How the most ill-tempered PMQs in years is being reported – politicalbetting.com

Philip_Thompson said:

Not at all, that's garbage. The decision was made in this country to lift all legal restrictions, even face masks etc, which wasn't made in any other nation in the whole of Europe as far as I know. That is making a positive decision.

Its very easy to be a dreadful authoritarian like Jacinda and slamming your country into lockdown the second cases emerge, or to dither and delay dragging on restrictions like Merkel through the summer and the autumn. Actually taking the decision that restrictions will be lifted even if that means cases rise in the short-term, because its the right thing to do . . . thank goodness we had a PM "courageous" enough to make that decision.

Only need to look around the continent to see nations struggling as they head into winter to see what the alternative is. Thank goodness we dodged that bullet.

First, let's not forget how quickly Johnson imposed restrictions this time last year - indeed, the abortive attempts to lift restrictions during the autumn probably made matters worse.

I agree the New Zealand strategy of trying to eliminate all cases was unwise and now they have 80%+ doubly vaccinated, they are re-opening.

The thing the UK, Israel and a few others did right as to start vaccinating quickly and en masse - remember, this time last year no one had been vaccinated outside of trials. The 100 million or so individual vaccinations administered since then represent a triumph for the NHS and the Government.

Other countries were slower to start but have also accomplished their own mass vaccination programmes and they too will be able to ease restrictions as more vaccinations (including boosters) are administered.

eek said:

CarlottaVance said:

An exhausting day for Boris: PMQs and all the prep beforehand, then the Liaison Committee where he is still being grilled by the chairs of Commons’ Committees, then he due to face Conservative MPs at 5pm for the “1922”.

https://twitter.com/Mike_Fabricant/status/1461011443264983043?s=20

"all the prep beforehand"? Shome mishtake shurely?

Where the Red Wall MPs will be demanding their promised infrastructure and the safe seats want to keep their second jobs alive.

Where the Stockbroker belt MPs will be demanding to keep their second jobs alive.

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

eek said:

state_go_away said:

The only reason I am voting Tory at the moment is the great job they (Boris) is doing over covid . Most of Europe in the grip still of facemasks (useless ), curfews and rising cases in winter when Boris had the right idea to relax in summer and Autumn and gain herd immunity.Starmer is wrong on covid and has been for a while

What evidence do you have that any decision was actually made by Boris "wait until there is only 1 option left on the table" Johnson?

Heck you only have to look back to last December to see how desperate Boris was to avoid making a decision.

Because he actually did make the decision to open up the country in July. Unlike every other country in Europe.

Too damned right the PM should be desperate to avoid putting the country into lockdown! How the heck are you using that as a weakness and not a strength.

Not quite - the decision wasn't so much to open up it was more the natural conclusion of that wave.

Not at all, that's garbage. The decision was made in this country to lift all legal restrictions, even face masks etc, which wasn't made in any other nation in the whole of Europe as far as I know. That is making a positive decision.

Its very easy to be a dreadful authoritarian like Jacinda and slamming your country into lockdown the second cases emerge, or to dither and delay dragging on restrictions like Merkel through the summer and the autumn. Actually taking the decision that restrictions will be lifted even if that means cases rise in the short-term, because its the right thing to do . . . thank goodness we had a PM "courageous" enough to make that decision.

Only need to look around the continent to see nations struggling as they head into winter to see what the alternative is. Thank goodness we dodged that bullet.

Hey, good to see The Clown's no1 fan/apologist is hard at it again today. You are Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf and I claim my £5.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

TimS said:

eek said:

Stuartinromford said:

Meanwhile, in social care news...

One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas


https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1461008989999841281?t=58_m1-Eh0kw6NVeUnwMtkw&s=19

What's the best Conservative strategy here?

Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.

Or remove him before he makes things even worse?

A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.

Were I Rishi / Liz my plan would be to get Boris through to May / June next year and replace him after what is likely to be a disastrous set of local elections following April's long announced so mostly forgotten tax rises.

This is the thing that infuriates me most about the Tories. They're so good at timing their leadership changes. It doesn't matter how disastrous the previous leader was, they go through such a Dr Who style transformation every time that the electorate seem immediately to treat them as a new party. Same will happen for Rishi.

I agree that turning out Boris now would be a bit early. Too long for things to go wrong before the next election.

While Labour still gets blamed for the Winter of Discontent.

One can only hope it takes the Tories a generation to live down the shame for what they have imposed on our poor country these last few years.

state_go_away said:

DougSeal said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigelb said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Helpful update from @PA: "The Government sought to clarify that it has not lost the minutes of a meeting between Randox and a health minister, only that it cannot find them at the moment."

https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1460983127153823746

Does that mean some poor bugger is trying to make them up from scratch ?

See my post at 3pm.

I once won a case because I idly looked at the metadata of a disclosed Word copy of meeting minutes allegedly created 8 months previously. They had been typed up by my oppo that morning. A demand for the notes they had been created from prompted a rapid settlement offer.

Don’t send documents as Word copies kids.

To be fair it takes 8 months sometimes in organisations to get around to writing minutes because (as someone who does it occasionally) they are fkin boring to do

Not that I have ever been in the position of retrospectively writing up minutes, but is the simple answer to PDF the documents? Or print them out and then 'scan' them with microsoft lens? That's what I do anyway so they can't be altered.

Andy_JS said:

With HS2, it should have either been cancelled completely or built completely. Building half of it looks weak.

isn't that called Agile project management!

IshmaelZ said:

DougSeal said:

Boris will be fine. The “Mishconduct” gag proves he’s still got that golden comedy touch. Or something.

The killer is, nobody is thinking He's not as funny as he was, they are thinking How did we ever fall for this shtick in the first place?

“the joke’s not funny any more” is a well chosen attack strapline, for sure.

No_Offence_Alan said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Tobias Elwood pointing out that the Tories are gutting the armed forces. Johnson once again disagreeing and once again having the precise numbers from the budget quoted back at him. "Lets take the F35. You promised 138, we've got 48."

Johnson starts ridiculing Elwood - the days of tank battles are over. Its "now or never" for the armed forces, so lets invest. Elwood keeps batting away the rhetoric and quotes that we are CUTTING not investing.

Is there any subject where this clown knows the detail? He waffles on in flowerly language completely contradicting the reality.

If you check the news today, we are down to 47 F35s.

Actually, we are down to 20 - The delivered number was 21, IIRC.

The plan is to keep buying them gradually. The current purchased number is 48. Beyond that, a firm order hasn't been placed. I'm not sure when the deadline for purchasing aircraft beyond 48 will be.

The original plan was for a total of 138.

DavidL said:

turbotubbs said:

RochdalePioneers said:

state_go_away said:

The only reason I am voting Tory at the moment is the great job they (Boris) is doing over covid . Most of Europe in the grip still of facemasks (useless ), curfews and rising cases in winter when Boris had the right idea to relax in summer and Autumn and gain herd immunity.Starmer is wrong on covid and has been for a while

Sorry but this argument is a little daft. If you want to keep Starmer out then you should be calling for Johnson's head. Remove Johnson, replace with someone like Sunak and you win the election. Don't and you may lose.

Spot on. Like it or hate it (or him, if you like) Johnson delivered a brexit, and has muddled through a pandemic. He cannot do the day to day job of being PM. The conservatives have an 80 seat majority, with new boundaries coming that favour them even more. Time to get shot of the liability and get someone in who does details, understands a bit more how normal people live, and isn't Johnson.

He is, and remains, their most effective Tory campaigner since Thatcher. Someone who can reach large stretches of the populace that other Tories simply cannot get near. I think the evidence that someone other than Boris would win the next election for the Tories is thin to non existent.

The counter argument to that one is that there are very few people you can fool all the time, and Boris is rapidly starting to loss the majority of people you can fool some of the time.

RochdalePioneers said:

MaxPB said:

RochdalePioneers said:

MaxPB said:

The Monday -> Monday comparison looks like it will come in about evens, a few more days of reporting day drops and the specimen date drops will start to show in cases.

I'm now almost certain that we are either at or very close to herd immunity. If we weren't then there would be no chance of this case rise petering out and the R value dropping back to 1.

I hope that you and the other optimists are right. The rolling 7 day average is +35,798 today, vs +34,894 yesterday. We need to get back to day after day of significant and sustained drops before considering if we're all now immune.

You don't understand the dynamics of herd immunity at all, we're not all immune and that scenario is unlikely to ever exist. What's happening is that enough people are immune to enough of a degree that the virus is running into unviable and substandard hosts. Hence cases not taking off as they have across Europe where there are huge pools of naive hosts among unvaccinated people and older people with significantly waning immunity.

This is the end state, cases in England will hover around 25k-35k per day, sometimes it will go below and sometimes it will go above that. This is what an COVID becoming endemic in a country looks like.

I was deploying my usual subtle satire about "are we all immune". I am confused about your last point though. You and others have been cheering on the drop in numbers we saw a few weeks ago because the numbers have to drop and didn't we get the strategy right. Are you now saying that 30k average is going to sustain forever in which case why care whether numbers drop or not?

Because the trajectory matters. We are avoiding the kind of dramatic growth in cases most peer EU countries are now facing going into the winter.

LostPassword said:

Stuartinromford said:

Meanwhile, in social care news...

One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas


https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1461008989999841281?t=58_m1-Eh0kw6NVeUnwMtkw&s=19

What's the best Conservative strategy here?

Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.

Or remove him before he makes things even worse?

A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.

When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.

Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?

If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.

There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.

If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.

The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.

And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.

Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.

A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.

eek said:

darkage said:

state_go_away said:

DougSeal said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigelb said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Helpful update from @PA: "The Government sought to clarify that it has not lost the minutes of a meeting between Randox and a health minister, only that it cannot find them at the moment."

https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1460983127153823746

Does that mean some poor bugger is trying to make them up from scratch ?

See my post at 3pm.

I once won a case because I idly looked at the metadata of a disclosed Word copy of meeting minutes allegedly created 8 months previously. They had been typed up by my oppo that morning. A demand for the notes they had been created from prompted a rapid settlement offer.

Don’t send documents as Word copies kids.

To be fair it takes 8 months sometimes in organisations to get around to writing minutes because (as someone who does it occasionally) they are fkin boring to do

Not that I have ever been in the position of retrospectively writing up minutes, but is the simple answer to PDF the documents? Or print them out and then 'scan' them with microsoft lens? That's what I do anyway so they can't be altered.

PDFs are remarkable easy to edit - the functionality is built into Word.

Turning it into a pdf "flattens" all the document history and meta data. You can't see how it was put together.

A PDF is, itself, as vulnerable to being edited as any electronic document. Now, if you want electronic documents with digital signatures and verification.....

DavidL said:

turbotubbs said:

RochdalePioneers said:

state_go_away said:

The only reason I am voting Tory at the moment is the great job they (Boris) is doing over covid . Most of Europe in the grip still of facemasks (useless ), curfews and rising cases in winter when Boris had the right idea to relax in summer and Autumn and gain herd immunity.Starmer is wrong on covid and has been for a while

Sorry but this argument is a little daft. If you want to keep Starmer out then you should be calling for Johnson's head. Remove Johnson, replace with someone like Sunak and you win the election. Don't and you may lose.

Spot on. Like it or hate it (or him, if you like) Johnson delivered a brexit, and has muddled through a pandemic. He cannot do the day to day job of being PM. The conservatives have an 80 seat majority, with new boundaries coming that favour them even more. Time to get shot of the liability and get someone in who does details, understands a bit more how normal people live, and isn't Johnson.

He is, and remains, their most effective Tory campaigner since Thatcher. Someone who can reach large stretches of the populace that other Tories simply cannot get near. I think the evidence that someone other than Boris would win the next election for the Tories is thin to non existent.

His two moments of glory are not the technical nuts and bolts of his brexit deal, which was a flimsy and leaky charade, which will soon need rebranding, a new coat of paint and materials, and probably a new captain too, but his campaigning for a month before the referendum, and his campaign in the month before the 2019 election.

I'm not sure he could ever campaign in that way again - what new simplistic goody is there to campaign on, and how to deal with voters who now regard your unseriousness as a liability, or indicating shiftiness and dangerousness, rather than winning, provocative, modern, irony ?

NerysHughes said:

IanB2 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

TimS said:

eek said:

Stuartinromford said:

Meanwhile, in social care news...

One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas


https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1461008989999841281?t=58_m1-Eh0kw6NVeUnwMtkw&s=19

What's the best Conservative strategy here?

Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.

Or remove him before he makes things even worse?

A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.

Were I Rishi / Liz my plan would be to get Boris through to May / June next year and replace him after what is likely to be a disastrous set of local elections following April's long announced so mostly forgotten tax rises.

This is the thing that infuriates me most about the Tories. They're so good at timing their leadership changes. It doesn't matter how disastrous the previous leader was, they go through such a Dr Who style transformation every time that the electorate seem immediately to treat them as a new party. Same will happen for Rishi.

I agree that turning out Boris now would be a bit early. Too long for things to go wrong before the next election.

While Labour still gets blamed for the Winter of Discontent.

One can only hope it takes the Tories a generation to live down the shame for what they have imposed on our poor country these last few years.

If the UK is such a bad country why do people risk their lives everyday to leave France to come here?

Because France is a failing state and English is the lingua franca of the world.

NerysHughes said:

IanB2 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

TimS said:

eek said:

Stuartinromford said:

Meanwhile, in social care news...

One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas


https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1461008989999841281?t=58_m1-Eh0kw6NVeUnwMtkw&s=19

What's the best Conservative strategy here?

Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.

Or remove him before he makes things even worse?

A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.

Were I Rishi / Liz my plan would be to get Boris through to May / June next year and replace him after what is likely to be a disastrous set of local elections following April's long announced so mostly forgotten tax rises.

This is the thing that infuriates me most about the Tories. They're so good at timing their leadership changes. It doesn't matter how disastrous the previous leader was, they go through such a Dr Who style transformation every time that the electorate seem immediately to treat them as a new party. Same will happen for Rishi.

I agree that turning out Boris now would be a bit early. Too long for things to go wrong before the next election.

While Labour still gets blamed for the Winter of Discontent.

One can only hope it takes the Tories a generation to live down the shame for what they have imposed on our poor country these last few years.

If the UK is such a bad country why do people risk their lives everyday to leave France to come here?

It's not a bad country. It's a great country, being run by idiots.

Time for an unexplained wealth order against Prince Andrew.

How DOES Andrew afford his lavish lifestyle? Questions over how royal can live life of luxury with 'NO discernible income' after financier friend gave him £1.5m to pay back a loan from his own bank

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10212461/How-DOES-Andrew-afford-lavish-lifestyle.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK

darkage said:

state_go_away said:

DougSeal said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Nigelb said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Helpful update from @PA: "The Government sought to clarify that it has not lost the minutes of a meeting between Randox and a health minister, only that it cannot find them at the moment."

https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1460983127153823746

Does that mean some poor bugger is trying to make them up from scratch ?

See my post at 3pm.

I once won a case because I idly looked at the metadata of a disclosed Word copy of meeting minutes allegedly created 8 months previously. They had been typed up by my oppo that morning. A demand for the notes they had been created from prompted a rapid settlement offer.

Don’t send documents as Word copies kids.

To be fair it takes 8 months sometimes in organisations to get around to writing minutes because (as someone who does it occasionally) they are fkin boring to do

Not that I have ever been in the position of retrospectively writing up minutes, but is the simple answer to PDF the documents? Or print them out and then 'scan' them with microsoft lens? That's what I do anyway so they can't be altered.

We have software that removes all metadata from email attachments prior to being sent, Word document or otherwise.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Time for an unexplained wealth order against Prince Andrew.

How DOES Andrew afford his lavish lifestyle? Questions over how royal can live life of luxury with 'NO discernible income' after financier friend gave him £1.5m to pay back a loan from his own bank

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10212461/How-DOES-Andrew-afford-lavish-lifestyle.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK

"No discernible income"... Didn't he used to get civil list money, and now money from HM?

IanB2 said:

IshmaelZ said:

DougSeal said:

Boris will be fine. The “Mishconduct” gag proves he’s still got that golden comedy touch. Or something.

The killer is, nobody is thinking He's not as funny as he was, they are thinking How did we ever fall for this shtick in the first place?

“the joke’s not funny any more” is a well chosen attack strapline, for sure.

Works even better when he points directly at Boris during the word “joke”.

Boris *really* doesn’t like that.

RobD said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Time for an unexplained wealth order against Prince Andrew.

How DOES Andrew afford his lavish lifestyle? Questions over how royal can live life of luxury with 'NO discernible income' after financier friend gave him £1.5m to pay back a loan from his own bank

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10212461/How-DOES-Andrew-afford-lavish-lifestyle.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK

"No discernible income"... Didn't he used to get civil list money, and now money from HM?

From press reports he has no income now, the Queen pays his legal bills and his living expenses, so you can't list that as income.

eek said:

Andy_JS said:

With HS2, it should have either been cancelled completely or built completely. Building half of it looks weak.

With the rumoured announcement, it's like someone was asked given the parameters of what we are already building, how can we totally screw it up? Because I don't think they could have made a worse set of "cut backs" and continuations if they tried

Is it too mischievous to wonder if Sunak is deliberately blowing up Johnson over rail plans?

I didn't watch the session to the end but it is very clear that the vast majority of posters were highly critic of Boris, and me included, but the simple truth is that no amount of fury directed at him will be able to remove him, it will be his mps who end his premiership if indeed they do

I noticed for the first time in months the daily mail were praising him on his proposals today, and it will be interesting to see if the conservative papers follow the mail

I would say the next few months are the most dangerous for his premiership

Anabobazina said:

1. Boris Johnson made a good call on lifting covid restrictions over the summer when Starmer and much of Europe were agitating for more.

2. Boris Johnson is a mendacious incompetent clown who has made dogs' breakfasts the national diet and should be removed before he blunders into the next embarrassing crisis.

Both of these statements can be true (indeed both are true).

God knows what will happen if it finally kicks off in Ukraine with Johnson at the helm.

NerysHughes said:

IanB2 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

TimS said:

eek said:

Stuartinromford said:

Meanwhile, in social care news...

One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas


https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1461008989999841281?t=58_m1-Eh0kw6NVeUnwMtkw&s=19

What's the best Conservative strategy here?

Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.

Or remove him before he makes things even worse?

A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.

Were I Rishi / Liz my plan would be to get Boris through to May / June next year and replace him after what is likely to be a disastrous set of local elections following April's long announced so mostly forgotten tax rises.

This is the thing that infuriates me most about the Tories. They're so good at timing their leadership changes. It doesn't matter how disastrous the previous leader was, they go through such a Dr Who style transformation every time that the electorate seem immediately to treat them as a new party. Same will happen for Rishi.

I agree that turning out Boris now would be a bit early. Too long for things to go wrong before the next election.

While Labour still gets blamed for the Winter of Discontent.

One can only hope it takes the Tories a generation to live down the shame for what they have imposed on our poor country these last few years.

If the UK is such a bad country why do people risk their lives everyday to leave France to come here?

Ignorance? "The streets of London are paved in shining gold. 18 carat gold."

rottenborough said:

Julia Hartley-Brewer
@JuliaHB1
·
49m
BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.

Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines

Emma is finished so get on Lewis Hamilton for SPotY. (Or maybe wait till morning to see if elite women's sport is, in fact, limping on.) DYOR.

Northern_Al said:

Having been glued to the TV all afternoon, I'd like to offer a short, albeit crude, summary.

The current Tory government is just a fucking gravy train, isn't it? It won't end well.

Though there was that brief period when Grayling turned it into a gravy boat.

Theuniondivvie said:

Northern_Al said:

Having been glued to the TV all afternoon, I'd like to offer a short, albeit crude, summary.

The current Tory government is just a fucking gravy train, isn't it? It won't end well.

Though there was that brief period when Grayling turned it into a gravy boat.

Rubbish. If Grayling had turned it into a boat it would have sunk.

Anabobazina said:

1. Boris Johnson made a good call on lifting covid restrictions over the summer when Starmer and much of Europe were agitating for more.

2. Boris Johnson is a mendacious incompetent clown who has made dogs' breakfasts the national diet and should be removed before he blunders into the next embarrassing crisis.

Both of these statements can be true (indeed both are true).

Absolutely.

and @Nigel_Foremain and @Scrapheap_as_was are on the money also. It is Labour's fault we are here because they put that anti-semitic, marxist dolt up against the Conservatives so few right-minded people could vote anything other than to keep Corbyn out.

Northern_Al said:

Having been glued to the TV all afternoon, I'd like to offer a short, albeit crude, summary.

The current Tory government is just a fucking gravy train, isn't it? It won't end well.

Given tomorrow's expected bad news, probably not tactful to talk about the government and trains in the same sentence.

(But yes, the gravy train aspect has been there for years, and leaders haven't wanted to clean up the dunghill. After all, if you clean up a dunghill, there's nothing left. © Sir Humphrey Appleby.)

"Very noticeable how few MPs on the Tory benches for #PMQs, particularly behind the PM. "

Can someone not hold up a screen-grab of supportive comments from PB Tories behind him?

DavidL said:

He is, and remains, their most effective Tory campaigner since Thatcher. Someone who can reach large stretches of the populace that other Tories simply cannot get near. I think the evidence that someone other than Boris would win the next election for the Tories is thin to non existent.

You could have said the same about Thatcher and compared her with Churchill.

The point was winning three elections didn't save her when she started to look like a liability and that's the point. It's all very well attracting those to the blue camp who had previously never voted blue but once you start repelling larger numbers of previously blue supporters, that's when the trouble starts.

There's been no published hypothetical polling recently showing how a Sunak-led Conservative Party might do - arguably no better and possibly worse and while that remains the case, Johnson is safe.

What did for Thatcher were the polls showing the Conservatives ten points behind Labour with her as leader and level with Heseltine as leader. Backbench MPs in marginal constituencies look at polls like that and it's that kind of data which shifts loyalties.

dixiedean said:

CarlottaVance said:

dixiedean said:

This guy is good. Short, specific questions. And not tolerating blustery word salad.

Darren Jones, Labour, Bristol NW?

Yes. Never heard of him. But he's 35 and a Committee Chair already. Maybe worth a speculative pound or 2 as future Labour leader?

Trouble is the market is *next* Labour leader, not the one after, or the one after, or...

The other trouble is, you'd need to persuade bookmakers to quote him.

rottenborough said:

Anabobazina said:

1. Boris Johnson made a good call on lifting covid restrictions over the summer when Starmer and much of Europe were agitating for more.

2. Boris Johnson is a mendacious incompetent clown who has made dogs' breakfasts the national diet and should be removed before he blunders into the next embarrassing crisis.

Both of these statements can be true (indeed both are true).

God knows what will happen if it finally kicks off in Ukraine with Johnson at the helm.

Troops will be half way there, when they get called back.

Or, they'll be sent off on leave, and then recalled.

IshmaelZ said:

Cyclefree said:

rottenborough said:

Cyclefree said:

AlistairM said:

LostPassword said:

SandyRentool said:

rottenborough said:

Julia Hartley-Brewer
@JuliaHB1
·
49m
BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.

Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines

So there's the trade off:

Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.

Get it chopped off and win a medal.

The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.

So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.

It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.

The other two options in my view are:
1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few)
2. Creating new categories.

A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?

It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.

As I posted a few weeks ago, my goto question about the rights of trans wrt prison and other spaces is simple:

"What is to stop Wayne Couzens (convicted sex murderer) from claiming to self-identify as a woman and asking to be moved to a women's prison?"

Nothing. It is an absurd policy. And wicked. It puts female prisoners at risk. Trans activists say that transwomen prisoners would be at risk if put in a male prison. A curious statement since if they have a male body - and 80% of transwomen still do - they are well able to fight back.

But even if true why should the answer be to put women at risk from them?

It is grotesque that people convicted of sexual offences against women should be put in a space with women where women cannot get away from them. It's like putting a fox in a chicken coop.

As for womens sport - if self-ID goes ahead, womens sport vanishes.

The obvious solution is to have a special transgender wing in prisons and to have a transgender category in sport. For those sports where your physical attributes don't matter (horse riding, ping pong) people can participate in their preferred gender.

Well of course that is all common sense, but saying it makes you a raging "transphobe," apparently.

And, certainly, no place for you in Nicola's Scotland.

Malcolmg will be seeking political asylum in England before too long.

LostPassword said:

algarkirk said:

LostPassword said:

Stuartinromford said:

Meanwhile, in social care news...

One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas


https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1461008989999841281?t=58_m1-Eh0kw6NVeUnwMtkw&s=19

What's the best Conservative strategy here?

Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.

Or remove him before he makes things even worse?

A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.

When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.

Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?

If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.

There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.

If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.

The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.

And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.

Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.

A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.

Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?

Where is the money going?

Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:

turbotubbs said:

RochdalePioneers said:

state_go_away said:

The only reason I am voting Tory at the moment is the great job they (Boris) is doing over covid . Most of Europe in the grip still of facemasks (useless ), curfews and rising cases in winter when Boris had the right idea to relax in summer and Autumn and gain herd immunity.Starmer is wrong on covid and has been for a while

Sorry but this argument is a little daft. If you want to keep Starmer out then you should be calling for Johnson's head. Remove Johnson, replace with someone like Sunak and you win the election. Don't and you may lose.

Spot on. Like it or hate it (or him, if you like) Johnson delivered a brexit, and has muddled through a pandemic. He cannot do the day to day job of being PM. The conservatives have an 80 seat majority, with new boundaries coming that favour them even more. Time to get shot of the liability and get someone in who does details, understands a bit more how normal people live, and isn't Johnson.

He is, and remains, their most effective Tory campaigner since Thatcher. Someone who can reach large stretches of the populace that other Tories simply cannot get near. I think the evidence that someone other than Boris would win the next election for the Tories is thin to non existent.

Agree with this. He is spectacularly effective at campaigning just as he is spectacularly ineffective at governing. So I think it's by no means clear that replacing him will leave the Tories better placed to win the next election, however bad a job he is doing right now.

The Tories would be mad to replace Johnson as their leader, if they want to retain their seats at the next election. However, I could see that knowledge would make dealing with the day-to-day reality of being Johnson's cannon fodder in Parliament even more frustrating. They need him and yet they hold him in contempt. It must be agonising.

LostPassword said:

algarkirk said:

LostPassword said:

Stuartinromford said:

Meanwhile, in social care news...

One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas


https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1461008989999841281?t=58_m1-Eh0kw6NVeUnwMtkw&s=19

What's the best Conservative strategy here?

Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.

Or remove him before he makes things even worse?

A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.

When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.

Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?

If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.

There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.

If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.

The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.

And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.

Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.

A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.

Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?

Where is the money going?

Essentially, pensions and the NHS (where technology improvement has tended to *increase* costs because new ways have been invented of keeping people alive).

Both costs are also rising due to an ageing population, but hey we also don’t want no filthy immigrants.

LostPassword said:

algarkirk said:

LostPassword said:

Stuartinromford said:

Meanwhile, in social care news...

One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas


https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1461008989999841281?t=58_m1-Eh0kw6NVeUnwMtkw&s=19

What's the best Conservative strategy here?

Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.

Or remove him before he makes things even worse?

A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.

When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.

Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?

If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.

There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.

If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.

The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.

And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.

Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.

A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.

Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?

Where is the money going?

A hospital, which my wide and I take the children to when they are ill, once had a cost reducing idea.

Instead of buying the "proper" medical drawers for putting bandages and tongue depressors and things of that nature in, they bought some mechanics tool chests - drawers on wheels. For a fraction of the price.

They even got an NHS award for clever thinking.

Some little time later they were gone. And replaced by the "medical" drawers. Apparently the company that made the "medical" drawers wondered what had happened, found out and contacted their local MP....

Saving money is not what is wanted.....

LostPassword said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:

turbotubbs said:

RochdalePioneers said:

state_go_away said:

The only reason I am voting Tory at the moment is the great job they (Boris) is doing over covid . Most of Europe in the grip still of facemasks (useless ), curfews and rising cases in winter when Boris had the right idea to relax in summer and Autumn and gain herd immunity.Starmer is wrong on covid and has been for a while

Sorry but this argument is a little daft. If you want to keep Starmer out then you should be calling for Johnson's head. Remove Johnson, replace with someone like Sunak and you win the election. Don't and you may lose.

Spot on. Like it or hate it (or him, if you like) Johnson delivered a brexit, and has muddled through a pandemic. He cannot do the day to day job of being PM. The conservatives have an 80 seat majority, with new boundaries coming that favour them even more. Time to get shot of the liability and get someone in who does details, understands a bit more how normal people live, and isn't Johnson.

He is, and remains, their most effective Tory campaigner since Thatcher. Someone who can reach large stretches of the populace that other Tories simply cannot get near. I think the evidence that someone other than Boris would win the next election for the Tories is thin to non existent.

Agree with this. He is spectacularly effective at campaigning just as he is spectacularly ineffective at governing. So I think it's by no means clear that replacing him will leave the Tories better placed to win the next election, however bad a job he is doing right now.

The Tories would be mad to replace Johnson as their leader, if they want to retain their seats at the next election. However, I could see that knowledge would make dealing with the day-to-day reality of being Johnson's cannon fodder in Parliament even more frustrating. They need him and yet they hold him in contempt. It must be agonising.

This is a very tight spot for them now, I think. Sunak may not have the same appeal to red wall voters that Johnson had, and maybe partially still has, but Johnson is repelling other voters at a faster and probably disproptionate rate. That only leaves Truss, who is very untested.

It could be that Brexit was a total one-off, and the Tory coalition will now either break down in the South if Truss is the next leader, or in the north if it's Sunak.

Labour, in turn, might be the ones to have the next one-off, cross-electoral coalition, this time against sleaze, and coming full circle to what they had in the late '90s.

rottenborough said:

Cyclefree said:

AlistairM said:

LostPassword said:

SandyRentool said:

rottenborough said:

Julia Hartley-Brewer
@JuliaHB1
·
49m
BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.

Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines

So there's the trade off:

Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.

Get it chopped off and win a medal.

The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.

So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.

It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.

The other two options in my view are:
1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few)
2. Creating new categories.

A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?

It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.

As I posted a few weeks ago, my goto question about the rights of trans wrt prison and other spaces is simple:

"What is to stop Wayne Couzens (convicted sex murderer) from claiming to self-identify as a woman and asking to be moved to a women's prison?"

Back in the real world, Wayne Cousins did not need to claim to self-identify as a woman in order to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard.

Geordie Greig gone at the Daily Mail.

Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...

https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1461028047105179649

Sound like the Tories are whipping against Labour's motion tonight on tightening MPs' code of conduct. Usually opposition debates like this would be loosely whipped or not at all.

One government insider said, "the political mood is not to give the opposition what they want"

https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1461031689044566023

TheScreamingEagles said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

I’ve had a bad day. Is there anything more pathetic than driving home with an empty cat basket from the vet?

Sorry to hear that.

Thank you.

Fysics_Teacher said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

I’ve had a bad day. Is there anything more pathetic than driving home with an empty cat basket from the vet?

Sorry to hear that.

Thank you.

With the big ball of yarn in the sky now. Did you just have the one?

Fysics_Teacher said:

I’ve had a bad day. Is there anything more pathetic than driving home with an empty cat basket from the vet?

So sorry to hear that

Fysics_Teacher said:

I’ve had a bad day. Is there anything more pathetic than driving home with an empty cat basket from the vet?

Poor you. Sympathies.

Fysics_Teacher said:

RobD said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

I’ve had a bad day. Is there anything more pathetic than driving home with an empty cat basket from the vet?

Sorry to hear that.

Thank you.

With the big ball of yarn in the sky now. Did you just have the one?

Two. Not sure how long it will take her to realise her sister isn’t coming home.

Makes it even sadder. How old is the other one? Maybe time for a new kitten or two... (your cat lady future beckons)

TheScreamingEagles said:

Geordie Greig gone at the Daily Mail.

Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...

https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1461028047105179649

Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's?
Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.