Carolina state law, it is a felony “for any person with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time, or to induce another to do so.” Voting more than once is also illegal under federal law.
  • Nigelb said:

    Compare and contrast with the US.
    Over there is a president who makes more outrageous comments than Johnson’s IRA smear, and piles up the bullshit, bluster and waffle, on a daily basis. And his party follow him slavishly.

    I’m have a very low view of the current Tory party, but they do not yet approach the sheer degradation of the Republicans.

    Of course, for a lot of Trump followers, he's telling it to the elites. Now that we've left the EU, Johnson can;t do that. It's a different dynamic and really, not with that accent.

    Another advantage Trump has is that he doesn't radiate self-hatred.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,738
    Not even the Telegraph can pretend they still think BoZo is the right choice...

    https://twitter.com/TelePolitics/status/1301223414011658241
  • Boris has to stay for Brexit. Somebody has to take the blame for that and Covid mishandling.

    Who would want to be PM at a time like this?
  • Boris has to stay for Brexit. Somebody has to take the blame for that and Covid mishandling.

    Who would want to be PM at a time like this?

    the idea of BJ taking the blame for anything is fanciful..........
  • Boris has to stay for Brexit. Somebody has to take the blame for that and Covid mishandling.

    Who would want to be PM at a time like this?

    the idea of BJ taking the blame for anything is fanciful..........
    He may not take the blame personally, but a fall guy is needed by the party. Buffoons make excellent fallguys
  • The Finland-based Nordea, largest bank in the Nordic/Baltic region, predicts a good recovery for the Swedish economy:

    - recession will be milder than previously predicted
    - recovery during 2021 and 2022
    - no big government stimulation will be required
    - GNP will fall 3.2% this year, followed by growth of 4.1% in 2021 and 2% in 2022
    - unemployment will stabilise mid-2021
    - house prices will rise 6% this year
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    A “capacity” of 350,000 doesn’t mean very much if the system is jammed up at half that rate.

    Coronavirus testing rationed amid outbreaks
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53990068
    ...The government has pledged to increase its capacity to 500,000 tests a day by the end of October.
    Currently, it says, testing capacity is about 350,000 a day - but only just over half of that is being used.
    Daily testing has only broken 200,000 on one day, despite the government hailing reaching its target of having that level of capacity at the end of May.
    The DHSC stressed that booking slots were added in the evening for morning appointments and in the morning for afternoon appointments, so more local slots might become available through the day.
    The website states: "This service is currently very busy. If you are unable to book a test now or the location and time is not convenient for you, please try again in a few hours when more tests should be available...


    These cheap, rapid mass tests need deployed as soon as possible.
    They don’t have to be 100% accurate.
    ... The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it was investing £500m in existing trials of new tests including a rapid 20 minute test and a saliva-based test. These will be trialled on groups of people including staff and students at the University of Southampton and four Southampton schools...
  • Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Voter, I like the idea of the incumbent leaving promptly but given his ambition appears to be the sun around which all else revolves I'll believe he's resigned when I see it.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    edited September 2020
    This government is special. Even by their standards sending a Londoner to the Isle of Wight for a Covid test is a spectacular new low.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Boris has to stay for Brexit. Somebody has to take the blame for that and Covid mishandling.

    Who would want to be PM at a time like this?

    Sunak. Because being chancellor will be a whole lot worse.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,763
    Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing.
    The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.

    Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.

    I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    DavidL said:

    Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing.
    The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.

    Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.

    I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.

    You get the impression the reason he couldn’t sack Williamson and couldn’t answer yesterday’s question because not only did Boris know about the algorithm, he also overruled a ministerial recommendation to abandon it.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770

    The Finland-based Nordea, largest bank in the Nordic/Baltic region, predicts a good recovery for the Swedish economy:

    - recession will be milder than previously predicted
    - recovery during 2021 and 2022
    - no big government stimulation will be required
    - GNP will fall 3.2% this year, followed by growth of 4.1% in 2021 and 2% in 2022
    - unemployment will stabilise mid-2021
    - house prices will rise 6% this year

    3.2% decline in 2020? Despite PMIs that are the second worst in Europe.

    Now Sweden's massive public sector (which is... decoupled... from the private sector) cushions it somewhat. But the reality is that consumer spending fell more than neighbours, while the recovery has been more muted.

    If I have to choose between the forecasts of Nordea (the Lloyds TSB of Sweden) and Markit, I know which one I'll choose. (Worth noting that neither Svenska Handelsbank and SEB share Nordea's rose tinted glasses).
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,061
    While Johnson is obviously, and always was, an ill prepared, shambolic charleton it is not as if there is much that is better in his cabinet of cronies and halfwits following the purges and show trials.

    Does anyone seriously expect anything other than continuous omni- incompetence over the next year? Even the braying dolts on the Tory backbenches can see what an oaf that they have leading them.

    My money is on Q3 next year to be replaced for the party conference, and for it to be Priti or Hunt. I just hope that the damage to the Tory party from such events considerably surpasses the damage to the country from the ship of fools.

  • Nigelb said:

    Trump seemingly encourages North Carolina residents to try to vote twice
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/trump-vote-twice-voter-fraud-408007
    President Donald Trump encouraged North Carolina residents to attempt to vote both via the mail and in person, seemingly urging them to commit voter fraud as a test of mail-in voting systems in a trip to the state on Wednesday.

    “They are going to have to check their vote by going to the poll and voting that way because if it tabulates, then they won’t be able to do that,” he said in an interview with the Wilmington, N.C.-based WECT. “So let them send it in, and let them go vote. And if their system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they will be able to vote. So that’s the way it is, and that’s what they should do.”..

    .... Under North Carolina state law, it is a felony “for any person with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time, or to induce another to do so.” Voting more than once is also illegal under federal law.

    Law & ordure prez recommends breaking law.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,763
    Jonathan said:

    DavidL said:

    Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing.
    The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.

    Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.

    I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.

    You get the impression the reason he couldn’t sack Williamson and couldn’t answer yesterday’s question because not only did Boris know about the algorithm, he also overruled a ministerial recommendation to abandon it.
    I am not at all sure about the Ministerial recommendation but his fingerprints are all over the original decision to try and bluster through with the algorithm. The fact that Ofqual, of all people, seem to have been warning of the consequences from May onwards is troubling and could have led to even more embarrassment yesterday if the answer to the first question had allowed a rational development of the argument.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,763

    Nigelb said:

    Trump seemingly encourages North Carolina residents to try to vote twice
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/trump-vote-twice-voter-fraud-408007
    President Donald Trump encouraged North Carolina residents to attempt to vote both via the mail and in person, seemingly urging them to commit voter fraud as a test of mail-in voting systems in a trip to the state on Wednesday.

    “They are going to have to check their vote by going to the poll and voting that way because if it tabulates, then they won’t be able to do that,” he said in an interview with the Wilmington, N.C.-based WECT. “So let them send it in, and let them go vote. And if their system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they will be able to vote. So that’s the way it is, and that’s what they should do.”..

    .... Under North Carolina state law, it is a felony “for any person with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time, or to induce another to do so.” Voting more than once is also illegal under federal law.

    Law & ordure prez recommends breaking law.
    Barr seems beyond useless but presumably his equivocation about whether voting twice was an offence was so that he could avoid the next question about whether he was going to arrest his boss.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    FTPT
    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    I've been talking to friends in the US and they all say the same thing, Biden leads the polls but the feeling on the ground is that Trump has the momentum because he's been gifted a stronger hand by the riots and the Dems lack of condemnation of their own side and the very blatant media bias. This is among all likely Dem voters as well.

    The CNN graphic of "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests" in front of burning buildings has become a recruiting tool for Trump among middle class suburban whites, it's team Trump saying "we told you, they'll lie to your face and expect you to accept it" and it's working for them among parents of my friends who were previously in the Dem column.

    That's the narrative, and it's one that - for example - Conrad Black and Andrew Sullivan have both written about in the last two weeks.

    But I'm a numbers rather than a narrative kind of guy. Let's see if voters are actually changing.
    One problem with the polls last time was that in order to make the samples balanced, they compromised on randomness, which meant they failed to pick up on important movements.
    A lot is being made of people overcompensating for the 2016 shock by overstating Trump's chances but I'm beginning to wonder whether a closer analogy is 2017 with Biden as May with regards to the polls.

    As @MaxPB has pointed out, plus others such as Andrew Sullivan and Conrad Black, people do not like the violence and the fear it is coming to a town near you and it is starting to become a major issue. @rcs1000 pointed out Republican registrations in Florida are running ahead of the Democrats but my understanding is the Republicans have eroded the Democrat's lead since 2016 in PA as well, which also bodes ill for Biden.

    More to the point, both the campaign's actions and what is being seen on the ground doesn't seem to match the polls. Trump has just opened an office in Minnesota and he has visited New Hampshire.

    Trump is repeatedly banging the drum linking Biden with the violence and Biden is now running adverts condemning the violence. This is where the NY Times states about the adverts:

    "The Biden campaign said the ad would air nationally on cable television and in local markets in nine battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."

    That doesn't sound like a campaign that is confident it is high single digits ahead.

    Ultimately, though, Biden's national polling numbers aren't changing.

    Pundits and stories and narrative have very little predictive power compared to hard numbers.
    The problem I have is whether the data we are getting from these polls is clean.

    If I am dealing with a set of financial numbers on which to make a forecast, I can assume they are clean in that they have been audited, subject to oversight etc.

    That is not the case here. As many on here have pointed out, US polling methodology is not as audited as in the UK. More concerning is that the polls are seen as both sides to push their positions so they become used as a political football and used as to rally the troops so it is entirely possible you are getting self-selected samples.

    Also, as mentioned on a previous thread, both parties will have continual internal polling going on which is why I am a great believer in looking at their actions as that demonstrates their "true" view.
    I think the idea the campaigns have any idea what's going on is not backed by the evidence. Hillary had no idea she was losing in the rust belt. Trump and his advisors thought they had lost. Nigel Farage conceded defeat immediately after EU Referendum polls closed.

    Your polling methodology point is a good one. It is entirely possible - maybe even likely - that there are shy Trump supporters, who are not being picked up.

    The issue for the President is that (on current polls) there needs to be an unprecedented level of polling error.

    And there's one last issue. Why isn't Biden's share moving? If the riots were having an effect, he should still see his share move. Because changes in opinions should be picked up, even if the overall totals are wrong. And we're not seeing any meaningful move in the Biden total.
    https://twitter.com/RobertCahaly/status/1300951136673976320?s=20
    They might be right.

    They might be wrong.

    If they posted their crosstabs they would be a lot easier to analyse.

    Nevertheless, their simple "error rate" - i.e. the average amount they were wrong for Dem and Republican candidates - in 2018 was not great, at 5.6 percent.


    “When we talk about hidden voters, what we’re talking about is the social-desirability bias, and that is when people basically tell a live-caller what they think will get them judged least harshly,” says Cahaly. “Some races have that, some races don’t.” Cahaly points to the Florida 2018 gubernatorial race as an example. Democrats had branded Republican Ron DeSantis as a racist, and all pollsters, except Trafalgar, showed Democrat Andrew Gillum with a lead in the days before the election. DeSantis won the election by 0.4 points.

    “In 2020, the presidential question has social-desirability bias,” says Cahaly. He tries to capture the views of “hidden voters” in several ways. “I start with a voter file that has everything from occupation to incomes to education levels to voting history to likely religion,” says Cahaly. “We give people multiple ways to participate in our polls,” he adds. “We do live calls, we do automated calls, we do texts, we do emails, we do other digital platforms.” Cahaly tries to get a sample of at least 1,000 respondents in any statewide poll: “Big samples are better samples.”

    He thinks a lot of pollsters for media outlets simply ask too many questions — if a pollster is asking 30 questions, “you end up with people who really care too much about politics,” says Cahaly. Trafalgar’s surveys ask “no more than nine [questions] and [take] less than three minutes to complete.”

    Trafalgar is not a broken clock that gets rewarded for always pointing toward GOP victories. For example, it showed Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow leading by nine points in its final poll of Michigan in 2018; Stabenow defeated Republican John James by six points.'
    https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/the-pollster-who-thinks-trump-is-winning-in-wisconsin-and-michigan/
    Yes, I've linked to that article myself, about why we shouldn't ignore Trafalgar.

    But let me turn it around. Trafalgar didn't do very well in 2018, where they applied these same weightings.

    Now, it could be that 2020 is just like 2016. Or it could be that it's more like 2018.
    The difference between 2016 and 2018 though was Trump was not on the ballot, many Trump voters in 2016 stayed home in 2018. The question is if they will turn out for him again in 2020 and whether other pollsters are capturing them or missing them unlike Trafalgar
    Didn't the GOP congressional vote outperform Trump nationally in 2016?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    DavidL said:

    Nigelb said:

    Trump seemingly encourages North Carolina residents to try to vote twice
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/trump-vote-twice-voter-fraud-408007
    President Donald Trump encouraged North Carolina residents to attempt to vote both via the mail and in person, seemingly urging them to commit voter fraud as a test of mail-in voting systems in a trip to the state on Wednesday.

    “They are going to have to check their vote by going to the poll and voting that way because if it tabulates, then they won’t be able to do that,” he said in an interview with the Wilmington, N.C.-based WECT. “So let them send it in, and let them go vote. And if their system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they will be able to vote. So that’s the way it is, and that’s what they should do.”..

    .... Under North Carolina state law, it is a felony “for any person with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time, or to induce another to do so.” Voting more than once is also illegal under federal law.

    Law & ordure prez recommends breaking law.
    Barr seems beyond useless but presumably his equivocation about whether voting twice was an offence was so that he could avoid the next question about whether he was going to arrest his boss.
    On the contrary, I think Barr has been highly effective.
  • This is a post-fact polity. I don't think the PM needs to worry about fact or reason because the electorate don't either. It doesn't matter that Shagger hasn't the slightest clue what is going on in his government. Not the slightest clue what is going on in the country. None of this is new - he's been clueless on Covid from the get go and when presented with a simple 5 point scale to simplify the chaos he managed to announce that we were at stage 3.5.

    So what happened yesterday that was so bad? He didn't know the detail, refused to answer and resorted to waffle and insults. None of this is new. Its now clear that Williamson has been caught lying through his teeth over the exams fiasco - doesn't matter. Patel leaves the door wide open for our take back control borders to allow anyone to waltz in unchecked and undocumented, even now. Doesn't matter. Sebastian Fox lectures workers on the need to return to the office. From home. Doesn't matter. Lets not even mention the Brexit asteroid hurtling towards us.

    None of it matters. Because this is a post-fact world. However bad Shagger may be, the alternative was Jezbollah. So whatever happens, it isn't as bad - as Johnson rightly pointed out yesterday - as Corbyn would have made it. The ultimate get out of jail free card for the Tories. Yes we have ruined the education of your children. Left millions of you with no financial support at all as we close your industry down. Knackered our prospects for the decade. Haven't bothered to get anything ready for the moment of national self-harm. We're clueless, uncaring, incompetent. But the alternative was Corbyn.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585
    DavidL said:

    Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing.
    The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.

    Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.

    I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.

    In what parallel universe did Johnson "regularly" get the better of Starmer at PMQs?

    I suspect you mistake Johnson sometimes avoiding an absolute drubbing with a victory.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,544
    I wonder if Johnson will simply cancel PMQs. As previously shown, he has no respect for parliament, scrutiny or even the law.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,544
    Interesting article on a predecessor to Cummings' control centre. Allende, it seems, had a similar fascination with data and control.

    https://twitter.com/scottlgreer/status/1301177078738542592
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879
    edited September 2020
    Johnson hasn’t changed. He was always a bone idle chancer in it for nobody but himself. He has tried to hide away, he is actively seeking to curtail scrutiny of the government, but for now there are moments when he cannot escape being exposed. However, as Rochdale points out - it doesn’t really matter, so low are expectations in England these days. The challenge for Starmer and Labour is to convince voters that they do not have to settle for serial incompetence and the relentless downgrading of the public sphere. Things can get better. It will be a tough task.
  • Interesting read in the Guardian about confusion in Scottish areas where they have had to impose the same restrictions as in NW England and Leicester. As always its absurd that I still cannot meet my parents at home - too risky - yet can meet them in the pub. A sane country would ask "who signs off this nonsense?"

    But we already know the answer
  • Nigelb said:

    A “capacity” of 350,000 doesn’t mean very much if the system is jammed up at half that rate.

    Coronavirus testing rationed amid outbreaks
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53990068
    ...The government has pledged to increase its capacity to 500,000 tests a day by the end of October.
    Currently, it says, testing capacity is about 350,000 a day - but only just over half of that is being used.
    Daily testing has only broken 200,000 on one day, despite the government hailing reaching its target of having that level of capacity at the end of May.
    The DHSC stressed that booking slots were added in the evening for morning appointments and in the morning for afternoon appointments, so more local slots might become available through the day.
    The website states: "This service is currently very busy. If you are unable to book a test now or the location and time is not convenient for you, please try again in a few hours when more tests should be available...


    These cheap, rapid mass tests need deployed as soon as possible.
    They don’t have to be 100% accurate.
    ... The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it was investing £500m in existing trials of new tests including a rapid 20 minute test and a saliva-based test. These will be trialled on groups of people including staff and students at the University of Southampton and four Southampton schools...

    Actually they do have to be 100% accurate. Any significant number of false positives and areas will be unnecessarily put into local lockdown.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Patel leaves the door wide open for our take back control borders to allow anyone to waltz in unchecked and undocumented,.

    400 arrivals yesterday. I am not sure how this happened since PP appointed a...

    𝘾𝙇𝘼𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙎𝙏𝙄𝙉𝙀 𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙉𝙉𝙀𝙇 𝙏𝙃𝙍𝙀𝘼𝙏 𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙈𝘼𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙍
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585
    FF43 said:

    I wonder if Johnson will simply cancel PMQs. As previously shown, he has no respect for parliament, scrutiny or even the law.

    That would make sense.

    The short term damage of abandoning PMQs would be quickly offset by no more reporting of weekly Wednesday humiliations.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,716
    Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does.
    Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    Alistair said:

    FTPT

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MrEd said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    I've been talking to friends in the US and they all say the same thing, Biden leads the polls but the feeling on the ground is that Trump has the momentum because he's been gifted a stronger hand by the riots and the Dems lack of condemnation of their own side and the very blatant media bias. This is among all likely Dem voters as well.

    The CNN graphic of "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests" in front of burning buildings has become a recruiting tool for Trump among middle class suburban whites, it's team Trump saying "we told you, they'll lie to your face and expect you to accept it" and it's working for them among parents of my friends who were previously in the Dem column.

    That's the narrative, and it's one that - for example - Conrad Black and Andrew Sullivan have both written about in the last two weeks.

    But I'm a numbers rather than a narrative kind of guy. Let's see if voters are actually changing.
    One problem with the polls last time was that in order to make the samples balanced, they compromised on randomness, which meant they failed to pick up on important movements.
    A lot is being made of people overcompensating for the 2016 shock by overstating Trump's chances but I'm beginning to wonder whether a closer analogy is 2017 with Biden as May with regards to the polls.

    As @MaxPB has pointed out, plus others such as Andrew Sullivan and Conrad Black, people do not like the violence and the fear it is coming to a town near you and it is starting to become a major issue. @rcs1000 pointed out Republican registrations in Florida are running ahead of the Democrats but my understanding is the Republicans have eroded the Democrat's lead since 2016 in PA as well, which also bodes ill for Biden.

    More to the point, both the campaign's actions and what is being seen on the ground doesn't seem to match the polls. Trump has just opened an office in Minnesota and he has visited New Hampshire.

    Trump is repeatedly banging the drum linking Biden with the violence and Biden is now running adverts condemning the violence. This is where the NY Times states about the adverts:

    "The Biden campaign said the ad would air nationally on cable television and in local markets in nine battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."

    That doesn't sound like a campaign that is confident it is high single digits ahead.

    Ultimately, though, Biden's national polling numbers aren't changing.

    Pundits and stories and narrative have very little predictive power compared to hard numbers.
    The problem I have is whether the data we are getting from these polls is clean.

    If I am dealing with a set of financial numbers on which to make a forecast, I can assume they are clean in that they have been audited, subject to oversight etc.

    That is not the case here. As many on here have pointed out, US polling methodology is not as audited as in the UK. More concerning is that the polls are seen as both sides to push their positions so they become used as a political football and used as to rally the troops so it is entirely possible you are getting self-selected samples.

    Also, as mentioned on a previous thread, both parties will have continual internal polling going on which is why I am a great believer in looking at their actions as that demonstrates their "true" view.
    I think the idea the campaigns have any idea what's going on is not backed by the evidence. Hillary had no idea she was losing in the rust belt. Trump and his advisors thought they had lost. Nigel Farage conceded defeat immediately after EU Referendum polls closed.

    Your polling methodology point is a good one. It is entirely possible - maybe even likely - that there are shy Trump supporters, who are not being picked up.

    The issue for the President is that (on current polls) there needs to be an unprecedented level of polling error.

    And there's one last issue. Why isn't Biden's share moving? If the riots were having an effect, he should still see his share move. Because changes in opinions should be picked up, even if the overall totals are wrong. And we're not seeing any meaningful move in the Biden total.
    https://twitter.com/RobertCahaly/status/1300951136673976320?s=20
    They might be right.

    They might be wrong.

    If they posted their crosstabs they would be a lot easier to analyse.

    Nevertheless, their simple "error rate" - i.e. the average amount they were wrong for Dem and Republican candidates - in 2018 was not great, at 5.6 percent.


    “When we talk about hidden voters, what we’re talking about is the social-desirability bias, and that is when people basically tell a live-caller what they think will get them judged least harshly,” says Cahaly. “Some races have that, some races don’t.” Cahaly points to the Florida 2018 gubernatorial race as an example. Democrats had branded Republican Ron DeSantis as a racist, and all pollsters, except Trafalgar, showed Democrat Andrew Gillum with a lead in the days before the election. DeSantis won the election by 0.4 points.

    “In 2020, the presidential question has social-desirability bias,” says Cahaly. He tries to capture the views of “hidden voters” in several ways. “I start with a voter file that has everything from occupation to incomes to education levels to voting history to likely religion,” says Cahaly. “We give people multiple ways to participate in our polls,” he adds. “We do live calls, we do automated calls, we do texts, we do emails, we do other digital platforms.” Cahaly tries to get a sample of at least 1,000 respondents in any statewide poll: “Big samples are better samples.”

    He thinks a lot of pollsters for media outlets simply ask too many questions — if a pollster is asking 30 questions, “you end up with people who really care too much about politics,” says Cahaly. Trafalgar’s surveys ask “no more than nine [questions] and [take] less than three minutes to complete.”

    Trafalgar is not a broken clock that gets rewarded for always pointing toward GOP victories. For example, it showed Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow leading by nine points in its final poll of Michigan in 2018; Stabenow defeated Republican John James by six points.'
    https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/the-pollster-who-thinks-trump-is-winning-in-wisconsin-and-michigan/
    Yes, I've linked to that article myself, about why we shouldn't ignore Trafalgar.

    But let me turn it around. Trafalgar didn't do very well in 2018, where they applied these same weightings.

    Now, it could be that 2020 is just like 2016. Or it could be that it's more like 2018.
    The difference between 2016 and 2018 though was Trump was not on the ballot, many Trump voters in 2016 stayed home in 2018. The question is if they will turn out for him again in 2020 and whether other pollsters are capturing them or missing them unlike Trafalgar
    Didn't the GOP congressional vote outperform Trump nationally in 2016?
    Yes.

    Re: Trafalgar, what pollsters say about their methods is interesting, but they all should surely believe in their own methodology and be able to make a case for it, but such cases are always a bit speculative and need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Trafalgar don't really have any track record to speak of in presidential elections, and the record they do have isn't that great, so I don't see any reason to give any extra weight to this one pollster.

    Of course if you are a bit on one side or the other of where most pollsters are, pure chance is going to give you a decent probability of looking good, and a decent probability of looking bad. That seems to be the simplest explanation of Trafalgar doing OK in 2016, and quite badly in 2018.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    Nigelb said:

    A “capacity” of 350,000 doesn’t mean very much if the system is jammed up at half that rate.

    Coronavirus testing rationed amid outbreaks
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53990068
    ...The government has pledged to increase its capacity to 500,000 tests a day by the end of October.
    Currently, it says, testing capacity is about 350,000 a day - but only just over half of that is being used.
    Daily testing has only broken 200,000 on one day, despite the government hailing reaching its target of having that level of capacity at the end of May.
    The DHSC stressed that booking slots were added in the evening for morning appointments and in the morning for afternoon appointments, so more local slots might become available through the day.
    The website states: "This service is currently very busy. If you are unable to book a test now or the location and time is not convenient for you, please try again in a few hours when more tests should be available...


    These cheap, rapid mass tests need deployed as soon as possible.
    They don’t have to be 100% accurate.
    ... The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it was investing £500m in existing trials of new tests including a rapid 20 minute test and a saliva-based test. These will be trialled on groups of people including staff and students at the University of Southampton and four Southampton schools...

    Actually they do have to be 100% accurate. Any significant number of false positives and areas will be unnecessarily put into local lockdown.
    I think false positives are very difficult to get since the swab requires live virus ? The only way could bd with other coronaviruses ?
  • rcs1000 said:

    The Finland-based Nordea, largest bank in the Nordic/Baltic region, predicts a good recovery for the Swedish economy:

    - recession will be milder than previously predicted
    - recovery during 2021 and 2022
    - no big government stimulation will be required
    - GNP will fall 3.2% this year, followed by growth of 4.1% in 2021 and 2% in 2022
    - unemployment will stabilise mid-2021
    - house prices will rise 6% this year

    3.2% decline in 2020? Despite PMIs that are the second worst in Europe.

    Now Sweden's massive public sector (which is... decoupled... from the private sector) cushions it somewhat. But the reality is that consumer spending fell more than neighbours, while the recovery has been more muted.

    If I have to choose between the forecasts of Nordea (the Lloyds TSB of Sweden) and Markit, I know which one I'll choose. (Worth noting that neither Svenska Handelsbank and SEB share Nordea's rose tinted glasses).
    We’ll see.

    Anecdata: Nordea is right regarding house-prices. Villas and semis are selling like hot-cakes in our leafy suburb. Bids far above asking price are coming in straight after the first viewing. If you want a property you have to bid very aggressively indeed.
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    edited September 2020
    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?

    He's still better than Tony Blair. And Trump, for that matter, is still better than Bush Jnr.

    (not a high bar, I know, but worth noting)
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    edited September 2020

    Interesting read in the Guardian about confusion in Scottish areas where they have had to impose the same restrictions as in NW England and Leicester. As always its absurd that I still cannot meet my parents at home - too risky - yet can meet them in the pub. A sane country would ask "who signs off this nonsense?"

    But we already know the answer

    The evidence was that new infections in the Greater Glasgow area were caused by 'unconstrained' house parties rather than pubs which seem to be largely adhering to social distancing and tracing advice. Seems sensible to me.

    Or more pungently..


  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081

    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?

    On the subject of violence, the BBC’S Cummings documentary contains an interesting snippet from someone senior at the CBI alleging that Cummings tried to push him down a staircase after they came off air on a tv debate on the EU.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585
    tlg86 said:

    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?

    He's still better than Tony Blair. And Trump, for that matter, is still better than Bush Jnr.

    (not a high bar, I know, but worth noting)
    No he is not!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,061

    Interesting read in the Guardian about confusion in Scottish areas where they have had to impose the same restrictions as in NW England and Leicester. As always its absurd that I still cannot meet my parents at home - too risky - yet can meet them in the pub. A sane country would ask "who signs off this nonsense?"

    But we already know the answer

    While clearly the restrictions are inconsistent, applying rules part of the time would reduce transmission, a bit like me washing my hands and instruments alternate patients.

    Hard to be credible though.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    DavidL said:

    Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing.
    The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.

    Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.

    I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.

    I watched a clip of Boris yesterday and thought Yeah, not recovered yet, then realised the clip dated from March. I'd be interested in an experiment to see how many people can tell from a set of before and after clips which is which. My theory is that being ill has little to do with it, that's just what he is like, and people are perhaps subconsciously comparing him now not with him in March but with him 15 years ago, when he was funny.

    Still, it's a useful fiction both for his supporters and his opponents.
    He was certainly terrible pre-Covid. Remember this speech from this time last year?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0x1k6p8PJU

    As for abolishing PMQs... the weekly humiliation doesn't cut through (except with Conservative MPs), but trying to abolish it surely would.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585
    IanB2 said:

    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?

    On the subject of violence, the BBC’S Cummings documentary contains an interesting snippet from someone senior at the CBI alleging that Cummings tried to push him down a staircase after they came off air on a tv debate on the EU.
    Surely not true, that would be almost Putinesque.

    Although...perhaps Starmer should avoid drinking the tea when he is invited for briefings at Downing Street.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,061
    edited September 2020
    Worth reading the article that goes with this to get a sense of the chaos and confusion at the heart of our quarantine and "world beating" Test and Trace. It was the Journalists who connected the flight to the cluster.

    Crete and Zante both clubbers islands too.

    https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1301415703677992960?s=09
  • Jonathan said:

    DavidL said:

    Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing.
    The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.

    Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.

    I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.

    You get the impression the reason he couldn’t sack Williamson and couldn’t answer yesterday’s question because not only did Boris know about the algorithm, he also overruled a ministerial recommendation to abandon it.
    If that was the case then why did Scotland, Labour in Wales and Northern Ireland do the same thing as the English?

    And no simply saying England is 90% so who cares about them isn't an answr?
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263

    Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does.
    Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.

    Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".

    What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
  • tlg86 said:

    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?

    He's still better than Tony Blair. And Trump, for that matter, is still better than Bush Jnr.

    (not a high bar, I know, but worth noting)
    Boris is definitely better than Blair, Brown or May.

    But Trump is worse than Bush Jnr. He's the worst President of all time except for his hero Andrew Jackson.
  • Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does.
    Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.

    Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".

    What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
    I do not see anyone making the suggestion tax rises are 'not necessary due to the perceived uselessness of politicians', the public know covid has devastated economies worldwide and tax increases are inevitable no matter the quality of the various politicians involved, and yes UK has it's share of useless politicians
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    I don't think Johnson is better than May. She was far from ideal but she fudged the best possible deal out of the disaster that is Brexit.

    The current situation will see Britain continue to disappear down the plughole.
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.

    Iraq.
  • And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.

    Boris is not better than Blair pre Iraq
  • IanB2 said:

    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?

    On the subject of violence, the BBC’S Cummings documentary contains an interesting snippet from someone senior at the CBI alleging that Cummings tried to push him down a staircase after they came off air on a tv debate on the EU.
    Cummings is evil? Hardly news.
  • Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does.
    Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.

    Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".

    What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
    Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.

    We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.

  • Alistair said:
    Is she still deputy leader of the SCons? If so, also lol.
  • Jonathan said:

    DavidL said:

    Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing.
    The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.

    Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.

    I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.

    You get the impression the reason he couldn’t sack Williamson and couldn’t answer yesterday’s question because not only did Boris know about the algorithm, he also overruled a ministerial recommendation to abandon it.
    If that was the case then why did Scotland, Labour in Wales and Northern Ireland do the same thing as the English?

    And no simply saying England is 90% so who cares about them isn't an answr?
    In retrospect, the algorithm seems ludicrous. As has been said on here, a large amount of unexpected underperformance is random on-the-day stuff so the only way to prevent grade inflation is to randomly downgrade some students. Which is exactly what seems to have happened. Ofsted should have advised it wasn't possible.Having been told to maintain grade standards they should clearly have been prepared to say it wasn't possible and refused to do it.

    I would have suggested different grades, say W, V, X, Y, Z to make the point they are different from normal years and allowed the inflation.
  • Can this be right? World beating testing regime run by Dido Harding now requires people to drive 100 miles for a test?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53990068
  • Has anyone else had trouble buying a printer? I was trying to buy one yesterday in the £300-£400 range and everywhere was sold out for all makes. It took me 90 minutes of internet searching before I found one., and that is 2 weeks delivery.
  • This is becoming like a Cummings eye test.

    I need a virus test, so I'll just pop in the car and head up the A1 for 100 miles.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    Has anyone else had trouble buying a printer? I was trying to buy one yesterday in the £300-£400 range and everywhere was sold out for all makes. It took me 90 minutes of internet searching before I found one., and that is 2 weeks delivery.

    I can believe that. It's one of the few things that I miss about going to the office.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    DavidL said:

    Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing.
    The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.

    Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.

    I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.

    I watched a clip of Boris yesterday and thought Yeah, not recovered yet, then realised the clip dated from March. I'd be interested in an experiment to see how many people can tell from a set of before and after clips which is which. My theory is that being ill has little to do with it, that's just what he is like, and people are perhaps subconsciously comparing him now not with him in March but with him 15 years ago, when he was funny.

    Still, it's a useful fiction both for his supporters and his opponents.
    He was certainly terrible pre-Covid. Remember this speech from this time last year?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0x1k6p8PJU

    As for abolishing PMQs... the weekly humiliation doesn't cut through (except with Conservative MPs), but trying to abolish it surely would.
    I would really like to go back to twice a week, as it was up to Blair I think.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    IanB2 said:

    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?

    On the subject of violence, the BBC’S Cummings documentary contains an interesting snippet from someone senior at the CBI alleging that Cummings tried to push him down a staircase after they came off air on a tv debate on the EU.
    Whatever else he is King Incel is not the type to throw hands.
  • Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does.
    Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.

    Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".

    What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
    Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.

    We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.

    It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland

    There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585

    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?

    A vastly more convincing performance nonetheless, than yesterday's PMQs.
  • And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.

    Boris is not better than Blair pre Iraq
    Iraq is part of Blair's legacy whether you like it or not.

    But even pre Iraq, asymmetric devolution was constitutional vandalism that is leading inevitably to the destruction of the UK as a state, when it was designed to kill nationalism stone dead.
  • Foxy said:

    Interesting read in the Guardian about confusion in Scottish areas where they have had to impose the same restrictions as in NW England and Leicester. As always its absurd that I still cannot meet my parents at home - too risky - yet can meet them in the pub. A sane country would ask "who signs off this nonsense?"

    But we already know the answer

    While clearly the restrictions are inconsistent, applying rules part of the time would reduce transmission, a bit like me washing my hands and instruments alternate patients.

    Hard to be credible though.
    The problem isn't the bloke going to visit his dad who lives alone. It's the 30 friends and family cramming into someone's house for a piss-up. If the rules are followed, that isn't really possible in a pub, and if it is, social-distancing rules should be followed.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    Meanwhile Trump is back at 29% on 538

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

    which is where he was when they introduced the forecast about 3 weeks ago

    I think it's a shame they aren't doing a nowcast this year, which would give us an idea of what the model would say if the polls are like they are today on election day. This is the more robust part of the model, compared to the "uncertainty" they add because of the time til the election which is basically informed guesswork.
  • Blair's legacy:

    1. Iraq
    2. Asymmetric devolution
    3: Led to Brexit (no controls on A10 and pushing through with Lisbon against his own manifesto)
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,716

    tlg86 said:

    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?

    He's still better than Tony Blair. And Trump, for that matter, is still better than Bush Jnr.

    (not a high bar, I know, but worth noting)
    Boris is definitely better than Blair, Brown or May.

    But Trump is worse than Bush Jnr. He's the worst President of all time except for his hero Andrew Jackson.
    Boris is better than Blair at what? Lying with a straight face?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    Jonathan said:

    DavidL said:

    Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing.
    The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.

    Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.

    I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.

    You get the impression the reason he couldn’t sack Williamson and couldn’t answer yesterday’s question because not only did Boris know about the algorithm, he also overruled a ministerial recommendation to abandon it.
    If that was the case then why did Scotland, Labour in Wales and Northern Ireland do the same thing as the English?

    And no simply saying England is 90% so who cares about them isn't an answr?
    In retrospect, the algorithm seems ludicrous. As has been said on here, a large amount of unexpected underperformance is random on-the-day stuff so the only way to prevent grade inflation is to randomly downgrade some students. Which is exactly what seems to have happened. Ofsted should have advised it wasn't possible.Having been told to maintain grade standards they should clearly have been prepared to say it wasn't possible and refused to do it.

    I would have suggested different grades, say W, V, X, Y, Z to make the point they are different from normal years and allowed the inflation.
    The Govt. would have been better off getting a Dixieland jazz band to dish out the marks.

    Then it would all be down to the Al Gore Rhythm......
  • Scott_xP said:
    Tory backbencher against higher taxes shocker.
  • Boris frequently looked all at sea on HIGNFY. When Hislop & Merton went after him he looked adrift and hopeless.

    The idea that he's 'fast on his feet' or verbally quick is a myth.

    The whole 'Boris' persona seems to be built on myth.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585
    Scott_xP said:
    Johnson's letter demanding the families drop their litigation in exchange for a meeting would have been career ending for any other UK Prime Minister. Imagine how Mrs May would have fared? Heartless, aloof, out of touch, the list could go on.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    tlg86 said:

    And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.

    Iraq.
    Although Johnson as an MP voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, so difficult to say he would have been better if he had been PM at the time.
  • Scott_xP said:
    So their "five letters make it clear they want to avoid litigation"

    Its like one of the letters you get from a parking ticket company when they are trying to extort money from you.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483

    Nothing in the popular press about Boris' car crash yesterday. We worry about it more than the public does.
    Of course it's the sort of thing that won't impinge until he does it on TV. If he ever gets himself on TV again, other than doing something 'clever'.

    Also, allow for the media habit of enjoying dramatic swings. In a week or two we'll be reading that "Boris bounces back" at PMQs, and then a week or two later "Boris slumps again".

    What matters is more that the perception that the Government is incompetent has cut through. That makes it harder for Rishi to argue that tax rises are necessary (though they may well be), because people will say "They wouldn't be if if you weren't all so useless".
    Wait until the total meltdown at Dover in January cuts through.

    We'll be looking at omni-incompetent.

    It will be very interesting to see how businesses exporting into the UK from Europe react to having their truckers logjamed for miles on the opposite side of the channel and in Ireland

    There is going to be a lot of anger on all sides and total failure by both the EU and UK negotiators
    The EU will just export elsewhere rather than sit in a queue, have the UK defined what paperwork is necessary to import goods?
  • What are we supposed to do, invade? International law in effect allows countries to attempt to murder their own citizens on their own territory.

    Unpleasant though he is, I am not sure what sort of credible strategy there could be to exit Uncle Vova.
  • After the Democratic and Republican Conventions, after Kenosha have the US Presidency polls changed?
    https://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/new-polls-biden-leads-trump-nationwide-and-in-key-battleground-states-91054149917
    Spoiler - only by 0.2%.
  • And to say that Johnson is better than Blair is utterly ridiculous. I didn't like TB but he was light years better as a PM than this completely useless tosspot.

    Boris is not better than Blair pre Iraq
    Iraq is part of Blair's legacy whether you like it or not.

    But even pre Iraq, asymmetric devolution was constitutional vandalism that is leading inevitably to the destruction of the UK as a state, when it was designed to kill nationalism stone dead.
    It certainly didn’t kill British nationalism stone dead.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,061

    Foxy said:

    Interesting read in the Guardian about confusion in Scottish areas where they have had to impose the same restrictions as in NW England and Leicester. As always its absurd that I still cannot meet my parents at home - too risky - yet can meet them in the pub. A sane country would ask "who signs off this nonsense?"

    But we already know the answer

    While clearly the restrictions are inconsistent, applying rules part of the time would reduce transmission, a bit like me washing my hands and instruments alternate patients.

    Hard to be credible though.
    The problem isn't the bloke going to visit his dad who lives alone. It's the 30 friends and family cramming into someone's house for a piss-up. If the rules are followed, that isn't really possible in a pub, and if it is, social-distancing rules should be followed.
    Ban large gatherings then, not family visits.

    Legally, I cannot meet Fox jr and his partner anywhere but a pub, restaurant or park*. This has been the case for 6 months now.

    * or a flight to Crete...
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Nigelb said:

    Compare and contrast with the US.
    Over there is a president who makes more outrageous comments than Johnson’s IRA smear, and piles up the bullshit, bluster and waffle, on a daily basis. And his party follow him slavishly.

    I’m have a very low view of the current Tory party, but they do not yet approach the sheer degradation of the Republicans.

    The thing with Tory MPs is most of them didnt want Boris until things got desperate. Electorally they made the right call as he delivered them a majority, and a good one to boot. But though to a lesser degree than Corbyn (since in the end they did pick him, and he has more political skill) the win wont magically have made those wary about him now like him forever.

    That said I think hes safe for a long time and there will be a vast overreaction as Tory polling slips behind labour.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    Blair's legacy:

    1. Iraq
    2. Asymmetric devolution
    3: Led to Brexit (no controls on A10 and pushing through with Lisbon against his own manifesto)

    There's much more than that:

    - Careless and complacent financial regulation which led to the 2008 crash
    - Culture of dodgy dossiers, spin and the death of David Kelly
    - Minimum wage, which disincentivises low-skilled from upskilling themselves
    - High property prices, so that houses are unaffordable for the young anywhere people actually want to live
    - Gordon Brown

    etc. etc.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Here's Boris floundering and obfuscating about his disgraceful episode with "great chap" Darius Guppy on HIGNFY
    ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDEpqyJ-_w

    How the hell have Britain and America ended up with leaders who are totally unfit for office?

    How Britain ended up with Boris is very simple. The hardcore Remoaners wouldn’t vote for Mrs May’s deal, because they thought they could overturn the vote of the British Public to leave the EU.
  • Scott_xP said:
    Tory backbencher against higher taxes shocker.
    Didnt Graham Brady float the idea of running for leader of the Conservatives last year? following his lacklustre bit on R4 just now I dont think he is a serious contendor if there's another leadership race.
This discussion has been closed.