Of course herd immunity was the plan, why the fuck was literally ever upilitocal hack going "herd immunity is the best plan ever, only an idiot would lockdown, 60% to get covid by then end of autumn is definetly the smart thing to do you plebs".
We had threads upon threads discussing it here before the handbrake abrupt about turn and the columnists sudden memory holing.
The irony is of course that the loudest advocate for first herd immunity and then locking down, denying he had ever said the first, was (checks notes) Dominic Cummings.
The Guardian article suggests he has evidence to the contrary?
He never has evidence. He just makes shit up. His ‘evidence’ will be ‘I’m saying it so it must be true.’
And we all know of course that he’s a thoroughly untrustworthy liar.
There is a difference between Gove-Cummings and Johnson, though.
Johnson does just make stuff up. Generally on the basis of "what does my current audience want to hear?"
G-C usually have some sort of factual basis, and lots of footnotes. It's just that their sources get twisted out of all recognition in support of the conclusion they've already reached.
Though choosing between the approaches is like choosing which painful disease you want to get.
(On the substantive point, DC is going to need more than this to significantly harm BoJo.)
David Irving has ‘some sort of factual basis, and a lot of footnotes.’ Doesn’t mean that his oeuvre isn’t a wholesale forgery.
Does that mean you favour the validity of Johnson's story over that of spurned bunny-boiler Cummings?
Not necessarily. I’m very open to the possibility that they’re both lying.
The dangerous thing that may well come out of this pandemic is the conclusion that potential new virus's should result in an automatic rush for worst case scenarios and on the hoof measures and extreme economic and public health measures put in place commensurate with that.
The priority should be investing heavily in early warning systems and an infrastructure that manages to narrow risk scenarios as potential threats are identified as soon as possible - but we shouldn't need to be in a position where we are spending money on the basis that a once in a hundred years scenario will happen every other year.
The danger that could arise is that people could lose sight of the reality that new virus's can come in many forms - many won't even get off the ground and reach epidemic status, let alone pandemic - and also at various levels of danger to public health. Because people are now becoming obsessed by the potential for (implicitly dangerous) "virus mutations" even the most mild of virus may in future be treated with extreme.
When investigating the Government approach to Covid and learning lessons for the future, it would be well to consider how having learned those lessons they would be applied in practice to, say, the 2010 Swine flu pandemic.
At risk of channelling my inner Dominic Cummings, we also need to be able easily to commission urgent research in order to fill knowledge gaps. To take just one example, very early we did not know how the virus spreads: droplets or aerosols?
On the basis of official government guidance and anti virus measures still in place, many would conclude that we still don't...
Still arguing about social distancing which many have suggested is not huge relevant...
The Lib Dems held steady in terms of councillors when Cameron was elected - between 2006 and 2010, Conservative gains came from Labour. They only started to collapse after they entered government in 2010.
Second, as the article notes, the Lib Dems haven't really recovered since Cameron left. If he were the explanation, you'd expect some uptick in 2016 or 2017. TMay was very different from David Cameron, but they failed to make any headway against her.
Third, it is national elections that count, not local ones, in this country, and the Lib Dem performance in 2010 was the same as in 2005 - why would that be if Cameron were so toxic to the Lib Dems?
Fourth, all the evidence shows that Cameron was a poor performer electorally. He couldn't win a majority against Gordon Brown after the latter had completely screwed up the UK economy and was for a while the least popular PM in history.
David Cameron didn't slay the Lib Dems, or even damage them much. It was their own behaviour in the 2010-5 government that has doomed them to insignificance.
You need to learn nuance and also remember what I and others have told you in the past.
First of all the 2006-2010 period talks about how the Lib Dems were spooked by Cameron.
Within a month of Cameron becoming leader Charles Kennedy was forced out as Liberal Democrat leader, before Cameron reached his second anniversary as Conservative leader he was facing his third permanent leader of the Liberal Democrats. I think the Liberal Democrats realised Cameron was the sort of leader that would bring back Con to Lib Dem switchers.
That's at UKIP level of changing leaders, it was no coincidence that the Lib Dems eventually chose someone who looked and sounded like David Cameron.
Secondly, once you're in a death spiral, it is very hard to get out of, something I noted at the bottom of the piece.
Third, read again, local elections matter to the Lib Dems, see the opening paragraph and the bits about the tithe the Lib Dems apply, losing their council base was very bad for them in the long term, especially as the Tories started making net gain elsewhere. Campaigning shock. Councillors don't just campaign in general elections in the areas whey they are elected.
Fourth, as many others have pointed out to you David Cameron was a very good campaigner, some people forget just where the Tory Party was when he became leader, sub 200 seats.
As this chart shows, only of three LOTOs to make a net gain of over 100 seats since the war, one of whom was Cameron, in fact he's the only Tory to do so.
Plus in 2010 the electoral geography was against the Tories, in 2005 Labour won a majority with a lead of 2.8% in the popular vote, in 2010 a Tory lead of 7% didn't lead to a majority, whereas a Labour lead of that size would have been a Labour majority of over 100.
Mr. Pete, would've been worse for the country. Plus the Lib Dems spent ages banging on about coalitions being good things (which does, at least, tally with their bizarre love of PR).
I was comfortable with the coalition. To my mind the LDs curbed Conservative excesses. Was the coalition advantageous to the long-term electoral prospect of the LDs? No.
The dangerous thing that may well come out of this pandemic is the conclusion that potential new virus's should result in an automatic rush for worst case scenarios and on the hoof measures and extreme economic and public health measures put in place commensurate with that.
The priority should be investing heavily in early warning systems and an infrastructure that manages to narrow risk scenarios as potential threats are identified as soon as possible - but we shouldn't need to be in a position where we are spending money on the basis that a once in a hundred years scenario will happen every other year.
The danger that could arise is that people could lose sight of the reality that new virus's can come in many forms - many won't even get off the ground and reach epidemic status, let alone pandemic - and also at various levels of danger to public health. Because people are now becoming obsessed by the potential for (implicitly dangerous) "virus mutations" even the most mild of virus may in future be treated with extreme.
When investigating the Government approach to Covid and learning lessons for the future, it would be well to consider how having learned those lessons they would be applied in practice to, say, the 2010 Swine flu pandemic.
At risk of channelling my inner Dominic Cummings, we also need to be able easily to commission urgent research in order to fill knowledge gaps. To take just one example, very early we did not know how the virus spreads: droplets or aerosols?
And it turned out that it was the aerosols going on foreign holidays that were spreading it.
Of course herd immunity was the plan, why the fuck was literally ever upilitocal hack going "herd immunity is the best plan ever, only an idiot would lockdown, 60% to get covid by then end of autumn is definetly the smart thing to do you plebs".
We had threads upon threads discussing it here before the handbrake abrupt about turn and the columnists sudden memory holing.
The irony is of course that the loudest advocate for first herd immunity and then locking down, denying he had ever said the first, was (checks notes) Dominic Cummings.
The Guardian article suggests he has evidence to the contrary?
He never has evidence. He just makes shit up. His ‘evidence’ will be ‘I’m saying it so it must be true.’
And we all know of course that he’s a thoroughly untrustworthy liar.
There is a difference between Gove-Cummings and Johnson, though.
Johnson does just make stuff up. Generally on the basis of "what does my current audience want to hear?"
G-C usually have some sort of factual basis, and lots of footnotes. It's just that their sources get twisted out of all recognition in support of the conclusion they've already reached.
Though choosing between the approaches is like choosing which painful disease you want to get.
(On the substantive point, DC is going to need more than this to significantly harm BoJo.)
David Irving has ‘some sort of factual basis, and a lot of footnotes.’ Doesn’t mean that his oeuvre isn’t a wholesale forgery.
Sure. But selective use of sources, whilst bad, has always happened and can be argued against. Simply making stuff up is much much harder to oppose, as we are seeing.
Obviously, the best thing would be for Johnson and Cummings to destroy each other.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
The dangerous thing that may well come out of this pandemic is the conclusion that potential new virus's should result in an automatic rush for worst case scenarios and on the hoof measures and extreme economic and public health measures put in place commensurate with that.
The priority should be investing heavily in early warning systems and an infrastructure that manages to narrow risk scenarios as potential threats are identified as soon as possible - but we shouldn't need to be in a position where we are spending money on the basis that a once in a hundred years scenario will happen every other year.
The danger that could arise is that people could lose sight of the reality that new virus's can come in many forms - many won't even get off the ground and reach epidemic status, let alone pandemic - and also at various levels of danger to public health. Because people are now becoming obsessed by the potential for (implicitly dangerous) "virus mutations" even the most mild of virus may in future be treated with extreme.
When investigating the Government approach to Covid and learning lessons for the future, it would be well to consider how having learned those lessons they would be applied in practice to, say, the 2010 Swine flu pandemic.
At risk of channelling my inner Dominic Cummings, we also need to be able easily to commission urgent research in order to fill knowledge gaps. To take just one example, very early we did not know how the virus spreads: droplets or aerosols?
On the basis of official government guidance and anti virus measures still in place, many would conclude that we still don't...
Still arguing about social distancing which many have suggested is not huge relevant...
Too right. If you are in an enclosed space it isn't the distance it is the airflow that matters. There was data from virus spread in offices and aircraft way back in the early days of the pandemic but for some reason those in charge didn't pay attention to it.
The Lib Dems held steady in terms of councillors when Cameron was elected - between 2006 and 2010, Conservative gains came from Labour. They only started to collapse after they entered government in 2010.
Second, as the article notes, the Lib Dems haven't really recovered since Cameron left. If he were the explanation, you'd expect some uptick in 2016 or 2017. TMay was very different from David Cameron, but they failed to make any headway against her.
Third, it is national elections that count, not local ones, in this country, and the Lib Dem performance in 2010 was the same as in 2005 - why would that be if Cameron were so toxic to the Lib Dems?
Fourth, all the evidence shows that Cameron was a poor performer electorally. He couldn't win a majority against Gordon Brown after the latter had completely screwed up the UK economy and was for a while the least popular PM in history.
David Cameron didn't slay the Lib Dems, or even damage them much. It was their own behaviour in the 2010-5 government that has doomed them to insignificance.
You need to learn nuance and also remember what I and others have told you in the past.
First of all the 2006-2010 period talks about how the Lib Dems were spooked by Cameron.
Within a month of Cameron becoming leader Charles Kennedy was forced out as Liberal Democrat leader, before Cameron reached his second anniversary as Conservative leader he was facing his third permanent leader of the Liberal Democrats. I think the Liberal Democrats realised Cameron was the sort of leader that would bring back Con to Lib Dem switchers.
That's at UKIP level of changing leaders, it was no coincidence that the Lib Dems eventually chose someone who looked and sounded like David Cameron.
Secondly, once you're in a death spiral, it is very hard to get out of, something I noted at the bottom of the piece.
Third, read again, local elections matter to the Lib Dems, see the opening paragraph and the bits about the tithe the Lib Dems apply, losing their council base was very bad for them.
Fourth, as many others have pointed out to you David Cameron was a very good campaigner, some people forget just where the Tory Party was when he became leader, sub 200 seats.
As this chart shows, only of three LOTOs to make a net gain of over 100 seats since the war, one of whom was Cameron, in fact he's the only Tory to do so.
Plus in 2010 the electoral geography was against the Tories, in 2005 Labour won a majority with a lead of 2.8% in the popular vote, in 2010 a Tory lead of 7% didn't lead to a majority, whereas a Labour lead of that size would have been a Labour majority of over 100.
Still completely unconvincing or wrong I'm afraid.
Kennedy was forced out because of his alcoholism, not because David Cameron became Conservative leader. Unless you're arguing that Cameron drove him to the bottle?
It can be easy enough to get out of a death spiral if your enemies cock up and you start doing the right thing.
Local elections may matter to the Lib Dems, but they are lousy predictors for national elections, which, read my piece, are what matter in Britain.
David Cameron may have been a good campaigner, but that doesn't matter if it isn't reflected in general election results, which it wasn't in 2010. Campaigns generally aren't nearly as important as activists like to think (2017 being the exception).
And the number of seats gained is meaningless, as elections five years ago don't affect the next election - I wrote a thread which proved that statistically. Unless you can disprove my conclusions, I'm afraid the graph is meaningless.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
I think the Greens will increasingly become the third party, or the main party for those disaffected by the Singaporean tory party.
Although they occasionally come out with loopy ideas they're largely untainted. Unlike the LibDems who betrayed students.
The latter is important to mention. An entire generation will never vote LibDem after what Clegg did to them over student fees.
Never is a long time... Correct though to highlight the great Clegg betrayal. Even as his team and all the candidates and activists toured the country posing with their tuition fees pledge Clegg has already decided it was unaffordable and would be h=the first thing to go in negotiations.
It was such an obvious mistake, and one that was obvious to me at the time. I shouted up the party hierarchy once it became public, but of course by then it was too late even if anyone was listening, which they weren’t. Clegg didn’t spot that Cammo had almost entirely protected pensioners, including the wealthy ones, from the effects of austerity, at far greater long term cost.
Often forgotten is that one of the LibDem slogans for fighting the 2010 GE was “no more broken promises”.
It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it. The LDs made their tuition fees pledge the centrepiece of their manifesto, and they spent the year before the election visiting every university town in the country signing pledges not to raise tuition fees. It really wouldn’t have been difficult for them to have agreed to vote against it in the negotiations, but instead it was their own minister who introduced the bill in the first place!
That is an important point about the coalition negotiations, which is where tuition fee rises should have died. It was reported that Conservative negotiators knew the LibDem manifesto better than the LibDem negotiators.
Nick Clegg made the whole thing worse. Rather than apologising, he told LibDem voters in more-or-less as many words that they were damn fools for trusting him in the first place because any and all LibDem pledges were liable to be negotiated away.
Mr. Pete, I agree with that assessment, although a large part of the Lib Dems' subsequent decline was down to their own behaviour.
You can't claim credit when you're busy portraying yourselves as the brake on the evil Conservatives' hellish steam engine.
Edited extra bit: it's a shame, because I think the Coalition was probably the best government we've had for a long time. Cameron and Clegg worked well together, as did Osborne and Alexander.
Edited extra bit 2: got to be off. The galaxy isn't going to conquer itself.
The dangerous thing that may well come out of this pandemic is the conclusion that potential new virus's should result in an automatic rush for worst case scenarios and on the hoof measures and extreme economic and public health measures put in place commensurate with that.
The priority should be investing heavily in early warning systems and an infrastructure that manages to narrow risk scenarios as potential threats are identified as soon as possible - but we shouldn't need to be in a position where we are spending money on the basis that a once in a hundred years scenario will happen every other year.
The danger that could arise is that people could lose sight of the reality that new virus's can come in many forms - many won't even get off the ground and reach epidemic status, let alone pandemic - and also at various levels of danger to public health. Because people are now becoming obsessed by the potential for (implicitly dangerous) "virus mutations" even the most mild of virus may in future be treated with extreme.
When investigating the Government approach to Covid and learning lessons for the future, it would be well to consider how having learned those lessons they would be applied in practice to, say, the 2010 Swine flu pandemic.
At risk of channelling my inner Dominic Cummings, we also need to be able easily to commission urgent research in order to fill knowledge gaps. To take just one example, very early we did not know how the virus spreads: droplets or aerosols?
On the basis of official government guidance and anti virus measures still in place, many would conclude that we still don't...
Still arguing about social distancing which many have suggested is not huge relevant...
Too right. If you are in an enclosed space it isn't the distance it is the airflow that matters. There was data from virus spread in offices and aircraft way back in the early days of the pandemic but for some reason those in charge didn't pay attention to it.
I passed a favourite pub of mine a couple of nights ago (recently opened on May 17th). Not one damn window open in the whole place - all steamed up to the top.
The solitary door open, producing no ventilation/flow/replacement of air at all.
David Cameron was almost ideally suited to attracting soft Lib Dems to the Conservatives.
It's why Boris could not have done what Cameron did in 2010 and 2015, while Cameron could not have done what Boris did in 2019.
I like that parties which are distinct don't merge, as they shouldn't pretend to be something they are not for fake unity, it doesnt help. But it is frustrating for them. But as noted unless Labour take yet further hits they've no incentive to work with the others and changing system.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
Unusually early and off topic, the Sunday Rawnsley:
There is still an internationalist-minded cohort of Tory MPs who don’t like what these [aid] cuts say about the values of their party and who will rebel if they get the opportunity. In a recent Commons debate, the Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell invited the chancellor to think about the “very savage” damage being done to both “the poorest people in the world” and “Britain’s reputation”.
It would take 44 Conservative MPs combining with the opposition parties to defeat the government. Remarks one of the Tory dissenters: “We’ve probably got that number and the government knows we’ve probably got that number, which is why they are running shy of a vote.”
Ministers are swerving a reckoning in parliament by arguing that they are not changing the target, but choosing to miss it for an unspecified amount of time, a shameless exercise in semantics. The case that the government is behaving unlawfully could be taken to court, but it would likely take at least a year to secure a verdict. The Tory rebels are hoping to find a piece of legislation to which they can attach an amendment designed to force a government retreat. “We are lying in wait for an amendment,” says one of them.
Cutting aid is one thing. Cutting aid while complaining about China buying influence is another. It is the same in decades gone by as cutting the BBC World Service. If soft power is a game that government wants to play then it needs to will the means as well as the end. If it saves any lives, that's a bonus.
I'm completely unconvinced by the argument that development aid buys soft power. People who put it forward never produce any evidence. And, anyway, we need goodwill in Washington, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo - not Kathmandu, Bangui or Ouagadougou.
I agree with the first half. Aid is right for doing right (if targeted properly), the tangible rewards a bonus if they come.
The Lib Dems held steady in terms of councillors when Cameron was elected - between 2006 and 2010, Conservative gains came from Labour. They only started to collapse after they entered government in 2010.
Second, as the article notes, the Lib Dems haven't really recovered since Cameron left. If he were the explanation, you'd expect some uptick in 2016 or 2017. TMay was very different from David Cameron, but they failed to make any headway against her.
Third, it is national elections that count, not local ones, in this country, and the Lib Dem performance in 2010 was the same as in 2005 - why would that be if Cameron were so toxic to the Lib Dems?
Fourth, all the evidence shows that Cameron was a poor performer electorally. He couldn't win a majority against Gordon Brown after the latter had completely screwed up the UK economy and was for a while the least popular PM in history.
David Cameron didn't slay the Lib Dems, or even damage them much. It was their own behaviour in the 2010-5 government that has doomed them to insignificance.
You need to learn nuance and also remember what I and others have told you in the past.
First of all the 2006-2010 period talks about how the Lib Dems were spooked by Cameron.
Within a month of Cameron becoming leader Charles Kennedy was forced out as Liberal Democrat leader, before Cameron reached his second anniversary as Conservative leader he was facing his third permanent leader of the Liberal Democrats. I think the Liberal Democrats realised Cameron was the sort of leader that would bring back Con to Lib Dem switchers.
That's at UKIP level of changing leaders, it was no coincidence that the Lib Dems eventually chose someone who looked and sounded like David Cameron.
Secondly, once you're in a death spiral, it is very hard to get out of, something I noted at the bottom of the piece.
Third, read again, local elections matter to the Lib Dems, see the opening paragraph and the bits about the tithe the Lib Dems apply, losing their council base was very bad for them.
Fourth, as many others have pointed out to you David Cameron was a very good campaigner, some people forget just where the Tory Party was when he became leader, sub 200 seats.
As this chart shows, only of three LOTOs to make a net gain of over 100 seats since the war, one of whom was Cameron, in fact he's the only Tory to do so.
Plus in 2010 the electoral geography was against the Tories, in 2005 Labour won a majority with a lead of 2.8% in the popular vote, in 2010 a Tory lead of 7% didn't lead to a majority, whereas a Labour lead of that size would have been a Labour majority of over 100.
Still completely unconvincing or wrong I'm afraid.
Kennedy was forced out because of his alcoholism, not because David Cameron became Conservative leader. Unless you're arguing that Cameron drove him to the bottle?
It can be easy enough to get out of a death spiral if your enemies cock up and you start doing the right thing.
Local elections may matter to the Lib Dems, but they are lousy predictors for national elections, which, read my piece, are what matter in Britain.
David Cameron may have been a good campaigner, but that doesn't matter if it isn't reflected in general election results, which it wasn't in 2010. Campaigns generally aren't nearly as important as activists like to think (2017 being the exception).
Read the reports of the time and the biographies of the main players in the Lib Dems. Cameron becoming leader was the catalyst for Kennedy's departure.
Six months earlier Kennedy had led the Lib Dems to the best performance for the third party in a generation (not a Scottish one), they were fine with his alcoholism then, which was well known then.
Then David Cameron arrived on the scene, the Lib Dems realised this was a guy unlike Hague, Howard, or IDS and within hours of Cameron becoming leader briefings started emerging against Kennedy.
Charles Kennedy has denied the election of David Cameron as Conservative leader could threaten his position. The Lib Dem leader dismissed claims a resurgent Conservative Party would raise doubts about his claim to be the real alternative to Labour.
Critics say the new Tory leader could steal Mr Kennedy's clothes with his image as a young family man.
Mr Kennedy said his party won a million more votes at the general election and has its most MPs for 80 years.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Dominic Cummings has launched an extraordinary new attempt to destroy the government’s credibility over Covid-19, claiming that ministers had backed a policy of “herd immunity” then lied about having done so.
In an astonishing series of tweets on Saturday just days before he is due to appear before a Commons inquiry, the prime minister’s former adviser in effect accused the health secretary, Matt Hancock, of lying about the “herd immunity” plan and talking “bullshit” when he denied it to the media.
Cummings also claimed that if “competent” people had been in charge of Covid strategy in its early stages, then it may have been possible to avoid the first lockdown, and certainly the second and third would not have been needed.
The first bit we already know from public interviews at the time. For at least 2 days, maybe 3 or 4 I can't remember exactly, herd immunity was clearly the plan. I don't actually mind the govt lying about that too much, it was a white lie to move on and get the country behind the new plan.
The second bit, well wasn't Cummings as the link between SAGE and the cabinet/PM one of the people in charge. If he failed to convince from that role perhaps he should consider how competent he really is himself.
Did we make mistakes? Yes Was the PM suited to this type of crisis? No Could we really have avoided any lockdown? Only with extreme good luck
Once we decided not to quarantine arrivals from Italy, in the same way we had quarantined arrivals from China, it was pretty much inevitable we would end up where we did in the first phase.
It's amazing that such a self-proclaimed expert on Covid, how it spread, and the right way to combat it, managed to contract Covid himself.
Re: Italy - i distinctly recall "no10 briefings" (AKA Cummings) to newspapers in early/mid March 2020 arguing that Italy had it bad for all sorts of reasons that simply didn't apply to the UK.
Cummings is convinced of his own brilliance and that nearly everyone else is a dipstick. Hence his Tech-bros vision of government, run from his control centre, like a Bond film villain lair.
The reality was somewhat different, though he does have a Mandelson (1997) brilliance at pithy slogans, albeit ones that do not merit close inspection.
To fishing on 2010 and 2015, yes the coalition is the big thing, but you need push and pull factors. LD voters faced that push, but without a pull factor people hold their nose and the effect is mitigated. Enough in LD/CON areas did not mind if Cameron ended up the winner and so he benefited. He wasnt the main factor, but was necessary.
Contrast 2019 where the Tories won big because they got in new votes, Corbyn did terribly, and they didn't lose as many of their remainy voters as they could have - there was not enough pull for them, despite the big push element, because of other factors.
Very good piece. The good news for the Lib Dem’s is that they still have pockets of strength. The bad news, I think, is that the gap in the market is for a Cameron/Clegg/Osborne/Alexander type party. I’m not sure that the membership would support a party built around sound public finances.
It would help if they could put a £ on legalisation of drugs. It should raise tax revenue, and it should decrease costs for legal issues, prisons etc. Will increase costs on NHS, but hopefully quality control might reduce strengths etc.
I am in favour of taxing it but not sure the money raised directly is the big deal. Back of the envelope time.
About 2.5m cannabis users spending about £500 per year spend £1.25bn. Govt take half in tax raises just over £600m Add in other drugs, which would be more controversial perhaps up to £1bn govt revenue.
A quick google says Holland brings in e400-600m from drugs tax so I am probably too low, if in the right order of magnitude although there is obviously a lot of drugs tourism to Amsterdam. Perhaps £2bn for the UK.
The impact in improved efficiency on policing and the justice system should be worth several times the tax revenue, as well as improving people's lives by reducing crime.
Don't forget revenue from the growing side, which I think is not legal in the Netherlands.
Canada is the test for that.
The value, both in monetary and social terms, is in removing the criminal element from the supply. Probably 75% of major crime in this country is related to the drugs trade. Whether it is smackheads burgling or robbing shops to pay or kids being lured to join gangs as street dealers. It will also massively ease the pressure on the prison service.
Are you suggesting legalising smack too then?
Personally, I would go the Portugal route of decriminalisation and investment in rehab.
I don't think I could vote for a party that wants the government to become a drug dealership.
David Cameron was almost ideally suited to attracting soft Lib Dems to the Conservatives.
It's why Boris could not have done what Cameron did in 2010 and 2015, while Cameron could not have done what Boris did in 2019.
I like that parties which are distinct don't merge, as they shouldn't pretend to be something they are not for fake unity, it doesnt help. But it is frustrating for them. But as noted unless Labour take yet further hits they've no incentive to work with the others and changing system.
Parties and people evolve.
Amuses me that in a decade Theresa May and David Cameron went from supporting Section 28 to introducing same sex marriage.
The LDs suffered in 2015,2017 and 2019 because they were in coalition with the Conservatives between 2010 and 2015.
One of their predecessors the Liberal Party also suffered in the 1979 General Election because they had a pact with the Labour government, although this was a bit short of a full coalition.
It seems that people say that the Tories have been in since 2010 without mentioning the fact that there was a coalition and also that the Labour party were in power during the disastrous Winter of Discontent without mentioning that Liberals propped them up.
But when it comes to the next General Election, the voters don't forget that they were the people who kept their main political enemies in power and so they are less likely to vote tactically.
The LDs as well as Labour should have accepted the Brexit referendum result even if their senior members didn't like it, there will be many people who previously voted for them who also voted leave and were disgusted by their behaviour in the 2017-2019 Parliament.
I think that's correct. Being a junior partner in a coalition is nearly always harmful at the next election - people either like the Government and vote for the senior partner, or they don't and vote for the opposition. I don't really think the fact that it was Cameron made much difference.
Does that mean that people react against them when they take power locally? Not necessarily, because despite the "all politics is local" mantra, most people don't notice anything the councils do most of the time. But if the national leadership is discredited, of course that affects the local level too.
The problem may be a few true anecdotes of an idea contemplated in a crisis momentarily or that showed up on an options paper may not be as dramatic as he presents in as colourful and headline grabbing way as possible.
It'll be interesting what he has, but a problem he has always seemed to have is thinking he is more important than he is and therefore that everyone's mind should always be blown by whatever he is saying at any given moment.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Indeed. It was delicious to see the reversal occur in such a short space of time, as Sir Keir went from doing his pompous QC routine on the wallpaper at PMQs as if he were trying a capital crime to watching his seats lost to the Conservatives and his leadership implode a mere ten days later, then falling to 18 points behind in the polls now.
It looks like voters don't care about small-minded, petty nonsense after all. As some of us may have pointed out in advance
Unusually early and off topic, the Sunday Rawnsley:
There is still an internationalist-minded cohort of Tory MPs who don’t like what these [aid] cuts say about the values of their party and who will rebel if they get the opportunity. In a recent Commons debate, the Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell invited the chancellor to think about the “very savage” damage being done to both “the poorest people in the world” and “Britain’s reputation”.
It would take 44 Conservative MPs combining with the opposition parties to defeat the government. Remarks one of the Tory dissenters: “We’ve probably got that number and the government knows we’ve probably got that number, which is why they are running shy of a vote.”
Ministers are swerving a reckoning in parliament by arguing that they are not changing the target, but choosing to miss it for an unspecified amount of time, a shameless exercise in semantics. The case that the government is behaving unlawfully could be taken to court, but it would likely take at least a year to secure a verdict. The Tory rebels are hoping to find a piece of legislation to which they can attach an amendment designed to force a government retreat. “We are lying in wait for an amendment,” says one of them.
Cutting aid is one thing. Cutting aid while complaining about China buying influence is another. It is the same in decades gone by as cutting the BBC World Service. If soft power is a game that government wants to play then it needs to will the means as well as the end. If it saves any lives, that's a bonus.
I'm completely unconvinced by the argument that development aid buys soft power. People who put it forward never produce any evidence. And, anyway, we need goodwill in Washington, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo - not Kathmandu, Bangui or Ouagadougou.
I agree with the first half. Aid is right for doing right (if targeted properly), the tangible rewards a bonus if they come.
People can do the right things themselves if they want to, by giving to charity. There is no need for the government to do so on their behalf.
Priti Patel tells #Marr the reputation of the BBC has been damaged. Says we are in “multi-media age” now, says this is the “Netflix generation”. “How relevant is the BBC?” she asks. https://twitter.com/SophiaSleigh/status/1396385830680281089
Interesting to see the fallout from the live streaming of the #Glastonbury event last night. People complain about the license fee but the BBC coverage of Glastonbury is always amazing. https://twitter.com/sallybogg/status/1396382996568084482
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
The LDs suffered in 2015,2017 and 2019 because they were in coalition with the Conservatives between 2010 and 2015.
One of their predecessors the Liberal Party also suffered in the 1979 General Election because they had a pact with the Labour government, although this was a bit short of a full coalition.
It seems that people say that the Tories have been in since 2010 without mentioning the fact that there was a coalition and also that the Labour party were in power during the disastrous Winter of Discontent without mentioning that Liberals propped them up.
But when it comes to the next General Election, the voters don't forget that they were the people who kept their main political enemies in power and so they are less likely to vote tactically.
The LDs as well as Labour should have accepted the Brexit referendum result even if their senior members didn't like it, there will be many people who previously voted for them who also voted leave and were disgusted by their behaviour in the 2017-2019 Parliament.
If the LDs had joined with Gordon Brown post 2010 instead (not that that would have worked) they'd have been heavily punished when that Government lost in an early GE to the Conservatives 6-18 months later.
They could have sat it out, and propped up neither Brown nor Cameron, but then what would be the point of them? They might also have been eventually punished for their only interest being naked self-preservation as well.
The coalition represented the Lib Dems best chance to get things done and make a difference in nearly 100 years, so they took it.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
Unusually early and off topic, the Sunday Rawnsley:
There is still an internationalist-minded cohort of Tory MPs who don’t like what these [aid] cuts say about the values of their party and who will rebel if they get the opportunity. In a recent Commons debate, the Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell invited the chancellor to think about the “very savage” damage being done to both “the poorest people in the world” and “Britain’s reputation”.
It would take 44 Conservative MPs combining with the opposition parties to defeat the government. Remarks one of the Tory dissenters: “We’ve probably got that number and the government knows we’ve probably got that number, which is why they are running shy of a vote.”
Ministers are swerving a reckoning in parliament by arguing that they are not changing the target, but choosing to miss it for an unspecified amount of time, a shameless exercise in semantics. The case that the government is behaving unlawfully could be taken to court, but it would likely take at least a year to secure a verdict. The Tory rebels are hoping to find a piece of legislation to which they can attach an amendment designed to force a government retreat. “We are lying in wait for an amendment,” says one of them.
Cutting aid is one thing. Cutting aid while complaining about China buying influence is another. It is the same in decades gone by as cutting the BBC World Service. If soft power is a game that government wants to play then it needs to will the means as well as the end. If it saves any lives, that's a bonus.
I'm completely unconvinced by the argument that development aid buys soft power. People who put it forward never produce any evidence. And, anyway, we need goodwill in Washington, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo - not Kathmandu, Bangui or Ouagadougou.
I agree with the first half. Aid is right for doing right (if targeted properly), the tangible rewards a bonus if they come.
People can do the right things themselves if they want to, by giving to charity. There is no need for the government to do so on their behalf.
I dont see the harm in the government doing so on our behalf - if its properly targeted, which it often isnt, it would probably be more effective than the public doing it. Nations have always tried to get money out of each other, politics plays a part in that, and while direct soft power influence from it I think is a fantasy, improvements elsewhere, which the public are not likely to fund themselves, still seems a net gain to humanity and the thus the UK to me.
Not sure how much it is to do with Cameron, equally important factors are a couple of poor leaders in Farron and Swinson followed by the current anonymous one and their failure to stand up for and explain coalition government.
As a floating voter it is extremely off putting when party members say the reason for the party is an ideas farm for Labour and the Tories to copy rather than an aspiration for power, even shared power.
Sorry, Mr Above. I have not come across a single Lib Dem member who has said "the reason for the party is an ideas farm for Labour and the Tories to copy". Not one.
The people who say that are usually Conservatives.
To fishing on 2010 and 2015, yes the coalition is the big thing, but you need push and pull factors. LD voters faced that push, but without a pull factor people hold their nose and the effect is mitigated. Enough in LD/CON areas did not mind if Cameron ended up the winner and so he benefited. He wasnt the main factor, but was necessary.
That may be true to some extent, but I think Cameron was very small as a pull factor, as is shown by the LDs' robustness in local elections in 2006-10. And, by betraying Conservative principles, he is likely to have encouraged many Conservatives to stay at home, so his effect may have been neutral overall, or even negative. Of course, we'll never know without the counterfactual. But my guess is that Labour lost in 2010, Cameron didn't win (as tends to happen), and that it wasn't Cameron that slayed the LDs, but their own poor performance in government.
The LDs suffered in 2015,2017 and 2019 because they were in coalition with the Conservatives between 2010 and 2015.
One of their predecessors the Liberal Party also suffered in the 1979 General Election because they had a pact with the Labour government, although this was a bit short of a full coalition.
It seems that people say that the Tories have been in since 2010 without mentioning the fact that there was a coalition and also that the Labour party were in power during the disastrous Winter of Discontent without mentioning that Liberals propped them up.
But when it comes to the next General Election, the voters don't forget that they were the people who kept their main political enemies in power and so they are less likely to vote tactically.
The LDs as well as Labour should have accepted the Brexit referendum result even if their senior members didn't like it, there will be many people who previously voted for them who also voted leave and were disgusted by their behaviour in the 2017-2019 Parliament.
If the LDs had joined with Gordon Brown post 2010 instead (not that that would have worked) they'd have been heavily punished when that Government lost in an early GE to the Conservatives 6-18 months later.
They could have sat it out, and propped up neither Brown nor Cameron, but then what would be the point of them? They might also have been eventually punished for their only interest being naked self-preservation as well.
The coalition represented the Lib Dems best chance to get things done and make a difference in nearly 100 years, so they took it.
They were right to do so.
They were. Half their voters immediately abandoned them, before seeing it was going to be worth it, and their own actions then upset yet more, but it was the brave and correct choice at the time, even if they could have gotten more out of the agreement.
I think it's a damn shame the public so punished them that parties here will never want to be in coalition again, when being in power and getting some of what you want is a good thing.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
I did not forget anything. You said the wallpaper cost 200k.....
Remember to include the cost of rehanging it when it fell off
The issue isn't really whether the redecoration cost £30,001 or £200,000. The bone of contention is could Johnson afford to pay for it. Who paid for the excess (that Johnson couldn't afford) to the £30,000 allowance and why?
I am not sure why we are back on with the wallpaper. I was quite liking the forensic post-mortem on the exhumed remains of the LDs.
Cameron only slayed the Liberal Democrats as the chart shows by leading a liberal government that included the Liberal Democrats anyway. During the Coalition years centre right liberals could happily vote Tory as leftwing liberals went to Labour leaving the LDs squeezed despite being in government and losing lots of councillors throughout those Coalition years.
Yet ironically by winning a majority in 2015 so he no longer needed the LDs and by taking so many West country LD seats in particular Cameron sowed the seeds of his own demise, the Tory majority meant an EU referendum had to be held that he lost and just over a year after his re election he had to resign.
Ironically while Brexit then destroyed Cameron it ironically has somewhat revived the LDs, as the chart also shows since the Brexit vote, apart from the county elections in 2017, the LDs have made a net gain in councillors every year since, in 2018, 2019 and indeed this year. As the local elections a few weeks ago showed the LDs made significant gains in Tory southern Remain areas from Oxfordshire to Surrey and Tunbridge Wells and they will hope to build on those gains to challenge for Tory Remain seats at the next general election (they already have made a few gains from their 2015 nadir in such seats already in 2017 and 2019 eg Twickenham, Richmond Park, Bath and St Albans and Oxford West and Abingdon again gaining a boost from being able to oppose Brexit).
We'd all be a load less shocked or bothered by this if we accepted that the country has, Outlander-style, gone through some stones to an earlier time in our history, namely, the 18th century when this sort of grift, favours, politics as personal relationships and weird out-of-control advisors were normal and accepted.
Personally, I'm hoping for a fit, sexy and red-haired Laird to whisk me off to **** ** *********, ********* *** *********** ** the heather.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
Wallpaper-gate ... It is just bemusing that you are so interested in it.
After all ... Llafur spent £ 52 m on an airport which is virtually worthless. Dodgy Dave would have made £ 21 m on Greensill share options (lovely paean in the header, BTW). That is corruption. And we are talking about wallpaper and Theresa May's curtains !
Are you the kind of person who asks the window-cleaner for a receipt? Or sits in the forecourt of a Motorway Service station on a folding fishing chair with your own Thermoses, cheese sandwich and digestives.?
Wallpaper-gate seems to betray a complete lack of perspective on the part of its small but very dedicated band of followers.
Sure, let's make sure public money is spent wisely, and let's start with some huge-ticket items.
Of course herd immunity was the plan, why the fuck was literally ever upilitocal hack going "herd immunity is the best plan ever, only an idiot would lockdown, 60% to get covid by then end of autumn is definetly the smart thing to do you plebs".
We had threads upon threads discussing it here before the handbrake abrupt about turn and the columnists sudden memory holing.
The are really only two endpoints to a pandemic, either suppression/elimination, or herd immunity. You either stop the virus spreading or eventually most people are going to be infected. We are pursuing herd immunity now, but through vaccination rather than due to infection, as suppression/elimination appears to be almost impossible.
The trouble with the term "herd immunity" is that in encompasses a very wide range of scenarios. If transmission is slow then a health care system might be able to cope with the severe cases of the disease, on the other hand if transmission is swift then even the best health care systems could be overwhelmed by the number of cases. If the severity of the disease is low then even with a large number of cases the pressure on the health care system and the cost in terms of harm and death might be bearable, on the other hand if the severity is high then even a low case rate might come with a high cost in terms of harm. Herd immunity through natural infections might well be an appropriate way of dealing with a disease if tranmissibility and severity are relatively low.
In the case of COVID-19 the transmissiblity and severity are both relatively high, compared to other common diseases. Once we realised quite how high, from Italian data, and those parameters were used in the modelling by Imperial College we saw that herd immunity through natural infection would come at a very high cost, the NHS would be overwhelmed within weeks and a death toll of 500,000 was plausible. That put an end to allowing herd immunity to develop through infection, even with shielding of the most vulnerable people the cost would have been huge.
I don't see any plausible scenario where the UK could have avoided lockdown, given what we know about COVID-19 if we didn't have vaccines or treatments only NPIs are left and lockdown does work. Anyone suggesting there was a way of avoiding lockdown is going to have to produce some very convincing evidence.
Not sure how much it is to do with Cameron, equally important factors are a couple of poor leaders in Farron and Swinson followed by the current anonymous one and their failure to stand up for and explain coalition government.
As a floating voter it is extremely off putting when party members say the reason for the party is an ideas farm for Labour and the Tories to copy rather than an aspiration for power, even shared power.
Sorry, Mr Above. I have not come across a single Lib Dem member who has said "the reason for the party is an ideas farm for Labour and the Tories to copy". Not one.
The people who say that are usually Conservatives.
I have asked on here several times this year what is the point of the LDs at the national level and that is the most coherent answer that comes back at me.
I am your target audience, I have voted Tory, Labour, Green and LDs but most often Lib Dem. I really dislike this government but can find no enthusiasm for the current Lib Dems.
Unusually early and off topic, the Sunday Rawnsley:
There is still an internationalist-minded cohort of Tory MPs who don’t like what these [aid] cuts say about the values of their party and who will rebel if they get the opportunity. In a recent Commons debate, the Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell invited the chancellor to think about the “very savage” damage being done to both “the poorest people in the world” and “Britain’s reputation”.
It would take 44 Conservative MPs combining with the opposition parties to defeat the government. Remarks one of the Tory dissenters: “We’ve probably got that number and the government knows we’ve probably got that number, which is why they are running shy of a vote.”
Ministers are swerving a reckoning in parliament by arguing that they are not changing the target, but choosing to miss it for an unspecified amount of time, a shameless exercise in semantics. The case that the government is behaving unlawfully could be taken to court, but it would likely take at least a year to secure a verdict. The Tory rebels are hoping to find a piece of legislation to which they can attach an amendment designed to force a government retreat. “We are lying in wait for an amendment,” says one of them.
Cutting aid is one thing. Cutting aid while complaining about China buying influence is another. It is the same in decades gone by as cutting the BBC World Service. If soft power is a game that government wants to play then it needs to will the means as well as the end. If it saves any lives, that's a bonus.
I'm completely unconvinced by the argument that development aid buys soft power. People who put it forward never produce any evidence. And, anyway, we need goodwill in Washington, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo - not Kathmandu, Bangui or Ouagadougou.
I agree with the first half. Aid is right for doing right (if targeted properly), the tangible rewards a bonus if they come.
People can do the right things themselves if they want to, by giving to charity. There is no need for the government to do so on their behalf.
I dont see the harm in the government doing so on our behalf - if its properly targeted, which it often isnt, it would probably be more effective than the public doing it. Nations have always tried to get money out of each other, politics plays a part in that, and while direct soft power influence from it I think is a fantasy, improvements elsewhere, which the public are not likely to fund themselves, still seems a net gain to humanity and the thus the UK to me.
I have no idea what we actually spend the International Development budget on, but the benefits should be tangible and should be more than just about buying influence popularity. Part of the problem, it seems to me, it the focus on the term "foreign aid", when the real gains to be had are through development.
The primary purpose of International development funding should not be to mitigate poverty, but to alleviate it - to invest in the things that allow that to happen (fundamentally the old building blocks of education, support for democratic institutions and the rule of law.
But the second of these in particular needs to be done very carefully - the test for a democratic institution (IMO) should be both whether it can endure, and that it is likely to operate in a way that focusses on all the endemic problems faced by a country's population. Too often it is just assumed that all that is needed is to give everyone a vote. Whereas actually what is needed is to focus, not on who gets to vote, but what the impact is likely to be on the representatives elected. If those voting and those elected have a stake in delivering a stable and prosperous society, then the needs of the poor will be better taken care of (even if they don't have a direct vote).
Simply giving everyone a vote is no good if not supported by an educated population and a mass of people easily manipulated by demagogues and autocrats. Basically no good giving the poor and dispossessed a vote if they will repeatedly vote against their own interests.
Anyway, after that slight digression, the payback to investing in development is that the problems of the third world don't end up on our own doorstep.
Of course herd immunity was the plan, why the fuck was literally ever upilitocal hack going "herd immunity is the best plan ever, only an idiot would lockdown, 60% to get covid by then end of autumn is definetly the smart thing to do you plebs".
We had threads upon threads discussing it here before the handbrake abrupt about turn and the columnists sudden memory holing.
The are really only two endpoints to a pandemic, either suppression/elimination, or herd immunity. You either stop the virus spreading or eventually most people are going to be infected. We are pursuing herd immunity now, but through vaccination rather than due to infection, as suppression/elimination appears to be almost impossible.
The trouble with the term "herd immunity" is that in encompasses a very wide range of scenarios. If transmission is slow then a health care system might be able to cope with the severe cases of the disease, on the other hand if transmission is swift then even the best health care systems could be overwhelmed by the number of cases. If the severity of the disease is low then even with a large number of cases the pressure on the health care system and the cost in terms of harm and death might be bearable, on the other hand if the severity is high then even a low case rate might come with a high cost in terms of harm. Herd immunity through natural infections might well be an appropriate way of dealing with a disease if tranmissibility and severity are relatively low.
In the case of COVID-19 the transmissiblity and severity are both relatively high, compared to other common diseases. Once we realised quite how high, from Italian data, and those parameters were used in the modelling by Imperial College we saw that herd immunity through natural infection would come at a very high cost, the NHS would be overwhelmed within weeks and a death toll of 500,000 was plausible. That put an end to allowing herd immunity to develop through infection, even with shielding of the most vulnerable people the cost would have been huge.
I don't see any plausible scenario where the UK could have avoided lockdown, given what we know about COVID-19 if we didn't have vaccines or treatments only NPIs are left and lockdown does work. Anyone suggesting there was a way of avoiding lockdown is going to have to produce some very convincing evidence.
The way of avoiding lockdown would have been to seal the borders. However (unlike the Australians) we're not prepared to do that. Dr John Campbell suggests that stopping all international air travel for a period of a few weeks in January would have stopped it in its tracks.
Of course herd immunity was the plan, why the fuck was literally ever upilitocal hack going "herd immunity is the best plan ever, only an idiot would lockdown, 60% to get covid by then end of autumn is definetly the smart thing to do you plebs".
We had threads upon threads discussing it here before the handbrake abrupt about turn and the columnists sudden memory holing.
The are really only two endpoints to a pandemic, either suppression/elimination, or herd immunity. You either stop the virus spreading or eventually most people are going to be infected. We are pursuing herd immunity now, but through vaccination rather than due to infection, as suppression/elimination appears to be almost impossible.
The trouble with the term "herd immunity" is that in encompasses a very wide range of scenarios. If transmission is slow then a health care system might be able to cope with the severe cases of the disease, on the other hand if transmission is swift then even the best health care systems could be overwhelmed by the number of cases. If the severity of the disease is low then even with a large number of cases the pressure on the health care system and the cost in terms of harm and death might be bearable, on the other hand if the severity is high then even a low case rate might come with a high cost in terms of harm. Herd immunity through natural infections might well be an appropriate way of dealing with a disease if tranmissibility and severity are relatively low.
In the case of COVID-19 the transmissiblity and severity are both relatively high, compared to other common diseases. Once we realised quite how high, from Italian data, and those parameters were used in the modelling by Imperial College we saw that herd immunity through natural infection would come at a very high cost, the NHS would be overwhelmed within weeks and a death toll of 500,000 was plausible. That put an end to allowing herd immunity to develop through infection, even with shielding of the most vulnerable people the cost would have been huge.
I don't see any plausible scenario where the UK could have avoided lockdown, given what we know about COVID-19 if we didn't have vaccines or treatments only NPIs are left and lockdown does work. Anyone suggesting there was a way of avoiding lockdown is going to have to produce some very convincing evidence.
The way of avoiding lockdown would have been to seal the borders. However (unlike the Australians) we're not prepared to do that. Dr John Campbell suggests that stopping all international air travel for a period of a few weeks in January would have stopped it in its tracks.
This also ignores the facts that both Australia and New Zealand have had lockdowns.
Cameron only slayed the Liberal Democrats as the chart shows by leading a liberal government that included the Liberal Democrats anyway. During the Coalition years centre right liberals could happily vote Tory as leftwing liberals went to Labour leaving the LDs squeezed despite being in government and losing lots of councillors throughout those Coalition years.
Yet ironically by winning a majority in 2015 so he no longer needed the LDs and by taking so many West country LD seats in particular Cameron sowed the seeds of his own demise, the Tory majority meant an EU referendum had to be held that he lost and just over a year after his re election he had to resign.
Ironically while Brexit then destroyed Cameron it ironically has somewhat revived the LDs, as the chart also shows since the Brexit vote, apart from the county elections in 2017, the LDs have made a net gain in councillors every year since, in 2018, 2019 and indeed this year. As the local elections a few weeks ago showed the LDs made significant gains in Tory southern Remain areas from Oxfordshire to Surrey and Tunbridge Wells and they will hope to build on those gains to challenge for Tory Remain seats at the next general election (they already have made a few gains from their 2015 nadir in such seats already in 2017 and 2019 eg Twickenham, Richmond Park, Bath and St Albans and Oxford West and Abingdon again gaining a boost from being able to oppose Brexit).
yes, but the Greens are also now fishing very professionally in the same pond... along with Labour (and PC in Wales)
Remember to include the cost of rehanging it when it fell off
The issue isn't really whether the redecoration cost £30,001 or £200,000. The bone of contention is could Johnson afford to pay for it. Who paid for the excess (that Johnson couldn't afford) to the £30,000 allowance and why?
I am not sure why we are back on with the wallpaper. I was quite liking the forensic post-mortem on the exhumed remains of the LDs.
It demonstrates how far the left are from the real concerns of voters who told Labour exactly what they thought of them in the local elections and is further demonstrated by Labour being 18pts behind in the latest opinion poll.
Wallpapergate Curtainsgate.. let's not forget Angela Rayner who tried to attack Boris and was destroyed by Penny Mordaunt.
Have you looked to see how much Rayner has taken in donations in the last 12 months.. questions so many questions
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
Wallpaper-gate ... It is just bemusing that you are so interested in it.
After all ... Llafur spent £ 52 m on an airport which is virtually worthless. Dodgy Dave would have made £ 21 m on Greensill share options (lovely paean in the header, BTW). That is corruption. And we are talking about wallpaper and Theresa May's curtains !
Are you the kind of person who asks the window-cleaner for a receipt? Or sits in the forecourt of a Motorway Service station on a folding fishing chair with your own Thermoses, cheese sandwich and digestives.?
Wallpaper-gate seems to betray a complete lack of perspective on the part of its small but very dedicated band of followers.
Sure, let's make sure public money is spent wisely, and let's start with some huge-ticket items.
I don't dispute the airport was a waste of taxpayers money. Pies anyone?
£52m is a similar amount to the cost to the public purse of the garden bridge. And in fairness, although few planes might fly out of Rhoose, the airport does in fact exist.
This was the first on record reference to “herd immunity”, unprompted, by a Sage adviser, in an interview with the BBC, on March 11th 2020. Interesting context for @dominic2306 claims, denied by Govt, that the late push to lockdown last year reflected actual strategy: https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1238097745971421184
The LDs suffered in 2015,2017 and 2019 because they were in coalition with the Conservatives between 2010 and 2015.
One of their predecessors the Liberal Party also suffered in the 1979 General Election because they had a pact with the Labour government, although this was a bit short of a full coalition.
It seems that people say that the Tories have been in since 2010 without mentioning the fact that there was a coalition and also that the Labour party were in power during the disastrous Winter of Discontent without mentioning that Liberals propped them up.
But when it comes to the next General Election, the voters don't forget that they were the people who kept their main political enemies in power and so they are less likely to vote tactically.
The LDs as well as Labour should have accepted the Brexit referendum result even if their senior members didn't like it, there will be many people who previously voted for them who also voted leave and were disgusted by their behaviour in the 2017-2019 Parliament.
If the LDs had joined with Gordon Brown post 2010 instead (not that that would have worked) they'd have been heavily punished when that Government lost in an early GE to the Conservatives 6-18 months later.
They could have sat it out, and propped up neither Brown nor Cameron, but then what would be the point of them? They might also have been eventually punished for their only interest being naked self-preservation as well.
The coalition represented the Lib Dems best chance to get things done and make a difference in nearly 100 years, so they took it.
They were right to do so.
They were. Half their voters immediately abandoned them, before seeing it was going to be worth it, and their own actions then upset yet more, but it was the brave and correct choice at the time, even if they could have gotten more out of the agreement.
I think it's a damn shame the public so punished them that parties here will never want to be in coalition again, when being in power and getting some of what you want is a good thing.
I agree with you in principle (though I suppose there is a role for a permanent opposition party, which, a bit like the cynical but sometimes useful Private Eye, challenges whoever is in power). But if you're going to go into coalition, it's vital to have a key issue to put through that is popular with your voters and preferably disliked by your partner, so you can show that you have pushed it through at all costs. Clegg chose AV, as a step towards PR, and that didn't especially please anyone.
Say someone offered the LDs a new coalition. What would they want, other than PR? I genuinely have no idea. And PR, even though I favour it, is clearly a party priority rather than something that directly changes lives.
Of course herd immunity was the plan, why the fuck was literally ever upilitocal hack going "herd immunity is the best plan ever, only an idiot would lockdown, 60% to get covid by then end of autumn is definetly the smart thing to do you plebs".
We had threads upon threads discussing it here before the handbrake abrupt about turn and the columnists sudden memory holing.
The are really only two endpoints to a pandemic, either suppression/elimination, or herd immunity. You either stop the virus spreading or eventually most people are going to be infected. We are pursuing herd immunity now, but through vaccination rather than due to infection, as suppression/elimination appears to be almost impossible.
The trouble with the term "herd immunity" is that in encompasses a very wide range of scenarios. If transmission is slow then a health care system might be able to cope with the severe cases of the disease, on the other hand if transmission is swift then even the best health care systems could be overwhelmed by the number of cases. If the severity of the disease is low then even with a large number of cases the pressure on the health care system and the cost in terms of harm and death might be bearable, on the other hand if the severity is high then even a low case rate might come with a high cost in terms of harm. Herd immunity through natural infections might well be an appropriate way of dealing with a disease if tranmissibility and severity are relatively low.
In the case of COVID-19 the transmissiblity and severity are both relatively high, compared to other common diseases. Once we realised quite how high, from Italian data, and those parameters were used in the modelling by Imperial College we saw that herd immunity through natural infection would come at a very high cost, the NHS would be overwhelmed within weeks and a death toll of 500,000 was plausible. That put an end to allowing herd immunity to develop through infection, even with shielding of the most vulnerable people the cost would have been huge.
I don't see any plausible scenario where the UK could have avoided lockdown, given what we know about COVID-19 if we didn't have vaccines or treatments only NPIs are left and lockdown does work. Anyone suggesting there was a way of avoiding lockdown is going to have to produce some very convincing evidence.
The way of avoiding lockdown would have been to seal the borders. However (unlike the Australians) we're not prepared to do that. Dr John Campbell suggests that stopping all international air travel for a period of a few weeks in January would have stopped it in its tracks.
This also ignores the facts that both Australia and New Zealand have had lockdowns.
They closed the borders too late. By definition you need to do it before cases start popping up all over the world.
We'd all be a load less shocked or bothered by this if we accepted that the country has, Outlander-style, gone through some stones to an earlier time in our history, namely, the 18th century when this sort of grift, favours, politics as personal relationships and weird out-of-control advisors were normal and accepted.
Personally, I'm hoping for a fit, sexy and red-haired Laird to whisk me off to **** ** *********, ********* *** *********** ** the heather.
Oh and the Enlightenment would be nice too.
Big government means big corruption. It was as true in the 18th century as it is today. Starve the beast to keep it honest, or at least more so. And in particular, keep it from getting involved in industry.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
Wallpaper-gate ... It is just bemusing that you are so interested in it.
After all ... Llafur spent £ 52 m on an airport which is virtually worthless. Dodgy Dave would have made £ 21 m on Greensill share options (lovely paean in the header, BTW). That is corruption. And we are talking about wallpaper and Theresa May's curtains !
Are you the kind of person who asks the window-cleaner for a receipt? Or sits in the forecourt of a Motorway Service station on a folding fishing chair with your own Thermoses, cheese sandwich and digestives.?
Wallpaper-gate seems to betray a complete lack of perspective on the part of its small but very dedicated band of followers.
Sure, let's make sure public money is spent wisely, and let's start with some huge-ticket items.
Spectacularly missing the point. It is not how much was spent, but who spent it and why?
We know Russia (and other hostile states) corrupt Western politicians, would it be so far fetched to imagine that it comes from Russia? After all Boris and Dave played tennis doubles against one of Putins connections for £160k. The same lady also paid £135k to have dinner with May. She obviously has a thing for funding British PMs.
The problem with the "claims as criticism" about the idea that Govt/ministers(/scientists?) were in favour of herd immunity is that "herd immunity" is being (mis)used as a proxy for "willing to let 250,000 people die".
Whereas in reality it was the prospect of 250,000 people dying to prompted a rethink in Government strategy and a conclusion that a change of direction was needed. "Herd immunity" means no more and no less, than the protecting of the vulnerable through widespread immunity in the overall protection (whether acquired through prior infection or vaccination).
Saying that ministers "favoured herd immunity" has a pretty easy counter-argument. If it was favoured (under all scenarios), why wasn't it pursued? (not withstanding people arguing that it was never abandoned). And the answer, ultimately, is because the cost of pursuing it was considered too great compared to the costs of the alternatives.
Of course the damaging misrepresentation comes from the implication that the "costs" of the alternatives were all purely economic, whilst the costs of "herd immunity" were all to be measure in lives. The more legitimate potential criticism is that the change of course was done too slowly and cost lives. But we're talking days or weeks at most - a timescale for Govt decision making not often encountered (probably last time in fact was the financial crisis in 2008).
Cameron only slayed the Liberal Democrats as the chart shows by leading a liberal government that included the Liberal Democrats anyway. During the Coalition years centre right liberals could happily vote Tory as leftwing liberals went to Labour leaving the LDs squeezed despite being in government and losing lots of councillors throughout those Coalition years.
Yet ironically by winning a majority in 2015 so he no longer needed the LDs and by taking so many West country LD seats in particular Cameron sowed the seeds of his own demise, the Tory majority meant an EU referendum had to be held that he lost and just over a year after his re election he had to resign.
Ironically while Brexit then destroyed Cameron it ironically has somewhat revived the LDs, as the chart also shows since the Brexit vote, apart from the county elections in 2017, the LDs have made a net gain in councillors every year since, in 2018, 2019 and indeed this year. As the local elections a few weeks ago showed the LDs made significant gains in Tory southern Remain areas from Oxfordshire to Surrey and Tunbridge Wells and they will hope to build on those gains to challenge for Tory Remain seats at the next general election (they already have made a few gains from their 2015 nadir in such seats already in 2017 and 2019 eg Twickenham, Richmond Park, Bath and St Albans and Oxford West and Abingdon again gaining a boost from being able to oppose Brexit).
yes, but the Greens are also now fishing very professionally in the same pond... along with Labour (and PC in Wales)
Realistically though the Greens are not going to gain any parliamentary seats from the Tories even if they can win a handful of council seats, only the LDs and Labour can do that.
For example, the first Tory held seat on the Green target list is Isle of Wight which they would need a 20% seat to win.
If the LDs got a 20% swing from the Tories by contrast they would gain 84 Tory seats.
Of course herd immunity was the plan, why the fuck was literally ever upilitocal hack going "herd immunity is the best plan ever, only an idiot would lockdown, 60% to get covid by then end of autumn is definetly the smart thing to do you plebs".
We had threads upon threads discussing it here before the handbrake abrupt about turn and the columnists sudden memory holing.
The are really only two endpoints to a pandemic, either suppression/elimination, or herd immunity. You either stop the virus spreading or eventually most people are going to be infected. We are pursuing herd immunity now, but through vaccination rather than due to infection, as suppression/elimination appears to be almost impossible.
The trouble with the term "herd immunity" is that in encompasses a very wide range of scenarios. If transmission is slow then a health care system might be able to cope with the severe cases of the disease, on the other hand if transmission is swift then even the best health care systems could be overwhelmed by the number of cases. If the severity of the disease is low then even with a large number of cases the pressure on the health care system and the cost in terms of harm and death might be bearable, on the other hand if the severity is high then even a low case rate might come with a high cost in terms of harm. Herd immunity through natural infections might well be an appropriate way of dealing with a disease if tranmissibility and severity are relatively low.
In the case of COVID-19 the transmissiblity and severity are both relatively high, compared to other common diseases. Once we realised quite how high, from Italian data, and those parameters were used in the modelling by Imperial College we saw that herd immunity through natural infection would come at a very high cost, the NHS would be overwhelmed within weeks and a death toll of 500,000 was plausible. That put an end to allowing herd immunity to develop through infection, even with shielding of the most vulnerable people the cost would have been huge.
I don't see any plausible scenario where the UK could have avoided lockdown, given what we know about COVID-19 if we didn't have vaccines or treatments only NPIs are left and lockdown does work. Anyone suggesting there was a way of avoiding lockdown is going to have to produce some very convincing evidence.
The way of avoiding lockdown would have been to seal the borders. However (unlike the Australians) we're not prepared to do that. Dr John Campbell suggests that stopping all international air travel for a period of a few weeks in January would have stopped it in its tracks.
It would also have left literally millions of Brits trapped all over the world with little or no means to support themselves. It could never in reality have been a policy of first resort, however much it might theoretically have worked.
We'd all be a load less shocked or bothered by this if we accepted that the country has, Outlander-style, gone through some stones to an earlier time in our history, namely, the 18th century when this sort of grift, favours, politics as personal relationships and weird out-of-control advisors were normal and accepted.
Personally, I'm hoping for a fit, sexy and red-haired Laird to whisk me off to **** ** *********, ********* *** *********** ** the heather.
Oh and the Enlightenment would be nice too.
Big government means big corruption. It was as true in the 18th century as it is today. Starve the beast to keep it honest, or at least more so. And in particular, keep it from getting involved in industry.
There is a saying that when politicians get to decide what is bought and sold then the first thing to be bought will be the politicians.
Of course herd immunity was the plan, why the fuck was literally ever upilitocal hack going "herd immunity is the best plan ever, only an idiot would lockdown, 60% to get covid by then end of autumn is definetly the smart thing to do you plebs".
We had threads upon threads discussing it here before the handbrake abrupt about turn and the columnists sudden memory holing.
The are really only two endpoints to a pandemic, either suppression/elimination, or herd immunity. You either stop the virus spreading or eventually most people are going to be infected. We are pursuing herd immunity now, but through vaccination rather than due to infection, as suppression/elimination appears to be almost impossible.
The trouble with the term "herd immunity" is that in encompasses a very wide range of scenarios. If transmission is slow then a health care system might be able to cope with the severe cases of the disease, on the other hand if transmission is swift then even the best health care systems could be overwhelmed by the number of cases. If the severity of the disease is low then even with a large number of cases the pressure on the health care system and the cost in terms of harm and death might be bearable, on the other hand if the severity is high then even a low case rate might come with a high cost in terms of harm. Herd immunity through natural infections might well be an appropriate way of dealing with a disease if tranmissibility and severity are relatively low.
In the case of COVID-19 the transmissiblity and severity are both relatively high, compared to other common diseases. Once we realised quite how high, from Italian data, and those parameters were used in the modelling by Imperial College we saw that herd immunity through natural infection would come at a very high cost, the NHS would be overwhelmed within weeks and a death toll of 500,000 was plausible. That put an end to allowing herd immunity to develop through infection, even with shielding of the most vulnerable people the cost would have been huge.
I don't see any plausible scenario where the UK could have avoided lockdown, given what we know about COVID-19 if we didn't have vaccines or treatments only NPIs are left and lockdown does work. Anyone suggesting there was a way of avoiding lockdown is going to have to produce some very convincing evidence.
The way of avoiding lockdown would have been to seal the borders. However (unlike the Australians) we're not prepared to do that. Dr John Campbell suggests that stopping all international air travel for a period of a few weeks in January would have stopped it in its tracks.
This also ignores the facts that both Australia and New Zealand have had lockdowns.
They closed the borders too late. By definition you need to do it before cases start popping up all over the world.
So you would presumably also do it every time a disease like SARs, Ebola, Mers etc started? Once every few years close down the world economy? Or would we use a time machine or crystal ball to ensure we only did it when needed?
We'd all be a load less shocked or bothered by this if we accepted that the country has, Outlander-style, gone through some stones to an earlier time in our history, namely, the 18th century when this sort of grift, favours, politics as personal relationships and weird out-of-control advisors were normal and accepted.
Personally, I'm hoping for a fit, sexy and red-haired Laird to whisk me off to **** ** *********, ********* *** *********** ** the heather.
Oh and the Enlightenment would be nice too.
Heather is a bit scratchy. Hold out for a bed of sphagnum moss....
And she gave a professional response to Cummings herd immunity allegations with an extensive explanation of how it works, effectively confirming it can only be a success following a high level of successful vaccinations and it was not discussed at any meeting she attended
If anyone thinks Cummings has more creditability than Jenny Harries, then they are either naive or grasping at straws in a vain hope this will derail Boris
They closed the borders too late. By definition you need to do it before cases start popping up all over the world.
How does that work? If cases aren't "popping up all over the world" why would you even close the borders? It's no good closing them afterwards, but I don't think banning travel before it occurs is plausible either. In most cases that would be a severe overreaction, and there's no easy way of determing that "this time it makes sense".
Everything we know about the virus and disease we discover after it has happened. There's a new virus. Cases are rising rapidly. Disease is severe. The virus has spread to other countries. All of those things were found out weeks to months after they started. In a world where people can travel between any two points on the planet in 24 hours or so the idea that you can outrun the spread of the virus with border closures seems quite fanciful. Maybe if you live in a country that has little international travel it works, but in the UK and similar countries? It is not realistic.
Cameron only slayed the Liberal Democrats as the chart shows by leading a liberal government that included the Liberal Democrats anyway. During the Coalition years centre right liberals could happily vote Tory as leftwing liberals went to Labour leaving the LDs squeezed despite being in government and losing lots of councillors throughout those Coalition years.
Yet ironically by winning a majority in 2015 so he no longer needed the LDs and by taking so many West country LD seats in particular Cameron sowed the seeds of his own demise, the Tory majority meant an EU referendum had to be held that he lost and just over a year after his re election he had to resign.
Ironically while Brexit then destroyed Cameron it ironically has somewhat revived the LDs, as the chart also shows since the Brexit vote, apart from the county elections in 2017, the LDs have made a net gain in councillors every year since, in 2018, 2019 and indeed this year. As the local elections a few weeks ago showed the LDs made significant gains in Tory southern Remain areas from Oxfordshire to Surrey and Tunbridge Wells and they will hope to build on those gains to challenge for Tory Remain seats at the next general election (they already have made a few gains from their 2015 nadir in such seats already in 2017 and 2019 eg Twickenham, Richmond Park, Bath and St Albans and Oxford West and Abingdon again gaining a boost from being able to oppose Brexit).
yes, but the Greens are also now fishing very professionally in the same pond... along with Labour (and PC in Wales)
It might work for a few more years but as Brexit recedes further into the history books people will move on.
We'd all be a load less shocked or bothered by this if we accepted that the country has, Outlander-style, gone through some stones to an earlier time in our history, namely, the 18th century when this sort of grift, favours, politics as personal relationships and weird out-of-control advisors were normal and accepted.
Personally, I'm hoping for a fit, sexy and red-haired Laird to whisk me off to **** ** *********, ********* *** *********** ** the heather.
Oh and the Enlightenment would be nice too.
Heather is a bit scratchy. Hold out for a bed of sphagnum moss....
Remember to include the cost of rehanging it when it fell off
The issue isn't really whether the redecoration cost £30,001 or £200,000. The bone of contention is could Johnson afford to pay for it. Who paid for the excess (that Johnson couldn't afford) to the £30,000 allowance and why?
I am not sure why we are back on with the wallpaper. I was quite liking the forensic post-mortem on the exhumed remains of the LDs.
It demonstrates how far the left are from the real concerns of voters who told Labour exactly what they thought of them in the local elections and is further demonstrated by Labour being 18pts behind in the latest opinion poll.
Wallpapergate Curtainsgate.. let's not forget Angela Rayner who tried to attack Boris and was destroyed by Penny Mordaunt.
Have you looked to see how much Rayner has taken in donations in the last 12 months.. questions so many questions
Don't keep calling me the left, matey!
I don't like Angela Rayner, lock her up as far as I am concerned.
Why are we not allowed to question anyone in the Government who has a lingering bad smell about their person, be in Johnson's wallpaper, Jenrick's pornographer or Hancock's PPE procurement ruses? Why is it OK for my taxes to enrich these people?
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
Wallpaper-gate ... It is just bemusing that you are so interested in it.
After all ... Llafur spent £ 52 m on an airport which is virtually worthless. Dodgy Dave would have made £ 21 m on Greensill share options (lovely paean in the header, BTW). That is corruption. And we are talking about wallpaper and Theresa May's curtains !
Are you the kind of person who asks the window-cleaner for a receipt? Or sits in the forecourt of a Motorway Service station on a folding fishing chair with your own Thermoses, cheese sandwich and digestives.?
Wallpaper-gate seems to betray a complete lack of perspective on the part of its small but very dedicated band of followers.
Sure, let's make sure public money is spent wisely, and let's start with some huge-ticket items.
I don't dispute the airport was a waste of taxpayers money. Pies anyone?
£52m is a similar amount to the cost to the public purse of the garden bridge. And in fairness, although few planes might fly out of Rhoose, the airport does in fact exist.
It is true the Rhoose airport exists. That means it is continuing to cost public money. An additional £ 42 million loan was written off in Mar 2021. And more bills to come.
The Garden Bridge does not exist. Thankfully. Because that means it is not continuing to cost money.
I guess what surprises me is there is a huge example of corruption and mismanagement on your doorstep in Rhoose, but you seem completely uninterested in it, yet absolutely fascinated by the minutae of wall-paper in No 10. Still, each to their own.
In any case, the Daily Merkle has moved on from Wallpaper-gate, and we have now reached Takeway-gate. Rich donors are buying posh takeaway nosh for Boris and Carrie. Gasp-ee. Gosh-o.
What next?
Surely, Toilet paper-gate. Rich billionaires are buying ultra-soft gold-leaf toilet paper for the ample Johnson posterior.
Surely this nonsense is being leaked to the Mail by Johnson strategists.
It is at level of celebrity tittle-tattle. It is designed to leave us with the impression that Johnson is a celebrity, and should be judged not on his politics but on his ability to keep us entertained with his clownish antics.
Of course herd immunity was the plan, why the fuck was literally ever upilitocal hack going "herd immunity is the best plan ever, only an idiot would lockdown, 60% to get covid by then end of autumn is definetly the smart thing to do you plebs".
We had threads upon threads discussing it here before the handbrake abrupt about turn and the columnists sudden memory holing.
The are really only two endpoints to a pandemic, either suppression/elimination, or herd immunity. You either stop the virus spreading or eventually most people are going to be infected. We are pursuing herd immunity now, but through vaccination rather than due to infection, as suppression/elimination appears to be almost impossible.
The trouble with the term "herd immunity" is that in encompasses a very wide range of scenarios. If transmission is slow then a health care system might be able to cope with the severe cases of the disease, on the other hand if transmission is swift then even the best health care systems could be overwhelmed by the number of cases. If the severity of the disease is low then even with a large number of cases the pressure on the health care system and the cost in terms of harm and death might be bearable, on the other hand if the severity is high then even a low case rate might come with a high cost in terms of harm. Herd immunity through natural infections might well be an appropriate way of dealing with a disease if tranmissibility and severity are relatively low.
In the case of COVID-19 the transmissiblity and severity are both relatively high, compared to other common diseases. Once we realised quite how high, from Italian data, and those parameters were used in the modelling by Imperial College we saw that herd immunity through natural infection would come at a very high cost, the NHS would be overwhelmed within weeks and a death toll of 500,000 was plausible. That put an end to allowing herd immunity to develop through infection, even with shielding of the most vulnerable people the cost would have been huge.
I don't see any plausible scenario where the UK could have avoided lockdown, given what we know about COVID-19 if we didn't have vaccines or treatments only NPIs are left and lockdown does work. Anyone suggesting there was a way of avoiding lockdown is going to have to produce some very convincing evidence.
The way of avoiding lockdown would have been to seal the borders. However (unlike the Australians) we're not prepared to do that. Dr John Campbell suggests that stopping all international air travel for a period of a few weeks in January would have stopped it in its tracks.
This also ignores the facts that both Australia and New Zealand have had lockdowns.
They closed the borders too late. By definition you need to do it before cases start popping up all over the world.
So you would presumably also do it every time a disease like SARs, Ebola, Mers etc started? Once every few years close down the world economy? Or would we use a time machine or crystal ball to ensure we only did it when needed?
Or indeed Swine Flu which infected 1/3 of the planet (est.)
Cameron only slayed the Liberal Democrats as the chart shows by leading a liberal government that included the Liberal Democrats anyway. During the Coalition years centre right liberals could happily vote Tory as leftwing liberals went to Labour leaving the LDs squeezed despite being in government and losing lots of councillors throughout those Coalition years.
Yet ironically by winning a majority in 2015 so he no longer needed the LDs and by taking so many West country LD seats in particular Cameron sowed the seeds of his own demise, the Tory majority meant an EU referendum had to be held that he lost and just over a year after his re election he had to resign.
Ironically while Brexit then destroyed Cameron it ironically has somewhat revived the LDs, as the chart also shows since the Brexit vote, apart from the county elections in 2017, the LDs have made a net gain in councillors every year since, in 2018, 2019 and indeed this year. As the local elections a few weeks ago showed the LDs made significant gains in Tory southern Remain areas from Oxfordshire to Surrey and Tunbridge Wells and they will hope to build on those gains to challenge for Tory Remain seats at the next general election (they already have made a few gains from their 2015 nadir in such seats already in 2017 and 2019 eg Twickenham, Richmond Park, Bath and St Albans and Oxford West and Abingdon again gaining a boost from being able to oppose Brexit).
yes, but the Greens are also now fishing very professionally in the same pond... along with Labour (and PC in Wales)
It might work for a few more years but as Brexit recedes further into the history books people will move on.
If the economy is booming in 2024 yes, if not then there will be a market for closer alignment to the single market the LDs will provide (plus they will go on a Nimby anti new housing platform in the Home Counties)
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
Wallpaper-gate ... It is just bemusing that you are so interested in it.
After all ... Llafur spent £ 52 m on an airport which is virtually worthless. Dodgy Dave would have made £ 21 m on Greensill share options (lovely paean in the header, BTW). That is corruption. And we are talking about wallpaper and Theresa May's curtains !
Are you the kind of person who asks the window-cleaner for a receipt? Or sits in the forecourt of a Motorway Service station on a folding fishing chair with your own Thermoses, cheese sandwich and digestives.?
Wallpaper-gate seems to betray a complete lack of perspective on the part of its small but very dedicated band of followers.
Sure, let's make sure public money is spent wisely, and let's start with some huge-ticket items.
I don't dispute the airport was a waste of taxpayers money. Pies anyone?
£52m is a similar amount to the cost to the public purse of the garden bridge. And in fairness, although few planes might fly out of Rhoose, the airport does in fact exist.
It is true the Rhoose airport exists. That means it is continuing to cost public money. An additional £ 42 million loan was written off in Mar 2021. And more bills to come.
The Garden Bridge does not exist. Thankfully. Because that means it is not continuing to cost money.
I guess what surprises me is there is a huge example of corruption and mismanagement on your doorstep in Rhoose, but you seem completely uninterested in it, yet absolutely fascinated by the minutae of wall-paper in No 10. Still, each to their own.
In any case, the Daily Merkle has moved on from Wallpaper-gate, and we have now reached Takeway-gate. Rich donors are buying posh takeaway nosh for Boris and Carrie. Gasp-ee. Gosh-o.
What next?
Surely, Toilet paper-gate. Rich billionaires are buying ultra-soft gold-leaf toilet paper for the ample Johnson posterior.
Surely this nonsense is being leaked to the Mail by Johnson strategists.
It is at level of celebrity tittle-tattle. It is designed to leave us with the impression that Johnson is a celebrity, and should be judged not on his politics but on his ability to keep us entertained with his clownish antics.
If my tax pounds are being wasted on an airport, which I use or Johnson's curtains which I don't, the key word is "waste". I want my taxes to be spent wisely irrespective of party stripe.
And Johnson's paid for indulgences do worry me. It is not about gold wallpaper, it is more what it tells us about how he and his government roll, with my taxes and my vote
Remember to include the cost of rehanging it when it fell off
The issue isn't really whether the redecoration cost £30,001 or £200,000. The bone of contention is could Johnson afford to pay for it. Who paid for the excess (that Johnson couldn't afford) to the £30,000 allowance and why?
I am not sure why we are back on with the wallpaper. I was quite liking the forensic post-mortem on the exhumed remains of the LDs.
It demonstrates how far the left are from the real concerns of voters who told Labour exactly what they thought of them in the local elections and is further demonstrated by Labour being 18pts behind in the latest opinion poll.
Wallpapergate Curtainsgate.. let's not forget Angela Rayner who tried to attack Boris and was destroyed by Penny Mordaunt.
Have you looked to see how much Rayner has taken in donations in the last 12 months.. questions so many questions
Don't keep calling me the left, matey!
I don't like Angela Rayner, lock her up as far as I am concerned.
Why are we not allowed to question anyone in the Government who has a lingering bad smell about their person, be in Johnson's wallpaper, Jenrick's pornographer or Hancock's PPE procurement ruses? Why is it OK for my taxes to enrich these people?
Make up your mind - are you moaning that taxpayers paid for Boris' wallpaper, or that they didn't pay for it? I suspect you'll find something to complain about either way.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
Wallpaper-gate ... It is just bemusing that you are so interested in it.
After all ... Llafur spent £ 52 m on an airport which is virtually worthless. Dodgy Dave would have made £ 21 m on Greensill share options (lovely paean in the header, BTW). That is corruption. And we are talking about wallpaper and Theresa May's curtains !
Are you the kind of person who asks the window-cleaner for a receipt? Or sits in the forecourt of a Motorway Service station on a folding fishing chair with your own Thermoses, cheese sandwich and digestives.?
Wallpaper-gate seems to betray a complete lack of perspective on the part of its small but very dedicated band of followers.
Sure, let's make sure public money is spent wisely, and let's start with some huge-ticket items.
Spectacularly missing the point. It is not how much was spent, but who spent it and why?
We know Russia (and other hostile states) corrupt Western politicians, would it be so far fetched to imagine that it comes from Russia? After all Boris and Dave played tennis doubles against one of Putins connections for £160k. The same lady also paid £135k to have dinner with May. She obviously has a thing for funding British PMs.
The problem with the "claims as criticism" about the idea that Govt/ministers(/scientists?) were in favour of herd immunity is that "herd immunity" is being (mis)used as a proxy for "willing to let 250,000 people die".
Whereas in reality it was the prospect of 250,000 people dying to prompted a rethink in Government strategy and a conclusion that a change of direction was needed. "Herd immunity" means no more and no less, than the protecting of the vulnerable through widespread immunity in the overall protection (whether acquired through prior infection or vaccination).
Saying that ministers "favoured herd immunity" has a pretty easy counter-argument. If it was favoured (under all scenarios), why wasn't it pursued? (not withstanding people arguing that it was never abandoned). And the answer, ultimately, is because the cost of pursuing it was considered too great compared to the costs of the alternatives.
Of course the damaging misrepresentation comes from the implication that the "costs" of the alternatives were all purely economic, whilst the costs of "herd immunity" were all to be measure in lives. The more legitimate potential criticism is that the change of course was done too slowly and cost lives. But we're talking days or weeks at most - a timescale for Govt decision making not often encountered (probably last time in fact was the financial crisis in 2008).
The course of Covid was either:
1. natural burn-out following herd immunity;
2. evolving itself down a cul-de-sac to a point we could tolerate it like a cold;
3. beaten by vaccines; or
4. isolation through rigid lockdowns until it ran out of people to access and infect.
2 we have no control over; 4 would have driven us mad, with a stone age economy to boot.
To come out the other end of Covid required us to do the remarkable - and create a vaccine in months. Or endure very large-scale death of 1.
You can see why the task force approach implemented by the Government has been lauded. It allowed us to be locked up long enough to prevent herd immunity numbers of deaths, until the roll-out. Which has been implemented with a remarkable alacrity.
Sure, there were mis-steps along the way. But the UK at least has reached about the best possible outcome in the fastest time imaginable. Hurrah!
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
Wallpaper-gate ... It is just bemusing that you are so interested in it.
After all ... Llafur spent £ 52 m on an airport which is virtually worthless. Dodgy Dave would have made £ 21 m on Greensill share options (lovely paean in the header, BTW). That is corruption. And we are talking about wallpaper and Theresa May's curtains !
Are you the kind of person who asks the window-cleaner for a receipt? Or sits in the forecourt of a Motorway Service station on a folding fishing chair with your own Thermoses, cheese sandwich and digestives.?
Wallpaper-gate seems to betray a complete lack of perspective on the part of its small but very dedicated band of followers.
Sure, let's make sure public money is spent wisely, and let's start with some huge-ticket items.
Spectacularly missing the point. It is not how much was spent, but who spent it and why?
We know Russia (and other hostile states) corrupt Western politicians, would it be so far fetched to imagine that it comes from Russia? After all Boris and Dave played tennis doubles against one of Putins connections for £160k. The same lady also paid £135k to have dinner with May. She obviously has a thing for funding British PMs.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
Wallpaper-gate ... It is just bemusing that you are so interested in it.
After all ... Llafur spent £ 52 m on an airport which is virtually worthless. Dodgy Dave would have made £ 21 m on Greensill share options (lovely paean in the header, BTW). That is corruption. And we are talking about wallpaper and Theresa May's curtains !
Are you the kind of person who asks the window-cleaner for a receipt? Or sits in the forecourt of a Motorway Service station on a folding fishing chair with your own Thermoses, cheese sandwich and digestives.?
Wallpaper-gate seems to betray a complete lack of perspective on the part of its small but very dedicated band of followers.
Sure, let's make sure public money is spent wisely, and let's start with some huge-ticket items.
I don't dispute the airport was a waste of taxpayers money. Pies anyone?
£52m is a similar amount to the cost to the public purse of the garden bridge. And in fairness, although few planes might fly out of Rhoose, the airport does in fact exist.
It is true the Rhoose airport exists. That means it is continuing to cost public money. An additional £ 42 million loan was written off in Mar 2021. And more bills to come.
The Garden Bridge does not exist. Thankfully. Because that means it is not continuing to cost money.
I guess what surprises me is there is a huge example of corruption and mismanagement on your doorstep in Rhoose, but you seem completely uninterested in it, yet absolutely fascinated by the minutae of wall-paper in No 10. Still, each to their own.
In any case, the Daily Merkle has moved on from Wallpaper-gate, and we have now reached Takeway-gate. Rich donors are buying posh takeaway nosh for Boris and Carrie. Gasp-ee. Gosh-o.
What next?
Surely, Toilet paper-gate. Rich billionaires are buying ultra-soft gold-leaf toilet paper for the ample Johnson posterior.
Surely this nonsense is being leaked to the Mail by Johnson strategists.
It is at level of celebrity tittle-tattle. It is designed to leave us with the impression that Johnson is a celebrity, and should be judged not on his politics but on his ability to keep us entertained with his clownish antics.
If my tax pounds are being wasted on an airport, which I use or Johnson's curtains which I don't, the key word is "waste". I want my taxes to be spent wisely irrespective of party stripe.
And Johnson's paid for indulgences do worry me. It is not about gold wallpaper, it is more what it tells us about how he and his government roll, with my taxes and my vote
I understand that, and I feel the same way.
I am pointing out that Greensill or the purchase of Rhoose airport have received rather little attention ... compared to Wallpaper-gate.
And I am asking why.
And I am pointing that there are benefits to keeping everyone distracted by trivia.
The dangerous thing that may well come out of this pandemic is the conclusion that potential new virus's should result in an automatic rush for worst case scenarios and on the hoof measures and extreme economic and public health measures put in place commensurate with that.
The priority should be investing heavily in early warning systems and an infrastructure that manages to narrow risk scenarios as potential threats are identified as soon as possible - but we shouldn't need to be in a position where we are spending money on the basis that a once in a hundred years scenario will happen every other year.
The danger that could arise is that people could lose sight of the reality that new virus's can come in many forms - many won't even get off the ground and reach epidemic status, let alone pandemic - and also at various levels of danger to public health. Because people are now becoming obsessed by the potential for (implicitly dangerous) "virus mutations" even the most mild of virus may in future be treated with extreme.
When investigating the Government approach to Covid and learning lessons for the future, it would be well to consider how having learned those lessons they would be applied in practice to, say, the 2010 Swine flu pandemic.
At risk of channelling my inner Dominic Cummings, we also need to be able easily to commission urgent research in order to fill knowledge gaps. To take just one example, very early we did not know how the virus spreads: droplets or aerosols?
The entire droplets/aerosols thing is a false dichotomy. It is a complete fuck up by WHO who messed up interpreting the research.
The droplets vs aerosols split is basically in complete defiance of physics. Even more infuriatingly for things like pollution and particulates WHO was quite happy to follow the physics but for virus transmission they just went banananananas
Surely any discussion about herd immunity through infection would have been in the early days before vaccines were a thing.
In the pre-vaccine world the government faced some awful choices. If they tried to keep the economy open the NHS would be overwhelmed in a wall of death such as was seen in northern Italy. If they locked down the economy Covid would simply spring up again every time you opened up giving an alternation between the economic crisis and NHS crisis.
No one sane facing such alternatives would have failed to contemplate the third bowl of porridge by which we kept as high a level of infection as the NHS could cope with and just tried to get through this as quickly as possible, whatever the pain. Indeed, pre vaccines, there really wasn't a rational alternative and it is ridiculous to pretend that there was.
And it also has to be remembered that the initial consensus based on previous experience was that it was going to be several years before we had a working vaccine, simply too long to wait. The fact that we got a working vaccine so fast, indeed several of them, is a scientific miracle for which we should all be grateful.
If the fact that the government considered the sane alternative is Cummings big shock then his evidence is going to be somewhat duller than I imagined.
Remember to include the cost of rehanging it when it fell off
The issue isn't really whether the redecoration cost £30,001 or £200,000. The bone of contention is could Johnson afford to pay for it. Who paid for the excess (that Johnson couldn't afford) to the £30,000 allowance and why?
I am not sure why we are back on with the wallpaper. I was quite liking the forensic post-mortem on the exhumed remains of the LDs.
It demonstrates how far the left are from the real concerns of voters who told Labour exactly what they thought of them in the local elections and is further demonstrated by Labour being 18pts behind in the latest opinion poll.
Wallpapergate Curtainsgate.. let's not forget Angela Rayner who tried to attack Boris and was destroyed by Penny Mordaunt.
Have you looked to see how much Rayner has taken in donations in the last 12 months.. questions so many questions
Don't keep calling me the left, matey!
I don't like Angela Rayner, lock her up as far as I am concerned.
Why are we not allowed to question anyone in the Government who has a lingering bad smell about their person, be in Johnson's wallpaper, Jenrick's pornographer or Hancock's PPE procurement ruses? Why is it OK for my taxes to enrich these people?
Listen Matey... I did not call you the left. Stop misrepresenting me. I said it demonstrates how the left...
We'd all be a load less shocked or bothered by this if we accepted that the country has, Outlander-style, gone through some stones to an earlier time in our history, namely, the 18th century when this sort of grift, favours, politics as personal relationships and weird out-of-control advisors were normal and accepted.
Personally, I'm hoping for a fit, sexy and red-haired Laird to whisk me off to **** ** *********, ********* *** *********** ** the heather.
Oh and the Enlightenment would be nice too.
Big government means big corruption. It was as true in the 18th century as it is today. Starve the beast to keep it honest, or at least more so. And in particular, keep it from getting involved in industry.
Not necessarily true. Countries like Denmark and Sweden have large states and low level corruption.
Priti Patel tells #Marr the reputation of the BBC has been damaged. Says we are in “multi-media age” now, says this is the “Netflix generation”. “How relevant is the BBC?” she asks. https://twitter.com/SophiaSleigh/status/1396385830680281089
Interesting to see the fallout from the live streaming of the #Glastonbury event last night. People complain about the license fee but the BBC coverage of Glastonbury is always amazing. https://twitter.com/sallybogg/status/1396382996568084482
Was she challenged on the report she is sitting on that may indicate malpractice in News International?
A million people infected a week. That's what would have been needed for the 60% to have had it by autumn figure.
A million per week.
Absolutely banananaananas, back of the envelope math's shows it was nut bar.
That's why the government thought it needed the Nightingale hospitals. It would have been horrific but there would have been some economy left at the end of it. In 1968 Hong Kong flu killed up to 4m worldwide, similar to what Covid has done to date although Covid is definitely going to exceed this figure. Something like 30k died in the UK. And the economy carried on as normal as did football matches etc. Its hardly surprising people thought we could do the same with Covid.
We'd all be a load less shocked or bothered by this if we accepted that the country has, Outlander-style, gone through some stones to an earlier time in our history, namely, the 18th century when this sort of grift, favours, politics as personal relationships and weird out-of-control advisors were normal and accepted.
Personally, I'm hoping for a fit, sexy and red-haired Laird to whisk me off to **** ** *********, ********* *** *********** ** the heather.
Oh and the Enlightenment would be nice too.
Heather is a bit scratchy. Hold out for a bed of sphagnum moss....
That's what his tartan will be for.
If I get a sexy Laird I will be deliriously past caring about scratchy heather........
Are there examples from Continental European politics of a minor party in a coalition doing relatively well compared to the major party in a coalition? Obviously, in most circumstances, a party of government eventually gets hammered as being held responsible for the discontents of the society of the day, but in the examples I am aware of (mostly in Ireland) the smaller party in a coalition appears fated to suffer out of proportion to their ability to achieve a different outcome.
I do think you can make the case that the Lib Dem's handling of tuition fees was one of the two* greatest acts of electoral self-harm in British politics in the post-war** period, but equally I think there's a case to be made that, in our political culture, it's an inevitable price that would be paid by a junior coalition partner, who are likely to have to make the greatest compromises, and have the most contrary voters least willing to accept compromises.
* No prizes for identifying the other. ** Is there any accepted way to break up what is now becoming a very long period into meaningfully distinct periods?
I have no idea what we actually spend the International Development budget on, but the benefits should be tangible and should be more than just about buying influence popularity.
Just on this point (apols for snipping the interesting discussion of aid for democracy), this is fairly helpful, though from 2019 - see page 5 in particular:
"Humitarian aid" is the largest but only at 15% - that's disaster relief etc., and quite popular. Health, government and infrastructure are all fairly clear alternatives. Looking at the countries, Pakistan and Afghhistan are presumably partly "political", investment in not letting extremism spiral out of control. Ethiopia is interesting. I remember a discussion with Hilary Benn about 15 years ago when he was DfID Minister. The dilemma was that Ethiopia had a notably efficient and uncorrupt government (thus a good "investment" of development aid) which was turning more authoritarian, locking up dissients etc. The question was whether to prioritise making our money efficient, or avoiding helping autocracies.
His solution was to withdraw support for aid to government institutions and give it to NGOs working with government agencies to help schools, medical care etc. But he said there was a substantial minority opinion in the Department that we should still be reinforcing government efficiency.
Why do we do it? Partly it really is collective altruism. People don't mind chipping in some tax money to help people obviously much worse off, if it's part of a joint national effort - just saying "let them give to charity" misses the point that majorities of voters are entitled to decide how tax money is spent, even if we individually don't like it (otherwise I'll start deducting tax payments for Trident etc.). Partly it's to buy goodwill, but more subtly it's to encourage countries to be "more like us" - better-educated, more productive, less prone to violent extremism. That's simply a good thing in an increasingly interconnected world. It does beg the question of whether we're a perfect model, but clearly Britain is a society that works better than, say, Somalia. I don't see why anyone would find that very controversial when we're talking about relatively small sums like 0.7% of GDP.
We'd all be a load less shocked or bothered by this if we accepted that the country has, Outlander-style, gone through some stones to an earlier time in our history, namely, the 18th century when this sort of grift, favours, politics as personal relationships and weird out-of-control advisors were normal and accepted.
Personally, I'm hoping for a fit, sexy and red-haired Laird to whisk me off to **** ** *********, ********* *** *********** ** the heather.
Oh and the Enlightenment would be nice too.
In the style of that great C18 novel, Tristram Shandy, saving your reverences ...
Remember to include the cost of rehanging it when it fell off
The issue isn't really whether the redecoration cost £30,001 or £200,000. The bone of contention is could Johnson afford to pay for it. Who paid for the excess (that Johnson couldn't afford) to the £30,000 allowance and why?
I am not sure why we are back on with the wallpaper. I was quite liking the forensic post-mortem on the exhumed remains of the LDs.
It demonstrates how far the left are from the real concerns of voters who told Labour exactly what they thought of them in the local elections and is further demonstrated by Labour being 18pts behind in the latest opinion poll.
Wallpapergate Curtainsgate.. let's not forget Angela Rayner who tried to attack Boris and was destroyed by Penny Mordaunt.
Have you looked to see how much Rayner has taken in donations in the last 12 months.. questions so many questions
Don't keep calling me the left, matey!
I don't like Angela Rayner, lock her up as far as I am concerned.
Why are we not allowed to question anyone in the Government who has a lingering bad smell about their person, be in Johnson's wallpaper, Jenrick's pornographer or Hancock's PPE procurement ruses? Why is it OK for my taxes to enrich these people?
Make up your mind - are you moaning that taxpayers paid for Boris' wallpaper, or that they didn't pay for it? I suspect you'll find something to complain about either way.
If the taxpayer's paid for it within budget that is fine. I am not at all comfortable if it was paid for by the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein.
Of course herd immunity was the plan, why the fuck was literally ever upilitocal hack going "herd immunity is the best plan ever, only an idiot would lockdown, 60% to get covid by then end of autumn is definetly the smart thing to do you plebs".
We had threads upon threads discussing it here before the handbrake abrupt about turn and the columnists sudden memory holing.
The are really only two endpoints to a pandemic, either suppression/elimination, or herd immunity. You either stop the virus spreading or eventually most people are going to be infected. We are pursuing herd immunity now, but through vaccination rather than due to infection, as suppression/elimination appears to be almost impossible.
The trouble with the term "herd immunity" is that in encompasses a very wide range of scenarios. If transmission is slow then a health care system might be able to cope with the severe cases of the disease, on the other hand if transmission is swift then even the best health care systems could be overwhelmed by the number of cases. If the severity of the disease is low then even with a large number of cases the pressure on the health care system and the cost in terms of harm and death might be bearable, on the other hand if the severity is high then even a low case rate might come with a high cost in terms of harm. Herd immunity through natural infections might well be an appropriate way of dealing with a disease if tranmissibility and severity are relatively low.
In the case of COVID-19 the transmissiblity and severity are both relatively high, compared to other common diseases. Once we realised quite how high, from Italian data, and those parameters were used in the modelling by Imperial College we saw that herd immunity through natural infection would come at a very high cost, the NHS would be overwhelmed within weeks and a death toll of 500,000 was plausible. That put an end to allowing herd immunity to develop through infection, even with shielding of the most vulnerable people the cost would have been huge.
I don't see any plausible scenario where the UK could have avoided lockdown, given what we know about COVID-19 if we didn't have vaccines or treatments only NPIs are left and lockdown does work. Anyone suggesting there was a way of avoiding lockdown is going to have to produce some very convincing evidence.
The way of avoiding lockdown would have been to seal the borders. However (unlike the Australians) we're not prepared to do that. Dr John Campbell suggests that stopping all international air travel for a period of a few weeks in January would have stopped it in its tracks.
It would also have left literally millions of Brits trapped all over the world with little or no means to support themselves. It could never in reality have been a policy of first resort, however much it might theoretically have worked.
Not sure how much it is to do with Cameron, equally important factors are a couple of poor leaders in Farron and Swinson followed by the current anonymous one and their failure to stand up for and explain coalition government.
As a floating voter it is extremely off putting when party members say the reason for the party is an ideas farm for Labour and the Tories to copy rather than an aspiration for power, even shared power.
Sorry, Mr Above. I have not come across a single Lib Dem member who has said "the reason for the party is an ideas farm for Labour and the Tories to copy". Not one.
The people who say that are usually Conservatives.
I have asked on here several times this year what is the point of the LDs at the national level and that is the most coherent answer that comes back at me.
I am your target audience, I have voted Tory, Labour, Green and LDs but most often Lib Dem. I really dislike this government but can find no enthusiasm for the current Lib Dems.
I wrote a thread header on what the Lib Dems *ought* to be advancing: broadly speaking, liberal policies designed to protect people’s freedoms while advancing national prosperity.
Hmm, I think the bigger failure from the Lib Dems was to disown their achievements in government and run as an opposition party against their own record.
It made them look ridiculous. Every time they popped up with some insane uttering about how shit the government was and how they would have done it better if they were the government it was just really weird.
The only thing people remember about the LibDems time in government was the tuition fees betrayal.
Johnson's lying is often "just" a consequence of laziness and failure to seriously engage with the details (when he needs to - micromanagement leads to other issues of course) in favour of simple crowd pleasing solutions.
And often he just flat out lies.
"I paid for the wallpaper", as an example
Is there proof that he didn't pay and even if he didn't it did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Wallpapergate did for Labour in the by and local elections...
Yes it did, what was spent was on top of the annual £30,000 taxpayer funded allowance for Downing Street improvement.
That's splitting hairs. The Pm is entitled to spend 30k a year on refurbishment. The wallpaper cost the taxpayer nothing
I think you have missed the point being made. But let's assume for a moment, you haven't, therein lies a bigger issue. Who paid for the £200,000 wallpaper, either directly, or indirectly, and what did they expect in return?
Let's move back to the real world. The wallpaper did not cost 200k...
You've forgotten about the curtains too.
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
Wallpaper-gate ... It is just bemusing that you are so interested in it.
After all ... Llafur spent £ 52 m on an airport which is virtually worthless. Dodgy Dave would have made £ 21 m on Greensill share options (lovely paean in the header, BTW). That is corruption. And we are talking about wallpaper and Theresa May's curtains !
Are you the kind of person who asks the window-cleaner for a receipt? Or sits in the forecourt of a Motorway Service station on a folding fishing chair with your own Thermoses, cheese sandwich and digestives.?
Wallpaper-gate seems to betray a complete lack of perspective on the part of its small but very dedicated band of followers.
Sure, let's make sure public money is spent wisely, and let's start with some huge-ticket items.
I don't dispute the airport was a waste of taxpayers money. Pies anyone?
£52m is a similar amount to the cost to the public purse of the garden bridge. And in fairness, although few planes might fly out of Rhoose, the airport does in fact exist.
It is true the Rhoose airport exists. That means it is continuing to cost public money. An additional £ 42 million loan was written off in Mar 2021. And more bills to come.
The Garden Bridge does not exist. Thankfully. Because that means it is not continuing to cost money.
I guess what surprises me is there is a huge example of corruption and mismanagement on your doorstep in Rhoose, but you seem completely uninterested in it, yet absolutely fascinated by the minutae of wall-paper in No 10. Still, each to their own.
In any case, the Daily Merkle has moved on from Wallpaper-gate, and we have now reached Takeway-gate. Rich donors are buying posh takeaway nosh for Boris and Carrie. Gasp-ee. Gosh-o.
What next?
Surely, Toilet paper-gate. Rich billionaires are buying ultra-soft gold-leaf toilet paper for the ample Johnson posterior.
Surely this nonsense is being leaked to the Mail by Johnson strategists.
It is at level of celebrity tittle-tattle. It is designed to leave us with the impression that Johnson is a celebrity, and should be judged not on his politics but on his ability to keep us entertained with his clownish antics.
If my tax pounds are being wasted on an airport, which I use or Johnson's curtains which I don't, the key word is "waste". I want my taxes to be spent wisely irrespective of party stripe.
And Johnson's paid for indulgences do worry me. It is not about gold wallpaper, it is more what it tells us about how he and his government roll, with my taxes and my vote
I understand that, and I feel the same way.
I am pointing out that Greensill or the purchase of Rhoose airport have received rather little attention ... compared to Wallpaper-gate.
And I am asking why.
And I am pointing that there are benefits to keeping everyone distracted by trivia.
Why is the Cardiff airport a white elephant? It’s not as if South Wales doesn’t have a big enough population to support a medium sized airport.
Priti Patel tells #Marr the reputation of the BBC has been damaged. Says we are in “multi-media age” now, says this is the “Netflix generation”. “How relevant is the BBC?” she asks. https://twitter.com/SophiaSleigh/status/1396385830680281089
Interesting to see the fallout from the live streaming of the #Glastonbury event last night. People complain about the license fee but the BBC coverage of Glastonbury is always amazing. https://twitter.com/sallybogg/status/1396382996568084482
Was she challenged on the report she is sitting on that may indicate malpractice in News International?
Ms Patel is a most infuriating politician. I have a sneaking regard for her, despite everything. She is often awful. But every so often she has the right instincts and tries to do the right thing. For instance, she is now consulting Sir Richard Henriques, the judge, who wrote the excoriating report on what the police got wrong in Operation Midland, on what needs to be done to put matters right.
Comments
Still arguing about social distancing which many have suggested is not huge relevant...
"When David Cameron retired as Conservative leader"
And here's me thinking that he resigned in ignominy.
First of all the 2006-2010 period talks about how the Lib Dems were spooked by Cameron.
Within a month of Cameron becoming leader Charles Kennedy was forced out as Liberal Democrat leader, before Cameron reached his second anniversary as Conservative leader he was facing his third permanent leader of the Liberal Democrats. I think the Liberal Democrats realised Cameron was the sort of leader that would bring back Con to Lib Dem switchers.
That's at UKIP level of changing leaders, it was no coincidence that the Lib Dems eventually chose someone who looked and sounded like David Cameron.
Secondly, once you're in a death spiral, it is very hard to get out of, something I noted at the bottom of the piece.
Third, read again, local elections matter to the Lib Dems, see the opening paragraph and the bits about the tithe the Lib Dems apply, losing their council base was very bad for them in the long term, especially as the Tories started making net gain elsewhere. Campaigning shock. Councillors don't just campaign in general elections in the areas whey they are elected.
Fourth, as many others have pointed out to you David Cameron was a very good campaigner, some people forget just where the Tory Party was when he became leader, sub 200 seats.
As this chart shows, only of three LOTOs to make a net gain of over 100 seats since the war, one of whom was Cameron, in fact he's the only Tory to do so.
Plus in 2010 the electoral geography was against the Tories, in 2005 Labour won a majority with a lead of 2.8% in the popular vote, in 2010 a Tory lead of 7% didn't lead to a majority, whereas a Labour lead of that size would have been a Labour majority of over 100.
Obviously, the best thing would be for Johnson and Cummings to destroy each other.
https://twitter.com/hjborr/status/1396370438033444868?s=21
Kennedy was forced out because of his alcoholism, not because David Cameron became Conservative leader. Unless you're arguing that Cameron drove him to the bottle?
It can be easy enough to get out of a death spiral if your enemies cock up and you start doing the right thing.
Local elections may matter to the Lib Dems, but they are lousy predictors for national elections, which, read my piece, are what matter in Britain.
David Cameron may have been a good campaigner, but that doesn't matter if it isn't reflected in general election results, which it wasn't in 2010. Campaigns generally aren't nearly as important as activists like to think (2017 being the exception).
And the number of seats gained is meaningless, as elections five years ago don't affect the next election - I wrote a thread which proved that statistically. Unless you can disprove my conclusions, I'm afraid the graph is meaningless.
Nick Clegg made the whole thing worse. Rather than apologising, he told LibDem voters in more-or-less as many words that they were damn fools for trusting him in the first place because any and all LibDem pledges were liable to be negotiated away.
You can't claim credit when you're busy portraying yourselves as the brake on the evil Conservatives' hellish steam engine.
Edited extra bit: it's a shame, because I think the Coalition was probably the best government we've had for a long time. Cameron and Clegg worked well together, as did Osborne and Alexander.
Edited extra bit 2: got to be off. The galaxy isn't going to conquer itself.
The solitary door open, producing no ventilation/flow/replacement of air at all.
I like that parties which are distinct don't merge, as they shouldn't pretend to be something they are not for fake unity, it doesnt help. But it is frustrating for them. But as noted unless Labour take yet further hits they've no incentive to work with the others and changing system.
What did the mystery donor get in return?
Six months earlier Kennedy had led the Lib Dems to the best performance for the third party in a generation (not a Scottish one), they were fine with his alcoholism then, which was well known then.
Then David Cameron arrived on the scene, the Lib Dems realised this was a guy unlike Hague, Howard, or IDS and within hours of Cameron becoming leader briefings started emerging against Kennedy.
Charles Kennedy has denied the election of David Cameron as Conservative leader could threaten his position.
The Lib Dem leader dismissed claims a resurgent Conservative Party would raise doubts about his claim to be the real alternative to Labour.
Critics say the new Tory leader could steal Mr Kennedy's clothes with his image as a young family man.
Mr Kennedy said his party won a million more votes at the general election and has its most MPs for 80 years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4508336.stm
Senior Liberal Democrats have rallied behind party leader Charles Kennedy and urged critics to stop "cowardly" briefings against him.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4525442.stm
The reality was somewhat different, though he does have a Mandelson (1997) brilliance at pithy slogans, albeit ones that do not merit close inspection.
Contrast 2019 where the Tories won big because they got in new votes, Corbyn did terribly, and they didn't lose as many of their remainy voters as they could have - there was not enough pull for them, despite the big push element, because of other factors.
“I’ve never been in a government meeting where herd immunity was put forward as a method of control”.
Weds evidence from Cummings should be 🔥 #Marr
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1396385122333700096
Lord Lister's employer raised £337m in taxpayer backed/funded loans in 6 months
W/@ManuMidolo @GeorgeGreenwood
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7ffa6dfe-bb2f-11eb-8a71-bc144e6a30f1?shareToken=6107fac8a994318ee9141951ddfda419
Personally, I would go the Portugal route of decriminalisation and investment in rehab.
I don't think I could vote for a party that wants the government to become a drug dealership.
Amuses me that in a decade Theresa May and David Cameron went from supporting Section 28 to introducing same sex marriage.
Does that mean that people react against them when they take power locally? Not necessarily, because despite the "all politics is local" mantra, most people don't notice anything the councils do most of the time. But if the national leadership is discredited, of course that affects the local level too.
It'll be interesting what he has, but a problem he has always seemed to have is thinking he is more important than he is and therefore that everyone's mind should always be blown by whatever he is saying at any given moment.
Foxy summed it up well .
It looks like voters don't care about small-minded, petty nonsense after all. As some of us may have pointed out in advance
Says we are in “multi-media age” now, says this is the “Netflix generation”.
“How relevant is the BBC?” she asks.
https://twitter.com/SophiaSleigh/status/1396385830680281089
Interesting to see the fallout from the live streaming of the #Glastonbury event last night. People complain about the license fee but the BBC coverage of Glastonbury is always amazing.
https://twitter.com/sallybogg/status/1396382996568084482
They could have sat it out, and propped up neither Brown nor Cameron, but then what would be the point of them? They might also have been eventually punished for their only interest being naked self-preservation as well.
The coalition represented the Lib Dems best chance to get things done and make a difference in nearly 100 years, so they took it.
They were right to do so.
Remember to include the cost of rehanging it when it fell off
In all fairness, removal of Mrs May's John Lewis beige decor was worth every penny. My point is who paid for it and why?
The people who say that are usually Conservatives.
I think it's a damn shame the public so punished them that parties here will never want to be in coalition again, when being in power and getting some of what you want is a good thing.
I am not sure why we are back on with the wallpaper. I was quite liking the forensic post-mortem on the exhumed remains of the LDs.
Yet ironically by winning a majority in 2015 so he no longer needed the LDs and by taking so many West country LD seats in particular Cameron sowed the seeds of his own demise, the Tory majority meant an EU referendum had to be held that he lost and just over a year after his re election he had to resign.
Ironically while Brexit then destroyed Cameron it ironically has somewhat revived the LDs, as the chart also shows since the Brexit vote, apart from the county elections in 2017, the LDs have made a net gain in councillors every year since, in 2018, 2019 and indeed this year. As the local elections a few weeks ago showed the LDs made significant gains in Tory southern Remain areas from Oxfordshire to Surrey and Tunbridge Wells and they will hope to build on those gains to challenge for Tory Remain seats at the next general election (they already have made a few gains from their 2015 nadir in such seats already in 2017 and 2019 eg Twickenham, Richmond Park, Bath and St Albans and Oxford West and Abingdon again gaining a boost from being able to oppose Brexit).
Personally, I'm hoping for a fit, sexy and red-haired Laird to whisk me off to **** ** *********, ********* *** *********** ** the heather.
Oh and the Enlightenment would be nice too.
After all ... Llafur spent £ 52 m on an airport which is virtually worthless. Dodgy Dave would have made £ 21 m on Greensill share options (lovely paean in the header, BTW). That is corruption. And we are talking about wallpaper and Theresa May's curtains !
Are you the kind of person who asks the window-cleaner for a receipt? Or sits in the forecourt of a Motorway Service station on a folding fishing chair with your own Thermoses, cheese sandwich and digestives.?
Wallpaper-gate seems to betray a complete lack of perspective on the part of its small but very dedicated band of followers.
Sure, let's make sure public money is spent wisely, and let's start with some huge-ticket items.
The trouble with the term "herd immunity" is that in encompasses a very wide range of scenarios. If transmission is slow then a health care system might be able to cope with the severe cases of the disease, on the other hand if transmission is swift then even the best health care systems could be overwhelmed by the number of cases. If the severity of the disease is low then even with a large number of cases the pressure on the health care system and the cost in terms of harm and death might be bearable, on the other hand if the severity is high then even a low case rate might come with a high cost in terms of harm. Herd immunity through natural infections might well be an appropriate way of dealing with a disease if tranmissibility and severity are relatively low.
In the case of COVID-19 the transmissiblity and severity are both relatively high, compared to other common diseases. Once we realised quite how high, from Italian data, and those parameters were used in the modelling by Imperial College we saw that herd immunity through natural infection would come at a very high cost, the NHS would be overwhelmed within weeks and a death toll of 500,000 was plausible. That put an end to allowing herd immunity to develop through infection, even with shielding of the most vulnerable people the cost would have been huge.
I don't see any plausible scenario where the UK could have avoided lockdown, given what we know about COVID-19 if we didn't have vaccines or treatments only NPIs are left and lockdown does work. Anyone suggesting there was a way of avoiding lockdown is going to have to produce some very convincing evidence.
I am your target audience, I have voted Tory, Labour, Green and LDs but most often Lib Dem. I really dislike this government but can find no enthusiasm for the current Lib Dems.
The primary purpose of International development funding should not be to mitigate poverty, but to alleviate it - to invest in the things that allow that to happen (fundamentally the old building blocks of education, support for democratic institutions and the rule of law.
But the second of these in particular needs to be done very carefully - the test for a democratic institution (IMO) should be both whether it can endure, and that it is likely to operate in a way that focusses on all the endemic problems faced by a country's population. Too often it is just assumed that all that is needed is to give everyone a vote. Whereas actually what is needed is to focus, not on who gets to vote, but what the impact is likely to be on the representatives elected. If those voting and those elected have a stake in delivering a stable and prosperous society, then the needs of the poor will be better taken care of (even if they don't have a direct vote).
Simply giving everyone a vote is no good if not supported by an educated population and a mass of people easily manipulated by demagogues and autocrats. Basically no good giving the poor and dispossessed a vote if they will repeatedly vote against their own interests.
Anyway, after that slight digression, the payback to investing in development is that the problems of the third world don't end up on our own doorstep.
Wallpapergate Curtainsgate.. let's not forget Angela Rayner who tried to attack Boris and was destroyed by Penny Mordaunt.
Have you looked to see how much Rayner has taken in donations in the last 12 months.. questions so many questions
£52m is a similar amount to the cost to the public purse of the garden bridge. And in fairness, although few planes might fly out of Rhoose, the airport does in fact exist.
Say someone offered the LDs a new coalition. What would they want, other than PR? I genuinely have no idea. And PR, even though I favour it, is clearly a party priority rather than something that directly changes lives.
We know Russia (and other hostile states) corrupt Western politicians, would it be so far fetched to imagine that it comes from Russia? After all Boris and Dave played tennis doubles against one of Putins connections for £160k. The same lady also paid £135k to have dinner with May. She obviously has a thing for funding British PMs.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54228079
@PoliticsForAlI
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32m
🚨🚨 | BREAKING: The government’s most senior scientist Dr Jenny Harries says it’s “looking good for June 21”
Via
@BBCNews
The problem with the "claims as criticism" about the idea that Govt/ministers(/scientists?) were in favour of herd immunity is that "herd immunity" is being (mis)used as a proxy for "willing to let 250,000 people die".
Whereas in reality it was the prospect of 250,000 people dying to prompted a rethink in Government strategy and a conclusion that a change of direction was needed. "Herd immunity" means no more and no less, than the protecting of the vulnerable through widespread immunity in the overall protection (whether acquired through prior infection or vaccination).
Saying that ministers "favoured herd immunity" has a pretty easy counter-argument. If it was favoured (under all scenarios), why wasn't it pursued? (not withstanding people arguing that it was never abandoned). And the answer, ultimately, is because the cost of pursuing it was considered too great compared to the costs of the alternatives.
Of course the damaging misrepresentation comes from the implication that the "costs" of the alternatives were all purely economic, whilst the costs of "herd immunity" were all to be measure in lives. The more legitimate potential criticism is that the change of course was done too slowly and cost lives. But we're talking days or weeks at most - a timescale for Govt decision making not often encountered (probably last time in fact was the financial crisis in 2008).
For example, the first Tory held seat on the Green target list is Isle of Wight which they would need a 20% seat to win.
If the LDs got a 20% swing from the Tories by contrast they would gain 84 Tory seats.
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/green
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/liberal-democrat
If anyone thinks Cummings has more creditability than Jenny Harries, then they are either naive or grasping at straws in a vain hope this will derail Boris
The news that BJ is writing a bio of Shakespeare will have the world of academe aquiver.
https://twitter.com/paul__johnson/status/1396392391867867136?s=21
Everything we know about the virus and disease we discover after it has happened. There's a new virus. Cases are rising rapidly. Disease is severe. The virus has spread to other countries. All of those things were found out weeks to months after they started. In a world where people can travel between any two points on the planet in 24 hours or so the idea that you can outrun the spread of the virus with border closures seems quite fanciful. Maybe if you live in a country that has little international travel it works, but in the UK and similar countries? It is not realistic.
I don't like Angela Rayner, lock her up as far as I am concerned.
Why are we not allowed to question anyone in the Government who has a lingering bad smell about their person, be in Johnson's wallpaper, Jenrick's pornographer or Hancock's PPE procurement ruses? Why is it OK for my taxes to enrich these people?
The Garden Bridge does not exist. Thankfully. Because that means it is not continuing to cost money.
I guess what surprises me is there is a huge example of corruption and mismanagement on your doorstep in Rhoose, but you seem completely uninterested in it, yet absolutely fascinated by the minutae of wall-paper in No 10. Still, each to their own.
In any case, the Daily Merkle has moved on from Wallpaper-gate, and we have now reached Takeway-gate. Rich donors are buying posh takeaway nosh for Boris and Carrie. Gasp-ee. Gosh-o.
What next?
Surely, Toilet paper-gate. Rich billionaires are buying ultra-soft gold-leaf toilet paper for the ample Johnson posterior.
Surely this nonsense is being leaked to the Mail by Johnson strategists.
It is at level of celebrity tittle-tattle. It is designed to leave us with the impression that Johnson is a celebrity, and should be judged not on his politics but on his ability to keep us entertained with his clownish antics.
And Johnson's paid for indulgences do worry me. It is not about gold wallpaper, it is more what it tells us about how he and his government roll, with my taxes and my vote
Who caused Trump? Russia. Who caused Brexit? Russia. Who is causing the break-up of the UK? Russia.
Who paid for the wallpaper? Russia.
1. natural burn-out following herd immunity;
2. evolving itself down a cul-de-sac to a point we could tolerate it like a cold;
3. beaten by vaccines; or
4. isolation through rigid lockdowns until it ran out of people to access and infect.
2 we have no control over; 4 would have driven us mad, with a stone age economy to boot.
To come out the other end of Covid required us to do the remarkable - and create a vaccine in months. Or endure very large-scale death of 1.
You can see why the task force approach implemented by the Government has been lauded. It allowed us to be locked up long enough to prevent herd immunity numbers of deaths, until the roll-out. Which has been implemented with a remarkable alacrity.
Sure, there were mis-steps along the way. But the UK at least has reached about the best possible outcome in the fastest time imaginable. Hurrah!
I am pointing out that Greensill or the purchase of Rhoose airport have received rather little attention ... compared to Wallpaper-gate.
And I am asking why.
And I am pointing that there are benefits to keeping everyone distracted by trivia.
The droplets vs aerosols split is basically in complete defiance of physics. Even more infuriatingly for things like pollution and particulates WHO was quite happy to follow the physics but for virus transmission they just went banananananas
https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/
In the pre-vaccine world the government faced some awful choices. If they tried to keep the economy open the NHS would be overwhelmed in a wall of death such as was seen in northern Italy. If they locked down the economy Covid would simply spring up again every time you opened up giving an alternation between the economic crisis and NHS crisis.
No one sane facing such alternatives would have failed to contemplate the third bowl of porridge by which we kept as high a level of infection as the NHS could cope with and just tried to get through this as quickly as possible, whatever the pain. Indeed, pre vaccines, there really wasn't a rational alternative and it is ridiculous to pretend that there was.
And it also has to be remembered that the initial consensus based on previous experience was that it was going to be several years before we had a working vaccine, simply too long to wait. The fact that we got a working vaccine so fast, indeed several of them, is a scientific miracle for which we should all be grateful.
If the fact that the government considered the sane alternative is Cummings big shock then his evidence is going to be somewhat duller than I imagined.
A million per week.
Absolutely banananaananas, back of the envelope math's shows it was nut bar.
If I get a sexy Laird I will be deliriously past caring about scratchy heather........
I do think you can make the case that the Lib Dem's handling of tuition fees was one of the two* greatest acts of electoral self-harm in British politics in the post-war** period, but equally I think there's a case to be made that, in our political culture, it's an inevitable price that would be paid by a junior coalition partner, who are likely to have to make the greatest compromises, and have the most contrary voters least willing to accept compromises.
* No prizes for identifying the other.
** Is there any accepted way to break up what is now becoming a very long period into meaningfully distinct periods?
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/927135/Statistics_on_International_Development_Final_UK_Aid_Spend_2019.pdf
"Humitarian aid" is the largest but only at 15% - that's disaster relief etc., and quite popular. Health, government and infrastructure are all fairly clear alternatives. Looking at the countries, Pakistan and Afghhistan are presumably partly "political", investment in not letting extremism spiral out of control. Ethiopia is interesting. I remember a discussion with Hilary Benn about 15 years ago when he was DfID Minister. The dilemma was that Ethiopia had a notably efficient and uncorrupt government (thus a good "investment" of development aid) which was turning more authoritarian, locking up dissients etc. The question was whether to prioritise making our money efficient, or avoiding helping autocracies.
His solution was to withdraw support for aid to government institutions and give it to NGOs working with government agencies to help schools, medical care etc. But he said there was a substantial minority opinion in the Department that we should still be reinforcing government efficiency.
Why do we do it? Partly it really is collective altruism. People don't mind chipping in some tax money to help people obviously much worse off, if it's part of a joint national effort - just saying "let them give to charity" misses the point that majorities of voters are entitled to decide how tax money is spent, even if we individually don't like it (otherwise I'll start deducting tax payments for Trident etc.). Partly it's to buy goodwill, but more subtly it's to encourage countries to be "more like us" - better-educated, more productive, less prone to violent extremism. That's simply a good thing in an increasingly interconnected world. It does beg the question of whether we're a perfect model, but clearly Britain is a society that works better than, say, Somalia. I don't see why anyone would find that very controversial when we're talking about relatively small sums like 0.7% of GDP.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/02/28/break-open-your-cage-and-voom-new-policies-for-the-lib-dems/
Currently Labour has no policy, and the Tories a series of populist spasms, so in theory there is a large policy space to fill.
It’s not as if South Wales doesn’t have a big enough population to support a medium sized airport.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/operation-midland-police-face-new-inquiry-cpcbrp0rd
This is, as I have said repeatedly (here - http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/10/13/the-tyranny-of-low-expectations/ - and here - https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/03/13/here-we-go-again-2/) both very necessary and long overdue.
I hope she overcomes resistance from the Home Office and the police on this. The police need their arses kicked - and hard - on this.