Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
My own view is that Boris will retire after the pandemic is over worldwide in order to join the US and Far Eastern speaking circuits. I doubt he will fight another election unless it is held very early. Boris is in his mid-50s (three weeks to his 57th birthday) which is hardly ancient but is already older than Tony Blair and David Cameron when they left Downing Street.
I doubt it. There's always when someone is in Downing Street at least "one more thing" they want to get done, before stepping down. Once you've stepped down its not possible to step back up nowadays, so get done what you can now.
Plus Cameron's shame in recent months has probably banished any consideration that Boris might have had of retiring very early after just a couple of years in Downing Street and joining Cameron in seeking money elsewhere already. Cameron has seen his reputation absolutely trashed.
So, the government is enfranchising Brits abroad who may not have paid UK taxes in two decades (and who won't need any ID) while making it harder for Brits who don't drive cars (and therefore don't carry photo ID on them).
The taxes point is a red herring as we enfranchise unemployed people and 18-year-olds who may never have paid any taxes at all.
And France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Canada require ID to vote don't they? And Northern Ireland has required it for many years.
Yes, but all those countries have mandatory ID. (Aka ID cards.)
Which is fine. All citizens are required to have ID, and therefore no citizen is disadvantaged in carrying out their desire to vote.
The UK doesn't have ID cards.
And many young, urban Brits do not have a driving license. Poorer pensioners probably do not either.
They will therefore need to spend their time (which has value) to vote to secure photo ID, relative to a car owner, who will carry their ID with them at all times.
To even the playing field, I would therefore suggest that anyone with a driving license spends 20 minutes waiting at the polling station prior to voting so that the time cost on all citizens is equalized.
Alternatively, we can use my simple and free method of avoiding personation. If you seek to vote without photo ID, they take a photo of you at the polling station, and you sign the back of it. Simple, avoids personation, doesn't act as a voter suppression mechanism.
Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
My own view is that Boris will retire after the pandemic is over worldwide in order to join the US and Far Eastern speaking circuits. I doubt he will fight another election unless it is held very early. Boris is in his mid-50s (three weeks to his 57th birthday) which is hardly ancient but is already older than Tony Blair and David Cameron when they left Downing Street.
I doubt it. There's always when someone is in Downing Street at least "one more thing" they want to get done, before stepping down. Once you've stepped down its not possible to step back up nowadays, so get done what you can now.
Plus Cameron's shame in recent months has probably banished any consideration that Boris might have had of retiring very early after just a couple of years in Downing Street and joining Cameron in seeking money elsewhere already. Cameron has seen his reputation absolutely trashed.
I take your points but regard Boris as a one-off, not like other Prime Ministers. He had to be strong-armed into a second term as Mayor. He seems to prefer winning office to holding office. He has been elected by his party and then by the country; what more is there? If he hangs on to 2024, he risks defeat. It is possible he will hold a snap election in 2022 or 23 if he is still riding high in the polls and retire soon after but what's the point?
Boris is already a veteran of the speaking circuit so I expect him to go there, rather than get involved in vulgar commerce like Cameron or George Osborne. Given his love of Classics, he might even look for a moose head professorship at an American university.
Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
No, I think the consensus view is that he will be very hard to shift and is likely to be PM for many years. Also my view.
I'm old enough to remember the same discussions over Maggie Thatcher. The direct cause of her going was losing the Eastborne by-election. in October 1990. Suddenly the party saw she was a loser.
How will Johnson look if Chesham & Amersham is a poor result?
I can't help wondering if they've got parts one and two the wrong way round. I still don't know what to expect but at least I now know who some of them are. There do not seem to be enough chairs.
Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
My own view is that Boris will retire after the pandemic is over worldwide in order to join the US and Far Eastern speaking circuits. I doubt he will fight another election unless it is held very early. Boris is in his mid-50s (three weeks to his 57th birthday) which is hardly ancient but is already older than Tony Blair and David Cameron when they left Downing Street.
I doubt it. There's always when someone is in Downing Street at least "one more thing" they want to get done, before stepping down. Once you've stepped down its not possible to step back up nowadays, so get done what you can now.
Plus Cameron's shame in recent months has probably banished any consideration that Boris might have had of retiring very early after just a couple of years in Downing Street and joining Cameron in seeking money elsewhere already. Cameron has seen his reputation absolutely trashed.
On top of that, his (rumoured) nuptials to Carrie should see him sticking around until at least the honeymoon.... mind you I am surprised there's not a market on (a) whether the marriage even takes place...or (b) whether it lasts beyond the next GE
Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
My own view is that Boris will retire after the pandemic is over worldwide in order to join the US and Far Eastern speaking circuits. I doubt he will fight another election unless it is held very early. Boris is in his mid-50s (three weeks to his 57th birthday) which is hardly ancient but is already older than Tony Blair and David Cameron when they left Downing Street.
I doubt it. There's always when someone is in Downing Street at least "one more thing" they want to get done, before stepping down. Once you've stepped down its not possible to step back up nowadays, so get done what you can now.
Plus Cameron's shame in recent months has probably banished any consideration that Boris might have had of retiring very early after just a couple of years in Downing Street and joining Cameron in seeking money elsewhere already. Cameron has seen his reputation absolutely trashed.
I take your points but regard Boris as a one-off, not like other Prime Ministers. He had to be strong-armed into a second term as Mayor. He seems to prefer winning office to holding office. He has been elected by his party and then by the country; what more is there? If he hangs on to 2024, he risks defeat. It is possible he will hold a snap election in 2022 or 23 if he is still riding high in the polls and retire soon after but what's the point? .
You'll still be discussing this in 2028.
Boris is going nowhere.
He has a highly ambitious new young wife-to-be and a post-covid programme as PM that he wishes to roll out: to take Brexit Britain forward as the Singapore of the west.
Oh and he's a winner. I know it's annoying. I know he's a schmuck. But since when did we choose a PM on the basis of their morality? Save that for the parish priest.
Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
My own view is that Boris will retire after the pandemic is over worldwide in order to join the US and Far Eastern speaking circuits. I doubt he will fight another election unless it is held very early. Boris is in his mid-50s (three weeks to his 57th birthday) which is hardly ancient but is already older than Tony Blair and David Cameron when they left Downing Street.
I doubt it. There's always when someone is in Downing Street at least "one more thing" they want to get done, before stepping down. Once you've stepped down its not possible to step back up nowadays, so get done what you can now.
Plus Cameron's shame in recent months has probably banished any consideration that Boris might have had of retiring very early after just a couple of years in Downing Street and joining Cameron in seeking money elsewhere already. Cameron has seen his reputation absolutely trashed.
I take your points but regard Boris as a one-off, not like other Prime Ministers. He had to be strong-armed into a second term as Mayor. He seems to prefer winning office to holding office. He has been elected by his party and then by the country; what more is there? If he hangs on to 2024, he risks defeat. It is possible he will hold a snap election in 2022 or 23 if he is still riding high in the polls and retire soon after but what's the point? .
You'll still be discussing this in 2028.
Boris is going nowhere.
He has a highly ambitious new young wife-to-be and a post-covid programme as PM that he wishes to roll out: to take Brexit Britain forward as the Singapore of the west.
Oh and he's a winner. I know it's annoying. I know he's a schmuck. But since when did we choose a PM on the basis of their morality? Save that for the parish priest.
He is a winner.
But I suspect that leads to him leaving earlier rather than later. Boris wants to go out on his own terms at a high, not when forced out by the electorate or by his own party.
I think he'll lead the Conservatives to victory in 2023/4, and then do a year of the next Parliament, and then depart to spend more time with his $350k/speech retirement.
Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
No, I think the consensus view is that he will be very hard to shift and is likely to be PM for many years. Also my view.
I'm old enough to remember the same discussions over Maggie Thatcher. The direct cause of her going was losing the Eastborne by-election. in October 1990. Suddenly the party saw she was a loser.
How will Johnson look if Chesham & Amersham is a poor result?
1990 was three and a half years after the previous election. We're just a year and a half from Boris's triumph in 2019.
Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
My own view is that Boris will retire after the pandemic is over worldwide in order to join the US and Far Eastern speaking circuits. I doubt he will fight another election unless it is held very early. Boris is in his mid-50s (three weeks to his 57th birthday) which is hardly ancient but is already older than Tony Blair and David Cameron when they left Downing Street.
I doubt it. There's always when someone is in Downing Street at least "one more thing" they want to get done, before stepping down. Once you've stepped down its not possible to step back up nowadays, so get done what you can now.
Plus Cameron's shame in recent months has probably banished any consideration that Boris might have had of retiring very early after just a couple of years in Downing Street and joining Cameron in seeking money elsewhere already. Cameron has seen his reputation absolutely trashed.
I take your points but regard Boris as a one-off, not like other Prime Ministers. He had to be strong-armed into a second term as Mayor. He seems to prefer winning office to holding office. He has been elected by his party and then by the country; what more is there? If he hangs on to 2024, he risks defeat. It is possible he will hold a snap election in 2022 or 23 if he is still riding high in the polls and retire soon after but what's the point? .
You'll still be discussing this in 2028.
Boris is going nowhere.
He has a highly ambitious new young wife-to-be and a post-covid programme as PM that he wishes to roll out: to take Brexit Britain forward as the Singapore of the west.
Oh and he's a winner. I know it's annoying. I know he's a schmuck. But since when did we choose a PM on the basis of their morality? Save that for the parish priest.
Even if we accept Boris claimed to want to turn Britain into Singapore, why should we believe Boris has a clear vision of what this means? Exhibit A, the Irish Sea border. Exhibit B, Brexit itself.
GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
And the video has bugger all views... doesn't bode well.
Also notable Murdoch has plugged the plug on his similar project for a new news channel.
Just seen this story about the USA returning ancient stone carvings to Thailand, and it's an uncomfortable reminder of quite how long I wondered why that paticular bag of 'elgin' marbles was so special that we couldn't just give them back to Greece, or maybe even play 'marbles' against Greece for them.
GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
And the video has bugger all views... doesn't bode well.
Also notable Murdoch has plugged the plug on his similar project for a new news channel.
Is anyone running a spread bet on how long GB News lasts?
Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
My own view is that Boris will retire after the pandemic is over worldwide in order to join the US and Far Eastern speaking circuits. I doubt he will fight another election unless it is held very early. Boris is in his mid-50s (three weeks to his 57th birthday) which is hardly ancient but is already older than Tony Blair and David Cameron when they left Downing Street.
I doubt it. There's always when someone is in Downing Street at least "one more thing" they want to get done, before stepping down. Once you've stepped down its not possible to step back up nowadays, so get done what you can now.
Plus Cameron's shame in recent months has probably banished any consideration that Boris might have had of retiring very early after just a couple of years in Downing Street and joining Cameron in seeking money elsewhere already. Cameron has seen his reputation absolutely trashed.
I take your points but regard Boris as a one-off, not like other Prime Ministers. He had to be strong-armed into a second term as Mayor. He seems to prefer winning office to holding office. He has been elected by his party and then by the country; what more is there? If he hangs on to 2024, he risks defeat. It is possible he will hold a snap election in 2022 or 23 if he is still riding high in the polls and retire soon after but what's the point? .
You'll still be discussing this in 2028.
Boris is going nowhere.
He has a highly ambitious new young wife-to-be and a post-covid programme as PM that he wishes to roll out: to take Brexit Britain forward as the Singapore of the west.
Oh and he's a winner. I know it's annoying. I know he's a schmuck. But since when did we choose a PM on the basis of their morality? Save that for the parish priest.
He is a winner.
But I suspect that leads to him leaving earlier rather than later.
I'm afraid that this is wishful thinking.
Brexit is clearly in the early stages of a success story (sorry, DecrepiterJohnL) but will take time to roll out. Boris has a vision for massive trade expansion with the world, including English-speaking former colonies and emerging markets. There are also enormous capital investment projects which Boris is backing, such as HS2. And if anyone reminds me that Boris will take all the plaudits for something he didn't start, since when did that stop him? Boris bikes and the Olympics for example.
He's going nowhere anytime soon and I'm led to believe that he would like to outlast Thatcher for length of time as Conservative PM: a personal target. 11 years.
11 years. So those hoping he will go, which is all it is (hope), you're going to be wasting a decade of your lives waiting.
Soo... let's sum up the last 48 hrs.. despite Leon saying it wasn't a damp squib.. Cummings is last nights fish and chip paper.. Boris found not to have broken any rules over Wallpapergate.. polls not moved .. a good week for the incumbent dontcha think.....
MUCH too soon to tell. Most people will now regard him as a lying incompetent freeloader. When voters eventually absorb all the information of the last few weeks that's what they'll be left with.
It might be that this doesn't bother them as it doesn't seem to at the moment or it might be the euphoria of the end of the pandemic. But this won't last. There is no chance whatsoever that his ratings wont go down the toilet when voters take stock.
It'll all be academic though unless SKS learns how to project himself
"Most people will now regard him as a lying incompetent freeloader."
Not "most". The same people who already thought him as a lying incompetent freeloader will now be religious in their belief that he is a lying incompetent freeloader.
And how ungrateful, now he is giving you the right to vote him out. From Antibes... 😉
One can always trust Roger to call it right.......
Johnson is putting in place the structures that ensure he will not be leaving for a very long time. Voter suppression, emasculation of the courts, direct control of the BBC and media regulation, as well as various other Orbanisations are all designed to do one thing. None of it is a surprise. Neither is the fact that those who claim to cherish British history, institutions, liberty and democracy are very happy to watch him do it.
Just seen this story about the USA returning ancient stone carvings to Thailand, and it's an uncomfortable reminder of quite how long I wondered why that paticular bag of 'elgin' marbles was so special that we couldn't just give them back to Greece, or maybe even play 'marbles' against Greece for them.
Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
My own view is that Boris will retire after the pandemic is over worldwide in order to join the US and Far Eastern speaking circuits. I doubt he will fight another election unless it is held very early. Boris is in his mid-50s (three weeks to his 57th birthday) which is hardly ancient but is already older than Tony Blair and David Cameron when they left Downing Street.
I doubt it. There's always when someone is in Downing Street at least "one more thing" they want to get done, before stepping down. Once you've stepped down its not possible to step back up nowadays, so get done what you can now.
Plus Cameron's shame in recent months has probably banished any consideration that Boris might have had of retiring very early after just a couple of years in Downing Street and joining Cameron in seeking money elsewhere already. Cameron has seen his reputation absolutely trashed.
I take your points but regard Boris as a one-off, not like other Prime Ministers. He had to be strong-armed into a second term as Mayor. He seems to prefer winning office to holding office. He has been elected by his party and then by the country; what more is there? If he hangs on to 2024, he risks defeat. It is possible he will hold a snap election in 2022 or 23 if he is still riding high in the polls and retire soon after but what's the point? .
You'll still be discussing this in 2028.
Boris is going nowhere.
He has a highly ambitious new young wife-to-be and a post-covid programme as PM that he wishes to roll out: to take Brexit Britain forward as the Singapore of the west.
Oh and he's a winner. I know it's annoying. I know he's a schmuck. But since when did we choose a PM on the basis of their morality? Save that for the parish priest.
He is a winner.
But I suspect that leads to him leaving earlier rather than later.
I'm afraid that this is wishful thinking.
Brexit is clearly in the early stages of a success story (sorry, DecrepiterJohnL) but will take time to roll out. Boris has a vision for massive trade expansion with the world, including English-speaking former colonies and emerging markets. There are also enormous capital investment projects which Boris is backing, such as HS2. And if anyone reminds me that Boris will take all the plaudits for something he didn't start, since when did that stop him? Boris bikes and the Olympics for example.
He's going nowhere anytime soon and I'm led to believe that he would like to outlast Thatcher for length of time as Conservative PM: a personal target. 11 years.
11 years. So those hoping he will go, which is all it is (hope), you're going to be wasting a decade of your lives waiting.
The longer he stays, the greater the chance that the UK breaks up on his watch rather than on the one of the person who succeeds him. But I agree that he is set for the long-term.
Johnson is putting in place the structures that ensure he will not be leaving for a very long time. Voter suppression, emasculation of the courts, direct control of the BBC and media regulation, as well as various other Orbanisations are all designed to do one thing. None of it is a surprise. Neither is the fact that those who claim to cherish British history, institutions, liberty and democracy are very happy to watch him do it.
He will be inviting the Belarus Leader soon for a cosy chat....
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Soo... let's sum up the last 48 hrs.. despite Leon saying it wasn't a damp squib.. Cummings is last nights fish and chip paper.. Boris found not to have broken any rules over Wallpapergate.. polls not moved .. a good week for the incumbent dontcha think.....
MUCH too soon to tell. Most people will now regard him as a lying incompetent freeloader. When voters eventually absorb all the information of the last few weeks that's what they'll be left with.
It might be that this doesn't bother them as it doesn't seem to at the moment or it might be the euphoria of the end of the pandemic. But this won't last. There is no chance whatsoever that his ratings wont go down the toilet when voters take stock.
It'll all be academic though unless SKS learns how to project himself
"Most people will now regard him as a lying incompetent freeloader."
Not "most". The same people who already thought him as a lying incompetent freeloader will now be religious in their belief that he is a lying incompetent freeloader.
And how ungrateful, now he is giving you the right to vote him out. From Antibes... 😉
One can always trust Roger to call it right.......
Just seen this story about the USA returning ancient stone carvings to Thailand, and it's an uncomfortable reminder of quite how long I wondered why that paticular bag of 'elgin' marbles was so special that we couldn't just give them back to Greece, or maybe even play 'marbles' against Greece for them.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
Soo... let's sum up the last 48 hrs.. despite Leon saying it wasn't a damp squib.. Cummings is last nights fish and chip paper.. Boris found not to have broken any rules over Wallpapergate.. polls not moved .. a good week for the incumbent dontcha think.....
MUCH too soon to tell. Most people will now regard him as a lying incompetent freeloader. When voters eventually absorb all the information of the last few weeks that's what they'll be left with.
It might be that this doesn't bother them as it doesn't seem to at the moment or it might be the euphoria of the end of the pandemic. But this won't last. There is no chance whatsoever that his ratings wont go down the toilet when voters take stock.
It'll all be academic though unless SKS learns how to project himself
"Most people will now regard him as a lying incompetent freeloader."
Not "most". The same people who already thought him as a lying incompetent freeloader will now be religious in their belief that he is a lying incompetent freeloader.
And how ungrateful, now he is giving you the right to vote him out. From Antibes... 😉
One can always trust Roger to call it right.......
Another big question is why Boris could order a nuclear strike on Bournemouth and still have higher ratings than the Leader of the Opposition...
When your captor finally let's you out of the basement and you experience the hustle and bustle of reality, you will discover that the world works differently to your perceived view.
Really? Which of us was labouring under the comical delusion that Boris' wallpaper had the slightest political significance? Oh, right, it was you.
And I still think at some point in the not too distant future, Johnson's wallpaper will resonate with voters. Not yet perhaps, but it will.
Ah, of course, the desperate appeal to some unspecified time in the future when you'll be proved right in defiance of all the evidence to date. We really need to come up with a succinct term for that particular gambit, not least because of how common it is at the moment...
'The Appeal to Futurity'? 'One-Dayism'? I like 'One-Dayism'.
There does seem to be a shared opinion that Boris messing up so badly it will lead to his downfall is inevitable. ‘One Dayism’ is perfect. Maybe it is true, but I’d like to see people put a % chance on it rather than play the free option
My own view is that Boris will retire after the pandemic is over worldwide in order to join the US and Far Eastern speaking circuits. I doubt he will fight another election unless it is held very early. Boris is in his mid-50s (three weeks to his 57th birthday) which is hardly ancient but is already older than Tony Blair and David Cameron when they left Downing Street.
I doubt it. There's always when someone is in Downing Street at least "one more thing" they want to get done, before stepping down. Once you've stepped down its not possible to step back up nowadays, so get done what you can now.
Plus Cameron's shame in recent months has probably banished any consideration that Boris might have had of retiring very early after just a couple of years in Downing Street and joining Cameron in seeking money elsewhere already. Cameron has seen his reputation absolutely trashed.
I take your points but regard Boris as a one-off, not like other Prime Ministers. He had to be strong-armed into a second term as Mayor. He seems to prefer winning office to holding office. He has been elected by his party and then by the country; what more is there? If he hangs on to 2024, he risks defeat. It is possible he will hold a snap election in 2022 or 23 if he is still riding high in the polls and retire soon after but what's the point? .
You'll still be discussing this in 2028.
Boris is going nowhere.
He has a highly ambitious new young wife-to-be and a post-covid programme as PM that he wishes to roll out: to take Brexit Britain forward as the Singapore of the west.
Oh and he's a winner. I know it's annoying. I know he's a schmuck. But since when did we choose a PM on the basis of their morality? Save that for the parish priest.
He is a winner.
But I suspect that leads to him leaving earlier rather than later.
I'm afraid that this is wishful thinking.
Brexit is clearly in the early stages of a success story (sorry, DecrepiterJohnL) but will take time to roll out. Boris has a vision for massive trade expansion with the world, including English-speaking former colonies and emerging markets. There are also enormous capital investment projects which Boris is backing, such as HS2. And if anyone reminds me that Boris will take all the plaudits for something he didn't start, since when did that stop him? Boris bikes and the Olympics for example.
He's going nowhere anytime soon and I'm led to believe that he would like to outlast Thatcher for length of time as Conservative PM: a personal target. 11 years.
11 years. So those hoping he will go, which is all it is (hope), you're going to be wasting a decade of your lives waiting.
Brexit might indeed be a success story. I hope Jacob Rees-Mogg was right to forecast a trillion pounds bonanza. My point was that Boris himself had no coherent vision for it. For Boris, Brexit, like the Garden Bridge and the island airport, was a slogan not a plan. And so it will prove with the Singaporisation of Britain.
Johnson is putting in place the structures that ensure he will not be leaving for a very long time. Voter suppression, emasculation of the courts, direct control of the BBC and media regulation, as well as various other Orbanisations are all designed to do one thing. None of it is a surprise. Neither is the fact that those who claim to cherish British history, institutions, liberty and democracy are very happy to watch him do it.
He will be inviting the Belarus Leader soon for a cosy chat....
Invite him, divert the plane to Belgium because there’s an IRA bomb aboard, and have him kidnapped. Then, allow the plane to proceed to London with everyone else on board so the Belarusian Air Ministry can tweet about almost all the passengers being safe.
Reading Lord Sumption's recent book two minor things did surprise me - he's a fan of John Bercow (insofar in defending his speakership actions and declaiming the denial of his peerage), and seems, on balance, to support PR.
Is it me or does the fact that Bercow and his wife have taken both the seats as parent governors at their kids’ school seem a little off?
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
I was musing about this the other day. I'm 83, and my passport expires in 2023. Will I renew it? And how long before my eyes have another problem and DVLA decides I'm not fit to drive? I'll have to pay to be able to vote then!
GB News is launching at least decade late. Viewership of satellite and cable tv is in free fall. All the existing news players are hemorrhaging money.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
And the video has bugger all views... doesn't bode well.
Also notable Murdoch has plugged the plug on his similar project for a new news channel.
Is anyone running a spread bet on how long GB News lasts?
Just seen this story about the USA returning ancient stone carvings to Thailand, and it's an uncomfortable reminder of quite how long I wondered why that paticular bag of 'elgin' marbles was so special that we couldn't just give them back to Greece, or maybe even play 'marbles' against Greece for them.
Lord Elgin bought the marbles, rather than stealing them.
I went to a bar in Elgin a year or so ago. The only thing it was lacking was sawdust on the floor. It made Wetherspoons look like The Savoy Grill
How do you know what the inside of a 'Spoons looks like?
Do you go into them just to sneer at people?
Maybe on long weekends to Hartlepool?
I was going to say Yates Wine Lodge which I used to like and did have sawdust on the floor but I didn't think anyone would know what it was.
That reminds me of the Davy’s Wine Bar!
Last time I went to Yates was after the funeral of the house manager of the Oxford Union in the mod 90s. Lovely lady, Brenda, who smoked 40 Lambert&Butlers a day and died of lung cancer
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
I was musing about this the other day. I'm 83, and my passport expires in 2023. Will I renew it? And how long before my eyes have another problem and DVLA decides I'm not fit to drive? I'll have to pay to be able to vote then!
Hmmm. Don't like the idea at all!
Jack W will get a free one he was born before the end of WW2 so its free
Hard to keep up with Leon. One day he's AMAZED that we're not all watching the skies for UFOs, because these dozens of videos from the US show mysterious dots. Next day he's CERTAIN that the virus came from a Chinese lab, because a Taiwanese website and a range of Trumpites say so. Today he's CONVINCED that Biden is a paedophile, because he's watched dozens of videos that persuade him.
You need to get out more, mate. Lockdownitis and obsession with stuff on the internet is a thing.
I recommend a walk around back streets of St Johns Wood.
Leon might learn something about his local area.
I walked down Avenue Road (constant stream of traffic and overbuilt houses squatting behind iron gates) and Townsend Road (80% of cars parked were German premium brands) yesterday. Total deprivation.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
I was musing about this the other day. I'm 83, and my passport expires in 2023. Will I renew it? And how long before my eyes have another problem and DVLA decides I'm not fit to drive? I'll have to pay to be able to vote then!
Hmmm. Don't like the idea at all!
Jack W will get a free one he was born before the end of WW2 so its free
Well, if Jack gets one so will I. Born before the start of WW2, let alone the end. Or did you mean WW1?
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
I was musing about this the other day. I'm 83, and my passport expires in 2023. Will I renew it? And how long before my eyes have another problem and DVLA decides I'm not fit to drive? I'll have to pay to be able to vote then!
Hmmm. Don't like the idea at all!
Jack W will get a free one he was born before the end of WW2 so its free
Well, if Jack gets one so will I. Born before the start of WW2, let alone the end. Or did you mean WW1?
Also the 10% Tory lead. Pollster is Survation but I don’t think this one has yet been covered.
Isn't that the forgive him everything bit?
The vaccine, the furlough and the triple lock form an immensely powerful firewall for the government. Only one is permanent, though. I wonder how forgivable Johnson's lies and flippancy will be when that is the case.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
I was musing about this the other day. I'm 83, and my passport expires in 2023. Will I renew it? And how long before my eyes have another problem and DVLA decides I'm not fit to drive? I'll have to pay to be able to vote then!
Hmmm. Don't like the idea at all!
Jack W will get a free one he was born before the end of WW2 so its free
Well, if Jack gets one so will I. Born before the start of WW2, let alone the end. Or did you mean WW1?
Born before 2 9 1929...
My mistake..its meant to be deemed to be actively during WW2 ie 16. Is the criterion.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
I was musing about this the other day. I'm 83, and my passport expires in 2023. Will I renew it? And how long before my eyes have another problem and DVLA decides I'm not fit to drive? I'll have to pay to be able to vote then!
Hmmm. Don't like the idea at all!
Jack W will get a free one he was born before the end of WW2 so its free
Well, if Jack gets one so will I. Born before the start of WW2, let alone the end. Or did you mean WW1?
Hard to keep up with Leon. One day he's AMAZED that we're not all watching the skies for UFOs, because these dozens of videos from the US show mysterious dots. Next day he's CERTAIN that the virus came from a Chinese lab, because a Taiwanese website and a range of Trumpites say so. Today he's CONVINCED that Biden is a paedophile, because he's watched dozens of videos that persuade him.
You need to get out more, mate. Lockdownitis and obsession with stuff on the internet is a thing.
I recommend a walk around back streets of St Johns Wood.
Leon might learn something about his local area.
I walked down Avenue Road (constant stream of traffic and overbuilt houses squatting behind iron gates) and Townsend Road (80% of cars parked were German premium brands) yesterday. Total deprivation.
If you'd crossed to the other side of Finchley Road by Swiss Cottage tube and gone down the hill a bit you'd have seen the council estate where my grandparents lived.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
I was musing about this the other day. I'm 83, and my passport expires in 2023. Will I renew it? And how long before my eyes have another problem and DVLA decides I'm not fit to drive? I'll have to pay to be able to vote then!
Hmmm. Don't like the idea at all!
Jack W will get a free one he was born before the end of WW2 so its free
Well, if Jack gets one so will I. Born before the start of WW2, let alone the end. Or did you mean WW1?
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
I was musing about this the other day. I'm 83, and my passport expires in 2023. Will I renew it? And how long before my eyes have another problem and DVLA decides I'm not fit to drive? I'll have to pay to be able to vote then!
Hmmm. Don't like the idea at all!
My nearest neighbour is 92 next, his wife a couple of years younger. They still drive to do shopping and see friends (although they did sell their camper van for touring Scotland a while back....)
Hard to keep up with Leon. One day he's AMAZED that we're not all watching the skies for UFOs, because these dozens of videos from the US show mysterious dots. Next day he's CERTAIN that the virus came from a Chinese lab, because a Taiwanese website and a range of Trumpites say so. Today he's CONVINCED that Biden is a paedophile, because he's watched dozens of videos that persuade him.
You need to get out more, mate. Lockdownitis and obsession with stuff on the internet is a thing.
I recommend a walk around back streets of St Johns Wood.
Leon might learn something about his local area.
I walked down Avenue Road (constant stream of traffic and overbuilt houses squatting behind iron gates) and Townsend Road (80% of cars parked were German premium brands) yesterday. Total deprivation.
If you'd crossed to the other side of Finchley Road by Swiss Cottage tube and gone down the hill a bit you'd have seen the council estate where my grandparents lived.
I tend to walk from the Kilburn borders to Primrose Hill and back so it’s the southern end rather than around Swiss Cottage
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
I was musing about this the other day. I'm 83, and my passport expires in 2023. Will I renew it? And how long before my eyes have another problem and DVLA decides I'm not fit to drive? I'll have to pay to be able to vote then!
Hmmm. Don't like the idea at all!
Jack W will get a free one he was born before the end of WW2 so its free
Well, if Jack gets one so will I. Born before the start of WW2, let alone the end. Or did you mean WW1?
Born before 2 9 1929...
Ten years before the start of WW2........
I am not certain now but the date is correct
Is that a fact; if born before 2.9.29, ID's will be free? So one would have to be 92 in September to qualify. Seems an odd cut-off. Someone born in 1929 would, of course, have been able to leave school and start work in 1943.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
Also the 10% Tory lead. Pollster is Survation but I don’t think this one has yet been covered.
Isn't that the forgive him everything bit?
The vaccine, the furlough and the triple lock form an immensely powerful firewall for the government. Only one is permanent, though. I wonder how forgivable Johnson's lies and flippancy will be when that is the case.
Was chatting to a builder yesterday. He said that a significant number of tradesmen he knows have been furloughed - but then re-employed by their bosses for cash, because there is just so much work. They have had a great Covid - made out like bandits.
Of course, it also means they don't self-isolate if they get the Bastard Bug...
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
I think, Mr C, that the word at the start of your second sentence should be 'most'. I wouldn't dispute for a moment that things need to be tightened up with postal voting, but for voting in person this really does seem to be a sledgehammer and a nut. And, Mr MM, I sincerely hope I'll be a) here, and b), if so, driving at 92, but bits seem to go wrong on humans in random order. A relative was still driving at 97, but he wasn't a blood relative. I think I'm the oldest among my cousins still with a licence. Or indeed, of the 20+ I once had, one of the handful still alive.
Also the 10% Tory lead. Pollster is Survation but I don’t think this one has yet been covered.
Isn't that the forgive him everything bit?
The vaccine, the furlough and the triple lock form an immensely powerful firewall for the government. Only one is permanent, though. I wonder how forgivable Johnson's lies and flippancy will be when that is the case.
Was chatting to a builder yesterday. He said that a significant number of tradesmen he knows have been furloughed - but then re-employed by their bosses for cash, because there is just so much work. They have had a great Covid - made out like bandits.
Of course, it also means they don't self-isolate if they get the Bastard Bug...
There is an absolute ton of work out there, that is for sure. We need some doing in our new place and it is impossible to find anyone.
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
It's not just our scientists. The governmnent went out of its way to scare people about the virus last year, and we were for a long time, and may still be, the most fearful country in the world about it.
There is an argument (made from the perspective of allowing people to spread fear) that the Govt have allowed numbers to fall too far before releasing restrictions. Because once you have suppressed things below the level where things like vaccinations etc can maintain a “steady state” in a fully unrestricted economy we are vulnerable to a small uptick in cases being portrayed as us again being on the brink of disaster. When put along side the “perceived wisdom” of the last year that the only actions you can get wrong against Covid are to “act too late”.
It is striking, for example, that people routinely say that the US have “opened up without problems”. Because they appear to have entered a pretty stable situation where cases and deaths are (generally) not growing and getting out of hand, but at a much higher level to where we are (by about an order of magnitude of 10).
So if a “normal” level of deaths with the virus endemic in the U.K. under no restriction is closer to 50-100 than zero (and i’m not saying it is, but it might be) then we should inevitably be expecting a short term rise in cases, hospitalisation and deaths. And the critics at that point will be having a field day, rolling out the graphs showing how 50 will become 100, will become 500, will become 5,000... etc, unless measures are reintroduced NOW. When all that will actually be happening is a rise to a steady state of about 50-100 with a wall of vaccinated people preventing it rising further.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
Those on the left determined to allow as much voter fraud as possible as it suits Labour..
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Also the 10% Tory lead. Pollster is Survation but I don’t think this one has yet been covered.
Am just waking up this morning so apologies if all of these have already been discussed ad nauseam, but (courtesy of the wonder of Wikipedia) here are all the most recent polls:
SavantaComRes (21-23 May): Con 43, Lab 34 Redfield & Wilton (24 May): Con 43, Lab 33 Survation (25-26 May): Con 43, Lab 33 Number Cruncher Politics (27-28 May): Con 44, Lab 32
So, after that very dramatic set of numbers from YouGov about a week ago, there's clustering around a 10-12pt Conservative lead.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
Those on the left determined to allow as much voter fraud as possible as it suits Labour..
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
Those on the left determined to allow as much voter fraud as possible as it suits Labour..
As I understand it the main beneficiaries of voter fraud in the UK are alleged to have been the Ulster Unionists.
Just seen this story about the USA returning ancient stone carvings to Thailand, and it's an uncomfortable reminder of quite how long I wondered why that paticular bag of 'elgin' marbles was so special that we couldn't just give them back to Greece, or maybe even play 'marbles' against Greece for them.
Because they were bought a d paid for and, I believe, classed as inalienable assets which restricts deaccession
Imagine thinking, as I did until far later in life than I'd like to admit, that all these legal and diplomatic wranglings were over a pouch of small glass balls..
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
Those on the left determined to allow as much voter fraud as possible as it suits Labour..
What voter fraud?
Theoretical and apocryphal voter fraud of course, dangerous stuff to a free and fair election.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
I hope the government was listening. She sounds remarkably sensible (ie I completely agree). As all of our more vulnerable have had their second doses for long enough to receive protection it almost doesn't matter if there is an increase in cases. It is certainly not a basis for inflicting further economic damage.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
It's not just our scientists. The governmnent went out of its way to scare people about the virus last year, and we were for a long time, and may still be, the most fearful country in the world about it.
There is an argument (made from the perspective of allowing people to spread fear) that the Govt have allowed numbers to fall too far before releasing restrictions. Because once you have suppressed things below the level where things like vaccinations etc can maintain a “steady state” in a fully unrestricted economy we are vulnerable to a small uptick in cases being portrayed as us again being on the brink of disaster. When put along side the “perceived wisdom” of the last year that the only actions you can get wrong against Covid are to “act too late”.
It is striking, for example, that people routinely say that the US have “opened up without problems”. Because they appear to have entered a pretty stable situation where cases and deaths are (generally) not growing and getting out of hand, but at a much higher level to where we are (by about an order of magnitude of 10).
So if a “normal” level of deaths with the virus endemic in the U.K. under no restriction is closer to 50-100 than zero (and i’m not saying it is, but it might be) then we should inevitably be expecting a short term rise in cases, hospitalisation and deaths. And the critics at that point will be having a field day, rolling out the graphs showing how 50 will become 100, will become 500, will become 5,000... etc, unless measures are reintroduced NOW. When all that will actually be happening is a rise to a steady state of about 50-100 with a wall of vaccinated people preventing it rising further.
This is another reason why stalling over June 21st could start to cause us very real problems - because once you kick the can down the road once, it becomes easier to do it again and again.
The sequence of events is predictable. First, we must have restrictions because of the Indian variant. Then, because young people haven't all been vaccinated. Then because they've not been vaccinated twice. Then because of the scary Paraguayan variant. Then because we have to vaccinate secondary school children. Then because the elderly urgently need boosters. Then because of the scary Senegalese variant. Then because it's flu season and we must protect the NHS from both flu and Covid at the same time, or else it is bound to collapse and we shall all be dead by Christmas.
And thus, before you know it, we have masks and social distancing and furlough and all the rest of the bollocks dragging right through until next Spring, whilst the fundamentalist wing of the epidemiological Taliban works frantically on a new set of excuses for why we can't have our lives back next Summer either.
We shouldn't forget there was rampant voter dubiousness in Tower Hamlets, and taking measures to make such behaviour more unlikely to recur in the future is a good thing.
That said, I don't mind voter ID provided it isn't photo ID. The trial had dozens of accepted forms (including one provided for free from local councils). This smells like a potential backdoor route to wretched ID cards.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
Those on the left determined to allow as much voter fraud as possible as it suits Labour..
As I understand it the main beneficiaries of voter fraud in the UK are alleged to have been the Ulster Unionists.
The largest beneficiaries of voter fraud were Sinn Fein in 1918.
But they helpfully resolved that problem by going independent and then killing off almost everyone involved in the vote rigging in the subsequent civil war.
Whether there is fraud or not, the UK system is very well insulated to it resulting in material effects on the expression of the Democratic will, as represented by the electoral outcomes. This is what those who push the “security of the integrity of the vote” line (even if genuinely expressed) fail to appreciate.
Any fraud to a level which can result in material changes to outcomes would be very difficult to operate without detection. And because our electoral authorities (unlike in the US) are independent, even harder to get away with - because complaints DO get investigated, on a non partisan basis.
The most vulnerable are of course low turnout local elections. Although even there we are generally taking about turning a few local wards, very rarely enough to make a difference to the direction of local councils. National elections? Securing election as an MP purely as a result of fraud would be incredibly difficult. And even if somehow achieved, what does it get you? One vote in the House of Commons. Obviously something that would be wrong. But compared to the skewing of the Democratic will engendered by vote suppression/restriction across the country by make voting uniformly harder, it is a drop in the ocean.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Agreed, but it also needs to be free.
Yes. The aim is to increase security (and to signal the importance of the vote) not to exclude people. There shouldn’t be a charge to participate. (I think @rcs1000 argument about the cost of time is silly).
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
It's not just our scientists. The governmnent went out of its way to scare people about the virus last year, and we were for a long time, and may still be, the most fearful country in the world about it.
There is an argument (made from the perspective of allowing people to spread fear) that the Govt have allowed numbers to fall too far before releasing restrictions. Because once you have suppressed things below the level where things like vaccinations etc can maintain a “steady state” in a fully unrestricted economy we are vulnerable to a small uptick in cases being portrayed as us again being on the brink of disaster. When put along side the “perceived wisdom” of the last year that the only actions you can get wrong against Covid are to “act too late”.
It is striking, for example, that people routinely say that the US have “opened up without problems”. Because they appear to have entered a pretty stable situation where cases and deaths are (generally) not growing and getting out of hand, but at a much higher level to where we are (by about an order of magnitude of 10).
So if a “normal” level of deaths with the virus endemic in the U.K. under no restriction is closer to 50-100 than zero (and i’m not saying it is, but it might be) then we should inevitably be expecting a short term rise in cases, hospitalisation and deaths. And the critics at that point will be having a field day, rolling out the graphs showing how 50 will become 100, will become 500, will become 5,000... etc, unless measures are reintroduced NOW. When all that will actually be happening is a rise to a steady state of about 50-100 with a wall of vaccinated people preventing it rising further.
This is another reason why stalling over June 21st could start to cause us very real problems - because once you kick the can down the road once, it becomes easier to do it again and again.
The sequence of events is predictable. First, we must have restrictions because of the Indian variant. Then, because young people haven't all been vaccinated. Then because they've not been vaccinated twice. Then because of the scary Paraguayan variant. Then because we have to vaccinate secondary school children. Then because the elderly urgently need boosters. Then because of the scary Senegalese variant. Then because it's flu season and we must protect the NHS from both flu and Covid at the same time, or else it is bound to collapse and we shall all be dead by Christmas.
And thus, before you know it, we have masks and social distancing and furlough and all the rest of the bollocks dragging right through until next Spring, whilst the fundamentalist wing of the epidemiological Taliban works frantically on a new set of excuses for why we can't have our lives back next Summer either.
I know it’s a scary scenario. But it’s really not going to happen
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
It's not just our scientists. The governmnent went out of its way to scare people about the virus last year, and we were for a long time, and may still be, the most fearful country in the world about it.
There is an argument (made from the perspective of allowing people to spread fear) that the Govt have allowed numbers to fall too far before releasing restrictions. Because once you have suppressed things below the level where things like vaccinations etc can maintain a “steady state” in a fully unrestricted economy we are vulnerable to a small uptick in cases being portrayed as us again being on the brink of disaster. When put along side the “perceived wisdom” of the last year that the only actions you can get wrong against Covid are to “act too late”.
It is striking, for example, that people routinely say that the US have “opened up without problems”. Because they appear to have entered a pretty stable situation where cases and deaths are (generally) not growing and getting out of hand, but at a much higher level to where we are (by about an order of magnitude of 10).
So if a “normal” level of deaths with the virus endemic in the U.K. under no restriction is closer to 50-100 than zero (and i’m not saying it is, but it might be) then we should inevitably be expecting a short term rise in cases, hospitalisation and deaths. And the critics at that point will be having a field day, rolling out the graphs showing how 50 will become 100, will become 500, will become 5,000... etc, unless measures are reintroduced NOW. When all that will actually be happening is a rise to a steady state of about 50-100 with a wall of vaccinated people preventing it rising further.
This is another reason why stalling over June 21st could start to cause us very real problems - because once you kick the can down the road once, it becomes easier to do it again and again.
The sequence of events is predictable. First, we must have restrictions because of the Indian variant. Then, because young people haven't all been vaccinated. Then because they've not been vaccinated twice. Then because of the scary Paraguayan variant. Then because we have to vaccinate secondary school children. Then because the elderly urgently need boosters. Then because of the scary Senegalese variant. Then because it's flu season and we must protect the NHS from both flu and Covid at the same time, or else it is bound to collapse and we shall all be dead by Christmas.
And thus, before you know it, we have masks and social distancing and furlough and all the rest of the bollocks dragging right through until next Spring, whilst the fundamentalist wing of the epidemiological Taliban works frantically on a new set of excuses for why we can't have our lives back next Summer either.
You live in an interesting world if it is one where you think the Govt. wants to continue furlough payments.
There might be a group of virologists loving being the centre of attention. But come 21st June, they can slink back to Porton Down or wherever and dream of their next mega-bug inspired moment in the sun. Hopefully, many decades down the line.
Onto happier topics. Moving down to Sidmouth is one of the best things we have ever done. This part of England is indescribably beautiful. The countryside is stunning. To be able to get up in the morning and walk for half an hour into high cliff country, then look down over rolling fields towards Dartmoor in one direction or across the wide blue sea in the other, with nothing but birdsong and the sound of the wind to accompany you, is the stuff of dreams. And there is so much else within easy reach. I have seen many magnificent places in the world and hope to again. But knowing that I will always come home to here is a thought to treasure.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
An hour of their time going to the oval post office is not significant.
And your photo in the polling station idea is just daft.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
There is something wonderful about turning up to vote having forgotten your polling card, giving your name and address and being given your ballot. Its something to be genuinely proud of in our system. Voting is a civic duty and you are trusted to do it right. I think personation is almost non existent and I have seen no evidence otherwise. Voter ID at the polling station seems to me a solution in search of a problem. I really would not want anyone on the electoral register who turned up to do their civic duty turned away because they did not have photo ID.
There is more evidence of problems with postal voting where it is so much easier to collect or farm the votes of the vulnerable and complete them on their behalf. Surely this is where we need to concentrate our efforts.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
It's not just our scientists. The governmnent went out of its way to scare people about the virus last year, and we were for a long time, and may still be, the most fearful country in the world about it.
There is an argument (made from the perspective of allowing people to spread fear) that the Govt have allowed numbers to fall too far before releasing restrictions. Because once you have suppressed things below the level where things like vaccinations etc can maintain a “steady state” in a fully unrestricted economy we are vulnerable to a small uptick in cases being portrayed as us again being on the brink of disaster. When put along side the “perceived wisdom” of the last year that the only actions you can get wrong against Covid are to “act too late”.
It is striking, for example, that people routinely say that the US have “opened up without problems”. Because they appear to have entered a pretty stable situation where cases and deaths are (generally) not growing and getting out of hand, but at a much higher level to where we are (by about an order of magnitude of 10).
So if a “normal” level of deaths with the virus endemic in the U.K. under no restriction is closer to 50-100 than zero (and i’m not saying it is, but it might be) then we should inevitably be expecting a short term rise in cases, hospitalisation and deaths. And the critics at that point will be having a field day, rolling out the graphs showing how 50 will become 100, will become 500, will become 5,000... etc, unless measures are reintroduced NOW. When all that will actually be happening is a rise to a steady state of about 50-100 with a wall of vaccinated people preventing it rising further.
This is another reason why stalling over June 21st could start to cause us very real problems - because once you kick the can down the road once, it becomes easier to do it again and again.
The sequence of events is predictable. First, we must have restrictions because of the Indian variant. Then, because young people haven't all been vaccinated. Then because they've not been vaccinated twice. Then because of the scary Paraguayan variant. Then because we have to vaccinate secondary school children. Then because the elderly urgently need boosters. Then because of the scary Senegalese variant. Then because it's flu season and we must protect the NHS from both flu and Covid at the same time, or else it is bound to collapse and we shall all be dead by Christmas.
And thus, before you know it, we have masks and social distancing and furlough and all the rest of the bollocks dragging right through until next Spring, whilst the fundamentalist wing of the epidemiological Taliban works frantically on a new set of excuses for why we can't have our lives back next Summer either.
You live in an interesting world if it is one where you think the Govt. wants to continue furlough payments.
There might be a group of virologists loving being the centre of attention. But come 21st June, they can slink back to Porton Down or wherever and dream of their next mega-bug inspired moment in the sun. Hopefully, many decades down the line.
To be fair to the guys at Porton Down it’s not them arguing for permanent lockdown
Oh no, voter id again. Why are the Tories taking us down a Trumpian path? Solving problems that are not there, whilst ignoring real problems, just to gain party advantage is not good. I’m surprised supporters here are so keen to put their names to it.
Onto happier topics. Moving down to Sidmouth is one of the best things we have ever done. This part of England is indescribably beautiful. The countryside is stunning. To be able to get up in the morning and walk for half an hour into high cliff country, then look down over rolling fields towards Dartmoor in one direction or across the wide blue sea in the other, with nothing but birdsong and the sound of the wind to accompany you, is the stuff of dreams. And there is so much else within easy reach. I have seen many magnificent places in the world and hope to again. But knowing that I will always come home to here is a thought to treasure.
I love Sidmouth. My favourite bolt hole in Devon. The red cliffs in particular are beautiful.
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
I hope the government was listening. She sounds remarkably sensible (ie I completely agree). As all of our more vulnerable have had their second doses for long enough to receive protection it almost doesn't matter if there is an increase in cases. It is certainly not a basis for inflicting further economic damage.
It is noticeable that “indie sage” (see Pagel interview on sky yesterday and on twitter feed) have really started trying to ramp the “risk to children” angle in their campaign for continuing lockdowns. Utterly absurd when you consider the wide damage the last year has done to children’s education and mental health. Of course they always employ this “get out” that in their view further lockdowns are “inevitable” if we don’t follow their prescriptions.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
An hour of their time going to the oval post office is not significant.
And your photo in the polling station idea is just daft.
Onto happier topics. Moving down to Sidmouth is one of the best things we have ever done. This part of England is indescribably beautiful. The countryside is stunning. To be able to get up in the morning and walk for half an hour into high cliff country, then look down over rolling fields towards Dartmoor in one direction or across the wide blue sea in the other, with nothing but birdsong and the sound of the wind to accompany you, is the stuff of dreams. And there is so much else within easy reach. I have seen many magnificent places in the world and hope to again. But knowing that I will always come home to here is a thought to treasure.
Similar experience here. I never forget I am profoundly fortunate (with hard work and taking some risks along the way to make the most of my life chances).
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
An hour of their time going to the oval post office is not significant.
And your photo in the polling station idea is just daft.
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
It's not just our scientists. The governmnent went out of its way to scare people about the virus last year, and we were for a long time, and may still be, the most fearful country in the world about it.
There is an argument (made from the perspective of allowing people to spread fear) that the Govt have allowed numbers to fall too far before releasing restrictions. Because once you have suppressed things below the level where things like vaccinations etc can maintain a “steady state” in a fully unrestricted economy we are vulnerable to a small uptick in cases being portrayed as us again being on the brink of disaster. When put along side the “perceived wisdom” of the last year that the only actions you can get wrong against Covid are to “act too late”.
It is striking, for example, that people routinely say that the US have “opened up without problems”. Because they appear to have entered a pretty stable situation where cases and deaths are (generally) not growing and getting out of hand, but at a much higher level to where we are (by about an order of magnitude of 10).
So if a “normal” level of deaths with the virus endemic in the U.K. under no restriction is closer to 50-100 than zero (and i’m not saying it is, but it might be) then we should inevitably be expecting a short term rise in cases, hospitalisation and deaths. And the critics at that point will be having a field day, rolling out the graphs showing how 50 will become 100, will become 500, will become 5,000... etc, unless measures are reintroduced NOW. When all that will actually be happening is a rise to a steady state of about 50-100 with a wall of vaccinated people preventing it rising further.
This is another reason why stalling over June 21st could start to cause us very real problems - because once you kick the can down the road once, it becomes easier to do it again and again.
The sequence of events is predictable. First, we must have restrictions because of the Indian variant. Then, because young people haven't all been vaccinated. Then because they've not been vaccinated twice. Then because of the scary Paraguayan variant. Then because we have to vaccinate secondary school children. Then because the elderly urgently need boosters. Then because of the scary Senegalese variant. Then because it's flu season and we must protect the NHS from both flu and Covid at the same time, or else it is bound to collapse and we shall all be dead by Christmas.
And thus, before you know it, we have masks and social distancing and furlough and all the rest of the bollocks dragging right through until next Spring, whilst the fundamentalist wing of the epidemiological Taliban works frantically on a new set of excuses for why we can't have our lives back next Summer either.
You live in an interesting world if it is one where you think the Govt. wants to continue furlough payments.
There might be a group of virologists loving being the centre of attention. But come 21st June, they can slink back to Porton Down or wherever and dream of their next mega-bug inspired moment in the sun. Hopefully, many decades down the line.
Of course the Government doesn't want to keep making handouts, but if it's too bloody frit to deliver the coup de grace to the rules then it will have to.
I think that the odds are now in favour of June 21st going ahead on schedule, but it's not a done deal and will require a certain amount of backbone from the Government (something for which it isn't always noted) to resist the inevitable loud howling from a great many scientists.
Onto happier topics. Moving down to Sidmouth is one of the best things we have ever done. This part of England is indescribably beautiful. The countryside is stunning. To be able to get up in the morning and walk for half an hour into high cliff country, then look down over rolling fields towards Dartmoor in one direction or across the wide blue sea in the other, with nothing but birdsong and the sound of the wind to accompany you, is the stuff of dreams. And there is so much else within easy reach. I have seen many magnificent places in the world and hope to again. But knowing that I will always come home to here is a thought to treasure.
Similar experience here. I never forget I am profoundly fortunate (with hard work and taking some risks along the way to make the most of my life chances).
Jesus H. Christ - "scientist" on Sky now saying we need to stay locked down until everyone's had two doses months from now.
F**k right off already now. This is religious by some people now.
The bit that's most baffling is have they not looked beyond the UK?
Israel is - as a percentage population jabbed - only just ahead of us now.
There is, inevitably a lag between injection and protection, but do you know how many new Covid cases Israel had today?
12.
Twelve.
Which, for the hard of understanding, is the square root of sweet fuck all.
And the US is opening up without issues. And so for fuck's sake is Europe. Denmark has removed almost all restrictions now (just nightclubs remaining), while France is loosening every day.
Why is it only our scientists who are utterly terrified of a few cases?
It's not just our scientists. The governmnent went out of its way to scare people about the virus last year, and we were for a long time, and may still be, the most fearful country in the world about it.
There is an argument (made from the perspective of allowing people to spread fear) that the Govt have allowed numbers to fall too far before releasing restrictions. Because once you have suppressed things below the level where things like vaccinations etc can maintain a “steady state” in a fully unrestricted economy we are vulnerable to a small uptick in cases being portrayed as us again being on the brink of disaster. When put along side the “perceived wisdom” of the last year that the only actions you can get wrong against Covid are to “act too late”.
It is striking, for example, that people routinely say that the US have “opened up without problems”. Because they appear to have entered a pretty stable situation where cases and deaths are (generally) not growing and getting out of hand, but at a much higher level to where we are (by about an order of magnitude of 10).
So if a “normal” level of deaths with the virus endemic in the U.K. under no restriction is closer to 50-100 than zero (and i’m not saying it is, but it might be) then we should inevitably be expecting a short term rise in cases, hospitalisation and deaths. And the critics at that point will be having a field day, rolling out the graphs showing how 50 will become 100, will become 500, will become 5,000... etc, unless measures are reintroduced NOW. When all that will actually be happening is a rise to a steady state of about 50-100 with a wall of vaccinated people preventing it rising further.
This is another reason why stalling over June 21st could start to cause us very real problems - because once you kick the can down the road once, it becomes easier to do it again and again.
The sequence of events is predictable. First, we must have restrictions because of the Indian variant. Then, because young people haven't all been vaccinated. Then because they've not been vaccinated twice. Then because of the scary Paraguayan variant. Then because we have to vaccinate secondary school children. Then because the elderly urgently need boosters. Then because of the scary Senegalese variant. Then because it's flu season and we must protect the NHS from both flu and Covid at the same time, or else it is bound to collapse and we shall all be dead by Christmas.
And thus, before you know it, we have masks and social distancing and furlough and all the rest of the bollocks dragging right through until next Spring, whilst the fundamentalist wing of the epidemiological Taliban works frantically on a new set of excuses for why we can't have our lives back next Summer either.
Onto happier topics. Moving down to Sidmouth is one of the best things we have ever done. This part of England is indescribably beautiful. The countryside is stunning. To be able to get up in the morning and walk for half an hour into high cliff country, then look down over rolling fields towards Dartmoor in one direction or across the wide blue sea in the other, with nothing but birdsong and the sound of the wind to accompany you, is the stuff of dreams. And there is so much else within easy reach. I have seen many magnificent places in the world and hope to again. But knowing that I will always come home to here is a thought to treasure.
I love Sidmouth. My favourite bolt hole in Devon. The red cliffs in particular are beautiful.
I just had no idea before I came here. It is simply stunning.
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
Pfizer is approved down to age 12 in the US, and are looking at similar approvals elsewhere including the UK. Their US trials are now looking at primary school children.
Vaccinating the secondary school pupils over the summer, should make a big difference to infaction rates in September.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Agreed, but it also needs to be free.
Yes. The aim is to increase security (and to signal the importance of the vote) not to exclude people. There shouldn’t be a charge to participate. (I think @rcs1000 argument about the cost of time is silly).
There is a massive amount of academic and real world evidence that people value their time.
But you know what, we can run a trial and find out the real world consequences to see if it does have an effect.
Let's choose a dozen local authorities for next year's local elections, and require photo ID at them. Then let's see if turnout (and particularly turnout of certain demographic groups) is affected by the requirement to carry photo ID.
If it doesn't affect turnout of the young and the poor, then great. If it does, and it imposes a burden on voting for certain demographic groups, then we should look at alternative solutions.
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
It is not unreasonable to put in place measures to prevent personation.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
An hour of their time going to the oval post office is not significant.
And your photo in the polling station idea is just daft.
Why is it daft?
Complicated, insecure, administratively onerous and puts an additional burden on volunteers at the polling station
Reassuring to learn it is not just crude party advantage!
It is surely preparing the ground, in the late 2020s, 2030s, for a new Sindyref. HMG will be able to say, Well this is the agreed franchise for general elections, so Scots-born people living in rUK must have a vote
That might happen but this is a Cameron/Osborne-era proposal, along with the seat reduction and gerrymandered boundary reviews. Ex-pats tend to vote blue, so the more the merrier.
Seat reduction is no longer happening, and really, gerrymandered?
Voter supression is. Straight out of the GOP playbook.
You really think GOP-scale voter suppression is happening in the UK?
No, but I think the new ID requirement the Tories want to introduce to vote is something they've copied from them
So they are the only country in the world that has a similar scheme?
I honestly have no idea. But it's well established that voter fraud in Britain is almost non existant, so why the hell do the Tories want to bring it in?
Voter ID requirement is commonplace in Europe, for example. And has it been demonstrated? Easy to dismiss something if you aren’t looking for it.
The odd thing is, with the rise of the blue collar and retired former blue collar Tory voter, the Conservatives might have just shot their own foot off.
Voter suppression tactics are never a good look.
You are ascribing motive as fact without evidence. There are plenty of good reasons for individual registration and voter ID requirements.
Of course there are, Charles. The primary one being that it will suppress turnout among those who tend not to vote Conservative. There are always justifications for individual actions. Put them all together, though, and it becomes tougher for anyone who genuinely believes in democracy and liberty to justify them.
There have been multiple stories about vote fraud over the last 10-15 years. Many of those are related to postal voting which needs to be tightened up as well. The security of the democratic vote is paramount.
There are a lot of stories about many things, Charles. The actual evidence that on-day voter fraud is even a minor issue is close to non-existent. But we do know that right wing, populist parties are very keen on making it as hard as possible for people who do not support them to vote. And we do know that those on the right who have frequently and loudly professed to cherish democracy, accountability and liberty are delighted to cheer them on.
I do not think that greater voter security and ease of taking part are completely incompatible and where they are not we should clearly do what we can to ensure the integrity of the vote. But excluding people eligible to vote is the greater wrong and ultimately does the more damage to our democracy so where the two do come into conflict my bias would always be towards ease of voting. The alternative American road is one we simply do not want to go down.
Asking people to have ID is not unreasonable. Most people have it. For those who don’t there should be a system put in place to allow them to obtain it. It’s really not that difficult.
Agreed, but it also needs to be free.
Yes. The aim is to increase security (and to signal the importance of the vote) not to exclude people. There shouldn’t be a charge to participate. (I think @rcs1000 argument about the cost of time is silly).
There is a massive amount of academic and real world evidence that people value their time.
But you know what, we can run a trial and find out the real world consequences to see if it does have an effect.
Let's choose a dozen local authorities for next year's local elections, and require photo ID at them. Then let's see if turnout (and particularly turnout of certain demographic groups) is affected by the requirement to carry photo ID.
If it doesn't affect turnout of the young and the poor, then great. If it does, and it imposes a burden on voting for certain demographic groups, then we should look at alternative solutions.
BBC Breakfast are now doing their usual morning interview slot with a GP about Covid.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
I hope the government was listening. She sounds remarkably sensible (ie I completely agree). As all of our more vulnerable have had their second doses for long enough to receive protection it almost doesn't matter if there is an increase in cases. It is certainly not a basis for inflicting further economic damage.
It is noticeable that “indie sage” (see Pagel interview on sky yesterday and on twitter feed) have really started trying to ramp the “risk to children” angle in there campaign for continuing lockdowns. Utterly absurd when you consider the wide damage the last year has done to children’s education and mental health. Of course they always employ this “get out” that in their view further lockdowns are “inevitable” if we don’t follow their prescriptions.
My son's last 2 years of school have been severely damaged by Covid. He has been given results that will always be looked on askance because of the absurd grade inflation that took place; he has lost out socially in so many ways and this is still going on. Most of the activities that the school undertakes for leavers have been cancelled or severely curtailed. We are being denied access to his last prize giving as well.
The price the young have paid to protect the old in this pandemic is almost incalculable. The most determined and focused, such as my son, have found their way through it but many have not and will never catch up the schooling or socialisation that they have lost. Enough. They are not at risk and their grandparents are no longer at risk either if they have taken up the vaccines. Let them live.
Onto happier topics. Moving down to Sidmouth is one of the best things we have ever done. This part of England is indescribably beautiful. The countryside is stunning. To be able to get up in the morning and walk for half an hour into high cliff country, then look down over rolling fields towards Dartmoor in one direction or across the wide blue sea in the other, with nothing but birdsong and the sound of the wind to accompany you, is the stuff of dreams. And there is so much else within easy reach. I have seen many magnificent places in the world and hope to again. But knowing that I will always come home to here is a thought to treasure.
I hadn't read of your move and hope it went well for all involved. When I moved to Devon, the reaction that was uppermost in my mind was "Whatever happens to me now, happens to me in Devon," but like you I treasure the thought that this is where I come home to.
Good morning, everyone. Been too busy even to look at most threads for a week or more. I hope you're all keeping well.
Comments
Plus Cameron's shame in recent months has probably banished any consideration that Boris might have had of retiring very early after just a couple of years in Downing Street and joining Cameron in seeking money elsewhere already. Cameron has seen his reputation absolutely trashed.
Which is fine. All citizens are required to have ID, and therefore no citizen is disadvantaged in carrying out their desire to vote.
The UK doesn't have ID cards.
And many young, urban Brits do not have a driving license. Poorer pensioners probably do not either.
They will therefore need to spend their time (which has value) to vote to secure photo ID, relative to a car owner, who will carry their ID with them at all times.
To even the playing field, I would therefore suggest that anyone with a driving license spends 20 minutes waiting at the polling station prior to voting so that the time cost on all citizens is equalized.
Alternatively, we can use my simple and free method of avoiding personation. If you seek to vote without photo ID, they take a photo of you at the polling station, and you sign the back of it. Simple, avoids personation, doesn't act as a voter suppression mechanism.
Boris is already a veteran of the speaking circuit so I expect him to go there, rather than get involved in vulgar commerce like Cameron or George Osborne. Given his love of Classics, he might even look for a moose head professorship at an American university.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKBx80WayjA
How will Johnson look if Chesham & Amersham is a poor result?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57272756
April 21,2020, Jeane Freeman announced testing for all people going into Scotland's care homes.
The attempt to wriggle out of accountability is staggering 1/2
The mistakes made by Johnson’s government in regard to covid were replicated in Scotland the vast majority of the time by the Scottish Gov.
Any notion that this isn’t the case is disingenuous at best. 2/2
https://twitter.com/ryancapperauld/status/1397924621312090112?s=21
Boris is going nowhere.
He has a highly ambitious new young wife-to-be and a post-covid programme as PM that he wishes to roll out: to take Brexit Britain forward as the Singapore of the west.
Oh and he's a winner. I know it's annoying. I know he's a schmuck. But since when did we choose a PM on the basis of their morality? Save that for the parish priest.
But I suspect that leads to him leaving earlier rather than later. Boris wants to go out on his own terms at a high, not when forced out by the electorate or by his own party.
I think he'll lead the Conservatives to victory in 2023/4, and then do a year of the next Parliament, and then depart to spend more time with his $350k/speech retirement.
It's very telling that, when they needed to tell people about their channel, they did it via YouTube... In case anyone needed reminding where the power really resides in video these days.
Also notable Murdoch has plugged the plug on his similar project for a new news channel.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/05/28/us-soldiers-expose-nuclear-weapons-secrets-via-flashcard-apps/
Brexit is clearly in the early stages of a success story (sorry, DecrepiterJohnL) but will take time to roll out. Boris has a vision for massive trade expansion with the world, including English-speaking former colonies and emerging markets. There are also enormous capital investment projects which Boris is backing, such as HS2. And if anyone reminds me that Boris will take all the plaudits for something he didn't start, since when did that stop him? Boris bikes and the Olympics for example.
He's going nowhere anytime soon and I'm led to believe that he would like to outlast Thatcher for length of time as Conservative PM: a personal target. 11 years.
11 years. So those hoping he will go, which is all it is (hope), you're going to be wasting a decade of your lives waiting.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9631013/Dominic-Cummings-trusted-according-Mail-poll.html
And Happy Spring Bank Holiday weekend everyone.
I'll have to pay to be able to vote then!
Hmmm. Don't like the idea at all!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9631013/Dominic-Cummings-trusted-according-Mail-poll.html
Last time I went to Yates was after the funeral of the house manager of the Oxford Union in the mod 90s. Lovely lady, Brenda, who smoked 40 Lambert&Butlers a day and died of lung cancer
The vaccine, the furlough and the triple lock form an immensely powerful firewall for the government. Only one is permanent, though. I wonder how forgivable Johnson's lies and flippancy will be when that is the case.
Seems an odd cut-off. Someone born in 1929 would, of course, have been able to leave school and start work in 1943.
Of course, it also means they don't self-isolate if they get the Bastard Bug...
And, Mr MM, I sincerely hope I'll be a) here, and b), if so, driving at 92, but bits seem to go wrong on humans in random order.
A relative was still driving at 97, but he wasn't a blood relative. I think I'm the oldest among my cousins still with a licence.
Or indeed, of the 20+ I once had, one of the handful still alive.
They've started by asking about the Indian variant, and this morning's doctor is reassuring people who've had the vaccines that they're highly effective against it, especially after two doses. The doubling in cases over the past week that some people are panic flapping over is also, in her experience, driven primarily by the 10-19 age group. Essentially, the Plague is spreading through the schools (where it's making none of the kids seriously ill) and the overall hospitalisation rate is therefore remaining very low.
She also says that young people are very keen to have the vaccines and no appreciable drop in uptake is being seen (apparently there was some resistance to AZ, but now there's enough of the mRNA shots to go around there are no longer any issues.)
The presenter asks about the possibility of eventually vaccinating children. Doctor replies that this is a subject of ongoing debate - firstly because it might not be necessary to jab the very young (who are almost invulnerable to serious illness) in order to protect the old from superspreader events, because uptake amongst the old has been close to 100%, and secondly because some parents have been made anxious by the AZ blood clot stories, even though the young will not be offered it.
Doctor advises ongoing caution about exposure to the virus, particularly for the very vulnerable, given that vaccination doesn't offer 100% protection - but that she considers it is now time to place more emphasis on the non-Covid harms caused by the pandemic, and to move towards a much more normal way of life.
All sounds pretty positive to me.
It is striking, for example, that people routinely say that the US have “opened up without problems”. Because they appear to have entered a pretty stable situation where cases and deaths are (generally) not growing and getting out of hand, but at a much higher level to where we are (by about an order of magnitude of 10).
So if a “normal” level of deaths with the virus endemic in the U.K. under no restriction is closer to 50-100 than zero (and i’m not saying it is, but it might be) then we should inevitably be expecting a short term rise in cases, hospitalisation and deaths. And the critics at that point will be having a field day, rolling out the graphs showing how 50 will become 100, will become 500, will become 5,000... etc, unless measures are reintroduced NOW. When all that will actually be happening is a rise to a steady state of about 50-100 with a wall of vaccinated people preventing it rising further.
SavantaComRes (21-23 May): Con 43, Lab 34
Redfield & Wilton (24 May): Con 43, Lab 33
Survation (25-26 May): Con 43, Lab 33
Number Cruncher Politics (27-28 May): Con 44, Lab 32
So, after that very dramatic set of numbers from YouGov about a week ago, there's clustering around a 10-12pt Conservative lead.
The sequence of events is predictable. First, we must have restrictions because of the Indian variant. Then, because young people haven't all been vaccinated. Then because they've not been vaccinated twice. Then because of the scary Paraguayan variant. Then because we have to vaccinate secondary school children. Then because the elderly urgently need boosters. Then because of the scary Senegalese variant. Then because it's flu season and we must protect the NHS from both flu and Covid at the same time, or else it is bound to collapse and we shall all be dead by Christmas.
And thus, before you know it, we have masks and social distancing and furlough and all the rest of the bollocks dragging right through until next Spring, whilst the fundamentalist wing of the epidemiological Taliban works frantically on a new set of excuses for why we can't have our lives back next Summer either.
We shouldn't forget there was rampant voter dubiousness in Tower Hamlets, and taking measures to make such behaviour more unlikely to recur in the future is a good thing.
That said, I don't mind voter ID provided it isn't photo ID. The trial had dozens of accepted forms (including one provided for free from local councils). This smells like a potential backdoor route to wretched ID cards.
But they helpfully resolved that problem by going independent and then killing off almost everyone involved in the vote rigging in the subsequent civil war.
Any fraud to a level which can result in material changes to outcomes would be very difficult to operate without detection. And because our electoral authorities (unlike in the US) are independent, even harder to get away with - because complaints DO get investigated, on a non partisan basis.
The most vulnerable are of course low turnout local elections. Although even there we are generally taking about turning a few local wards, very rarely enough to make a difference to the direction of local councils. National elections? Securing election as an MP purely as a result of fraud would be incredibly difficult. And even if somehow achieved, what does it get you? One vote in the House of Commons. Obviously something that would be wrong. But compared to the skewing of the Democratic will engendered by vote suppression/restriction across the country by make voting uniformly harder, it is a drop in the ocean.
The current plans impose no burden on those who happen to own and drive a car (and therefore carry photo ID in their washer every day), but impose significant time burdens on those who do not.
There are measures that prevent personation that do not suppress turnout in the young and the poor. We should choose them in preference.
There might be a group of virologists loving being the centre of attention. But come 21st June, they can slink back to Porton Down or wherever and dream of their next mega-bug inspired moment in the sun. Hopefully, many decades down the line.
And your photo in the polling station idea is just daft.
There is more evidence of problems with postal voting where it is so much easier to collect or farm the votes of the vulnerable and complete them on their behalf. Surely this is where we need to concentrate our efforts.
I think that the odds are now in favour of June 21st going ahead on schedule, but it's not a done deal and will require a certain amount of backbone from the Government (something for which it isn't always noted) to resist the inevitable loud howling from a great many scientists.
Time to trust in the vaccines and move on.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/29/ufos-uap-america-pentagon-report
Vaccinating the secondary school pupils over the summer, should make a big difference to infaction rates in September.
But you know what, we can run a trial and find out the real world consequences to see if it does have an effect.
Let's choose a dozen local authorities for next year's local elections, and require photo ID at them. Then let's see if turnout (and particularly turnout of certain demographic groups) is affected by the requirement to carry photo ID.
If it doesn't affect turnout of the young and the poor, then great. If it does, and it imposes a burden on voting for certain demographic groups, then we should look at alternative solutions.
The price the young have paid to protect the old in this pandemic is almost incalculable. The most determined and focused, such as my son, have found their way through it but many have not and will never catch up the schooling or socialisation that they have lost. Enough. They are not at risk and their grandparents are no longer at risk either if they have taken up the vaccines. Let them live.
Good morning, everyone. Been too busy even to look at most threads for a week or more. I hope you're all keeping well.