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The only thing we have to Keir is Keir itself – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited October 2021 in General
imageThe only thing we have to Keir is Keir itself – politicalbetting.com

Sir Keir Starmer might be a symptom not a cause of a long term Labour malaise.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    edited October 2021

    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Partly, and also that Conservative leaders are more pragmatic, and more willing to adopt socialist measures if they think it necessary to win.

    Which is why our economy is heading fast towards soft socialism though we have a Conservative PM as I write.

    (Of course, Starmer's failure is that he was chosen as the candidate most likely to win an election. So his failure, if he fails, will be particularly abject.)
  • I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
  • OT not sure what is happening in the fisticuffs. My bet on Fury to win by a stoppage is not looking too clever and the odds have drifted.

    Oh, hold on.
  • Plus: the Conservatives have generally been more tolerant of divergent views within their own party, and more disciplined.

    Both parties are broad churches (necessarily so, under our electoral system), but Labour's extremities seem to hate each other more viscerally than the Tory's extremities. And many tend not to mind letting that show in public either.

    It's no coincidence that Labour's most effect period as a political party in the last 50 years was also the time when the leadership seemed to be most focussed at ensuring everyone was 'on message'.

    I can't see any of these three changing in the next 50 years -- at least, not on a permanent basis -- so my long-term predication would be for continuing Conservative dominance (with only occasional sporadic bursts of non-Conservative Government when the electorate get tired of them and they need some time in opposition to renew themselves).
  • Divergent views? Traditionally perhaps but not recently. Boris threw out his opponents. If Chamberlain had done the same in the 1930s, we'd be speaking German.
  • The blue team has been more willing to ditch past policies. Heath's Selsdon Man. Thatcher ran against Heath (and blamed Heath, not Labour, for high inflation). Major dropped the poll tax. Cameron dropped the social Conservatism. Boris ran against Cameron and May.
  • I agree that Boris's (Cummings-driven) actions in the autumn of 2019 are a counter-example, but taking the long view that would have to be set against Kinnock's 1985 conference speech, against Blair's Clause IV battle, against the continuing view of the hard left that those on the other wing of their party are Tories... both parties have divergent views but the Conservatives manage that better in public.

    Andy Zaltzman commented in last week's News Quiz that Labour is essentially two parties welded together by the exigencies of First Past The Post. That's true. It's also true for the Conservatives, except their welding has been done more professionally and most of the time is far less noticeable.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    The blue team has been more willing to ditch past policies. Heath's Selsdon Man. Thatcher ran against Heath (and blamed Heath, not Labour, for high inflation). Major dropped the poll tax. Cameron dropped the social Conservatism. Boris ran against Cameron and May.

    Cameron dropped social conservatism. Boris dropped economic conservatism.

    So Labour loses the battle but wins the war.

    We're through the looking glass here, people.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited October 2021

    OT not sure what is happening in the fisticuffs. My bet on Fury to win by a stoppage is not looking too clever and the odds have drifted.

    Oh, hold on.

    Fury won by a knock-out in the 11th round just as I was panicking and about to cash out. Turns out I am a genius punter at the noble art.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    Plus: the Conservatives have generally been more tolerant of divergent views within their own party, and more disciplined.

    Both parties are broad churches (necessarily so, under our electoral system), but Labour's extremities seem to hate each other more viscerally than the Tory's extremities. And many tend not to mind letting that show in public either.

    It's no coincidence that Labour's most effect period as a political party in the last 50 years was also the time when the leadership seemed to be most focussed at ensuring everyone was 'on message'.

    I can't see any of these three changing in the next 50 years -- at least, not on a permanent basis -- so my long-term predication would be for continuing Conservative dominance (with only occasional sporadic bursts of non-Conservative Government when the electorate get tired of them and they need some time in opposition to renew themselves).

    To an extent. The divisions over Europe in the long years before the referendum were deep, bitter and often personal. Ditto some of the wet/dry divisions back in the day. That the Tories have patched themselves up (and culled many dissenters) since 2016 is testament to ruthless discipline, for sure, but then.

    Don’t also underestimate the extent to which our crooked political system both gives the Tories a hand up and helps them hang together.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    A little bit of money for Fury on the SPoTY market. He probably won’t be nominated after last year.
  • Boris is on holiday again, if I've correctly deciphered this cryptic message:-
    And a Spanish police source told the Sunday Mirror last night: “Officially we can’t confirm, but unofficially he’s in a big luxury villa on the border between Marbella and Benahavis.
    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-jets-holiday-brits-25178355
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    Incidentally, centre-right success is not only a British phenomenon. In France, 5/7 Presidents of the Fifth Republic have been right or centre-right (not counting Macron as I'd say he's centrist). In Japan, none of the governments since the war has really been describable as left-wing, as we would understand the term. In Italy, only 9 of the 60 or so governments since the war has been led by a socialist.

    Germany, where 4/9 Chancellors of the Federal Republic have been left wing (including the one that's probably about to replace Merkel), Canada, Australia (10/17 PMs since 1945 right wing) and the United States (7R and 7D since 1945), seem more even.

    But only in Sweden of the countries I've looked at does the left have a lock on power as great as, or even greater than, the Conservatives in Britain. There the Social Democrats have been in power for 68 of the last 85 years. That actually makes the Tories' record here (55 of the last 85 years) look pretty poor.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
    Tony Blair was even luckier, because of the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left him, which was mostly due to reforms he'd opposed throughout the 80s, together with leaving the ERM, which Labour had wanted to stay in.

    Every successful leader is lucky, but they make their own luck to a large extent.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    Epidemiologist in NZ freaking out due to 60 cases in a day.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-60-community-covid-cases-today-second-woman-on-northland-trip-contacted-expert-freaking-out/TFLIG7BP4XII2S2GRLEB4YDF3I/

    Criticism of Jacinda happy to do press conferences when they have low cases but not when cases are growing.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-judith-collins-calls-on-jacinda-ardern-to-front-clearly-questions-pm-does-not-want-to-be-asked/C47MHT564MFYNSPU5XNSK4JF4E/

    Still struggle to see how NZ get out of a zero Covid mindset to learn to live with it in the future.
  • Fishing said:

    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
    Tony Blair was even luckier, because of the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left him, which was mostly due to reforms he'd opposed throughout the 80s, together with leaving the ERM, which Labour had wanted to stay in.

    Every successful leader is lucky, but they make their own luck to a large extent.
    The golden legacy was the complete collapse of Conservative economic policy. A better argument might be that if the Major government had not imposed economic hardship and often ruin on its own supporters in pursuit of a high fixed exchange rate, Blair would be another best PM we never had contender.
  • The Mail's front page is that WFH doomed Afghan helpers to the Taliban.

    Home working left Britons at Taliban's mercy: Ministers reveal civil servants couldn't access vital documents and lost critical days during Afghan exit as UK citizens tried to flee brutal regime
    Cabinet Ministers claim 'work from home' culture in Whitehall left Brits at mercy of Taliban in Afghanistan
    Civil servants away from desks couldn't read documents on UK citizens fleeing
    The UK failed to airlift hundreds out of Afghanistan before August 28 withdrawal

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10076061/Home-working-left-Britons-Talibans-mercy-Afghanistan-Ministers-claim.html
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    AlistairM said:


    Still struggle to see how NZ get out of a zero Covid mindset to learn to live with it in the future.

    Singapore having a wobble too - been spooked by high case numbers (but very low ICU occupancy given good vaccination rate) - I had thought they were managing their exit well - but I guess authoritarian's instincts are to be authoritarian....
  • The Times has two stories about Home Office disputes with the police and with the Cabinet. Is Priti on manoeuvres or (more likely) has a Home Office SpAd been sounding off at conference?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Good morning, everyone.

    F1: the Turkish race (NB not the specials) on Ladbrokes are oddly indicated as being on the 14th, so if you're after those they'll be in the future rather than marked as being for today.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738

    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
    If Thatcher would have lost in 1983 but for the Falklands, how come she was back in the lead in two of the five opinion polls taken immediately before the Argentine invasion, and tied in a third?

    In fact, she would almost certainly still have won in 1983 with or without it. What it did rather than help her electorally was give her cover within the Tories themselves for a much more radical programme by enhancing her personal prestige and making the key ‘wets’ look silly.

    What cost Labour the 1983 election were its policy offering and its leadership. It is no coincidence that its support dropped substantially during the election campaign itself, to the extent even Thatcher began to urge people to vote for them (as she was more afraid of an opposition led by the SDP).
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    SINGAPORE - A zero-Covid-19 strategy is no longer feasible given how infectious the Delta variant is, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as he set out the country’s situation and what has changed.

    With vaccinations, the virus has become a mild, treatable disease for most, he added, urging people to go about their daily activities, taking necessary precautions and complying with safe management measures.


    https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/spore-must-press-on-with-strategy-of-living-with-covid-19-and-not-be-paralysed-by
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited October 2021
    ydoethur said:

    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
    If Thatcher would have lost in 1983 but for the Falklands, how come she was back in the lead in two of the five opinion polls taken immediately before the Argentine invasion, and tied in a third?

    In fact, she would almost certainly still have won in 1983 with or without it. What it did rather than help her electorally was give her cover within the Tories themselves for a much more radical programme by enhancing her personal prestige and making the key ‘wets’ look silly.

    What cost Labour the 1983 election were its policy offering and its leadership. It is no coincidence that its support dropped substantially during the election campaign itself, to the extent even Thatcher began to urge people to vote for them (as she was more afraid of an opposition led by the SDP).
    You will see that I did cite the Labour/SDP split.

    ETA specifically on the Falklands, Mrs Thatcher was fortunate not to be blamed for her withdrawal of HMS Endurance which triggered the invasion. The obvious parallel is Churchill becoming Prime Minister in May 1940 on the fall of Chamberlain over the disastrous Norway campaign, whose architect was Winston Churchill.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738

    SINGAPORE - A zero-Covid-19 strategy is no longer feasible given how infectious the Delta variant is, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as he set out the country’s situation and what has changed.

    With vaccinations, the virus has become a mild, treatable disease for most, he added, urging people to go about their daily activities, taking necessary precautions and complying with safe management measures.


    https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/spore-must-press-on-with-strategy-of-living-with-covid-19-and-not-be-paralysed-by

    TBH, it almost certainly was never feasible to start. If we can’t get rid of polio entirely despite the huge effort we’ve put into it over the last 30 years, we were not likely to get rid of Covid, certainly not in a timeframe of less than many decades.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738

    ydoethur said:

    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
    If Thatcher would have lost in 1983 but for the Falklands, how come she was back in the lead in two of the five opinion polls taken immediately before the Argentine invasion, and tied in a third?

    In fact, she would almost certainly still have won in 1983 with or without it. What it did rather than help her electorally was give her cover within the Tories themselves for a much more radical programme by enhancing her personal prestige and making the key ‘wets’ look silly.

    What cost Labour the 1983 election were its policy offering and its leadership. It is no coincidence that its support dropped substantially during the election campaign itself, to the extent even Thatcher began to urge people to vote for them (as she was more afraid of an opposition led by the SDP).
    You will see that I did cite the Labour/SDP split.
    Well, yes, but that was a function of Labour’s failure, which is what led to her dominance to start.

    Incidentally your post mentioned ‘Falklands and Labour split’ which could have been a reference to the divisions over how to respond to the invasion within Labour (I realise it wasn’t).
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881
    Get rid of all the subjective/difficult to disprove stuff like Blair believed in aspiration, Blair looked like a winner, Blair occupied the centre ground etc. and what are you left with?

    Blair got the backing of media like the Sun. He won after a very long period of Tory rule. He won whilst the economy was actually doing pretty well under Major.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    ydoethur said:

    SINGAPORE - A zero-Covid-19 strategy is no longer feasible given how infectious the Delta variant is, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as he set out the country’s situation and what has changed.

    With vaccinations, the virus has become a mild, treatable disease for most, he added, urging people to go about their daily activities, taking necessary precautions and complying with safe management measures.


    https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/spore-must-press-on-with-strategy-of-living-with-covid-19-and-not-be-paralysed-by

    TBH, it almost certainly was never feasible to start. If we can’t get rid of polio entirely despite the huge effort we’ve put into it over the last 30 years, we were not likely to get rid of Covid, certainly not in a timeframe of less than many decades.
    Agree - "Zero COVID" is decades away, if we're lucky.

    Singapore had been braver - but "new normal" is now 3-6 months away:

    https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/pm-lee-expects-singapores-covid-19-new-normal-is-three-to-six-months-away

    Their PH messaging has the advantage of being clear - something the UK nations could learn from:



    They are trying to stop people going to A&E with symptoms and in a highly vaccinated population "recover at home" is their key message.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Betting Post

    F1: backed Hamilton to win each way (third the odds top 2), at 4.1:

    https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/10/turkey-pre-race-2021.html

    Reckon the Mercedes has the legs on the Red Bull here.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited October 2021
    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881
    AlistairM said:

    Epidemiologist in NZ freaking out due to 60 cases in a day.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-60-community-covid-cases-today-second-woman-on-northland-trip-contacted-expert-freaking-out/TFLIG7BP4XII2S2GRLEB4YDF3I/

    Criticism of Jacinda happy to do press conferences when they have low cases but not when cases are growing.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-judith-collins-calls-on-jacinda-ardern-to-front-clearly-questions-pm-does-not-want-to-be-asked/C47MHT564MFYNSPU5XNSK4JF4E/

    Still struggle to see how NZ get out of a zero Covid mindset to learn to live with it in the future.

    Uk barely remarks on death numbers now that would have been considered scare mongering a year and a bit ago.

    NZ will adjust fine I think. Virtually everyone there is going to get covid after being vaccinated, which is probably the best outcome possible.
  • The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    IanB2 said:

    Plus: the Conservatives have generally been more tolerant of divergent views within their own party, and more disciplined.

    Both parties are broad churches (necessarily so, under our electoral system), but Labour's extremities seem to hate each other more viscerally than the Tory's extremities. And many tend not to mind letting that show in public either.

    It's no coincidence that Labour's most effect period as a political party in the last 50 years was also the time when the leadership seemed to be most focussed at ensuring everyone was 'on message'.

    I can't see any of these three changing in the next 50 years -- at least, not on a permanent basis -- so my long-term predication would be for continuing Conservative dominance (with only occasional sporadic bursts of non-Conservative Government when the electorate get tired of them and they need some time in opposition to renew themselves).

    To an extent. The divisions over Europe in the long years before the referendum were deep, bitter and often personal. Ditto some of the wet/dry divisions back in the day. That the Tories have patched themselves up (and culled many dissenters) since 2016 is testament to ruthless discipline, for sure, but then.

    Don’t also underestimate the extent to which our crooked political system both gives the Tories a hand up and helps them hang together.
    Why "crooked"? It's the political system we have. Blair had many years in which to change it. But it served him well, so he left it alone. That it buggered Brown probably amused him.

    The LibDems tried change - but their proposals were thrown out by the unconvinced voters.

    Throw in a word like "crooked" and you just lose the reader.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738

    Betting Post

    F1: backed Hamilton to win each way (third the odds top 2), at 4.1:

    https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/10/turkey-pre-race-2021.html

    Reckon the Mercedes has the legs on the Red Bull here.

    I know very little about the circuit in Turkey. How easy is it to overtake?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    edited October 2021
    Labour need a superhero - to give them a chance.

    Cape Keir?
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited October 2021
    Although this thread header looks demonstrative, you can play with statistics and indeed bar charts to make them look the more so. In fact, since January 1974 to the present day the number of outright wins by either party is:

    Labour 4
    Conservatives 6

    In the last quarter of a century the Conservatives have only won two General Elections.

    See? Not so conclusive after all.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    pigeon said:

    Fishing said:

    The blue team has been more willing to ditch past policies. Heath's Selsdon Man. Thatcher ran against Heath (and blamed Heath, not Labour, for high inflation). Major dropped the poll tax. Cameron dropped the social Conservatism. Boris ran against Cameron and May.

    Cameron dropped social conservatism. Boris dropped economic conservatism.

    So Labour loses the battle but wins the war.

    We're through the looking glass here, people.
    Ah, but societal change is inevitable. It's simply the case that the Conservative Party, ironically, is normally better trusted to manage it. And that, in turn, is because the Tories reinvent themselves and adapt their policies in response to the shifting attitudes of the electorate on contentious issues such as trans rights, rather than trying to lead the public and forcibly pull it in directions in which it is not yet ready to go.

    It really comes down to this: the Tories, broadly speaking, give the impression of quite liking the country as it already is, whereas Labour activists don't. For the latter, everything is dreadful and radical change must come immediately. If you're part of the vast swathe of the electorate that doesn't agree, then Labour hates you and you deserve to be cancelled.

    The one Labour leader in modern times who managed to convince the electorate that he actually liked Britain and would deliver change that didn't involve ripping everything down and starting again was Blair, and under him Labour won by a landslide. Here endeth the lesson that Labour's activists don't want to learn.
    Tories like the UK, except for the major cities, young people, supporters of BLM, pro Europeans, Scotland...
  • Just seen that Katharine Birbalsingh has been made Chair of the Social Mobility Commission by Truss. I don't what the SMC does, but if it needs some no nonsense action, she seems that type.

    Must be a terrible racist though..

    "she is strongly critical of the tactics of the Black Lives Matter movement itself, arguing that it undermines teaching children to take personal responsibility, encourages violence and exacerbates racism by making debates harder and encouraging black teenagers to focus on identity politics or victimhood"

    "Birbalsingh is opposed to teaching children about white privilege in schools and subjecting staff or pupils to unconscious bias training, arguing that such measures encourage racial segregation over constructively solving racism and distract from the true meaning of education."

    "Birbalsingh also asserted her opposition to what she described as the growth of "woke culture" in education, arguing that it is more focused on "making children into revolutionaries" and inserting political bias into classes over instilling values such as kindness, tolerance and hard work"

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Birbalsingh
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    rkrkrk said:

    AlistairM said:

    Epidemiologist in NZ freaking out due to 60 cases in a day.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-60-community-covid-cases-today-second-woman-on-northland-trip-contacted-expert-freaking-out/TFLIG7BP4XII2S2GRLEB4YDF3I/

    Criticism of Jacinda happy to do press conferences when they have low cases but not when cases are growing.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-judith-collins-calls-on-jacinda-ardern-to-front-clearly-questions-pm-does-not-want-to-be-asked/C47MHT564MFYNSPU5XNSK4JF4E/

    Still struggle to see how NZ get out of a zero Covid mindset to learn to live with it in the future.

    Uk barely remarks on death numbers now that would have been considered scare mongering a year and a bit ago.

    NZ will adjust fine I think. Virtually everyone there is going to get covid after being vaccinated, which is probably the best outcome possible.
    Morning everyone.
    Am I the only person to become increasing annoyed at the definition of deaths due to Covid..... deaths within 28 days of a positive test. I'm sure we've agonised over this before, but it really doesn't, IMV anyway, present a true picture.
    At one time someone here was able to post figures for the average daily deaths in the four parts of the UK over the past 5 or so years and quite often the figures nowadays were lower.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    The Mail's front page is that WFH doomed Afghan helpers to the Taliban.

    Home working left Britons at Taliban's mercy: Ministers reveal civil servants couldn't access vital documents and lost critical days during Afghan exit as UK citizens tried to flee brutal regime
    Cabinet Ministers claim 'work from home' culture in Whitehall left Brits at mercy of Taliban in Afghanistan
    Civil servants away from desks couldn't read documents on UK citizens fleeing
    The UK failed to airlift hundreds out of Afghanistan before August 28 withdrawal

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10076061/Home-working-left-Britons-Talibans-mercy-Afghanistan-Ministers-claim.html

    They must have high fived each other at the Mail when they came up with this distraction from ministerial incompetence.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738

    Labour need a superhero - to give them a chance.

    Cape Keir?

    The left are getting restless. If they had their way they would be even more Keirless than usual.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    edited October 2021

    OT not sure what is happening in the fisticuffs. My bet on Fury to win by a stoppage is not looking too clever and the odds have drifted.

    Oh, hold on.

    Fury won by a knock-out in the 11th round just as I was panicking and about to cash out. Turns out I am a genius punter at the noble art.
    In play betting is the devil and has been the ruin of my fine pre match punting many a time. I have (mostly) sworn off ot.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    Just seen that Katharine Birbalsingh has been made Chair of the Social Mobility Commission by Truss. I don't what the SMC does, but if it needs some no nonsense action, she seems that type.

    Must be a terrible racist though..

    "she is strongly critical of the tactics of the Black Lives Matter movement itself, arguing that it undermines teaching children to take personal responsibility, encourages violence and exacerbates racism by making debates harder and encouraging black teenagers to focus on identity politics or victimhood"

    "Birbalsingh is opposed to teaching children about white privilege in schools and subjecting staff or pupils to unconscious bias training, arguing that such measures encourage racial segregation over constructively solving racism and distract from the true meaning of education."

    "Birbalsingh also asserted her opposition to what she described as the growth of "woke culture" in education, arguing that it is more focused on "making children into revolutionaries" and inserting political bias into classes over instilling values such as kindness, tolerance and hard work"

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Birbalsingh

    I'm sure if we want lessons in kindness, tolerance and hard work we can always look to the prime minister for inspiration.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738

    The Mail's front page is that WFH doomed Afghan helpers to the Taliban.

    Home working left Britons at Taliban's mercy: Ministers reveal civil servants couldn't access vital documents and lost critical days during Afghan exit as UK citizens tried to flee brutal regime
    Cabinet Ministers claim 'work from home' culture in Whitehall left Brits at mercy of Taliban in Afghanistan
    Civil servants away from desks couldn't read documents on UK citizens fleeing
    The UK failed to airlift hundreds out of Afghanistan before August 28 withdrawal

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10076061/Home-working-left-Britons-Talibans-mercy-Afghanistan-Ministers-claim.html

    They must have high fived each other at the Mail when they came up with this distraction from ministerial incompetence.
    Really? Do them for breaking social distance.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    I posted this last night. Johnson should certainly be watching his back as far as Patel is concerned.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    edited October 2021
    I was mulling all this yesterday and have been considering that a bet on Labour winning an outright majority is where the value lies.

    Most of us know that fiscally and economically things are heading downhill in the short and medium term.

    Boris Johnson hates being put under the spotlight and Keir Starmer will do and, I believe, do so effectively in a campaign. Johnson will try to avoid tv debates entirely because he will be forensically scrutinised.

    'BORIS ISN'T WORKING' and 'BREXIT ISN'T WORKING' posters are already beginning to pop up. This was the brilliant ('LABOUR ISN'T WORKING') Satchi and Satchi campaign that launched Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was certainly NOT charismatic. She was dour and famously had no sense of humour. She's actually a lot like Keir Starmer in that respect. They are similar intelligent people in having an eye for detail and a great grasp of facts. When the country needed fixing that is exactly what people wanted.

    You can get 3/1 on Labour boosted with Ladbrokes. It's worth it. Beware the peril of recency bias.
  • FF43 said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.

    No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.

  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited October 2021
    FF43 said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
    Yes, neither have covered themselves in glory - although Varadkar also deserves his share of blame - scrapping the talks Enda Kenny had started between Irish & British border officials in favour of "letting the EU sort it out." We're seeing the same mess in the Channel Islands - for 40 years Jersey & Normandy officials have sorted out fishing with minimal fuss - now the French, British and EU are involved its gone to pot. Similarly the Gibraltar-UK-Spain talks appear to have gone well (so far) - getting the people who understand the issues leads to better outcomes - whodathunkit?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Doethur, hard to say, to be honest. Resurface last year, but wet then so no baseline. However, tyres may be crumbly, and the Mercedes looks the class of the field.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738
    edited October 2021

    ydoethur said:

    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
    If Thatcher would have lost in 1983 but for the Falklands, how come she was back in the lead in two of the five opinion polls taken immediately before the Argentine invasion, and tied in a third?

    In fact, she would almost certainly still have won in 1983 with or without it. What it did rather than help her electorally was give her cover within the Tories themselves for a much more radical programme by enhancing her personal prestige and making the key ‘wets’ look silly.

    What cost Labour the 1983 election were its policy offering and its leadership. It is no coincidence that its support dropped substantially during the election campaign itself, to the extent even Thatcher began to urge people to vote for them (as she was more afraid of an opposition led by the SDP).
    You will see that I did cite the Labour/SDP split.

    ETA specifically on the Falklands, Mrs Thatcher was fortunate not to be blamed for her withdrawal of HMS Endurance which triggered the invasion. The obvious parallel is Churchill becoming Prime Minister in May 1940 on the fall of Chamberlain over the disastrous Norway campaign, whose architect was Winston Churchill.
    Boris Johnson weeps as the Churchill comparisons on PB are not about him :smile:

    In answer to your question, yes I agree entirely she was fortunate not to be blamed, although technically the withdrawal of Endurance had only been announced, not enacted. What triggered the invasion was the desperate need of Galtieri’s junta for a quick military success that would unite the army and the country behind him and hopefully boost economic productivity via a feel good factor (the latter not materialising as no further credit was available to a nation that had taken on one of the world’s most important financial powers). Not only that, but the Foreign Office and the MoD had missed so many signals that the Argentines were preparing to invade you have to wonder if there were senior figures who were complicit in it.

    But agreed (again) the announcement that Endurance was to be withdrawn was one reason why he thought he would get away with it.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    The Falklands probably saved her premiership, otherwise she probably would have gone the way of Edward Heath.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    rkrkrk said:

    AlistairM said:

    Epidemiologist in NZ freaking out due to 60 cases in a day.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-60-community-covid-cases-today-second-woman-on-northland-trip-contacted-expert-freaking-out/TFLIG7BP4XII2S2GRLEB4YDF3I/

    Criticism of Jacinda happy to do press conferences when they have low cases but not when cases are growing.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-judith-collins-calls-on-jacinda-ardern-to-front-clearly-questions-pm-does-not-want-to-be-asked/C47MHT564MFYNSPU5XNSK4JF4E/

    Still struggle to see how NZ get out of a zero Covid mindset to learn to live with it in the future.

    Uk barely remarks on death numbers now that would have been considered scare mongering a year and a bit ago.

    NZ will adjust fine I think. Virtually everyone there is going to get covid after being vaccinated, which is probably the best outcome possible.
    That was my point really. They are panicking over 60 cases/day, we barely bat an eye lid at 40,000 cases and 100+ deaths per day. How do they adjust from one to the other?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    ydoethur said:

    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
    If Thatcher would have lost in 1983 but for the Falklands, how come she was back in the lead in two of the five opinion polls taken immediately before the Argentine invasion, and tied in a third?

    In fact, she would almost certainly still have won in 1983 with or without it. What it did rather than help her electorally was give her cover within the Tories themselves for a much more radical programme by enhancing her personal prestige and making the key ‘wets’ look silly.

    What cost Labour the 1983 election were its policy offering and its leadership. It is no coincidence that its support dropped substantially during the election campaign itself, to the extent even Thatcher began to urge people to vote for them (as she was more afraid of an opposition led by the SDP).
    You will see that I did cite the Labour/SDP split.

    ETA specifically on the Falklands, Mrs Thatcher was fortunate not to be blamed for her withdrawal of HMS Endurance which triggered the invasion. The obvious parallel is Churchill becoming Prime Minister in May 1940 on the fall of Chamberlain over the disastrous Norway campaign, whose architect was Winston Churchill.
    I forgot - the Argentinian government had no input into the decision to invade the falklands.

    It was all Fatcha’s fault!!
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
    If Thatcher would have lost in 1983 but for the Falklands, how come she was back in the lead in two of the five opinion polls taken immediately before the Argentine invasion, and tied in a third?

    In fact, she would almost certainly still have won in 1983 with or without it. What it did rather than help her electorally was give her cover within the Tories themselves for a much more radical programme by enhancing her personal prestige and making the key ‘wets’ look silly.

    What cost Labour the 1983 election were its policy offering and its leadership. It is no coincidence that its support dropped substantially during the election campaign itself, to the extent even Thatcher began to urge people to vote for them (as she was more afraid of an opposition led by the SDP).
    You will see that I did cite the Labour/SDP split.

    ETA specifically on the Falklands, Mrs Thatcher was fortunate not to be blamed for her withdrawal of HMS Endurance which triggered the invasion. The obvious parallel is Churchill becoming Prime Minister in May 1940 on the fall of Chamberlain over the disastrous Norway campaign, whose architect was Winston Churchill.
    Boris Johnson weeps as the Churchill comparisons on PB are not about him :smile:

    In answer to your question, yes I agree entirely she was fortunate not to be blamed, although technically the withdrawal of Endurance had only been announced, not enacted. What triggered the invasion was the desperate need of Galtieri’s junta for a quick military success that would unite the army and the country behind him and hopefully boost economic productivity via a feel good factor (the latter not materialising as no further credit was available to a nation that had taken on one of the world’s most important financial powers). Not only that, but the Foreign Office and the MoD had missed so many signals that the Argentines were preparing to invade you have to wonder if there were senior figures who were complicit in it.

    But agreed (again) the announcement that Endurance was to be withdrawn was one reason why he thought he would get away with it.
    And, of course, the then Foreign Sec 'took responsibility' and resigned. Took the heat off 'her at the top!'
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.

    That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738
    Heathener said:

    I was mulling all this yesterday and have been considering that a bet on Labour winning an outright majority is where the value lies.

    Most of us know that fiscally and economically things are heading downhill in the short and medium term.

    Boris Johnson hates being put under the spotlight and Keir Starmer will do and, I believe, do so effectively in a campaign. Johnson will try to avoid tv debates entirely because he will be forensically scrutinised.

    'BORIS ISN'T WORKING' and 'BREXIT ISN'T WORKING' posters are already beginning to pop up. This was the brilliant ('LABOUR ISN'T WORKING') Satchi and Satchi campaign that launched Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was certainly NOT charismatic. She was dour and famously had no sense of humour. She's actually a lot like Keir Starmer in that respect. They are similar intelligent people in having an eye for detail and a great grasp of facts. When the country needed fixing that is exactly what people wanted.

    You can get 3/1 on Labour boosted with Ladbrokes. It's worth it. Beware the peril of recency bias.

    Recency bias? It is 1970 since a government with a working majority conceded a working majority to the opposition. Before that, the last occasion it had happened in peacetime was 1880.*

    It is really hard to overturn a big majority in one go. It’s expensive, for a start. Paying for all the necessary information/advertising, and boots on ground talking to people, and setting up local campaigns, and effectively targeting the message - bearing in mind if you want 14 million votes, you have to explain 14 million pathways why people should vote for you.

    It can be done, and certainly what’s coming should be highly damaging to the incumbent government given much of it is due to their mistakes. But overturning this size of majority will be very hard.

    That’s even before we ponder the fact that to get a majority of 1 without a major revival in Scotland Labour need a swing larger than the one Blair got in 1997. Which was the most seismic election result since 1945 (arguably 1906). And Starmer is no Blair, nor was Blair facing a government with a majority of 80.

    I’m not tempted by anything less than 30/1 as value.

    *Discounting 1906 where the government of 1900 was (a) in opposition at the time and (b) so badly split between three warring factions that the notional 134 majority was in practice not a majority.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    rkrkrk said:

    AlistairM said:

    Epidemiologist in NZ freaking out due to 60 cases in a day.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-60-community-covid-cases-today-second-woman-on-northland-trip-contacted-expert-freaking-out/TFLIG7BP4XII2S2GRLEB4YDF3I/

    Criticism of Jacinda happy to do press conferences when they have low cases but not when cases are growing.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-judith-collins-calls-on-jacinda-ardern-to-front-clearly-questions-pm-does-not-want-to-be-asked/C47MHT564MFYNSPU5XNSK4JF4E/

    Still struggle to see how NZ get out of a zero Covid mindset to learn to live with it in the future.

    Uk barely remarks on death numbers now that would have been considered scare mongering a year and a bit ago.

    NZ will adjust fine I think. Virtually everyone there is going to get covid after being vaccinated, which is probably the best outcome possible.
    Are we still running at numbers like 4 in 5 of the deaths are not double vaccinated? Sure, there will be some tragic cases in amongst, but most deaths will now be those terminally ill whom no vaccine short of a miracle could have stopped becoming a "with Covid" statistic - or else those who have made a conscious choice not to have the jab and run the risks associated with that potentially suicidal decision.

    78.5% of those over the age of 12 have had both jabs, 85.4% have so far had one. The pool left in the UK will very soon be recording essentially the terminally ill and the suicidally inclined.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    Heathener said:

    I was mulling all this yesterday and have been considering that a bet on Labour winning an outright majority is where the value lies.

    Most of us know that fiscally and economically things are heading downhill in the short and medium term.

    Boris Johnson hates being put under the spotlight and Keir Starmer will do and, I believe, do so effectively in a campaign. Johnson will try to avoid tv debates entirely because he will be forensically scrutinised.

    'BORIS ISN'T WORKING' and 'BREXIT ISN'T WORKING' posters are already beginning to pop up. This was the brilliant ('LABOUR ISN'T WORKING') Satchi and Satchi campaign that launched Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was certainly NOT charismatic. She was dour and famously had no sense of humour. She's actually a lot like Keir Starmer in that respect. They are similar intelligent people in having an eye for detail and a great grasp of facts. When the country needed fixing that is exactly what people wanted.

    You can get 3/1 on Labour boosted with Ladbrokes. It's worth it. Beware the peril of recency bias.

    I think there is some truth in that. But I would lower the probability of NOM, not a Tory win.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.

    It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that

    The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.

    The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line

    There’s no bad faith
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    Heathener said:

    And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.

    That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.

    You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.

    Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    FF43 said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
    So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.

    . I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since
    @simoncoveney
    has begun the process...

    ...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.

    The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.


    https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1446981187663192066
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    FF43 said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.

    No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.

    Time limited role for ECJ =/= permanent role for ECJ

    It’s a negotiation. Get over it.
  • Charles said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.

    It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that

    The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.

    The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line

    There’s no bad faith

    That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    AlistairM said:

    rkrkrk said:

    AlistairM said:

    Epidemiologist in NZ freaking out due to 60 cases in a day.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-60-community-covid-cases-today-second-woman-on-northland-trip-contacted-expert-freaking-out/TFLIG7BP4XII2S2GRLEB4YDF3I/

    Criticism of Jacinda happy to do press conferences when they have low cases but not when cases are growing.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-judith-collins-calls-on-jacinda-ardern-to-front-clearly-questions-pm-does-not-want-to-be-asked/C47MHT564MFYNSPU5XNSK4JF4E/

    Still struggle to see how NZ get out of a zero Covid mindset to learn to live with it in the future.

    Uk barely remarks on death numbers now that would have been considered scare mongering a year and a bit ago.

    NZ will adjust fine I think. Virtually everyone there is going to get covid after being vaccinated, which is probably the best outcome possible.
    That was my point really. They are panicking over 60 cases/day, we barely bat an eye lid at 40,000 cases and 100+ deaths per day. How do they adjust from one to the other?
    They get everyone double jabbed pronto is how.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Charles said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.

    It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that

    The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.

    The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line

    There’s no bad faith
    Define 'a limited time'. I'm sure it ought to be more than 20 months, during which we've all been coping with a pandemic.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    ydoethur said:

    Heathener said:

    I was mulling all this yesterday and have been considering that a bet on Labour winning an outright majority is where the value lies.

    Most of us know that fiscally and economically things are heading downhill in the short and medium term.

    Boris Johnson hates being put under the spotlight and Keir Starmer will do and, I believe, do so effectively in a campaign. Johnson will try to avoid tv debates entirely because he will be forensically scrutinised.

    'BORIS ISN'T WORKING' and 'BREXIT ISN'T WORKING' posters are already beginning to pop up. This was the brilliant ('LABOUR ISN'T WORKING') Satchi and Satchi campaign that launched Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was certainly NOT charismatic. She was dour and famously had no sense of humour. She's actually a lot like Keir Starmer in that respect. They are similar intelligent people in having an eye for detail and a great grasp of facts. When the country needed fixing that is exactly what people wanted.

    You can get 3/1 on Labour boosted with Ladbrokes. It's worth it. Beware the peril of recency bias.

    Recency bias? It is 1970 since a government with a working majority conceded a working majority to the opposition.
    Against this,

    1992 Major had a majority of 21. I know I know, you will say that was eroded away over 5 years but the fact is that 1997 was a massive overturn, demonstrating that when the mood shifts, boy can it shift. 170 seat shift (weighted), that's a hell of a movement and would land Starmer's Labour a massive majority if repeated.

    And in that time we've had coalition governments so there aren't really many general elections with which to measure your assertion. Really since 1979 there have only been two big regimes: Thatcher's from 1979-1997 and Blair's from 1997 to 2010.

    A lot depends on whether you think Boris Johnson's 2019 victory reset the tory clock, or whether in time it will come to be seen as part of the Cameron-May tory rule running back to c. 2010. A case can be made for both sides of that argument but my view is that it was a very distinctive 'Get Brexit Done' election.

    I have a growing sense that we're in a tory fade.

    And next time Johnson won't be facing the impossible-to-elect Jeremy Corbyn.


  • Charles said:

    ydoethur said:

    I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.

    Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
    If Thatcher would have lost in 1983 but for the Falklands, how come she was back in the lead in two of the five opinion polls taken immediately before the Argentine invasion, and tied in a third?

    In fact, she would almost certainly still have won in 1983 with or without it. What it did rather than help her electorally was give her cover within the Tories themselves for a much more radical programme by enhancing her personal prestige and making the key ‘wets’ look silly.

    What cost Labour the 1983 election were its policy offering and its leadership. It is no coincidence that its support dropped substantially during the election campaign itself, to the extent even Thatcher began to urge people to vote for them (as she was more afraid of an opposition led by the SDP).
    You will see that I did cite the Labour/SDP split.

    ETA specifically on the Falklands, Mrs Thatcher was fortunate not to be blamed for her withdrawal of HMS Endurance which triggered the invasion. The obvious parallel is Churchill becoming Prime Minister in May 1940 on the fall of Chamberlain over the disastrous Norway campaign, whose architect was Winston Churchill.
    I forgot - the Argentinian government had no input into the decision to invade the falklands.

    It was all Fatcha’s fault!!
    Yeah coz that's exactly what was said.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    Charles said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.

    It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that

    The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.

    The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line

    There’s no bad faith
    If it is a red line you don't negotiate a treaty that expressly includes your red line. If that really is David Frost's argument he should be doing a different job.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Heathener said:

    And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.

    That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.

    Errant natives? What?
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    The government is to offer the north and Midlands a cut-price “bare minimum” of railway upgrades despite Boris Johnson’s promise this week to “level up” the country outside London, The Independent understands.

    Local transport chiefs now expect to receive a severely pared-back version of the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme, and for ministers to effectively shelve plans for a high-speed cross-country link through the east Midlands.

    The government has been drawing up plans for new connections outside London in consultation with local leaders – but insiders familiar with discussions now expect virtually every major city across the north and Midlands to be left disappointed.


    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-powerhouse-rail-hs2-levelling-up-b1934935.html
  • Charles said:

    FF43 said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.

    No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.

    Time limited role for ECJ =/= permanent role for ECJ

    It’s a negotiation. Get over it.

    We don't all have your privilege, Charles. Some of us have to live with the consequences of the UK government's lies.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738
    edited October 2021
    Another point about 1970, I can see it as a plausible parallel. Labour were in power enacting a somewhat populist agenda, badly. They were led by a tremendously popular and charismatic figure who was a highly effective communicator, but also privately vacillating and treacherous with a habit of changing his mind according to what would be popular. They had serially mismanaged the economy and were engaging in radical societal and cultural initiatives with the intention of solidifying their support in certain sections of society. They were facing an opposition broken by consecutive defeats and led by a dull intellectual with a background in the Civil Service.

    But there are two crucial ways in which it is different. Heath led a united party with everyone accepting that while he wasn’t the best of leaders, in the absence of an obvious alternative he should be given a chance. That’s not the case with Starmer, who has much work to do sorting out the divisions and chaos in his own party.

    Heath was also quietly and very efficiently targeting those seats and voters he believed he could win from 1966 onwards. Studying the operation he ran in that period makes Mandelson seem like a bungling amateur. He set up a programme that identified, targeted and persuaded those who were ‘soft Labour’ to vote for the Tories. He also had very precise information on how well they were doing, which disregarded the headline opinion polls - the positive ones from 1967-69 and the worse ones in 1969-70. And he was proven right by the results. There’s no evidence Starmer has even begun to do anything similar.

    (Of course, Heath’s success was a mixed blessing. It made him very complacent about his electoral brilliance, with unfortunate consequences in 1974…)
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096

    Heathener said:

    And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.

    That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.

    You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.

    Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
    No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *

    And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.

    * Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
    So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.

    . I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since
    @simoncoveney
    has begun the process...

    ...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.

    The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.


    https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1446981187663192066
    Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.

    Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK

    Please explain the bad faith.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    The government is to offer the north and Midlands a cut-price “bare minimum” of railway upgrades despite Boris Johnson’s promise this week to “level up” the country outside London, The Independent understands.

    Local transport chiefs now expect to receive a severely pared-back version of the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme, and for ministers to effectively shelve plans for a high-speed cross-country link through the east Midlands.

    The government has been drawing up plans for new connections outside London in consultation with local leaders – but insiders familiar with discussions now expect virtually every major city across the north and Midlands to be left disappointed.


    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-powerhouse-rail-hs2-levelling-up-b1934935.html

    Close followers of the government’s "Levelling Up agenda" may find themselves unsurprised by this news.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738
    edited October 2021
    Heathener said:

    ydoethur said:

    Heathener said:

    I was mulling all this yesterday and have been considering that a bet on Labour winning an outright majority is where the value lies.

    Most of us know that fiscally and economically things are heading downhill in the short and medium term.

    Boris Johnson hates being put under the spotlight and Keir Starmer will do and, I believe, do so effectively in a campaign. Johnson will try to avoid tv debates entirely because he will be forensically scrutinised.

    'BORIS ISN'T WORKING' and 'BREXIT ISN'T WORKING' posters are already beginning to pop up. This was the brilliant ('LABOUR ISN'T WORKING') Satchi and Satchi campaign that launched Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was certainly NOT charismatic. She was dour and famously had no sense of humour. She's actually a lot like Keir Starmer in that respect. They are similar intelligent people in having an eye for detail and a great grasp of facts. When the country needed fixing that is exactly what people wanted.

    You can get 3/1 on Labour boosted with Ladbrokes. It's worth it. Beware the peril of recency bias.

    Recency bias? It is 1970 since a government with a working majority conceded a working majority to the opposition.
    Against this,

    1992 Major had a majority of 21. I know I know, you will say that was eroded away over 5 years but the fact is that 1997 was a massive overturn, demonstrating that when the mood shifts, boy can it shift. 170 seat shift (weighted), that's a hell of a movement and would land Starmer's Labour a massive majority if repeated.

    And in that time we've had coalition governments so there aren't really many general elections with which to measure your assertion. Really since 1979 there have only been two big regimes: Thatcher's from 1979-1997 and Blair's from 1997 to 2010.

    A lot depends on whether you think Boris Johnson's 2019 victory reset the tory clock, or whether in time it will come to be seen as part of the Cameron-May tory rule running back to c. 2010. A case can be made for both sides of that argument but my view is that it was a very distinctive 'Get Brexit Done' election.

    I have a growing sense that we're in a tory fade.

    And next time Johnson won't be facing the impossible-to-elect Jeremy Corbyn.


    It shifted partly *because* of his small majority which left Major leading a very weak government. If he’d had the 77 majority a UNS would have given him, it is unlikely even Blair would have won so overwhelmingly as the narrative of splits and drift couldn’t have taken hold. We would have been much more likely to see a 2010 style outcome.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738

    Heathener said:

    And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.

    That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.

    You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.

    Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
    The market for flint dildos is truly extraordinarily international.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    ydoethur said:

    Heathener said:

    ydoethur said:

    Heathener said:

    I was mulling all this yesterday and have been considering that a bet on Labour winning an outright majority is where the value lies.

    Most of us know that fiscally and economically things are heading downhill in the short and medium term.

    Boris Johnson hates being put under the spotlight and Keir Starmer will do and, I believe, do so effectively in a campaign. Johnson will try to avoid tv debates entirely because he will be forensically scrutinised.

    'BORIS ISN'T WORKING' and 'BREXIT ISN'T WORKING' posters are already beginning to pop up. This was the brilliant ('LABOUR ISN'T WORKING') Satchi and Satchi campaign that launched Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher was certainly NOT charismatic. She was dour and famously had no sense of humour. She's actually a lot like Keir Starmer in that respect. They are similar intelligent people in having an eye for detail and a great grasp of facts. When the country needed fixing that is exactly what people wanted.

    You can get 3/1 on Labour boosted with Ladbrokes. It's worth it. Beware the peril of recency bias.

    Recency bias? It is 1970 since a government with a working majority conceded a working majority to the opposition.
    Against this,

    1992 Major had a majority of 21. I know I know, you will say that was eroded away over 5 years but the fact is that 1997 was a massive overturn, demonstrating that when the mood shifts, boy can it shift. 170 seat shift (weighted), that's a hell of a movement and would land Starmer's Labour a massive majority if repeated.

    And in that time we've had coalition governments so there aren't really many general elections with which to measure your assertion. Really since 1979 there have only been two big regimes: Thatcher's from 1979-1997 and Blair's from 1997 to 2010.

    A lot depends on whether you think Boris Johnson's 2019 victory reset the tory clock, or whether in time it will come to be seen as part of the Cameron-May tory rule running back to c. 2010. A case can be made for both sides of that argument but my view is that it was a very distinctive 'Get Brexit Done' election.

    I have a growing sense that we're in a tory fade.

    And next time Johnson won't be facing the impossible-to-elect Jeremy Corbyn.


    It shifted partly *because* of his small majority which left Major leading a very weak government. If he’d had the 77 majority a UNS would have given him, it is unlikely even Blair would have won so overwhelmingly as the narrative of splits and drift couldn’t have taken hold. We would have been much more likely to see a 2010 style outcome.
    True
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.

    It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that

    The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.

    The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line

    There’s no bad faith

    That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.

    The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.

    When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.

    That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.

    It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that

    The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.

    The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line

    There’s no bad faith
    Define 'a limited time'. I'm sure it ought to be more than 20 months, during which we've all been coping with a pandemic.
    IIRC the protocol had an initial term of 4 years but the stated intention *on all sides* was that it was going to be replaced
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    edited October 2021
    Heathener said:

    Heathener said:

    And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.

    That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.

    You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.

    Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
    No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *

    And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.

    * Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
    You are someone else, aren't you? Not that there's any reason you shouldn't be, but there was a woman pre 2019 election who made exactly that kind of claim and also had your problem understanding "recency bias."

    Eta Rose something?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    FF43 said:

    Charles said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.

    It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that

    The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.

    The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line

    There’s no bad faith
    If it is a red line you don't negotiate a treaty that expressly includes your red line. If that really is David Frost's argument he should be doing a different job.
    Time limited is different to permanent
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    The government is to offer the north and Midlands a cut-price “bare minimum” of railway upgrades despite Boris Johnson’s promise this week to “level up” the country outside London, The Independent understands.

    Local transport chiefs now expect to receive a severely pared-back version of the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme, and for ministers to effectively shelve plans for a high-speed cross-country link through the east Midlands.

    The government has been drawing up plans for new connections outside London in consultation with local leaders – but insiders familiar with discussions now expect virtually every major city across the north and Midlands to be left disappointed.


    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-powerhouse-rail-hs2-levelling-up-b1934935.html

    Close followers of the government’s "Levelling Up agenda" may find themselves unsurprised by this news.
    Nor those waiting to see how much WFH changes the medium-longer term need for expensive upgrades to the rail system....
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Heathener said:

    Heathener said:

    And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.

    That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.

    You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.

    Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
    No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *

    And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.

    * Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
    Any schoolboy philatelist had heard of the Falklands. And in the 50's there were a lot of them.

    Side thought; do people still collect stamps?
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    I just have a hunch. My head says no way can Labour win next time. My heart suggests different.

    There's something of the 1939-45 about what has happened these past two years that ought to make punters a little wary, especially of being too assertive.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    FF43 said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.

    No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.

    Time limited role for ECJ =/= permanent role for ECJ

    It’s a negotiation. Get over it.

    We don't all have your privilege, Charles. Some of us have to live with the consequences of the UK government's lies.

    So just a restatement of your position plus a personal attack.

    I’m guessing you don’t have any actually facts or arguments to back your statement up then?
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,183
    Heathener said:

    Heathener said:

    And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.

    That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.

    You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.

    Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
    No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *

    And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.

    * Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
    I was six years old and knew where the Falklands were.
    I find it hard to believe that the majority of people didn't know where they were.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738

    The government is to offer the north and Midlands a cut-price “bare minimum” of railway upgrades despite Boris Johnson’s promise this week to “level up” the country outside London, The Independent understands.

    Local transport chiefs now expect to receive a severely pared-back version of the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme, and for ministers to effectively shelve plans for a high-speed cross-country link through the east Midlands.

    The government has been drawing up plans for new connections outside London in consultation with local leaders – but insiders familiar with discussions now expect virtually every major city across the north and Midlands to be left disappointed.


    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-powerhouse-rail-hs2-levelling-up-b1934935.html

    Close followers of the government’s "Levelling Up agenda" may find themselves unsurprised by this news.
    The problem is, if you abandon the HS2 eastern leg you also accept there can be no increase in services on the ECML, the MML or any of their feeder lines, because there simply won’t be the pathways or even the station platforms to accommodate them. As we found in Cannock when our train service to London had to be abandoned due to congestion south of Rugby which meant no train was getting to Hednesford in time to proceed to Rugeley.

    And any way of increasing capacity other than HS2 will be twice as expensive yet half as effective.

    (And that’s passenger services - freight will be even more constricted.)

    The road haulage lobby will be happy though. Their clients at DafT came through for them when it mattered.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    AlistairM said:

    rkrkrk said:

    AlistairM said:

    Epidemiologist in NZ freaking out due to 60 cases in a day.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-60-community-covid-cases-today-second-woman-on-northland-trip-contacted-expert-freaking-out/TFLIG7BP4XII2S2GRLEB4YDF3I/

    Criticism of Jacinda happy to do press conferences when they have low cases but not when cases are growing.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-judith-collins-calls-on-jacinda-ardern-to-front-clearly-questions-pm-does-not-want-to-be-asked/C47MHT564MFYNSPU5XNSK4JF4E/

    Still struggle to see how NZ get out of a zero Covid mindset to learn to live with it in the future.

    Uk barely remarks on death numbers now that would have been considered scare mongering a year and a bit ago.

    NZ will adjust fine I think. Virtually everyone there is going to get covid after being vaccinated, which is probably the best outcome possible.
    That was my point really. They are panicking over 60 cases/day, we barely bat an eye lid at 40,000 cases and 100+ deaths per day. How do they adjust from one to the other?
    Don’t forget it’s a much smaller population, so 60 cases is the equivalent of 600 U.K. But yes, they need a huge mind set shift. We are still struggling with it in the U.K. Not everyone is happy to have 40,000 cases a day. They would still try to suppress again, no matter the cost to the economy, or people’s mental health. Yet delta is not to be suppressed. The only route is vaccination, and tbh probably two doses plus a booster will be needed for most to have infection suppressed by vaccination. Deaths and hospitalisation is holding up pretty well on the two doses.
  • Charles said:

    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
    So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.

    . I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since
    @simoncoveney
    has begun the process...

    ...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.

    The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.


    https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidGHFrost/status/1446981187663192066
    Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.

    Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK

    Please explain the bad faith.

    The bad faith is renouncing a key and entirely unambiguous tenet of an international treaty that you signed and then presented to the electorate as a triumph. As with making it harder to vote, banning public protests, eroding Parliamentary scrutiny and putting the executive beyond judicial scrutiny, this is something that right-wing Brexiteers who used to deliver high falutin' lectures on the importance of democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law are now perfectly happy to countenance - because it's their side that is doing it.

  • Charles said:

    Charles said:

    FF43 said:

    The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:

    Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1446930609809526788?s=20

    The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.

    No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.

    Time limited role for ECJ =/= permanent role for ECJ

    It’s a negotiation. Get over it.

    We don't all have your privilege, Charles. Some of us have to live with the consequences of the UK government's lies.

    So just a restatement of your position plus a personal attack.

    I’m guessing you don’t have any actually facts or arguments to back your statement up then?

    The fact is the international treaty the UK signed. Another fact is that you do not have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith. Pointing this out is not a personal attack.

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    Heathener said:

    Heathener said:

    And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.

    That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.

    You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.

    Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
    No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *

    And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.

    * Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
    By the early 80's, there was still a massive tradition of people having collected stamps as kids. That gave an insight into both geography and political change.

    So yeah, most of us roughly knew where the Falklands were. Certainly smarter than the US sense of geography back then:

    https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/12/13/Study-One-fifth-of-students-cant-find-US-on-a-map/2120471762000/
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited October 2021
    ydoethur said:

    The government is to offer the north and Midlands a cut-price “bare minimum” of railway upgrades despite Boris Johnson’s promise this week to “level up” the country outside London, The Independent understands.

    Local transport chiefs now expect to receive a severely pared-back version of the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme, and for ministers to effectively shelve plans for a high-speed cross-country link through the east Midlands.

    The government has been drawing up plans for new connections outside London in consultation with local leaders – but insiders familiar with discussions now expect virtually every major city across the north and Midlands to be left disappointed.


    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-powerhouse-rail-hs2-levelling-up-b1934935.html

    Close followers of the government’s "Levelling Up agenda" may find themselves unsurprised by this news.
    The problem is, if you abandon the HS2 eastern leg you also accept there can be no increase in services on the ECML, the MML or any of their feeder lines, because there simply won’t be the pathways or even the station platforms to accommodate them. As we found in Cannock when our train service to London had to be abandoned due to congestion south of Rugby which meant no train was getting to Hednesford in time to proceed to Rugeley.

    And any way of increasing capacity other than HS2 will be twice as expensive yet half as effective.

    (And that’s passenger services - freight will be even more constricted.)

    The road haulage lobby will be happy though. Their clients at DafT came through for them when it mattered.
    Actually this seems to be the opposite of the story earlier this week. that had the midland hub and northern power rail without hs2. This seems to be hs2 without the other items which probably makes sense until we see how covid impacts post 2021 travel.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    edited October 2021
    The Conservatives started taking the lead in the polls before the war in The Falklands.

    Alliance/SDP voters prefered Thatcher to Foot.

    So to blame The Falklands and the Alliance/SDP for Labour's shellacking in 1983 is denialism by the left.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    The government is to offer the north and Midlands a cut-price “bare minimum” of railway upgrades despite Boris Johnson’s promise this week to “level up” the country outside London, The Independent understands.

    Local transport chiefs now expect to receive a severely pared-back version of the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme, and for ministers to effectively shelve plans for a high-speed cross-country link through the east Midlands.

    The government has been drawing up plans for new connections outside London in consultation with local leaders – but insiders familiar with discussions now expect virtually every major city across the north and Midlands to be left disappointed.


    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-powerhouse-rail-hs2-levelling-up-b1934935.html

    Close followers of the government’s "Levelling Up agenda" may find themselves unsurprised by this news.
    Nor those waiting to see how much WFH changes the medium-longer term need for expensive upgrades to the rail system....
    For the Tories, there will always be an excuse not to invest in the North. Levelling up is a chimera. No wonder Tory MPs are going full Mccarthy to distract their voters from their total failure to protect the Red Wall's interests.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    Heathener said:

    And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.

    That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.

    You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.

    Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
    No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *

    And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.

    * Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
    but there was a woman pre 2019 election who made exactly that kind of claim
    Jeremy Clarkson infamously said it in his Top Gear episode. I'm just repeating what he said and which is a simple truth: 99% of British people had never heard of the Falklands before 1992.

    Anyway, I have better things than to be sidetracked on that one. The vastly more important point was that the Falkland War probably saved Margaret Thatcher's premiership.

    Now I have some baking to be done!
This discussion has been closed.