The front pages not good for ministers on the eve of what was designated Freedom day – politicalbett

Armin Laschet has committed a gaffe today by laughing and joking while the German President was giving a sombre speech about the flooding. He later apologised.

Boris Johnson cancelled plans for a Churchillian launch of Freedom Day after No 10 became alarmed by the surge in the number of infections, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

Officials had discussed marking the lifting of Covid restrictions with a rousing speech by the Prime Minister at an historic venue associated with the wartime leader – until scientific advisers took fright at the recent climb in cases.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9798757/Boris-Johnson-cancels-plans-Churchillian-Freedom-Day-launch.html

NEW: Thailand reports 11,397 new coronavirus cases, by far the biggest one-day increase on record, and 101 new deaths

FrancisUrquhart said:

Tim Spector take on the situation, he is much more reasoned than the Zero Covidians.

https://youtu.be/9dFSpSRTKwo

Tim Spector is one of the best experts on Covid-19 in my opinion. Always worth listening to.

rcs1000 said:

FPT:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Gallowgate said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Mexicanpete said:

Philip_Thompson said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/mirrorpolitics/status/1416456419881242624

Great move

The country needs a good opposition, so even though I don't want Starmer to win, I hope you're right and this is a good and significant move.

But I won't be holding my breath. How many MPs who currently hold the whip will lose it? Will Burgon? Rebecca Long Bailey? Diane Abbott? Ian Lavery? John McDonnell? Kate Osamor? Zarah Sultana? Claudia Webbe? Etc

If so then it will be a real and significant purge of the far left. Otherwise if its just a lot of people nobody has ever heard of from Twitter while the big names get left behind then its a meaningless gesture.

Taking a leaf out of Johnson's playbook. Johnson of course, also ejected the far left from his party, before a magnificent victory at the next GE.

Absolutely. Johnson expelling the troublemakers from his party ensured the party was fit to win the victory and also ensured he was capable of governing following the victory, since many of them would have been a permanent 'gaukeward squad' had they been left to wallow on the backbenches.

Yup they're governing brilliantly

Yep. 😀

You can't genuinely in good conscience believe they're governing well. You can rightfully - if incorrectly in my view - think Labour would do worse but you have to be insane to think they're governing well.

Johnson's speech with nothing in it sums up this government for me. No vision, no ideology, out of ideas.

Like every government, the Johnson administration has done some things well, and other things poorly. There are a number of things that - at the time - I thought were mistakes, and which I now think were correct. And there are probably things which I liked, but I now think probably weren't the right decision.

So...

In the positive column, the UK invested early in vaccines at scale, and Brexit is now behind us. Liz Truss has done a good job at International Development, and we're in good shape for the next five years.

The "levelling up" strategy is also clearly the right thing (morally) to do, and full credit to the Government for not pandering to its Southern supporters.

Against that, I continue to be disappointed by the excessive willingness of Johnson to back people, even when they're in the wrong. I also think it was a mistake to return Patel to the Cabinet, given her behaviour when she lied not once, but twice, to the Prime Minister.

The Cabinet is also - to my mind - too much made up of Johnson lackeys, rather than being the most talented people in the Commons. (The return of Saj is a welcome sign that this may be coming to an end.)

So, I'd give them 6.5 or 7 out of 10. I'd rate them above Brown or May, but below Blair (1997-2001) and Thatcher.

I think that's fair, but a little too generous. On supporting the north, well, time will tell, but I remain to be convinced that throwing yet more public money at a region that already takes vastly more than its fair share of it will yield results. Grasping the nettle and admitting that much of the north is unviable and encouraging labour mobility to the south might have been better. However, if in 20 years we have a flourishing north, (and/or if it keeps returning Conservative MPs) noone will be happier than me to have been proved wrong.

The extent to which they are caving in to their southern NIMBY supporters on planning, and also to the big builders by not encouraging self-build enough is also disappointing.

That their only impulse with economic problems is to shovel taxpayers' money at them is also disappointing, and may be disastrous in the long term.

But, in Europe and COVID, they have confronted two challenges that would have broken many other governments (indeed Europe certainly did) and done a reasonable if not stellar job on both overall.

So I'd given them 5.5 or 6 out of 10.

Oh, and I think you far overrate Tony Blair, who in his first term had an incredibly easy ride both politically, with a huge majority and a fawning press, and economically, with a golden legacy from the Conservatives.

rcs1000 said:

FPT:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Gallowgate said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Mexicanpete said:

Philip_Thompson said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/mirrorpolitics/status/1416456419881242624

Great move

The country needs a good opposition, so even though I don't want Starmer to win, I hope you're right and this is a good and significant move.

But I won't be holding my breath. How many MPs who currently hold the whip will lose it? Will Burgon? Rebecca Long Bailey? Diane Abbott? Ian Lavery? John McDonnell? Kate Osamor? Zarah Sultana? Claudia Webbe? Etc

If so then it will be a real and significant purge of the far left. Otherwise if its just a lot of people nobody has ever heard of from Twitter while the big names get left behind then its a meaningless gesture.

Taking a leaf out of Johnson's playbook. Johnson of course, also ejected the far left from his party, before a magnificent victory at the next GE.

Absolutely. Johnson expelling the troublemakers from his party ensured the party was fit to win the victory and also ensured he was capable of governing following the victory, since many of them would have been a permanent 'gaukeward squad' had they been left to wallow on the backbenches.

Yup they're governing brilliantly

Yep. 😀

You can't genuinely in good conscience believe they're governing well. You can rightfully - if incorrectly in my view - think Labour would do worse but you have to be insane to think they're governing well.

Johnson's speech with nothing in it sums up this government for me. No vision, no ideology, out of ideas.

Like every government, the Johnson administration has done some things well, and other things poorly. There are a number of things that - at the time - I thought were mistakes, and which I now think were correct. And there are probably things which I liked, but I now think probably weren't the right decision.

So...

In the positive column, the UK invested early in vaccines at scale, and Brexit is now behind us. Liz Truss has done a good job at International Development, and we're in good shape for the next five years.

The "levelling up" strategy is also clearly the right thing (morally) to do, and full credit to the Government for not pandering to its Southern supporters.

Against that, I continue to be disappointed by the excessive willingness of Johnson to back people, even when they're in the wrong. I also think it was a mistake to return Patel to the Cabinet, given her behaviour when she lied not once, but twice, to the Prime Minister.

The Cabinet is also - to my mind - too much made up of Johnson lackeys, rather than being the most talented people in the Commons. (The return of Saj is a welcome sign that this may be coming to an end.)

So, I'd give them 6.5 or 7 out of 10. I'd rate them above Brown or May, but below Blair (1997-2001) and Thatcher.

I can’t argue with the latter part of your analysis, but the idea that a few trade deals of questionable merit with comparatively minor trading partners means we are “in good shape for the next five years” is laughable.

Whether or not we are in good shape for the next five years will depend partly on the closing chapters of the pandemic story but mostly upon the economic fallout and how we cope with it.

The government’s support packages have so far done a good job in reducing the immediate social and economic distress from the pandemic - at the cost of a number of looming cliff edges not least of which the large batch of people who will immediately lose their homes when the ban on evictions eventually ends.

But we have also paid people specifically for not working, and given many a taste of an alternative, quieter life - which appears to have resulted in a significant exit from the labour market at just the moment when we have also and separately closed ourselves off to a good supply of labour from our European neighbours. The signs of labour shortages are already all around us. Compare the US approach of giving everyone some money whether they are working or not, maintaining incentives to continue economic activity at some risk to spread of the virus and potentially inflationary. It is way too early to pass judgement on whose approach will prove the better.

The vaccination programme undoubtedly has gone well - largely because government was told to keep out of it - but the long term advantage to us of having handled it earlier and better is slowly slipping away.

As for ‘levelling up’, the likelihood is that Johnson makes the same mistake as Trump in thinking that coming up with a catchy slogan and giving a few speeches can substitute for actually doing something substantive.

Cocky_cockney said:

Only someone who doesn't live here could claim this Government are doing well.

It's an absolute shambles right now.

And crowing about our vaccine success over Europe (Fishing) is rapidly coming undone. European countries are starting to fare far better on case rates, morbidity and vaccinations. The UK's decision not to vaccinated under-18's is unbelievably stupid. A disastrous mistake.

In my lifetime the only other Government that competes with this one on shambles is Callaghan's during the Winter of Discontent. Not even Major's 1992-7 farce comes close, nor the Remainer Parliament of 2017-19.

That's how bad things are.

Why are they still 10% ahead in most polls?

Andy_JS said:

Cocky_cockney said:

Only someone who doesn't live here could claim this Government are doing well.

It's an absolute shambles right now.

And crowing about our vaccine success over Europe (Fishing) is rapidly coming undone. European countries are starting to fare far better on case rates, morbidity and vaccinations. The UK's decision not to vaccinated under-18's is unbelievably stupid. A disastrous mistake.

In my lifetime the only other Government that competes with this one on shambles is Callaghan's during the Winter of Discontent. Not even Major's 1992-7 farce comes close, nor the Remainer Parliament of 2017-19.

That's how bad things are.

Why are they still 10% ahead in most polls?

The mean of the last 9 polls is 9%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2021

And let's see. That long slow slide is well underway. I predict that the latest shambolic week, and England's defeat last Sunday and evaporation of 'football's coming home' euphoric hype, will see Mr Johnson's Conservative lead dip even further into the 4-5% range.

They were sensationally defeated in their Chesham & Amersham southern heartland and they failed to win Batley & Spen, much to the surprise of political commentators.

Andy_JS said:

Cocky_cockney said:

Only someone who doesn't live here could claim this Government are doing well.

It's an absolute shambles right now.

And crowing about our vaccine success over Europe (Fishing) is rapidly coming undone. European countries are starting to fare far better on case rates, morbidity and vaccinations. The UK's decision not to vaccinated under-18's is unbelievably stupid. A disastrous mistake.

In my lifetime the only other Government that competes with this one on shambles is Callaghan's during the Winter of Discontent. Not even Major's 1992-7 farce comes close, nor the Remainer Parliament of 2017-19.

That's how bad things are.

Why are they still 10% ahead in most polls?

Because we are trapped inside a political system specifically designed to close off the chance of any new choices and because the opposition we are lumbered with is even more f*****g useless than the government.

Morning all.

FPT:

Flatlander said:

To go back to the German floods, it looks like as well as digging a massive sand quarry on a flood plain, there was also a coal mine:
https://www.aachener-zeitung.de/imgs/48/1/1/0/7/7/6/8/8/9/tok_07f1bf0b460f5adc5135a1e97dadbb86/w1900_h766_x1796_y725_ZVA_mdb_27252829424978345-6cc816303862f785.jpg

This is a very large mine and you have to wonder if any coal fired power stations might go short. Buy Australian coal futures...

When this happened in near Leeds it took years to pump it out.

I wonder if that mine will reopen, given that this is just before an election ? Is this going to give Bouncing Baerbock a bounce in the polls?

In Australia terms I think a change in German coal production will not have a material impact on the market - unless that mine is say 10% of production, or dominant in one specialist product.

Pollution wise, Germany's coal production currently makes them one of the 4 dirty men of Europe - Ukraine, Poland and Russia being the others.

I think they will pivot the regional economy instead.

MattW said:

Morning all.

FPT:

Flatlander said:

To go back to the German floods, it looks like as well as digging a massive sand quarry on a flood plain, there was also a coal mine:
https://www.aachener-zeitung.de/imgs/48/1/1/0/7/7/6/8/8/9/tok_07f1bf0b460f5adc5135a1e97dadbb86/w1900_h766_x1796_y725_ZVA_mdb_27252829424978345-6cc816303862f785.jpg

This is a very large mine and you have to wonder if any coal fired power stations might go short. Buy Australian coal futures...

When this happened in near Leeds it took years to pump it out.

I wonder if that mine will reopen, given that this is just before an election ? Is this going to give Bouncing Baerbock a bounce in the polls?

In Australia terms I think a change in German coal production will not have a material impact on the market - unless that mine is say 10% of production, or dominant in one specialist product.

Pollution wise, Germany's coal production currently makes them one of the 4 dirty men of Europe - Ukraine, Poland and Russia being the others.

I think they will pivot the regional economy instead.

It will make bugger all difference to Australian coal market prices, as it's the middle of summer, photovoltaic output is strong and German electricity demand is likely to be reduced by the flooding too...

If this had happened in winter, especially if it had coincided with a period of low winds, it would have been a very different story.

Brom said:

Cocky_cockney said:

Andy_JS said:

Cocky_cockney said:

Only someone who doesn't live here could claim this Government are doing well.

It's an absolute shambles right now.

And crowing about our vaccine success over Europe (Fishing) is rapidly coming undone. European countries are starting to fare far better on case rates, morbidity and vaccinations. The UK's decision not to vaccinated under-18's is unbelievably stupid. A disastrous mistake.

In my lifetime the only other Government that competes with this one on shambles is Callaghan's during the Winter of Discontent. Not even Major's 1992-7 farce comes close, nor the Remainer Parliament of 2017-19.

That's how bad things are.

Why are they still 10% ahead in most polls?

The mean of the last 9 polls is 9%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2021

And let's see. That long slow slide is well underway. I predict that the latest shambolic week, and England's defeat last Sunday and evaporation of 'football's coming home' euphoric hype, will see Mr Johnson's Conservative lead dip even further into the 4-5% range.

They were sensationally defeated in their Chesham & Amersham southern heartland and they failed to win Batley & Spen, much to the surprise of political commentators.

Continually pumping out the same rubbish every day.

You scoffed the same old rubbish at Mike Smithson for even daring to suggest the LibDems were in with the vaguest chance of winning Chesham & Amersham.

They not only won, they trounced the tories.

Wisdom is proved right by her actions.

QED

Test and Trace Are Fecking Useless example 2074b:

Covid: Ministers wait to hear if they face quarantine after Javid tests positive
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-5787737

If they can’t even trace the movements of their own boss, they might as well shut up shop.

Was it £37 billion we spent on this? For half that money, we could have opened ‘Nightingale Schools’ and reduced class sizes by 40%, which would have had a far more dramatic effect on transmission than a series of billion pound bungs to utter failures like Dido Harding.

rcs1000 said:

MattW said:

Morning all.

FPT:

Flatlander said:

To go back to the German floods, it looks like as well as digging a massive sand quarry on a flood plain, there was also a coal mine:
https://www.aachener-zeitung.de/imgs/48/1/1/0/7/7/6/8/8/9/tok_07f1bf0b460f5adc5135a1e97dadbb86/w1900_h766_x1796_y725_ZVA_mdb_27252829424978345-6cc816303862f785.jpg

This is a very large mine and you have to wonder if any coal fired power stations might go short. Buy Australian coal futures...

When this happened in near Leeds it took years to pump it out.

I wonder if that mine will reopen, given that this is just before an election ? Is this going to give Bouncing Baerbock a bounce in the polls?

In Australia terms I think a change in German coal production will not have a material impact on the market - unless that mine is say 10% of production, or dominant in one specialist product.

Pollution wise, Germany's coal production currently makes them one of the 4 dirty men of Europe - Ukraine, Poland and Russia being the others.

I think they will pivot the regional economy instead.

It will make bugger all difference to Australian coal market prices, as it's the middle of summer, photovoltaic output is strong and German electricity demand is likely to be reduced by the flooding too...

If this had happened in winter, especially if it had coincided with a period of low winds, it would have been a very different story.

"Bugger all"

That's with .. as "Cactus Jack" John Nance Garner used to .. the husk off.

As far as I am aware, the only US President from the Red River Valley .

COVID-19: A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row http://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-a-quarantine-dodge-by-boris-johnson-would-unleash-a-massive-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do-row-12358112

Basement boy talks tough. For a contrarian his views on any given subject seem consistently predictable.

https://twitter.com/classiclib3ral/status/1416584946102177793?s=20

MattW said:

Cocky_cockney said:

ydoethur said:

Test and Trace Are Fecking Useless example 2074b:

Installed the App a year ago, deleted it 24 hours later. Best decision on covid I took.

I could see what was coming ...

If you deleted it immediately, how can you know?

How can I know what? That it was the best decision? Because of the shitshow that has unfolded since. The Pingdemic was an obvious nightmare waiting to happen.

It runs deeper than this though for me. It's what the Pingdemic is a symptom of: a deeper malaise which I realised within hours of installing the bloody thing:

It's menacingly invasive. It tracks you everywhere. It, effectively, spies on you. To me it was evidently part of Government control. The dystopian Big Brother that Boris Johnson so loves.

Theuniondivvie said:

Brom said:

Cocky_cockney said:

Andy_JS said:

Cocky_cockney said:

Only someone who doesn't live here could claim this Government are doing well.

It's an absolute shambles right now.

And crowing about our vaccine success over Europe (Fishing) is rapidly coming undone. European countries are starting to fare far better on case rates, morbidity and vaccinations. The UK's decision not to vaccinated under-18's is unbelievably stupid. A disastrous mistake.

In my lifetime the only other Government that competes with this one on shambles is Callaghan's during the Winter of Discontent. Not even Major's 1992-7 farce comes close, nor the Remainer Parliament of 2017-19.

That's how bad things are.

Why are they still 10% ahead in most polls?

The mean of the last 9 polls is 9%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2021

And let's see. That long slow slide is well underway. I predict that the latest shambolic week, and England's defeat last Sunday and evaporation of 'football's coming home' euphoric hype, will see Mr Johnson's Conservative lead dip even further into the 4-5% range.

They were sensationally defeated in their Chesham & Amersham southern heartland and they failed to win Batley & Spen, much to the surprise of political commentators.

Continually pumping out the same rubbish every day. Always suspicious of these new accounts. The Tories have been steady in the early 40s for a long time now. Not sure where you think these Tory votes will disappear to right now unless you know something about the Reform Party the rest of us don’t.

Relatively long standing accounts are perfectly capable of pumping out the same rubbish every day.

Indeed. I thought it was rather a cheap and unnecessarily grumpy shot.

I hope this site continues to receive new subscribers, bringing fresh insight, comment and punditry. And I hope they receive a rather more polite response than that.

MattW said:

rcs1000 said:

MattW said:

Morning all.

FPT:

Flatlander said:

To go back to the German floods, it looks like as well as digging a massive sand quarry on a flood plain, there was also a coal mine:
https://www.aachener-zeitung.de/imgs/48/1/1/0/7/7/6/8/8/9/tok_07f1bf0b460f5adc5135a1e97dadbb86/w1900_h766_x1796_y725_ZVA_mdb_27252829424978345-6cc816303862f785.jpg

This is a very large mine and you have to wonder if any coal fired power stations might go short. Buy Australian coal futures...

When this happened in near Leeds it took years to pump it out.

I wonder if that mine will reopen, given that this is just before an election ? Is this going to give Bouncing Baerbock a bounce in the polls?

In Australia terms I think a change in German coal production will not have a material impact on the market - unless that mine is say 10% of production, or dominant in one specialist product.

Pollution wise, Germany's coal production currently makes them one of the 4 dirty men of Europe - Ukraine, Poland and Russia being the others.

I think they will pivot the regional economy instead.

It will make bugger all difference to Australian coal market prices, as it's the middle of summer, photovoltaic output is strong and German electricity demand is likely to be reduced by the flooding too...

If this had happened in winter, especially if it had coincided with a period of low winds, it would have been a very different story.

"Bugger all"

That's with .. as "Cactus Jack" John Nance Garner used to .. the husk off.

As far as I am aware, the only US President from the Red River Valley .

Ummm - he was never President. He was Vice President to Roosevelt in his first two terms.

Cocky_cockney said:

squareroot2 said:

IanB2 said:

Andy_JS said:

Cocky_cockney said:

Only someone who doesn't live here could claim this Government are doing well.

It's an absolute shambles right now.

And crowing about our vaccine success over Europe (Fishing) is rapidly coming undone. European countries are starting to fare far better on case rates, morbidity and vaccinations. The UK's decision not to vaccinated under-18's is unbelievably stupid. A disastrous mistake.

In my lifetime the only other Government that competes with this one on shambles is Callaghan's during the Winter of Discontent. Not even Major's 1992-7 farce comes close, nor the Remainer Parliament of 2017-19.

That's how bad things are.

Why are they still 10% ahead in most polls?

Because we are trapped inside a political system specifically designed to close off the chance of any new choices and because the opposition we are lumbered with is even more f*****g useless than the government.

. And the third "choice" is even more useless. A few diehards, but noone would trust the Lib Dems in Govt post brexit... on reflection noone has trusted them in Govt as they were wiped out post coalition. They are destined for the odd "Orpington" and a few cheers on local election days.

The latest opinion polling on the EU is 55% in favour, 45% against our decision to leave.

The LibDems performed less well in 2019 for a number of reasons, not least the weakness of the then leader. Ed Davey is a more effective operator and much more trustworthy in the eyes of voters.

We have this extraordinary tendency for recency bias. You can see it in Brom's snide post, and you can see it time and again amongst others on here. It runs like this: because the tories won in 2019 and have 'consistently' polled in the 40's ergo they will continue to do so.

Great political commentators and even better political gamblers know how to read the runes ahead of the event. Like Mike Smithson (Chesham & Amersham, Batley & Spen) they correctly spot the trends when others (including scoffers on here) do not.

The long slow slide of Boris Johnson is underway. The tories, especially after this past week, will soon start to see poll ratings in the high 30's. You mark my words.

I've yet to see any poll which shows 55% in favour of EU membership.

The problem the Prime Minister faces is that political rhetoric, spin and friends in the media do not work when it comes to coronavirus.

Sean_F said:

Cocky_cockney said:

squareroot2 said:

IanB2 said:

Andy_JS said:

Cocky_cockney said:

Only someone who doesn't live here could claim this Government are doing well.

It's an absolute shambles right now.

And crowing about our vaccine success over Europe (Fishing) is rapidly coming undone. European countries are starting to fare far better on case rates, morbidity and vaccinations. The UK's decision not to vaccinated under-18's is unbelievably stupid. A disastrous mistake.

In my lifetime the only other Government that competes with this one on shambles is Callaghan's during the Winter of Discontent. Not even Major's 1992-7 farce comes close, nor the Remainer Parliament of 2017-19.

That's how bad things are.

Why are they still 10% ahead in most polls?

Because we are trapped inside a political system specifically designed to close off the chance of any new choices and because the opposition we are lumbered with is even more f*****g useless than the government.

. And the third "choice" is even more useless. A few diehards, but noone would trust the Lib Dems in Govt post brexit... on reflection noone has trusted them in Govt as they were wiped out post coalition. They are destined for the odd "Orpington" and a few cheers on local election days.

The latest opinion polling on the EU is 55% in favour, 45% against our decision to leave.

The LibDems performed less well in 2019 for a number of reasons, not least the weakness of the then leader. Ed Davey is a more effective operator and much more trustworthy in the eyes of voters.

We have this extraordinary tendency for recency bias. You can see it in Brom's snide post, and you can see it time and again amongst others on here. It runs like this: because the tories won in 2019 and have 'consistently' polled in the 40's ergo they will continue to do so.

Great political commentators and even better political gamblers know how to read the runes ahead of the event. Like Mike Smithson (Chesham & Amersham, Batley & Spen) they correctly spot the trends when others (including scoffers on here) do not.

The long slow slide of Boris Johnson is underway. The tories, especially after this past week, will soon start to see poll ratings in the high 30's. You mark my words.

I've yet to see any poll which shows 55% in favour of EU membership.

Neither have I.

But I have seen 55% against our decision to leave, which is how I phrased it.

I think there's an important difference. A majority think it was a mistake but that doesn't mean the same number would want to go through all that aggro again in order to rejoin. What is done is done. I'd like to say 'for good or ill' but the good is rapidly evaporating.

Jonathan said:

The problem the Prime Minister faces is that political rhetoric, spin and friends in the media do not work when it comes to coronavirus.

Or Brexit. They worked on the voters, but they don't fill the trucks or sort out the paperwork...

Scott_xP said:

Tomorrow was supposed to be Freedom Day. But at the moment of truth, Boris has lost his nerve > Mail On Sunday > https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9798341/DAN-HODGES-Pushmi-pullyu-Boris-promised-freedom-ready-lockdown.html

That’s the same Dan Hodges who has spent the last month calling it irresponsible to be lifting the remaining restrictions?

Sandpit said:

Scott_xP said:

Tomorrow was supposed to be Freedom Day. But at the moment of truth, Boris has lost his nerve > Mail On Sunday > https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9798341/DAN-HODGES-Pushmi-pullyu-Boris-promised-freedom-ready-lockdown.html

That’s the same Dan Hodges who has spent the last month calling it irresponsible to be lifting the remaining restrictions?

It's often hard to keep up with what some people are complaining about. Either there are too few restrictions or too many, and quite often the same person will make both arguments.

ydoethur said:

Test and Trace Are Fecking Useless example 2074b:

Covid: Ministers wait to hear if they face quarantine after Javid tests positive
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-5787737

If they can’t even trace the movements of their own boss, they might as well shut up shop.

Was it £37 billion we spent on this? For half that money, we could have opened ‘Nightingale Schools’ and reduced class sizes by 40%, which would have had a far more dramatic effect on transmission than a series of billion pound bungs to utter failures like Dido Harding.

You haven’t allowed for the opportunity benefit that if she wasn’t running T&T she’d have been put in charge of something else…

Scott_xP said:

Tomorrow was supposed to be Freedom Day. But at the moment of truth, Boris has lost his nerve > Mail On Sunday > https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9798341/DAN-HODGES-Pushmi-pullyu-Boris-promised-freedom-ready-lockdown.html

At least we are spared his planned Churchill impression.

‘We shall isolate on the beaches, we shall isolate in the hills…’

To misquote Reagan to sum up current right wing attitudes on Coronavirus.

“It isn't so much that they are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.”

IanB2 said:

Scott_xP said:

Tomorrow was supposed to be Freedom Day. But at the moment of truth, Boris has lost his nerve > Mail On Sunday > https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9798341/DAN-HODGES-Pushmi-pullyu-Boris-promised-freedom-ready-lockdown.html

At least we are spared his planned Churchill impression.

‘We shall isolate on the beaches, we shall isolate in the hills…’

LOL

ydoethur said:

MattW said:

rcs1000 said:

MattW said:

Morning all.

FPT:

Flatlander said:

To go back to the German floods, it looks like as well as digging a massive sand quarry on a flood plain, there was also a coal mine:
https://www.aachener-zeitung.de/imgs/48/1/1/0/7/7/6/8/8/9/tok_07f1bf0b460f5adc5135a1e97dadbb86/w1900_h766_x1796_y725_ZVA_mdb_27252829424978345-6cc816303862f785.jpg

This is a very large mine and you have to wonder if any coal fired power stations might go short. Buy Australian coal futures...

When this happened in near Leeds it took years to pump it out.

I wonder if that mine will reopen, given that this is just before an election ? Is this going to give Bouncing Baerbock a bounce in the polls?

In Australia terms I think a change in German coal production will not have a material impact on the market - unless that mine is say 10% of production, or dominant in one specialist product.

Pollution wise, Germany's coal production currently makes them one of the 4 dirty men of Europe - Ukraine, Poland and Russia being the others.

I think they will pivot the regional economy instead.

It will make bugger all difference to Australian coal market prices, as it's the middle of summer, photovoltaic output is strong and German electricity demand is likely to be reduced by the flooding too...

If this had happened in winter, especially if it had coincided with a period of low winds, it would have been a very different story.

"Bugger all"

That's with .. as "Cactus Jack" John Nance Garner used to .. the husk off.

As far as I am aware, the only US President from the Red River Valley .

Ummm - he was never President. He was Vice President to Roosevelt in his first two terms.

True.

Missed out "vice".

Point of Order conceded.

It is still a good quote.

IanB2 said:

MattW said:

Fishing said:

rcs1000 said:

FPT:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Gallowgate said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Mexicanpete said:

Philip_Thompson said:

CorrectHorseBattery said:

https://twitter.com/mirrorpolitics/status/1416456419881242624

Great move

The country needs a good opposition, so even though I don't want Starmer to win, I hope you're right and this is a good and significant move.

But I won't be holding my breath. How many MPs who currently hold the whip will lose it? Will Burgon? Rebecca Long Bailey? Diane Abbott? Ian Lavery? John McDonnell? Kate Osamor? Zarah Sultana? Claudia Webbe? Etc

If so then it will be a real and significant purge of the far left. Otherwise if its just a lot of people nobody has ever heard of from Twitter while the big names get left behind then its a meaningless gesture.

Taking a leaf out of Johnson's playbook. Johnson of course, also ejected the far left from his party, before a magnificent victory at the next GE.

Absolutely. Johnson expelling the troublemakers from his party ensured the party was fit to win the victory and also ensured he was capable of governing following the victory, since many of them would have been a permanent 'gaukeward squad' had they been left to wallow on the backbenches.

Yup they're governing brilliantly

Yep. 😀

You can't genuinely in good conscience believe they're governing well. You can rightfully - if incorrectly in my view - think Labour would do worse but you have to be insane to think they're governing well.

Johnson's speech with nothing in it sums up this government for me. No vision, no ideology, out of ideas.

Like every government, the Johnson administration has done some things well, and other things poorly. There are a number of things that - at the time - I thought were mistakes, and which I now think were correct. And there are probably things which I liked, but I now think probably weren't the right decision.

So...

In the positive column, the UK invested early in vaccines at scale, and Brexit is now behind us. Liz Truss has done a good job at International Development, and we're in good shape for the next five years.

The "levelling up" strategy is also clearly the right thing (morally) to do, and full credit to the Government for not pandering to its Southern supporters.

Against that, I continue to be disappointed by the excessive willingness of Johnson to back people, even when they're in the wrong. I also think it was a mistake to return Patel to the Cabinet, given her behaviour when she lied not once, but twice, to the Prime Minister.

The Cabinet is also - to my mind - too much made up of Johnson lackeys, rather than being the most talented people in the Commons. (The return of Saj is a welcome sign that this may be coming to an end.)

So, I'd give them 6.5 or 7 out of 10. I'd rate them above Brown or May, but below Blair (1997-2001) and Thatcher.

I think that's fair, but a little too generous. On supporting the north, well, time will tell, but I remain to be convinced that throwing yet more public money at a region that already takes vastly more than its fair share of it will yield results. Grasping the nettle and admitting that much of the north is unviable and encouraging labour mobility to the south might have been better. However, if in 20 years we have a flourishing north, (and/or if it keeps returning Conservative MPs) noone will be happier than me to have been proved wrong.

The extent to which they are caving in to their southern NIMBY supporters on planning, and also to the big builders by not encouraging self-build enough is also disappointing.

That their only impulse with economic problems is to shovel taxpayers' money at them is also disappointing, and may be disastrous in the long term.

But, in Europe and COVID, they have confronted two challenges that would have broken many other governments (indeed Europe certainly did) and done a reasonable if not stellar job on both overall.

So I'd given them 5.5 or 6 out of 10.

Oh, and I think you far overrate Tony Blair, who in his first term had an incredibly easy ride both politically, with a huge majority and a fawning press, and economically, with a golden legacy from the Conservatives.

A couple of interesting points from @Fishing .

The argument for the North taking "vastly more than its share of public money" seems like a tough one to make stick to me. Just look, for example, at relative regional investment in transport per pop for the last 2 decades.

On self-build, it already gets quite a lot of support - eg zero rated VAT on your supplies, and exemption from Community Infrastructure Levy. I'm trying to get hold of some numbers, but by my initial estimate that might be worth 20-30k or more on a 500k project.

I think one issue with "self-build" is that it is an activity for wealthier people - you need to have, or be able to raise, perhaps 300-600k for even a normal modest project. And 100k-200k of that would normally need to be free savings.

The cheap route onto the property ladder is what it always was - a doer-upper 2 bed terrace or poor condition flat.

Such analyses are generally futile as they depend on what you take as a given. For example you could look at Stamp Duty and suggest that the property market in the South is carrying the bulk of the tax burden. But if you consider that allowing mortgage interest as a taxable deduction for very many years (for landlords until recently and for individuals if you go back in history) is effectively a government subsidy, suddenly things look completely different.

If you look at the state of public services and infrastructure across much of the North, it is hard to argue that they haven’t had a bad deal.

Excellent points.

I happen to be a moderator on a self-build forum, so I'm just collecting some real numbers as to how much some people are saving by exemptions- obvs indicative only, but valid.

IanB2 said:

Johnson never thinks or plans ahead, but simply says whatever makes his current situation sound the best, and relies upon his lifetime’s experience of winging everything to be able to extricate himself should anything he says or does subsequently prove unwise.

So we have ‘Freedom Day’ tomorrow with a lot of people unhappy that we won’t really be free and another lot of people calling for continued restrictions.

Also remember how it was that we came to be awash in this Indian variant in the first place….

Delta is everywhere in the world. There is no decision taken that if made differently would have stopped it. Without wanting to rehash the old India trade argument, we would have had delta sooner or later, and frankly our huge Indian diaspora made put us in the firing line first, but we will get through it faster too.

ydoethur said:

MattW said:

ydoethur said:

MattW said:

rcs1000 said:

MattW said:

Morning all.

FPT:

Flatlander said:

To go back to the German floods, it looks like as well as digging a massive sand quarry on a flood plain, there was also a coal mine:
https://www.aachener-zeitung.de/imgs/48/1/1/0/7/7/6/8/8/9/tok_07f1bf0b460f5adc5135a1e97dadbb86/w1900_h766_x1796_y725_ZVA_mdb_27252829424978345-6cc816303862f785.jpg

This is a very large mine and you have to wonder if any coal fired power stations might go short. Buy Australian coal futures...

When this happened in near Leeds it took years to pump it out.

I wonder if that mine will reopen, given that this is just before an election ? Is this going to give Bouncing Baerbock a bounce in the polls?

In Australia terms I think a change in German coal production will not have a material impact on the market - unless that mine is say 10% of production, or dominant in one specialist product.

Pollution wise, Germany's coal production currently makes them one of the 4 dirty men of Europe - Ukraine, Poland and Russia being the others.

I think they will pivot the regional economy instead.

It will make bugger all difference to Australian coal market prices, as it's the middle of summer, photovoltaic output is strong and German electricity demand is likely to be reduced by the flooding too...

If this had happened in winter, especially if it had coincided with a period of low winds, it would have been a very different story.

"Bugger all"

That's with .. as "Cactus Jack" John Nance Garner used to .. the husk off.

As far as I am aware, the only US President from the Red River Valley .

Ummm - he was never President. He was Vice President to Roosevelt in his first two terms.

True.

Missed out "vice".

Point of Order conceded.

It is still a good quote.

He was also (to be really picky) from Red River County in Texas, not the Red River Valley which forms the boundary between North Dakota and Minnesota.

But yes, it is still a good quote.

Now that *is* picky.

I'm relying on there being a valley in the relevant bit of Texas

In mitigation, I restrained myself from posting a link to Roy Rogers the Singing Cowboy performing the song.

Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocd72uNPiFY

Ironically Boris is following a Chamberlainesque policy of policy of appeasement with the virus.

Cocky_cockney said:

MattW said:

Cocky_cockney said:

ydoethur said:

Test and Trace Are Fecking Useless example 2074b:

Installed the App a year ago, deleted it 24 hours later. Best decision on covid I took.

I could see what was coming ...

If you deleted it immediately, how can you know?

How can I know what? That it was the best decision? Because of the shitshow that has unfolded since. The Pingdemic was an obvious nightmare waiting to happen.

It runs deeper than this though for me. It's what the Pingdemic is a symptom of: a deeper malaise which I realised within hours of installing the bloody thing:

It's menacingly invasive. It tracks you everywhere. It, effectively, spies on you. To me it was evidently part of Government control. The dystopian Big Brother that Boris Johnson so loves.

You do know that the Government has no access to the app, right? In fact the very fact it is anonymous means that people can actually claim that they have been pinged whenever they want a couple of paid days off work. It's not even like people have to commit to 10 days. Depending on the day of contact it can be anywhere from 1 to 10

re:polling. It is very dangerous for any Government to be relying on the "voters haven't got anywhere else to go argument". Because one day they might just decide that, if they haven't got anywhere else to go, that they just won't go anywhere.

Mr. Alex, aye.

Sooner or later, electoral winter is coming.

Foxy said:

MattW said:

ydoethur said:

MattW said:

ydoethur said:

MattW said:

rcs1000 said:

MattW said:

Morning all.

FPT:

Flatlander said:

To go back to the German floods, it looks like as well as digging a massive sand quarry on a flood plain, there was also a coal mine:
https://www.aachener-zeitung.de/imgs/48/1/1/0/7/7/6/8/8/9/tok_07f1bf0b460f5adc5135a1e97dadbb86/w1900_h766_x1796_y725_ZVA_mdb_27252829424978345-6cc816303862f785.jpg

This is a very large mine and you have to wonder if any coal fired power stations might go short. Buy Australian coal futures...

When this happened in near Leeds it took years to pump it out.

I wonder if that mine will reopen, given that this is just before an election ? Is this going to give Bouncing Baerbock a bounce in the polls?

In Australia terms I think a change in German coal production will not have a material impact on the market - unless that mine is say 10% of production, or dominant in one specialist product.

Pollution wise, Germany's coal production currently makes them one of the 4 dirty men of Europe - Ukraine, Poland and Russia being the others.

I think they will pivot the regional economy instead.

It will make bugger all difference to Australian coal market prices, as it's the middle of summer, photovoltaic output is strong and German electricity demand is likely to be reduced by the flooding too...

If this had happened in winter, especially if it had coincided with a period of low winds, it would have been a very different story.

"Bugger all"

That's with .. as "Cactus Jack" John Nance Garner used to .. the husk off.

As far as I am aware, the only US President from the Red River Valley .

Ummm - he was never President. He was Vice President to Roosevelt in his first two terms.

True.

Missed out "vice".

Point of Order conceded.

It is still a good quote.

He was also (to be really picky) from Red River County in Texas, not the Red River Valley which forms the boundary between North Dakota and Minnesota.

But yes, it is still a good quote.

Now that *is* picky.

I'm relying on there being a valley in the relevant bit of Texas

In mitigation, I restrained myself from posting a link to Roy Rogers the Singing Cowboy performing the song.

Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocd72uNPiFY

Red River County is on the Red River itself, so would seem to have a degree of hills and valleys, in this picture. I note how the population is a third of what it was in 1920. It depopulated in the dustbowl I suppose.

Camden? Can we send @SeanT there? Since there's also El Dorado, he can make a one man Panto Soap Opera.

Cheers.

Things to do.

Exiting rabbithole

StuartDickson said:

‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘

The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.

[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.

While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.

"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."

“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:

Rishi Sunak 14/5
Michael Gove 10/1
Jeremy Hunt 12/1
Dominic Raab 20/1

Spot the sneak.

Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...

FTPT

another_richard said:

Alistair said:

another_richard said:

Alistair said:

another_richard said:

Alistair said:

rcs1000 said:

Alistair said:

I see Bolton now has 2 days of cases above their May 7-day average peak.

The mathematically impossible has happened!

Eh?

Who claimed it was mathematically impossible for cases to be above May peaks?

Delta is highly transmissable. Schools are (or were) operating normally. And children are unvaccinated.

The question is what happens next, now that schools break up, the weather has improved and the Euros are behind us.

That fact that Bolton peaked in May was used as extremely confident evidence that Delta had burned out fast.

It had ripped through the remaining unvaccinated and that was it done. With increasing vaccination numbers there was no new people to infect and it was over. Delta had flared briefly and was gone with only faint echoes in the surrounding counties.

Cases 100% deffo peaked at less than 10k.

Are you really trying to compare individual days now with a weekly average in a different period ?

Really ???

How is Kirklees working out for you?

Edit: thr implication is that the Bol on current 7 day average is going to rise pas the May "peak".

Kirklees has significantly fewer cases now than it did last autumn:

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=ltla&areaName=Kirklees

Different places have different levels of cases and over different periods of time but its quite clear that nowhere goes exponential to infinity.

Absolutely tremendous goalpost shifting.

Just, Phenomenal.

Look at the data and see the reality.

You seem to be a bit bitter that things aren't bad enough.

Strange. Very strange.

You said "its bollox" that we'd get to 40,000 cases a day by July because of "the data from Bolton, Blackburn, Bedfordshire and Kirklees".

I looked at the data (as you requested above) and saw the reality that new cases in Kirklees has gone vastly higher than when you said that and that Bolton and Bedfordshire's fall has stalled and in fact new cases have been increasing for the last month.

And we are over 40,000 cases a day.

Yet somehow you think your predictions were correct and you didn't pronounce too hastily given the data available?

It's a view I suppose.

alex_ said:

StuartDickson said:

‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘

The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.

[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.

While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.

"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."

“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:

Rishi Sunak 14/5
Michael Gove 10/1
Jeremy Hunt 12/1
Dominic Raab 20/1

Spot the sneak.

Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...

Good morning everybody.

How does one get on the 'pilot scheme'? As far as I can see it only applies to senior ministers.

Totally off-topic without apology.

Just came across a rather wonderful self-build rabbithole if anyone wants to lose half an hour over breakfast.

All about how to fix timber cladding, screws, wood, finish, appearance. Brilliant read. The only thing not discussed in Shou-Sugi-Ban (scorched larch).

LOL at how well it sticks to the wife too. She appears to have turned into a Zebra

https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/21680-board-on-board-cladding-fixing-advice-critique/

Now, back to my nettles and fencing.

Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate...
I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers

The absolute contempt this government has for the British people is quite something. It believes it can do whatever it wants. Thanks to the triple lock and high house prices it probably can.

turbotubbs said:

Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate...
I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers

I deleted it days ago as did my family and our WhatsApp group

To be honest Boris and HMG deserve all the criticism they are receiving

Their PR is worse than even Ratner

Big_G_NorthWales said:

turbotubbs said:

Colour me shocked. PM and chancellor have been pinged (assume by contact with the health secretary). Guess what, they will be partaking of the trial that means they don’t have to isolate...
I will be deleting the ap today. This is the last straw. Feckers

I deleted it days ago as did my family and our WhatsApp group

To be honest Boris and HMG deserve all the criticism they are receiving

Their PR is worse than even Ratner

If - as I expect - this turns into a PR disaster it also won’t look good for your favourite Sunak.

Pile on Hunt to be next leader.

Mr. Doethur, aye, Sunak should voluntarily self-isolate.

OldKingCole said:

alex_ said:

StuartDickson said:

‘A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson after meeting COVID-positive Sajid Javid would unleash a massive 'do as I say, not as I do' row‘

The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.

[Mr Javid] has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca.

While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being "pinged", there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.

"If Boris doesn't isolate and uses this 'pilot scheme', I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same," one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying. "There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else."

“Unnamed Tory MP. Ho ho. Next PM market:

Rishi Sunak 14/5
Michael Gove 10/1
Jeremy Hunt 12/1
Dominic Raab 20/1

Spot the sneak.

Seems to me that the "pilot" scheme is likely to be a lot better and more effective scheme than the current situation. So if everyone starts doing it instead then IMO that would be a good thing...

Good morning everybody.

How does one get on the 'pilot scheme'? As far as I can see it only applies to senior ministers.

I actually thought it was a ruse to cover up Gove’s superinjunction.